Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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 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…

  • 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…

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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…

  • Prairie Commons in Crisis

    Beneficial Community Pasture Program killed by Bill C-38 With the widespread damage to environmental protection inflicted by the federal government’s omnibus Bill C-38, it was easy to miss the fate of more than a million acres of humble prairie grasslands. These grasslands provide habitat for endangered prairie species and provide…

  • The unintended consequences of massive hydro rate increases

    The Province newspaper recently published an op-ed of mine that looked at one of the unintended consequences of our provincial government’s fixation on building the exceedingly expensive Site C hydroelectric dam. Even though actual construction of the dam has yet to begin, BC Hydro customers are already paying far more for electricity…

  • Resource Economics Project (BC)

    Rising hydro bills pushing mills to burn fossil fuel

    Premier Christy Clark’s vow to push work at the $9-billion Site C dam “past the point of no return” may be music to the ears of some construction contractors, but not to all pulp and paper firms. In a great irony, as the costs soar into the billions to build…