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  • Economic Security Project (BC)

    Richard talks about poverty and hope

    https://vimeo.com/3670615 Richard receives disability benefits through British Columbia’s welfare program. Disability benefits are very low (less than $1000 a month in a city where the average one bedroom apartment costs that much). Richard lived on the streets for many years while he waited to get into social housing — he…

  • Resource Economics Project (BC)

    Shortchanged

    https://vimeo.com/3842584 A short video featuring CCPA resource policy analyst Ben Parfitt discussing findings showing that startling numbers of usable logs are being left to rot or burn at logging sites, at a potential cost of thousands of forestry jobs and big increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Shortchanged: Tallying the Legacy…

  • An effective poverty reduction plan is not just a piece of paper

    Last week, First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition published its annual report card on child poverty in BC. As in past years, the results were sobering. Based on 2012 data, 20.6% of children, or one of five, live in poverty in BC. Nearly half of children living in…

  • Commodity-driven economic boost masks growing BC regional divide

    (Vancouver) Provincial taxation and spending policies have worsened the gap between BC’s two economies — the diversified Lower Mainland and Victoria areas, and the more resource-dependent ‘hinterland’ regions. Soutwestern BC received a skewed share of income tax cuts, while subsequent tax increases and spending cuts have hit harder in the…

  • April 2005: Health and bankruptcy

    Editorial Rose Shaffer worked for nearly 30 years as a nurse in various hospitals in Chicago, where she was covered by health insurance. Then she took a job as director of nursing with a home care agency. Seven months into her new job, she suffered a heart attack and was…

  • Fast Facts: What is Access to Information and does it Matter?

    Under Canadian law, every citizen has the right to request information from federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal governments. Gaining access to tightly controlled government information is critical in promoting social justice. All orders of government are subject to the protocols set out in the Access to Information Act (ATIA) at the…

  • Right-wing think tank IEDM on poverty: A few flaws

    A few weeks ago, researchers Yanick Labrie, Youcef Msaid, and Alexandre Moreau from the right-wing think tank Institut économique de Montréal (IEDM) published an economic note on the persistence of poverty. The study’s first conclusion and the one most prominently displayed by the IEDM (particularly in their media release) is that only 1.5%…

  • Growing Gap

    Room to hike federal taxes on the 1%: study

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. OTTAWA—The new federal government has plenty of room to raise the taxes of Canada’s one percenters, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The study, released in the wake of a federal election that handed the Liberals a majority…

  • An Open Letter to Margaret Wente

    We need to think more analytically about harm reduction This is an updated form of a letter I sent to Globe & Mail columnist Margaret Wente in response to her attacks on Vancouver’s harm reduction program. Her first four columns on this topic appeared in the Globe and Mail in…

  • Make poverty reduction the focus of economic stimulus plans

    A growing chorus of voices from across BC is calling on all political parties to commit to a provincial poverty reduction plan with legislated targets and timelines. Some wonder, however, whether such a plan is affordable, particularly in a recession. The answer is yes. In a recession, poverty risks getting…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Should Canada be completing a trade deal in the middle of an election?

    The Obama administration is pulling out all the stops to wrap up the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations this week. Trade ministers, including Canada’s Ed Fast, have been summoned to Atlanta for what is intended to be a final session. The participation of Fast will be controversial back in Canada, where…

  • Open for Business?

    What’s wrong with corporatizing our universities? Plenty! A serious problem for progressive people nowadays is that neoliberal discourse has become so established, so commonsensical, that it is difficult to publicly question, much less challenge it. How can one argue with claims that public institutions such as our universities should be…