While world leaders are increasingly saying out loud that the postwar liberal world order is dead, the ruling classes in the Global North have an answer for what will come to replace it: fascism. Will they be able to implement their vision?
A guide to standing up to book bans and beyond, and how to protect and strengthen public education in Canada
Province of British Columbia / Flickr” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/policynote_oct2017_eight-reasons-site-c-300×141.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/policynote_oct2017_eight-reasons-site-c-1024×480.jpg 1024w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/policynote_oct2017_eight-reasons-site-c-768×360.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/policynote_oct2017_eight-reasons-site-c.jpg 1280w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />Last week, I appeared before the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) at their Technical Presentation Session in Vancouver, and gave a brief presentation about my findings relating to the economics of the proposed Site C dam. Here’s what I had to say: Thank you to the Commission for the invitation to…
Having painted itself into a fiscal corner through “dramatic” tax cuts, the BC government is now claiming it cannot afford Pharmacare (the province’s public drug benefit plan). But cutting Pharmacare won’t save the government money, nor will it reduce drug costs. Rather, cutting Pharmacare will merely shift drug costs onto…
Federal revenue options for pharmacare and their distributional impacts on households, businesses and governments Download 1.11 MB 45 pages Pharmacare is high on Canada’s political agenda with the federal government’s Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare led by Dr. Eric Hoskins set to report by spring 2019. Pharmacare…
In just three years, much of the McLeod Lake Indian Band’s treaty lands were stripped of their bountiful and exceedingly valuable trees in a surge of logging that included one massive clear-cut that is almost 3,000 hectares in size, or 7.5 times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The extensive…
The current system for buying prescription drugs in Canada is a hybrid system of multiple public and private drug plans. This system is totally dysfunctional, for many reasons. The diversity of drug plans means that Canadians are covered for their drugs according to which province they live, or where they…
OTTAWA—A universal public pharmacare plan could generate savings of up to $10.7 billion on prescription drugs, says a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-economiques (IRIS). The study, by Carleton University professor and Harvard research fellow, Marc-André Gagnon…
BC Hydro” style=”border-radius:0px;–objectFit:cover;–imagePosX:50%;–imagePosY:50%” decoding=”async” srcset=”https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_Mar2019_ShakingThePeace-300×141.jpg 300w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_Mar2019_ShakingThePeace-1024×480.jpg 1024w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_Mar2019_ShakingThePeace-768×360.jpg 768w, https://www.policyalternatives.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pn_Mar2019_ShakingThePeace.jpg 1280w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” />BC Hydro officials were so alarmed by an earthquake that shook the ground at its sprawling Site C dam construction project in late November, they ordered a halt to all work and got on the phone to British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission (OCG). The 4.5 magnitude earthquake was linked…
Premiers don’t require federal help to implement Pharmacare Canadians generally are not as wildly and uncritically patriotic as Americans. We don’t continually wave the Maple Leaf flag and boast about our country’s social and economic pre-eminence. But most of us – quietly and unostentatiously — are proud of Canada and…
These are exciting times in British Columbia for those interested in building sustainable, just and climate-friendly energy systems. The recent change in government could mean a shift away from a corporate agenda driven by the needs of a massively energy-intensive fracking and LNG industry towards one that prioritizes action on…
CCPA-BC submission reconsiders the economics of Site C dam READ THE FULL SUBMISSION HERE. Vancouver–The Site C dam is not necessary, and moving forward to completion is likely to have adverse impacts on BC Hydro and ratepayers of all classes. That is the conclusion of a submission to the BC…
Since 2005, we have led the annual State of the Inner City research project, which has collaborated with Winnipeg over forty community-based organizations (CBOs) working in the inner city. The project researches issues that matter to CBOs and the communities they serve. It connects the personal struggles of the people…
Donald Trump’s trade war and other attacks on Canadian sovereignty have exposed the vulnerabilities of Canada’s economy, 35 years after our first free trade deal with the U.S. The Elbows Up Economic Summit in Ottawa on September 2025 convened a discussion with 40 progressive economists and policy experts on how…