Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Labour Matters

    Work Life: Supreme Court Rulings on Labour Legislation

    An Affirmation of Workers’ Constitutional Rights The January 30, 2015 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada was a very significant one for the labour movement, and in fact for Canadian society. In their decision the Court once more reaffirmed that a strong base of fundamental rights for union members…

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    Does the global “loss and damages” fund negotiated at COP27 offer lessons for BC?

    The 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) ended last November with an historic agreement to establish a “loss and damages” fund to address the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable nations. Given the disasters BC has faced over the last couple of years, is this a model the…

  • Fast Facts: Forestry plan favours industry, not people

    The way long-term, large-scale forest management planning is approved by the Pallister government is about to change. And not for the better, I might add. In the spring of 2020, the Manitoba Minister of Conservation and Climate (Sarah Guillemard) issued a mandate letter to the Chair of the Manitoba Clean…

  • Why Governments Can Safely Ignore Hunger

    Corporate food charity keeps hunger off political agenda Over the past 30 years, Canadians have increasingly been led to believe that community compassion expressed through charitable food handouts is the most effective way of feeding our hungry poor and homeless. Since the establishment of the first food banks in the…

  • Let’s Not Go There Again

    You would think that the fiasco of the government forcing BC Hydro in recent years to buy run-of-river and other IPP supply that it didn’t need, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, would have put that unfortunate policy on the back burner for a long…

  • Fast Facts The First Rung on the Ladder: community-based literacy programming in public housing complexes

    A wealth of evidence—both global and local—confirms the value of literacy and the importance of programs that promote literacy. This is especially the case for low-income individuals and communities, for whom gains in literacy can be transformative. Manitoba has embraced this truth by laying the groundwork for real gains in…

  • The Expressive Liberty of Beggars

    Why it matters to them, and to us Download 282.22 KB 28 pages Attachments FastFacts: The Case Against Criminalizing Panhandling: Laws that muzzle the disadvantaged violate human rights

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Trans-Pacific Partnership does not live up to labour promises: study

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. OTTAWA – Far from being a pro-labour trade deal, as the Canadian and U.S. governments claim, a new study from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) makes little effort to improve labour standards and offers workers a toothless dispute processes…

  • 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…

  • Book review – Just cool it! The climate crisis and what we can do

    The following is a review of Just cool it! The climate crisis and what we can do by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington, published by Greystone Books/David Suzuki Institute. Two passages in the introduction to this book encapsulate the situation that confronts us as the effects of global warming become more serious every…

  • The Ethics of the Ethical Oil Cabal

    With the recent demonstrations in Ottawa against the Alberta tarsands and the XL oil pipeline, most of the mainstream media very quickly bought into the oil lobby’s talking points by constantly raising the argument that Alberta bitumen constitutes “ethical oil,” a morally superior product in relation to oil extracted from…

  • A litany of reports, but little accountability for police violence against Black Canadians

    When it comes to anti-Black racism in Canadian policing, we don’t have an information gap, we have a police accountability gap. I’m reminded of this as I review some of the findings of two significant reports released jointly in August by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, with news channels in…