Search results for “site/pharmacare”

  • Our Hopes and Dreams for Public Education

    We know there are significant pressures facing our valued public education system—overcrowding, chronic underfunding, a growing teacher shortage and inadequate support for students with diverse learning needs to name just a few. These cracks in our school system command our immediate attention and require our concerted advocacy.  When we’re focused…

  • Indigenous activists Andrew Paull, Chief William Scow, and Rev. Peter Kelly (seen left to right) with the First Indian Advisory Committee. Credit: North Vancouver Museum and Archives 2191.

    Nothing ‘liberal’ about colonial policy prior to Confederation

    After 30 years of treaty talks, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, and the adoption of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, First Nations still face racism on a systemic basis in this province. Can Indigenous People ever find justice in this province? John Price and…

  • April 2008: First Nations Fight to Protect Their Land

    Algonquins and settler allies block proposed uranium mining A mining exploration company’s government-supported attempt to drill for uranium on First Nations land is finally beginning to create outrage far beyond the quiet corner of Eastern Ontario where it began over a year ago. On February 15, a Kingston judge’s draconian…

  • Flooded road

    Government must do more than shuffle chairs to solve BC’s water woes

    British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests was always a poor choice to manage the province’s water resources—and it showed. So it was fitting in October that the government decided after years of being urged to do so to transfer that power to the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. But…

  • Provincial zoning reform essential to reduce housing exclusion and displacement

    Sky-high rents, ultra-low vacancy rates and fierce competition for scarce homes have become the grim but familiar picture of housing in BC, driving unaffordability, exclusion and displacement. The BC government has made major housing policy announcements in recent weeks and a key focus has been tackling chronic municipal roadblocks to…

  • Three ways BC can make it easier for precarious workers to unionize

    The BC Labour Relations Code is being reviewed for the first time in over 15 years. Since the last comprehensive review, which took place in 2003, workers’ rights under the Code have been continuously eroded. The current review presents an important opportunity to reverse this trend by improving access to…

  • Photo: © Garth Lenz

    The Petro State Lackey: How BC’s zest for natural gas fuels Alberta’s oil sands

    In the past year, an energy dispute for the ages has played out in Canada, culminating in the federal government announcing that it will buy an aging oil pipeline for $4.5 billion and then twin it with a new high-capacity pipeline that would move massive amounts of diluted bitumen from…

  • Fast Facts: When will they ever learn?

    OECD report repeats flawed analysis The OECD’s latest report on Canada’s economy emphasizes the challenge of rising healthcare costs. It contains several propositions, but only three have received media coverage and acclaim. These are that current trends are “unsustainable”, and that solutions lie in user fees and further privatization. These…

  • Canada’s new Poverty Reduction Strategy: Strong on accountability, short on action

    Note: All figures in the above chart from the 2016 Census, based on Market Basket Measure, Canada’s official poverty line for 2015 income year. Numbers are rounded. These figures are slightly different from those report in the PRS based on the 2015 Canada Income Survey. Canada’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, Opportunity…

  • The Monitor, March/April 2021

    One year later Download 5.4 MB “More than an infectious pathogen,” writes Michal Rozworski in his feature analysis for this issue, “the novel coronavirus is a very harsh mirror held up to pre-pandemic reality… It is exposing the true cost of hollowed-out public services, debilitated trade unions, and cross-cutting economic…

  • Good news from the BC government – with a couple of caveats

    The BC government’s announcement July 9th that it had signed a deal on generic drugs with the province’s drug stores is good news.  As discussed in an earlier blog, British Columbians have been paying far more than consumers in other jurisdictions for generic drugs.  Alberta, Quebec and Ontario had already…

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    Threatened caribou further endangered: Suppressed audit shows Oil and Gas Commission undermining provincial efforts to save species

    On an April morning in 2014, members of the Fort Nelson First Nation tucked into a helicopter to begin a day of flying to fossil fuel company operations in their territory. The Nation’s lands are part of the expansive Treaty 8 territory that includes northeast British Columbia. A professional biologist…