Search results for “site/pharmacare”

  • Fast Facts: The Education Property Tax Rebate

    Do we seniors really need it? This commentary was also published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 17, 2013. The opposition’s unproductive filibuster of the provincial 2013 budget increase in the PST has left many aspects of the budget undebated. One is its failure to provide for improvement in…

  • Where Icebergs are Born

    Nearly all the icebergs in the North Atlantic start in this place. Disko Bay, Greenland, is littered with ice as far as the eye can see. Huge icebergs sit somnolent in the morning sun, their surfaces lined with dark blue veins of frozen fresh water. A sudden clap of thunder…

  • BC's Environmental Assessment Office has ordered Progress Energy to drain almost all of the water from this unauthorized dam. Photo: Ben Parfitt

    Drain it: Petronas subsidiary ordered to take action at two controversial fracking dams

    The provincial government has ordered Progress Energy to drain virtually all of the water trapped behind two massive dams that the company built in violation of key provincial regulations. The company was told on October 31 to drain all but 10% of the water stored behind its Town and Lily…

  • Corporate Mapping Project

    BC needs a full public inquiry into fracking

    Last year, more natural gas was produced in British Columbia than at any point in the past 10 years. That may come as a surprise to some people who thought that growth in BC’s natural gas industry hinged on the emergence of a Liquefied Natural Gas sector. It does not.…

  • The Weapons Makers On Display

    Canada’s war industries flog their wares at big arms bazaar The glittering opulence and sheer pageantry of the Middle East’s largest arms bazaar held recently in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, was like an alchemist’s magic, transforming the dross display of the death-bestowing technologies into a grand…

  • February 2004: Poisoning the Environment — Free

    Polluters are supposed to pay clean-up costs–but they don’t What is remarkable about the latest environmental law decision from the Supreme Court of Canada is not how ecologically enlightened the Court is (since a series of previous cases had already demonstrated the Justices’ “green” wisdom), but rather the breadth of…

  • Public Interest Research Project (BC)

    2013 living wage calculation: costs of raising a family in Metro Vancouver rising faster than inflation

    READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. VANCOUVER – $19.62 is the 2013 Vancouver living wage, according to a report released today that calculates the hourly wage that two working parents with young children must earn to cover the real costs of raising a family. Working for a Living Wage 2013: Making…

  • Tall Tales at Tax Time: Meet Thomas and Colleen

    There is a nice little story tucked in to the pages of Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2013. It’s a sweet tale of Thomas and Colleen and their two children. (I like to imagine those little stick-figure stickers on the back of their mini-van waving hello to their friends in happy…

  • From the ground up: Building a successful Early Learning and Child Care System in Nova Scotia

    The Nova Scotia government has announced that it will introduce a new free pre-primary program for children turning four by the end of December 2017. While there are many reasons to be concerned about the implementation of this program, the good news is that the government is investing in the…

  • Polling on taxes – response to a critic

    On November 29, the CCPA released an opinion research study led by myself and Randy Galawan called Beyond the 1%: What British Columbians think about taxes, inequality and public services. The study involved an extensive online survey (poll) of a broad sample of British Columbians, conducted by Environics Research, and…

  • Alternative Federal Budget

    AFB 2013: Doing better together

    Time flies and our Alternative Federal Budget is now in its 19th year.  Year after year it has shown that we can have a Canada where we all do better together. This year the AFB is more inclusive than ever with 27 chapters written by over 90 contributors each laying out progressive…

  • A new government? It’s not as easy as it looks

    If there is a new government in BC on May 15th, it will be confronted with issues that make the transition particularly challenging. The financial issues are a given.  Debt has gone up.  Possibly, given the economic recession we faced, it should have gone up even further.  The dramatic rise…