Recent attention to issues of addiction in Manitoba has shifted from concern over opioids to methamphetamine use. Questions about government response have remained a hot topic during the run up to the provincial election. As a result harm reduction is starting to become a part of the public discourse. The…
It could have been me taking time off during the short Vancouver summer, or perhaps that the news release got dropped on the Friday before the August long weekend, but I totally missed the release of BC Hydro’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). It is an important document for the province,…
This is the second of two posts. Read the first here. Efforts by BC Hydro to ban potentially destructive natural gas company fracking operations in the vicinity of its biggest dams fall well short of what an Alberta hydro provider has achieved, raising questions about why British Columbia isn’t doing…
Vancouver is the epicentre of BC’s housing crisis and shortage. So why does the city still effectively ban new apartment buildings on most of its residential land, reserving it exclusively for low-density housing?
For years, successive BC governments have forbidden any new large-scale hydro dams. When I was on the BC Hydro Board of Directors in the mid-1990s, the Board passed a motion that all government land-holdings associated with Site C should be sold. The BC Hydro Board was against building Site C,…
I recall talking to a senior BC Hydro planner a number of years ago who mapped out a very sensible way to develop the BC Hydro system. Retain the Burrard gas-fired thermal power plant as a back-up for extreme drought, when electricity supply at the hydro facilities on the Peace…
The coronavirus pandemic has shone a light on serious problems in Canada’s seniors’ care system, as nursing homes quickly became the epicenters of the outbreak. These problems are not only due to the greater vulnerability of seniors to the disease, but also to how care is organized and staffed. In…
Last month the Winnipeg Free Press published a full page of criticism regarding the decision to run the Bipole III transmission line down the West Side of Lake Winnipeg. The critique consists of two parts, namely, an open letter by 18 retired engineers titled, “Engineers united on east side,” and…
(Vancouver) Fracking should be immediately banned close to BC Hydro’s two existing Peace River dams as well as the Site C dam construction project until a full public inquiry determines whether a comprehensive ban is warranted, the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says. The CCPA issued…
Les universités québécoises sont en crise, et ce, depuis longtemps. Jamais, dans notre histoire récente, n’avons-nous pu leur donner une orientation claire. Voulons-nous des universités pour participer à l’éducation de notre peuple? Pour former à l’esprit critique? Pour diplômer massivement des étudiant·e·s? Pour répondre aux besoins du marché du travail?…