Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • A Tale of Two Austerity Hardliners

    Conservative soul mates, Stephen Harper and British Prime Minister David Cameron, were in Davos, Switzerland a month ago lecturing Eurozone leaders on how to get their collective act together. As they have done since the G-20 meeting in Toronto, both were preaching fiscal austerity as the solution to Europe’s, and…

  • Slow and easy will win energy race

    It is hard not to detect a note of desperation in the provincial government’s recently unveiled natural gas strategy. In announcing it, BC Energy Minister Rich Coleman notes that we are “in a foot race” with Australia, Qatar and the United States to push as much of our natural gas…

  • Labour Matters

    Federal spending cuts will cost more than 60,000 jobs: study

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT OTTAWA—Federal cutbacks announced in the 2010 and 2011 budgets will result in more than 60,000 job losses, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Any additional cuts in the upcoming federal budget would result in even more…

  • Contrived deficit from tax cuts excuses Harper program cuts

    The economy is cleverly being used to trump the environment in both Canada and the United States, largely by exploiting people’s ignorance of economic matters. As part of deficit reduction, the Harper government has announced cuts of 776 jobs at Environment Canada; the Federal Fisheries’ budget has been cut by…

  • Challenging capitalism: a 12-step program

    Over a year ago, I posted “What are the Game Changers?“, an attempt at sparking some strategic thinking for the broader left. Now that we’ve had a month of Occupation, building on the original Occupy Wall Street action, I’ve been wanting to put these ideas back on the table, so…

  • BC government claims new power over personal information. Public comment sidelined.

    The BC government has a lot of personal information about you. Legislation passed last month means the government can do a lot more with it. The legislation passed without the public consultation demanded last year by the Information and Privacy Commissioner. In 2010 a legislative committee undertook a review of…

  • Occupy Canada Resources from the CCPA Vault

    With increased attention on the 99% emerging from the Occupy Wall Street movement, it’s time to open the CCPA vault on the issue. www.growinggap.ca is our dedicated website on income inequality, and it’s a treasure trove of facts and arguments documenting worsening income inequality in Canada and offering solutions to help…

  • Occupy Canada: This week’s news

    Occupy Wall Street has opened up public discussion about a problem that keeps getting worse: the gap between the rich and the rest of us – encapsulated in the Occupy movement’s slogan We are the 99%. Here’s a roundup of some of the stories emerging on the issue of income inequality…

  • Will the “Jobs Plan” just add to the government trust deficit?

    There has been some very good analysis written about the details of this week’s roll out of the BC Liberal government’s “Jobs Plan.” A number of pieces are on this site. Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova had an excellent column in the Sun. Instead of commenting on the policy thrust,…

  • BC Hydro Review

    If it were true that BC Hydro could effectively plan and operate its system with 20% fewer workers, as the government panel has recently suggested in its Review of BC Hydro, one would have to assume that the BC Hydro Executive and Board, as well as the BC Utilities Commission, have…

  • Resource Economics Project (BC)

    BC missing out on greener, more sustainable jobs for forest industry, report finds

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. VANCOUVER – Despite having the richest forest resources in Canada, BC lags well behind other provinces in generating jobs making higher-value wood products, and is at increased risk of losing further ground as it exports more raw logs and low-value wood products to China. However,…

  • Public consultation down the drain as government comes to fracking industry’s aid

    It has been a year since word began to percolate in the Hudson’s Hope area that Talisman Energy Inc. was eying the Williston Reservoir a short distance east of town as a long-term source of water for use in developing its gas resources. Yet in the intervening months – months…