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  • 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…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    The US wants a NAFTA deal this month; Canada should say no

    Lighthizer, Guajardo and Freeland feeling the NAFTA love in April.For the past four weeks, NAFTA negotiators in Washington, D.C., have been working around the clock to reach an agreement in principle before the U.S. and Mexican electoral calendars sideline the Trump administration’s hopes for a speedy deal. Due to the…

  • Globalization, trade deals and drugs

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT Canadian government concessions to the big multinational pharmaceutical companies, including an extension of their monopoly on new drugs to 20 years, have resulted in sharply escalating prices for drug prescriptions, the potential blocking of a national Pharmacare program, and Canadian complicity in denying…

  • Nova Scotia Budget a wedge, not a lever

    There is an urgency for our government to use fiscal policy to promote a different kind of economic growth that no longer sacrifices the environment, our natural resources, or quality of life for the many. But this is not what the Nova Scotia Budget 2018-19 has done. Ultimately, our fiscal health depends on…

  • Poverty interventions are health interventions: Three considerations

    An irrefutable evidence base demonstrates that socioeconomic conditions—in particular poverty and inequality—impact health. In health care we call these conditions ‘social determinants of health’ (SDOH)—a term that describes the downstream health impacts of multiple forms of systemic inequity. In the context of a society, culture and health system that focus…

  • A missed opportunity to help people with disabilities: BC Budget 2018

    I approached BC’s February budget full of hope. It was the first full budget by an NDP government in 17 years and had been hyped as a spending budget. As a disabled woman and disability advocate, I was encouraged to see an image including someone in a wheelchair on the…

  • Fast Facts: Should Manitobans trust nuclear burial plans?

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press January 23, 2018 There was a time when a plan to bury highly radioactive materials 500m from a river that provides drinking water and flows into Lake Winnipeg, would have attracted a fair bit of attention in Manitoba. Maybe even a mild uproar.…

  • Technology is changing how we work. How this affects workers is up to us.

    While many workers of my parents’ generation expected to spend their entire careers in a permanent full-time job with one or two employers, young workers today increasingly face project-based or limited-term employment options. In fact, the very structure of what a job looks like is changing as technology unbundles traditional occupations…

  • An ambition constrained budget

    Am I happy with the 2018 federal budget? Well, many of the items in it can be found in this year’s and past Alternative Federal Budgets (AFB), which of course is a good thing. But in general I’d say this is an ambition constrained budget. The government had the fiscal…

  • Alternative Federal Budget

    Important steps taken but Budget 2018 keeps Canadians waiting for the big investments required to build an inclusive economy

    OTTAWA—Today’s federal budget takes positive steps forward on gender equality and science funding but the bold policy moves that will make a real difference for Canadians —child care, pharmacare, health care or closure of tax loopholes—will have to wait for another day, say experts from the Canadian Centre for Policy…

  • Alternative Federal Budget

    Ten proposals from the 2018 Alternative Federal Budget

    This year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) has just been released. I was proud to be part of this year’s effort, coordinated by staff of the National Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Here are 10 measures proposed in this year’s AFB: Create 470,000 new (full-time equivalent) jobs.…

  • The Fraser Institute is warning that BC must stop social investment before it even starts

    In a “bulletin” released yesterday, the Fraser Institute points out that public investment in BC has been extremely low since 2001, with real per capita program spending growth of only 0.9% annually—the lowest in the country. On this much, we agree. But the Fraser Institute’s odd conclusion is that, because…