Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Modular housing for LNG Canada workers, Kitimat BC/ Photo credit Marc Lee

    Fracking in BC’s northeast

    Last summer I got out of Vancouver and toured northern BC. While the trip was mostly for pleasure, my inner economist could not resist some industrial tourism and visits to resource towns and major industrial sites that are the heart and soul of BC’s resource economy. Forestry dominates near Prince…

  • Stoking the Tsunamis of War and Repression

    Canada’s military exports arm world’s most belligerent nations Finally, after years of delays and just a few hours after Japan’s horrifying earthquake on March 11, the Harper government finally released its latest deeply-flawed report on Canada’s military exports between 2007 and 2009. This timing ensured that the latest data on…

  • Photo: © Garth Lenz

    After the rush: Fort Nelson needs firm government commitments to reclaim lands abandoned by fossil fuel industry

    In the face of the economic fallout from COVID-19, it’s easy to forget that some communities in British Columbia were in deep fiscal distress long before the pandemic began. Fort Nelson is a good example, and a textbook case of why senior levels of government need to be mindful when…

  • The federal government’s potential leap towards housing affordability

    This is an excerpt from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual Alternative Federal Budget chapter on housing. It outlines what an ambitious federal government could achieve on housing affordability in its 2024 budget. For a growing number of Canadians, the housing market is broken. In 2021, an estimated 1.5…

  • Employment rights justice denied to thousands of BC Workers

    For decades, the BC Employment Standards Branch has not effectively enforced the Employment Standards Act, meaning thousands of workers are denied their legal rights, a new report that we co-wrote with the BC Employment Standards Coalition shows. Complaints take between 18 months to three years to resolve; the Branch doesn’t…

  • The Monitor, Sept/Oct 2019

    Election 2019: Thinking Bigger, Demanding Better Download 6.52 MB The pollster Nik Nanos claimed in June that climate change would be “one of the defining battle grounds” this election. “More important than jobs, more important than health care, more important than immigration.” In July, Abacus Data put climate change in…

  • Fast Facts: Respect and the right to abortion

    The loss of abortion rights in the U.S. has spurned new debate here in Canada. In the Free Press op ed “A key question in the abortion debate” (July 8), Carl DeGurse, in launching an argument against abortion, writes about his being conceived to young parents prior to their marriage.…

  • True, Lasting Reconciliation

    Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in British Columbia law, policy and practices Download 1.04 MB28 pages Implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a central political and public policy issue around the world. The BC government has committed…

  • Indigenous activists Andrew Paull, Chief William Scow, and Rev. Peter Kelly (seen left to right) with the First Indian Advisory Committee. Credit: North Vancouver Museum and Archives 2191.

    Nothing ‘liberal’ about colonial policy prior to Confederation

    After 30 years of treaty talks, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, First Nations still face racism on a systemic basis in this province. Can Indigenous People ever find justice in this province? John Price and…

  • The Latin American Revolution (Part XX)

    Union in Colombia battles anti-union Canadian oil company In May 2012, the third edition of my report Profiting from Repression: Canadian Investment in and Trade with Colombia was published and released by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) in Ottawa. The report links ten Canadian companies in Colombia to…

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    Opening the floodgates

    More than climate crisis behind last November’s rising waters, death and destruction; experts urge province to make course correction   First of Two Parts When Premier John Horgan declared a provincial state of emergency in the wake of last November’s horrific floods, landslides and deaths, he was quick to name the…

  • Why we need sectoral bargaining

    Why BC needs sectoral bargaining now

    Too many BC workers lack meaningful access to the benefits of collective bargaining and the failure of our labour laws to keep up with the evolving nature of work is a key culprit.