Search results for “site/human rights”

  • What the UBC rape chant scandal says about women in the Canadian economy

    The news of UBC Sauder Business School students chanting about rape of underage girls during a FROSH week event has generated much outrage. As it should. While the chant might seem like an isolated incident, it is not. The recent rape chant scandals in UBC and in St Mary’s University…

  • 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…

  • Financialization of housing must be confronted

    Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press January 12, 2023 Government housing policy preferences are based on values, the most fundamental being the extent to which housing is viewed as a right, or as a commodity. From a rights value base, housing is a social good — a home and…

  • The Latin American Revolution (Part XIV)

    Opposition to Canadian mining companies rising in Colombia Canadian companies operating in Colombia are more economically powerful than ever before: they partly own and run Colombia’s largest oil pipeline (Talisman), and they are its leading private oil producer (Pacific Rubiales) and its biggest gold mining company (Gran Colombia Gold). With…

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    A progressive macroeconomic response to the coronavirus crisis in British Columbia

    While much of the world remains under strict lockdown and we have yet to determine the full extent of the already-unprecedented economic crisis caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, it is not too early to start thinking about the way out of the crisis. So many people have seen their…

  • Growing Gap

    40% of Indigenous children in Canada live in poverty: study

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. OTTAWA—Indigenous children in Canada are over two and a half times more likely to live in poverty than non-Indigenous children, according to a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and Save the Children Canada. The study disaggregates child poverty statistics…

  • Quality of Life Assessment is too important to be left to economists

    Download 229.48 KB 4 pages In 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy estab­lished the Commission on the Measurement of Eco­nomic Performance and Social Progress. It was headed by two Nobel laureates, Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, and coordinated by the French economist, Jean-Paul Fitoussi. The 22 members of the Commission included…

  • Shale gas industry given water rights without public or First Nations consultation

    On February 15 of this year, Calgary-based Canbriam Energy Inc. quietly applied to the BC government for the rights to pull billions of litres of water out of Williston Reservoir, the ultimate source of much of our province’s hydroelectricity. The application was the second submitted in less than a year.…

  • October 2003: Canadian Mining Companies Set to Destroy Ghana’s Forest Reserves

    Under pressure from Canadian and U.S. mining companies, the Ghanaian government seems ready to pass legislation in June 2003 which will open the country’s protected forest reserves to mining. The companies’ bulldozers are ready to rip apart thousands of hectares of rainforest in the Ashanti, Eastern and Western Regions if…

  • American flag flying over cargo ship
    Trade and Investment Research Project

    Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP) Consultations

    Evaluating the costs and benefits of participation in this U.S.-led and U.S.-designed project. Download 111.8 KB5 pages Between March 25 and May 9, the federal government consulted the public on Canada’s participation in a U.S.-led trade negotiation called the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). The hemispheric scope of APEP…

  • 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…

  • 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…