Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Paul Leduc Browne

    D.Phil

  • Fast Facts: Steeling the NDP’s resolve

    Migrant farm workers need access to public healthcare As spring unfolds in southern Manitoba, we will soon see more than migratory birds arriving. Over 400 Seasonal Agricultural Workers are about to arrive from Mexico to take up the back-breaking work of cultivating vegetable and berry crops on Manitoba’s farms. These…

  • Fast Facts: What the Frack is Happening in Manitoba

    Manitoba is poised to be a major Canadian player in providing large quantities of silica sand used in hydraulic fracking by the oil and gas industry.  This presents major risks that should be fully explored before allowing shovels into the ground. Canadian Premium Sand, a Canadian publicly traded company, is…

  • The sound of silence

    Weeks stretch to months, months to years as BC government clamps down on information  When debate on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Amendment Act began last fall Stephanie Cadieux, then Liberal MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, was among many to note how British Columbians are waiting longer and longer…

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    Food security in BC? Don’t count on it.

    If California’s farmers ever run out of the water needed to irrigate their crops, we’ll be in for a rude awakening. With 70 per cent of British Columbia’s imported fruits and vegetables coming from the sunny US state, any climatic disaster there would almost certainly result in dramatic run-ups in food…

  • 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…

  • Protesting the G20: A Waste of Time?

    During the G20 ministerial meetings in Toronto, the sensational images of burning police cruiser cars and broken shop windows dominated the newspaper headlines. This is what the world saw. What I saw in Toronto was radically different. On June 21st, I travelled to Toronto in a van filled with activists…

  • 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…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Canada completes the 1st round of negotiations with Indonesia, the largest palm oil producer

    This week, Canada and Indonesia, the largest palm oil producer and exporter in the world, are completing the first round of negotiations on a proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). Only last year, research published in Nature Ecology and Evolution described how wealthy countries contribute to deforestation in poorer nations through international trade deals. According to…