Search results for “site/human rights”

  • 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…

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    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…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • New CIDA Reforms Risk Excluding the Poorest of the Poor

    In June 2001, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) released a policy document proposing distinct new terms for development aid. The report, called “Strengthening Aid Effectiveness,” outlines a new direction for CIDA and new terms of reference for distributing aid.[1] On the one hand, it ties aid to global security,…

  • 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…

  • March 2001: “Toxic Bob” Wastes Burma

    Forced labour and pollution rampant at Canadian-owned mine According to a recent report, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., a Canadian company owned by Robert Friedland, is “raping the environment” and using forced labour in Burma. Ivanhoe operates the US$90 million Monywa copper mine, Burma’s largest mining investment, in a 50-50 partnership with…

  • Back to the “Good” Old Days

    Child labour rampant in Asia, serfdom on the rise here “The disparity in income between the rich and the poor is merely the survival of the fittest. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God.”      —John D. Rockefeller, 1894.    During…

  • Fast Facts: Upholding the Legacy of Joseph Zuken: Roz Usiskin Citizen Activist

    In 2017, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba (CCPA-MB) assumed responsibility for the Joseph Zuken Citizen Activist Award, which was established in 1987. Joe Zuken was a legend in Winnipeg’s North End.  He was a lawyer and politician.  He served for 42 consecutive years as a School Trustee and Winnipeg…

  • 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…

  • Rising Inequality, Declining Democracy

    The “Occupy Canada” movement (with a little help from CCPA research) has raised public awareness of the unprecedented growth in income inequality and wealth concentration in Canada over the last 30 years. And recent reports from the OECD and the Conference Board confirming this trend have raised alarm bells amongst…