Dear friends, It is with mixed feelings that I share my decision with you to move on from the CCPA. Mixed because I am ready for a change in my career, but that doesn’t spare me the heartache of saying goodbye to an organization I’ve had the honour of helping…
In November 2023, the BC Ministry of Labour announced new employment standards that claim to “bring fairness” to the estimated 40,000 ride-hail and food-delivery workers in BC. The move comes after a year of public engagement with platform workers, platform companies and labour experts, which brought to the fore the…
The majority of BC households are stressed because of debt and inflation. It’s even worse for one group of farmworkers who, legally, may earn less than minimum wage. While British Columbians rang in the New Year, the provincial government quietly increased the minimum piece rate wage for farmworkers by a…
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT OTTAWA – A new report, released by the Rideau Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, calls on the government to replace the Canadian Fixed-Wing Search and Rescue (FWSAR) fleet in a timely and objective manner, and proposes that a number of…
Drummond Report threatens universities’ academic excellence The Report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services, headed by economist Don Drummond (the Drummond Report), was released on Feb. 15. It contained more than 600 recommendations, the stated aim of which was to enable the Ontario government to return…
Project involving university and community researchers to study economic security in BC (Vancouver) The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (BC) and Simon Fraser University are launching a five-year project that will study changes to provincial public policies that impact the economic security of British Columbians. The project, which involves an…
Dear friends and CCPA-BC supporters, If you are reading this post, you’ve heard that I’ve decided to step down as the CCPA’s BC Director at the end of this year. I’ve been mulling over this decision for some time and it has been a difficult one. But it’s time for…
Housing affordability is one of the top issues for voters in the 2017 election campaign, particularly for those in pricey Metro Vancouver. While most of the media attention has been on the jaw-dropping prices of residential real estate, a tight rental market has fuelled rising rents and renovictions, and the…
The impacts of the climate crisis are socially and geographically uneven: the wealthiest regions contribute disproportionately to the destruction of the planet while the poorest regions suffer the heaviest consequences. In this context, migrant farmworkers find themselves doubly displaced, facing droughts and inundations in their home countries, then heatwaves, fires…
Lucius Rueedi / Shutterstock” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_sep2023_protect-app-based-workers-300×133.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_sep2023_protect-app-based-workers-768×341.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_sep2023_protect-app-based-workers.jpg 900w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through digital platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited the public debate about precarious work. Despite their high-tech image, digital platform firms employ practices that are familiar from centuries of insecure work, including compensating workers on a per-task basis,…
As I write, it has been just a few days since the provincial election. As was the case for most of you, the result was unexpected. We are still processing what it means for our work and rethinking some of our research plans. For those of us who engage in…
PhotoMavenStock //Shutterstock” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_oct2020_reality-check-childcare-300×133.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_oct2020_reality-check-childcare-768×341.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_oct2020_reality-check-childcare.jpg 900w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />In the early days of the current BC election campaign child care took centre stage when NDP leader John Horgan recommitted his party to fully implement the $10aDay Plan1 if elected on October 24. Public discussion and commentary followed in the media and from other parties. Questions were raised about the…