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Search results for: “site/economics of childcare”
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Fast Facts: The Shock Doctrine Playing Out in Manitoba
Noted Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine more than a decade ago. The book’s major thesis is that governments and others in position of power exploit national and international crises to establish controversial policies while citizens are too distracted to notice, to engage and to…
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BC Budget 2021: Stay-the-course budget misses the mark on key areas of urgency outside health
The BC government tabled a surprisingly stay-the-course budget today, making some improvements on the margins but missing the opportunity to shift BC towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy. While it appropriately includes large sums of time-limited spending relating to the pandemic (and indeed BC has led other provinces on…
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Swimming against the tide
The challenge of higher interest rates and high household debt The run-up of interest rates since March, led by the Bank of Canada in a bid to tame inflation, represents a substantial economic shock, one that is now pushing the country towards a recession. The bank’s overnight, or policy, interest…
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A Dam Troublesome Exception: Progress Energy’s dams should not be exempted from environmental review
I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company…
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Who owns it? The democratic socialist debate Canada should be having this election
We live in an era of extreme inequality of wealth and power across much of the developed world, and Canada is no exception. Public confidence in political institutions and “political classes” in the West is in long-running decline. The failure of established institutions to grapple adequately with the crises we face…
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Why are we letting corporate medicine take hold in Vancouver’s new urgent care centres?
The BC government has rolled out a flurry of impressive measures to strengthen our public health care system over the past two years. Flying below the radar, though, is a new effort by for-profit corporations to push their way into BC’s health care system — and the Vancouver Coastal Health…
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Fast Facts: Remembering Don Sullivan
Don Sullivan was an environmentalist, best described as an ecosocialist, and a highly skilled political activist. He played a lead role in many environmental campaigns in Manitoba. He was the Director of the Boreal Forest Network. He played an important role as special advisor to the government of Manitoba in…
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A BC poverty reduction plan is long overdue
As the BC government prepares to table its budget on February 21 and political parties try to convince British Columbians to vote for them in May, they all need to focus on poverty – specifically, how to reduce it throughout the province. At 13.2 per cent, BC’s poverty rate is…
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Will the BC government continue to ignore its own budget consultation?
Every fall, BC conducts a month-long budget consultation process and for at least the last three years, the provincial government hasn’t acted on its own report. You have to wonder if they’re actually listening. This is a shame because the process generates a large number of good ideas and policy…
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22.5% of N.S. children living in poverty: 2016 Child and Family Poverty Report Card
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. HALIFAX—While there was a slight decrease in child poverty nationally between 2013 and 2014, the child poverty rate in Nova Scotia remains stubbornly high, says the 2016 Nova Scotia Child and Family Poverty Report Card, released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia…
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Poverty Reduction: When will the government start listening to British Columbians?
If the government were listening to British Columbians, it would have heard that families are struggling to make ends meet because of rising food and housing costs, childcare fees, MSP premiums, and hydro rates. It would have heard that over 1,000 people in the highest-ever homeless count in Vancouver this…
