Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • Canada blocks access to cheap medicines

    Canada could find itself in a very embarrassing position at the WTO meetings in Qatar this weekend. We could be one of just five countries in the world opposing a declaration that ensures access to essential medicines for millions of people. The World Trade Organization enforces the monopoly rights of…

  • British Columbia’s largest raw log exporters make pitch to deregulate

    Federal government would do well to resist call by Mosaic Forest Management, before opportunities to process wood in province are further compromised British Columbia’s forest industry was in trouble long before anyone had heard the name of the virus now seared into our brains.  Months before COVID-19 appeared, forest companies…

  • An increase so small it keeps minimum wage workers in poverty

    Today, BC’s lowest paid workers get a 40-cent raise. The latest increase of the provincial minimum wage—now $10.85 per hour for most workers isn’t much to celebrate. It works out to an extra $16 per week for someone working full-time – and that doesn’t stretch far in a province with…

  • Fast Facts: Canadian Premium Sand Barges Ahead With New Plan

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press June 12, 2020 During the height of the global pandemic Canadian Premium Sand (CPS) released its plan B for their proposed frac sand mine and processing facility on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. Quite frankly plan B is even worse then their…

  • BC Budget Consultation Presentation June 2020

    The BC government is holding its annual public consultation on Budget 2021 this June, inviting British Columbians to share their priorities for government investment next year. BC Budget 2021 will have to tackle the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis—the full extent of which are still largely unknown. It is hard…

  • Fast Facts: Do Social Mixing Policies Work?

    Does social mixing as public policy result in more equitable cities, more culturally diverse neighbourhoods, and less social marginalization?  These are some of the goals to which social mixing policies have aspired, but they have often fallen drastically short.  In some cases, social mixing policies have even been shown to…

  • The wrong direction: A presentation on the proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion

    Presentation to the federal Ministerial Panel holding consultations on the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Proposal Presented in Burnaby, August 10, 2016 Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Seth Klein, and I am the BC Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Our office has spent…

  • Thanks to Wikileaks

    Myth of Canada’s non-involvement in Iraq war discredited “One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.” –Mark Twain, Vice-President, American Anti-Imperialist League. Thanks to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, a small crack recently appeared in the…

  • Fast Facts: What is a CETA, and why should we be worried about it?

    The Canadian Government is well down the road, with the European Union, towards negotiating a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).  They tell us that CETA will have everything that NAFTA has, plus more.  They say that like it’s a good thing.  But the more one looks at this Comprehensive…

  • Labour Matters

    Work Life: Rowing against the tide of history

    Manitoba’s pandemic response could do lasting damage to Manitoba economy Previously published by CBC Manitoba Opinion April 25, 2020 Manitoba’s provincial government is keen to have us all row in the same direction to combat COVID-19.  But currently, Brian Pallister’s government is not only failing to dip its oar in…

  • October 2003: Canadian Mining Companies Set to Destroy Ghana’s Forest Reserves

    Under pressure from Canadian and U.S. mining companies, the Ghanaian government seems ready to pass legislation in June 2003 which will open the country’s protected forest reserves to mining. The companies’ bulldozers are ready to rip apart thousands of hectares of rainforest in the Ashanti, Eastern and Western Regions if…

  • Labour Matters

    Work Life: Failure to act fails us all…Manitoba income supports needed during COVID

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press May 1, 2020 Manitoba must help those being clobbered financially by the COVID-19 pandemic: it is the right thing to do, we can afford it and, as a diverse array of economists have noted,  public spending is needed in a time of crisis.…