Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • BC’s shiny new climate plan: A look under the hood

    BC’s new climate plan, Clean BC, is a big and visionary document and was instantly lauded by environmental groups and businesses alike. In this post, I recap the key components of the plan and do a bit of a reality check against the hype, in particular the challenge of fitting…

  • Economic Security Project (BC)

    A Path Out of Poverty

    Helping BC Income Assistance Recipients Upgrade Their Education Download 240.2 KB33 pages

  • Reinventing the forestry industry: Made-in-Canada masks and much more

    Canada should seize the moment created by COVID-19 to become self-sufficient in making masks and other essential medical items, and look to new and emerging “bioproducts” to meet the need, not oil-based synthetics, say scientists, who have studied the untapped potential of the country’s forests. They are joined in that…

  • Activity Based Funding won’t solve waitlists and overcrowding in hospitals, creates barriers to needed reforms: Study

    READ THe REPORT summary HERE. VANCOUVER–As Canada’s premiers meet in Victoria to discuss different approaches to health system reform, a new study raises serious concerns about “Activity Based Funding” (ABF), a new funding model introduced in BC that pays hospitals based on the number of surgeries they perform. Research evidence…

  • Indigenous activists Andrew Paull, Chief William Scow, and Rev. Peter Kelly (seen left to right) with the First Indian Advisory Committee. Credit: North Vancouver Museum and Archives 2191.

    Nothing ‘liberal’ about colonial policy prior to Confederation

    After 30 years of treaty talks, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, First Nations still face racism on a systemic basis in this province. Can Indigenous People ever find justice in this province? John Price and…

  • The need for affordable child care

    Canada is at a game changing moment when it comes to child care. Historic federal funding agreements with provinces and territories now support a vision for high-quality, accessible child care across the country. Affordability is a top priority, with governments committing significant funds to reduce average child care fees by…

  • Flooded road

    Government must do more than shuffle chairs to solve BC’s water woes

    British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests was always a poor choice to manage the province’s water resources—and it showed. So it was fitting in October that the government decided after years of being urged to do so to transfer that power to the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. But…

  • April 2008: First Nations Fight to Protect Their Land

    Algonquins and settler allies block proposed uranium mining A mining exploration company’s government-supported attempt to drill for uranium on First Nations land is finally beginning to create outrage far beyond the quiet corner of Eastern Ontario where it began over a year ago. On February 15, a Kingston judge’s draconian…

  • Provincial zoning reform essential to reduce housing exclusion and displacement

    Sky-high rents, ultra-low vacancy rates and fierce competition for scarce homes have become the grim but familiar picture of housing in BC, driving unaffordability, exclusion and displacement. The BC government has made major housing policy announcements in recent weeks and a key focus has been tackling chronic municipal roadblocks to…

  • Health care spending falls short in 2022 federal budget

    Marjorie Cohen will deliver the CCPA–BC’s 2022 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture on September 14, 2022 at 4:00pm PT. This free lecture will be held on zoom, you can register online here. A consistent theme in the media, when writing about health care in Canada, is to use disparaging adjectives, such…

  • Three ways BC can make it easier for precarious workers to unionize

    The BC Labour Relations Code is being reviewed for the first time in over 15 years. Since the last comprehensive review, which took place in 2003, workers’ rights under the Code have been continuously eroded. The current review presents an important opportunity to reverse this trend by improving access to…

  • Photo: © Garth Lenz

    The Petro State Lackey: How BC’s zest for natural gas fuels Alberta’s oil sands

    In the past year, an energy dispute for the ages has played out in Canada, culminating in the federal government announcing that it will buy an aging oil pipeline for $4.5 billion and then twin it with a new high-capacity pipeline that would move massive amounts of diluted bitumen from…