Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • "<aBrendan DeBrincat / Flickr” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_aug2018_CommunityBenefit-300×133.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_aug2018_CommunityBenefit-768×341.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_aug2018_CommunityBenefit.jpg 900w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />

    Community Benefits Agreements add value to public infrastructure projects

    The BC government recently announced that major new public infrastructure projects, such as the Pattullo Bridge, will be subject to a “Community Benefits Agreement.” The agreement requires that public benefits flow not only from the outcome of a project, but also from the process of building it. The move was…

  • New BC generic drug plan could save millions – but maybe not for everybody

    Very, very quietly, the BC provincial government is negotiating new arrangements for the purchase of generic drugs that could save the province hundreds of millions of dollars.  Done right, all BC taxpayers will win as more money becomes available for other health services.  Done wrong, much of the savings for…

  • "Image Florida Center for Instructional Technology” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/draw_bridge-web-300×176.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/draw_bridge-web-1024×600.jpg 1024w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/draw_bridge-web-768×450.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/draw_bridge-web-1536×900.jpg 1536w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/draw_bridge-web-2048×1200.jpg 2048w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />

    Access to information in BC is about to improve. Except there’s just this one little catch.

    There was a fair amount of good news about Freedom of Information rules and a little bit of bad news last month. But the bad news was serious and you really have to wonder why the government would bother with it when the rest of the news was good. First…

  • Provincial budget will cause gender inequalities to worsen: study

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. ST.JOHN’S – The Newfoundland and Labrador budget will worsen gender inequalities in the province, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The study reviews the impacts of the 2016-17 budget on girls and women in Newfoundland and Labrador and…

  • Climate justice and BC’s political moment

    The following is based on a talk at the Bring Your Boomers election forum on April 3 at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver, the fourth in a series of intergenerational dialogues from Gen Why Media, and was co-sponsored by the CCPA, Get Your Vote On, LeadNow and Vancity credit union. I was asked to set the stage for a…

  • Public solutions to health care wait lists

    Waits for care are the biggest political issue facing Canadian health care—a priority reflected in the accord reached by the federal and provincial health ministers a few days ago. They agreed to set limits on wait times for major surgeries and treatments, but conceded that these limits would be targets…

  • Corporate Mapping Project

    Why would a boom town need charity? Report examines inequities in Saskatchewan’s oil boom

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT Regina — When we think of a “boom town,” we often imagine a formerly sleepy rural town suddenly awash in wealth and economic expansion. It might surprise some to learn that for many municipalities in oil-producing regions in Saskatchewan, the costs of servicing…

  • December 2005: Monitoring Medicare’s Murder

    Public awakens to assassination of Medicare, but is it too late? The slow, very public murder of Medicare as a universal, publicly-funded, single-tier health system has been going on for 20 years. The public failed to awaken fully to the murder because the assassins, even as they slowly throttled Medicare,…

  • "OnChris Yakimov / Flickr” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_may2018_CarbonBudgetFramework-300×140.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_may2018_CarbonBudgetFramework-1024×479.jpg 1024w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_may2018_CarbonBudgetFramework-768×359.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_may2018_CarbonBudgetFramework.jpg 1280w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />

    A carbon budget framework for BC: Achieving accountability and oversight

    When it comes to climate change Canada’s leaders have been great at setting targets for far into the future and then failing to meet them. Nationally, this pattern goes back to prime minister Brian Mulroney and has continued through prime ministers Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper and now Prime Minister Trudeau.…

  • The Monitor, July/August 2021

    Media Democracy and Combatting Misinformation Download 2.9 MB “Canada is no stranger to dynastic ownership of its media companies,” writes Robin Shaban in her feature article in this issue of the Monitor. “Thomson, Atkinson, Black, Irving: each family name is synonymous with the control of major press operations, either nationally…

  • Fast Facts: A Made-in-Manitoba Tragedy of the Commons

    In February, a provincial news release about changes to agricultural crown advised that “The Manitoba government has launched a consultation focused on agricultural Crown lands, to ensure upcoming policy changes reflect the views of the livestock industry while improving fairness and transparency in the system […]”. How will these changes…

  • New report details discrimination and unfairness in the assistance Canada offers its citizens in difficulty abroad

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT OTTAWA – A new report, entitled Canadians Abroad: A Policy and Legislative Agenda, has just been released by the Rideau Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The report, by former Ambassador and long-time head of the Canadian consular service Gar…