Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Government pressure to cut wages will increase the risk of deflation

    It is now abundantly clear that Canada and the world is facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. However, a sense of premature Hoover-type optimism seems to have settled in to Ottawa’s thinking, breeding a dangerous complacency that the government has done all that is required to combat…

  • Manitoba Research Alliance

    Communities are Partners

    Workers’ Occupational Health and Safety Rights with Newcomers Download 5.08 MB56 pages For the past 20 years, newcomer and migrant workers in Manitoba have learned about occupational health, safety and compensation rights thanks to the Cross Cultural Com­munity Development Program at the MFL Occupational Health Centre. Community Trainers, who have…

  • Why wheelchair fees are not ‘fair’ and what they say about the state of seniors care in BC

    The recent announcement of a $25/month user fee for wheelchairs used by people in long-term care facilities in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health regions has been unpopular – particularly given the simultaneous announcement of pay raises for top government political staff. Premier Clark has since withdrawn the promise of…

  • Fast Facts: Decolonizing the Inner City – a look at Youth for Christ

    Youth for Christ is an evangelical Christian organization whose “Centre for Youth Excellence” received public funding based on a business plan that promised to meet the needs of local Aboriginal youth. The public funding for, and presence of this building on a key corner, continues to anger many in the…

  • Clearing the hurdles — sports brands and worker rights

    As we prepare to host the Olympics, it’s worth thinking about how high (or low) the bar is set by the major companies that make sportswear. Despite some progress in recent years, substantial violations of worker rights and poverty wages are still the norm for workers in the sportswear industry.…

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    The University of Victoria seeks to profit from climate change deniers and policy obstructionists: The Exxon connection

    The school year is now well under way. For many new students starting at the University of Victoria, the university’s stated commitments to sustainability were likely attractive, especially for BC residents whose summers were haunted by relentless wildfires. Given the needed move towards low-carbon economies it makes excellent sense for…

  • Fast Facts: Cosmetic Pesticide Ban needs to continue

    Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press April 7, 2022 Geese flying overhead. A warm sun. Puddles. For a winter-weary Manitoba, Spring is finally making an appearance. This year, it cannot come soon enough. Many of us long for sounds of kids playing outside, strolls around the neighbourhood, picnics and…

  • BC’s shiny new climate plan: A look under the hood

    BC’s new climate plan, Clean BC, is a big and visionary document and was instantly lauded by environmental groups and businesses alike. In this post, I recap the key components of the plan and do a bit of a reality check against the hype, in particular the challenge of fitting…

  • Big ideas on the supply side of housing affordability

    The final report of the Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability, published in June 2021, contains 23 recommendations made primarily to the BC and federal governments. The Panel organized these under five broad calls to action:    Creating a planning framework that proactively encourages…

  • Labour Matters

    Work Life: Academic Freedom

    Ivory tower privilege or public interest? The University of Manitoba narrowly averted its third faculty strike in eighteen years in late October, a strike that would have disrupted the lives of 29,000 students and almost 9,000 staff members. What brought the professors so reluctantly to this last-ditch effort to get…

  • Labour Matters
    Trade Union Research Collective

    Labour Notes: The attack on unions has now come to Canada

    How do we respond? Anyone who has been keeping tabs on recent developments in what can accurately be called the assault on trade unions and working people in the U.S., Britain, Ireland, and much of continental Europe, knew that it would eventually come to Canada. Well, it’s now here, in…

  • Treat water rights with the respect they deserve

    On Canada’s frequently drenched west coast, it is sometimes easy to forget that there are times and places where water is scarce. A case in point is northeast BC, where last year’s drought led to a five-metre drop in water levels at the Williston Reservoir, fields grazed by buffalo were reduced…