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A better way to set welfare rates
Last week’s announcement by Premier Campbell that the government will increase the shelter allowance for people receiving welfare is welcome news. This long-overdue policy reversal shouldn’t wait until February’s Provincial Budget to be implemented. And overall rates must be increased (not just the shelter allowance). But at least the Premier…
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2007 BC Budget must tackle poverty, homelessness
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. VANCOUVER – Amid rising public concern about poverty and homelessness, the provincial government is being urged to adopt a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy in its next budget. “With a surplus that is likely to pass the $4 billion mark next year, there is no reason why…
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CCPA calls on province to raise welfare rates
Arbitrary cuts, inflation have driven down benefit rates by 30% since mid-90s READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. Vancouver – The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is calling on the provincial government to immediately raise welfare rates, so that people can meet basic needs. Arbitrary cuts since the mid-1990s mean rates…
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December 2005: The “Big Business Bang” Theory
Social, economic, environmental ills all have the same cause After nearly 12 years of editing and writing articles for The CCPA Monitor—about 3,000 of them so far—I’ve come to divide our contributors into two broad categories. Finding suitable one-word labels for them, however, is difficult without being guilty of generalizing.…
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No wonder Stephen Harper is so pleased with the Liberal budget
The great thing about budgets is that the numbers cut right through the spin and reveal the real priorities of governments. The 2005 Federal Budget is no exception. The Minister of Finance’s budget speech went on for page after page setting out the broad themes under which the budget’s initiatives…
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April 2004: Cutting Health-Care Down to Size
We need to learn that good health requires more than good medicine Health-care practitioners with their treatment and advice loom large in the subject of health, but in fact their activity is only one of many other factors that contribute to the level of our well-being. Health-care practitioners have seldom…
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December 2003: The Alternative Federal Budget
AFB shows how a better budget would lead to a better world CCPA staff, research associates, economists and NGO activists are busily at work drafting our Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) for 2004. It will be unveiled shortly before federal Finance Minister John Manley tables his official budget in February. The…
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July 2003: Viva Chavez
U.S. fails (twice) to overthrow Venezuela’s elected president Even as the U.S. military invaded and occupied Iraq, mainly to plunder the world’s second largest oil deposits, Venezuela, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, slipped out of Washington’s grip. On April 13, Hugo Chavez, the leftist president of Venezuela, celebrated his…
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March 2003: Lula Bows to Wall Street
Brazil’s new “leftist” President moves right to keep U.S. happy Forty years after Brazil’s last leftist government was overthrown in a U.S.-backed military coup, the left appeared to have regained power there on January 1 when Luiz Inacio (“Lula”) da Silva, the candidate for the left-leaning Workers’ Party (PT), was…
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What a progressive federal budget would look like
There is something profoundly sad and uninspiring about recent federal budget debates. For the better part of two decades now, we have been preoccupied with issues of deficits, debt, cutbacks and now tax cuts. But budgets should, in an ideal world, be a reflection of a society’s values and priorities.…
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Federal budget surplus should benefit all Canadians
Centre calls for social reinvestment and fair tax reform (Vancouver) The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives–BC Office (CCPA-BC) is calling on Finance Minister Paul Martin to reject calls for across the board tax cuts in this year’s federal budget. CCPA-BC Director Seth Klein and Economist Marc Lee appeared before the…