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Municipalities & Urban Development
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Growing support for cities to adopt living wage
New developments since my recent post calling on municipalities to lead the way on adopting living wage policies: First, over just over 100 candidates have…
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The Union of BC Municipalities Convention: a potpourri of policy
For people who follow local policy issues the annual meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) is always chock-a-block with material. Last week’s meeting…
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Hochstein and the demand to cut union wages
Last week Philip Hochstein had an op-ed in the Vancouver Province accusing municipalities of profligate spending and accusing municipal workers of being vastly overpaid. Hochstein…
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Foreign trade issues playing out in BC
Last week Premier Christy Clark took the unprecedented step of promising there would be public consultation regarding the Province’s position on the Comprehensive Economic and…
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On the Forest Fire Front Line: One Ecologist’s Take on What it Will Take to Safeguard Communities
With one of the colder springs on record, many British Columbians quite naturally yearn for a good stretch of warm, dry weather. But for many…
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Big municipal tax shift a great deal for business
Municipal spending and municipal taxes are amongst the lowest in Canada. KPMG says businesses in Vancouver have the lowest business taxes amongst 41 cities they studied. So how come the pressure keeps coming to shift property taxes away from business and on to residential taxpayers?
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If the Taxpayers Federation gets its way, we can be just like California
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Maureen Bader is inciting a tax revolt for municipal taxpayers. If she gets her way, maybe we can be just like…
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Off the Highway by Mette Bach: politics and memoir
Another suggestion for summer reading: brand new from local publisher New Star Books: Off the Highway by Mette Bach, a short (about 80 pages) memoir…
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Victoria’s billion dollar P3 decision
On March 24th the Victoria area’s Capital Regional District (CRD) is going to make a billion dollar decision. The province has ordered the CRD to…
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Corporations are people too
Advocates of democratic electoral reform are really out of step. Ideas like proportional representation and advertising spending limits are so retro, so 2004. The fashionable…
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The business elite’s parking tax backlash
The media is reporting a “backlash” against the new parking tax in Vancouver. The Vancouver Sun reports it is a “slickly organized” backlash being run…
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Vancouver City Budget Woes: Are the Cuts Really Necessary?
In this round of municipal budgeting, the city of Vancouver finds itself in exactly the same predicament as the federal and provincial governments faced earlier…
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