Search results for “site/ceta”

  • BC should think twice before opening its doors to multinational ride-hailing corporations

    Last year, the BC government introduced legislation expected to bring ride-hailing to the province, but many questions remain about what that will look like in practice. One of the bodies responsible for working out the policy details is BC’s Passenger Transportation Board (PTB), an independent tribunal that has been handling…

  • Fast Facts: Canadian Premium Sand Frac Sand Mining Project About to Hit a Financial Wall

    There are important new developments regarding the proposed frac sand operation adjacent to Hollow Water First Nation on the east side of Lake Winnipeg that will have a large impact on the entire project. Canadian Premium Sand (CPS), a publicly traded and Canadian-owned mining company, received an Environmental License from…

  • The Oil Industry’s Dilbit Cover-Up

    Tar sands bitumen spills harder and costlier to clean up It’s amazing to watch the lengths to which Enbridge and the oil industry will go in pretending that tar sands diluted bitumen (dilbit) is no different from conventional oil. On Aug. 26, the Canadian Press reported that the Northern Gateway…

  • Canada’s largest companies could easily eliminate pension deficits, but choose shareholder payouts instead: Report

    OTTAWA—Canada’s largest publicly-traded companies could have eliminated their defined benefit (DB) pension deficits five times over with the value of what they chose to pay out to shareholders instead in 2017 alone, according to a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Put another way, these companies could…

  • First served

    Private pension plan deficits and shareholder repayments in Canada Download 519.7 KB22 pages This report updates research published by the CCPA in 2017, and compares the pension deficits of the roughly 90 companies on the S&P/TSX Composite Index with defined benefit (DB) pension plans to shareholder payouts between 2011 and 2017. These…

  • Image: Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, one month after the November 2015 breach. © Bruno Milanez, PoEMAS / UFJF

    Tailings dam collapses in the Americas: Lessons learned?

    In fewer than five years, three major dam collapses have occurred in the Americas—the most recent of which killed more than 230 people, and likely killed up to 260; many of the dead have never been recovered from the toxic mining sludge in which they were buried. The disasters that…

  • Time for a Serious Conversation about Natural Gas

    It is pretty clear that the government’s ill-conceived Energy Plan is falling apart. The near religious call for self-sufficiency has been moderated (though not sensibly changed) and the legislated requirement for insurance eliminated. The plan to develop run-of-river and wind IPPs for export has been abandoned. The problem of charging…

  • The roots of our housing crisis: Austerity, debt and extreme speculation

    We’re now 10 years on from the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Or, as our national mythology puts it, 10 years since Canada breathed a deep sigh of relief as the crisis mostly grazed our economy and financial system. Since 2008, we’ve had 10 years of congratulatory back-patting…

  • Log exports: waving the white flag of economic defeat

    As more and more raw, unprocessed logs leave British Columbia’s coast in ocean freighters bound for the far side of the world, a common refrain from some in our forest industry is that we have no choice. Because workers in mills in China are paid so little, log buyers there…

  • The Weight of the One Percent

    Environment hurt more by super-rich than population growth Last October, two things happened that captured media attention. One was the run-up to the birth of the United Nations-selected seven billionth person on Earth. While this was a rather absurd exercise, given the impressive inaccuracy of demographic projections, it does have…

  • Québec Students Strike Over Tuition-Fee Hikes

    This morning, there are more than 65 000 students on strike in Québec. University students, but also college-level students, are walking out of classrooms to reverse the 75% raise in tuition fees over five years announced in the last provincial budget. In the space of a single week, the number…

  • Drummond, Deconstructed

    In the Commission report that bears his name, and in all of his media appearances since its release, Banker Don Drummond has ably played the disinterested expert, taking no pleasure in sharing the “gloomy message” he has for Ontario. From the way most TV hosts and journalists have rushed forward…