Menu

Search results for: “site/human rights”

  • September 2007: Is Collective Bargaining Now Really Free?

    Labour relations faces major shakeup from Court ruling On June 8, 2007, Canada’s Supreme Court constitutionalized collective bargaining in Canada. In doing so, it expanded considerably on its 2001 Dunmore decision which declared that all Canadian workers have the right to organize in their interests, select leaders of their own…

  • The unintended consequences of massive hydro rate increases

    The Province newspaper recently published an op-ed of mine that looked at one of the unintended consequences of our provincial government’s fixation on building the exceedingly expensive Site C hydroelectric dam. Even though actual construction of the dam has yet to begin, BC Hydro customers are already paying far more for electricity…

  • Resource Economics Project (BC)

    Rising hydro bills pushing mills to burn fossil fuel

    Premier Christy Clark’s vow to push work at the $9-billion Site C dam “past the point of no return” may be music to the ears of some construction contractors, but not to all pulp and paper firms. In a great irony, as the costs soar into the billions to build…

  • Oliver Mudslide, Photo: Darren Kirby - Flickr

    Damming the information flow: BC government officials button lipped on potentially dangerous dams

    Early last spring, provincial civil servants cut off virtually all communication about what the government knew about a sprawling network of potentially dangerous and unregulated dams in northeast BC on the pretext they could not comment because of the impending election. The coordinated effort meant there was virtually no comment…

  • Corporate Child Abuse

    Profit-driven system exploits, mistreats vulnerable youth “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul,” Nelson Mandela says, “than the way in which it treats its children.” Who would disagree? Yet today children may be assaulted, diseased, or killed by pervasive corporate drugs, junk foods and beverages, perverted by…

  • "<aJoe Brusky / Flickr” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_jun2020_divest-300×133.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_jun2020_divest-768×341.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_jun2020_divest.jpg 900w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />

    Why has UBC divested from fossil fuels but UVic has not? The high cost of industry influence

    The death and disruption wrought by COVID-19 is calamitous. The bad news is that climate change will be worse. It is easy to forget that 2020 began with Australia burning in a brutal wildfire season. Like the current pandemic, Australia’s disaster was predicted years in advance by ecological science. As…

  • Water Politics

    Underdevelopment and overconsumption drive water crisis Water crises are often ranked second only to climate change in environmental challenges that we face in the 21st century. But, unlike climate change, “water crisis” is a slippery term. There is little agreement on what exactly the “water crisis” even is, much less…

  • Education Project

    Our Schools/Our Selves: Summer 2001

    Ontario Students as a Means to the Government’s Ends In high-risk sites like Ontario, traditional forms of liberal education are being replaced by policies mandating teaching and learning activities that are aimed at serving the utilitarian needs of a corporate and globalised marketplace. In effect, educational policy making in the…

  • Taxes and human purpose

    I like paying taxes. Taxes allow us to pursue our aspirations collectively and thus they greatly enrich the quality of life for the average Canadian family. Taxes have brought us high quality public schools that remain our democratic treasure, low tuition at world class universities, freedom from fear of crippling…

  • Rights-based legal aid: a proposal for BC

    CCPA-BC’s new study on legal aid in BC explores the impact of cuts to the system and proposes a new rights-based approach that would cut both economic and social costs. Listen to interviews with the authors on CBC’s Early Edition, Jim Harrison’s show on CHNL in Kamloops and Adam Stirling’s…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Trade Agreements Like NAFTA Are a Menace to Democracy

    On his first day in office, US president Joe Biden revoked the permit for the controversial Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline. The partially built project was supposed to carry bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries in the United States. Green-lighted by Donald Trump in 2017, but delayed…

  • Boondoggles in the Boreal

    Abandoned mines, oil and gas wells pollute our boreal forest A mid-March report — A Forest of Blue: Canada’s Boreal Forest, the World’s Waterkeeper — focuses on the health of our vast northern forest ecosystem, which covers 60% of Canada’s land mass. Issued by the Pew Environment Group (a U.S.…