Search results for “site/Pat Armstrong”

  • Decarbonizing BC homes and the price of gas

    Our climate justice framework for BC is to eliminate fossil fuels by 2040. In the household sector, this poses a significant challenge, not so much in terms of technology and knowledge, but because natural gas is much cheaper than electricity per unit of energy. Even though BC has among the…

  • Future government contract costs jump 50% in one year

    Although it has received some coverage in the media it is worth noting the eye-popping jump in the cost of long term contracts signed by the BC government in the last year. These contracts don’t go on the books as debt, but just like debt we will be responsible for…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    The Proposed EU-Canada Trade Agreement Raises Health Concerns in Both Canada and European Union

    Download 98.47 KB 10 pages The European Union (EU) and Canada are currently negotiating a new Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) (European Commission 2011). In early 2010, the negotiating text was leaked and posted to the Trade Justice Network website, raising a variety of red flags for European member…

  • Fast Facts: Sustainable health care begins with the social determinants of health

    It’s time to get it right On May 13, 2011 the Conference Board of Canada announced the formation of the Canadian Alliance for Sustainable Health Care (CASHC) to “provide Canadian business leaders and policy makers with insightful, forward-looking, quantitative analysis of the sustainability of the Canadian health-care system and all…

  • Public Interest Research Project (BC)

    Leaked health ministry document shows cost transfer to sick, elderly

    When the provincial government announced the sweeping income tax cuts last June, it promised British Columbians more money in our pockets. It sounded good on the surface, but ten months later it is becoming apparent that we are paying a high price for the tax cuts through reductions in government…

  • About Fracking Time: BC’s Independent MLAs Call on Premier to Investigate Hydraulic Fracturing

    As British Columbia Premier Christy Clark makes her debut in the provincial legislature this coming week, the media spotlight will likely be on the predictable verbal sparring between her and Adrian Dix, the NDP’s recently minted leader, over Clark’s alleged “fix” of the Harmonized Sales Tax. Meaning that Independent MLAs…

  • On the Forest Fire Front Line: One Ecologist’s Take on What it Will Take to Safeguard Communities

    With one of the colder springs on record, many British Columbians quite naturally yearn for a good stretch of warm, dry weather. But for many people in the province, prolonged periods of hotter and drier weather are often far from welcome. That’s because when things get hot and dry they…

  • Lessons for Ottawa from Victoria, Lessons for Victoria from Ottawa

    Many Canadians have expressed fear about what our new national government, a majority elected by a 39% minority, will do now that it has four years of real power.  For those concerned Canadians, British Columbia offers a lesson. BC’s government has discovered from an independent study that their HST is…

  • The Middle East Revolution (Part III)

    The Empire strikes back: Libya attacked by the U.S. and NATO No sooner had the popular revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia overthrown corrupt and repressive U.S.-backed dictatorships than Washington and NATO (led by a Canadian general) attacked Libya on March 19 with jet fighters and hundreds of missiles and bombs.…

  • A billion dollars of bogus carbon credits

    A story in today’s Vancouver Sun is disturbing, arguing that BC could make $1 billion from selling carbon offsets once the Western Climate Initiative gets underway. The projects are mostly in forest management and conservation, meaning less cutting and more sequestration of carbon in the forests themselves. The conservation part…

  • A Call to Action on the Forest Front

    Does the provincial government have a coherent plan to address the exponentially deepening forest health crisis in our province? Evidently not, as outlined by two scientists in a sobering critique of provincial government forest policy (or the lack thereof) published in today’s Vancouver Sun. Penned by Suzanne Simard, a professor…

  • The Middle East Revolution (Part 1)

    Uprisings a stunning blow to U.S. control of the Middle East “Fight like an Egyptian!” was the cry echoed by supporters of the Egyptian Revolution around the world when in 17 days the people of that country overthrew its 30-year-old dictatorship on February 11. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was forced…