Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • Fast Facts: Réseau de santé « parallèle » : le loup dans la bergerie

    Cet article de Fast Facts a été publié le 19 février dans le Winnipeg Free Press. Presque en même temps, les médias parlaient du Rapport Castonguay au Québec. Ce rapport faisait suite à la décision rendue par une faible majorité en Cour suprême, l’année précédente, et qui ouvrait la voie…

  • Out-of-control rents

    Rental wages in Canada, 2023

    CMHC, “Rental Market Survey Data Tables,” 2023. For a notable exception, see John Rapley, “Canada’s approach to housing is bad for the economy,” The Globe and Mail, July 14, 2023. David Macdonald, “Unaccommodating: Rental Housing Wage in Canada” (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2018), policyalternatives.ca/unaccommodating. David Macdonald and Ricardo…

  • Fast Facts: Remembering Don Sullivan

    Don Sullivan was an environmentalist, best described as an ecosocialist, and a highly skilled political activist. He played a lead role in many environmental campaigns in Manitoba. He was the Director of the Boreal Forest Network. He played an important role as special advisor to the government of Manitoba in…

  • Photo credit: Citizen Monitoring Group

    The Energy Action Framework and BC’s carbon crossroads revisited

    Since first starting down the pathway of climate action in 2007, the BC government has both developed policies to reduce carbon emissions domestically while simultaneously promoting a growing oil and gas export industry. These contradictions are evident in the March 2023 announcement of a new Energy Action Framework, which tries…

  • Global Pathology

    [Note: I will be giving a presentation on this subject this Sunday, December 12th, from 12:30 to 1:30 at the Unitarian Church (Hewett Hall), 49th and Oak, Vancouver] ———- Johann Goethe wrote:  “Viewed from the height of reason, all life looks like some malignant disease and the world like a…

  • Let’s Not Go There Again

    You would think that the fiasco of the government forcing BC Hydro in recent years to buy run-of-river and other IPP supply that it didn’t need, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, would have put that unfortunate policy on the back burner for a long…

  • Fast Facts The First Rung on the Ladder: community-based literacy programming in public housing complexes

    A wealth of evidence—both global and local—confirms the value of literacy and the importance of programs that promote literacy. This is especially the case for low-income individuals and communities, for whom gains in literacy can be transformative. Manitoba has embraced this truth by laying the groundwork for real gains in…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Ten questions about the CETA

    After weeks of rumours, it’s now official: the CETA talks have produced an “agreement-in-principle”. This proposed treaty is about far more than simply trade.  It is a constitutional-style document that affects patent protection for drugs, foreign investor rights, local government purchasing, public interest regulation and many other matters that are…

  • BC Government should not cave in to private clinics

    It hasn’t been often that we at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have found occasion to applaud the BC government for one of its new policies. But we did commend the government for Bill 92–The Medicare Protection Amendment Act. Now, sadly, after a fierce three-week campaign by private surgical…

  • New study outlines path to renewable electricity in Saskatchewan

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT Regina —The Saskatchewan office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ series “Transforming Saskatchewan’s Electricity Future” was launched with the publication of “Sustainability is Achievable, But How Do We Get There?” by Mark Bigland-Pritchard and Peter Prebble. The report – developed in partnership…

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    Food security in BC? Don’t count on it.

    If California’s farmers ever run out of the water needed to irrigate their crops, we’ll be in for a rude awakening. With 70 per cent of British Columbia’s imported fruits and vegetables coming from the sunny US state, any climatic disaster there would almost certainly result in dramatic run-ups in food…

  • Beware of sales pitch for unnecessary CT scans

    I sometimes wonder if former prime minister Brian Mulroney still feels any pain. Back in 2005, Mulroney received full-blown chest surgery after having undergone a “preventive” health screen. His surgery and subsequent re-hospitalization for complications came after what the media called a “routine CT lung scan.” What Mulroney probably wasn’t…