Menu

Search results for: “site/ceta”

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Work Life: MB Liquor Between Rock and Hard Place

    The issuance of mandate letters to provincial crown corporations has put management and staff on notice, warning that “the old way of doing things” is over. The preamble for all the letters is the same, with claims that this government is committed to “prudent fiscal management, creating jobs, improving health…

  • 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…

  • Failing Grade: Manitoba Poverty Reduction Strategy and Budget 2019

    Download 326.39 KB 12 pages “I grew up poor. I appreciate the reality that many Manitobans face. It’s very difficult for many Manitobans right now. The month runs out a lot of times after the money has run out…. I want to work with anyone who wants to address the…

  • Fast Facts: Changes in practices needed, if we’re serious about reconciliation

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press April 10, 2019 Offer money to leaders in a cash-poor community to gain support for a resource extraction project. Publicly shun and disenfranchise individuals who don’t agree. Deceive people into signing their support without full information. Divide the community. Commence destructive preparation of…

  • 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…

  • Kevin Falcon’s narrow take on tax options

    BC Finance Minister Kevin Falcon says he is keen to take a fresh look at the BC tax system. He is welcoming new ideas, and he even wants your opinion. He has struck an “expert” panel to review BC’s tax regime, and in early January the government launched an online…

  • Time to give shale gas industry a closer look before we’re totally fracked

    Despite the recent release by Canada’s natural gas industry of a set of guiding principles governing the controversial gas well “stimulation” method known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, and despite the almost immediate endorsement of those principles by BC Premier and industry cheerleader Christy Clark, more and more British Columbians…