Manufacturing TILMA consent

Keith Reynolds from CUPE has done some extensive FOI requests about the BC government’s contracts with the Conference Board of Canada to prop up its push for the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (see this previous post and also see here, here, here and here for additional background on the Conference Board’s “methodology”). In the latest batch of […]

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Mounting costs of climate change

PM Harper likes to say that it will be costly to fight climate change, but he conveniently ignores the costs that climate change itself is reaping (or has the potential to reap). A year-end report from Environment Canada points at some of the current financial costs associated with climate change. The top story is the shrinking arctic ice cap, and […]

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BC’s Climate Plan and TILMA

Here’e a piece that I wrote with Caelie Frampton, the Campaign Coordinator of the STOP TILMA Coalition. No pick-up in the major dailies but The Tyee has promised to run it at some point: TILMA a Major Hurdle to BC Climate Action Plans By Marc Lee and Caelie Frampton Premier Gordon Campbell has positioned BC as a global leader on […]

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Margaret Wente is full of toxic sludge

Yay, we’re winning the war on  poverty, says Margaret Wente. Her recent column is based around the fact that the poverty rate has fallen in recent years. Wente uses this to go on a latte-fuelled SUV romp over the bodies of people who work with (and give a shit about) the poorest in our society. The sum total of statistics […]

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BC greenhouse gas emission reductions

The BC government has gotten religion on climate change, and has committed to a 33% reduction from today’s greenhouse gas emission levels by 2020. Some of the details of how we are going to get there are now coming out, and a rolling series of announcements is expected through the Fall, leading up to a “green budget” in February 2008 […]

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Vancouver Dreaming

I was asked to submit a dream statement for a conference this weekend called Dream Vancouver. Here is my contribution: My Vancouver dream is like those ones when you are there in your house and are doing stuff – but it is not really your house here on planet Earth. My Vancouver dream is a lucid dream; I am not […]

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BC municipalities reject TILMA

This week in Vancouver, the annual meetings of the Union of BC Municipalities are talking TILMA. The BC government signed the deal without consulting municipalities, and it is now in effect. Over the next two years, however, municipalities have an opportunity to seek exemptions from the agreement, although their appeals would go to Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen who would […]

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More on the Olympics and poverty in Vancouver

My office window looks out over Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, an area notorious for being Canada’s poorest postal code. Back when Vancouver was awarded the 2010 Olympics, we pointed out that the world’s media would be stationed just ten minutes walk away from truly abject poverty, and when the cameras started rolling, it may not be gorgeous mountain backdrops they would […]

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More TILMA leaps of logic

The Canada West Foundation today released an economic profile and forecast for BC. Most of the report is numbers-based, and it looks at a wide variety of topic areas. But in the conclusion is this chestnut: Public policy developments such as the implementation of the BC-Alberta Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) will also contribute to a positive future. […]

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The Minister Responds

Today’s National Post includes a letter from BC’s Minister of Economic Development, Colin Hansen, in response to my TILMA op-ed. It is great that the Post has facilitated some debate on this important issue and that the Government of BC feels compelled to participate in this debate. The fundamental point of disagreement is whether TILMA applies to all regulations (but […]

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Air travel and forest offsets

Moonlighting from his CCPA gig, Ben Parfitt has this to say about airlines, climate change, forests and offsets in a feature article for the Georgia Straight: The airline industry, among others, is banking heavily on offsets taking flight. So, too, it appears, is the British Columbia government. No fewer than three people currently report directly to Premier Gordon Campbell on […]

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Do tax cuts pay for themselves? The evidence from BC

Back in the 2001 BC election, the Liberals repeatedly made the voodoo economics claim that “tax cuts pay for themselves” as a means of heading off concerns that their tax cuts would inevitably lead to spending cuts. The Liberals won in a landslide, implemented a 25% across-the-board personal income tax cut and dramatically cut corporate income taxes – about $2.3 […]

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BC’s massive surplus and deteriorating credibility

The spirit of Paul Martin’s budgeting practices lives on at the BC Ministry of Finance. Today, Finance Minister Carole Taylor published the audited public accounts for 2006/07, with a jaw-dropping $4.1 billion surplus, the largest in provincial history. To put this in context, BC’s estimated GDP in 2006 was $179 billion, so the surplus amounts to 2.2% of GDP. Back […]

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Supreme Court ruling on collective bargaining

A dispatch by email from McMaster’s (and PEF member) Roy Adams on last month’s ruling: In a dramatic and entirely unexpected decision, the Supreme Court of Canada on June 8th “constitutionalized” collective bargaining in Canada. From its inception, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has had a freedom of association clause but in a series of decisions in the 1980s […]

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Supreme Court enshines collective bargaining as constitutional right

Because it looks like a simple rebuke of the zealous anti-union tactics of BC’s Campbell administration, observers Back East may have missed this significant ruling by the Supreme Court on Friday. Below is the story from Saturday’s Vancouver Sun, and a commentary from a columnist in today’s Sun. Interestingly, the term “judicial activism” crops up fairly early in the story, […]

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TILMA: A Report from the Front Line

On Tuesday, I testified before the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on the Economy, which is holding public hearings on joining TILMA. The Legislative Assembly is broadcasting the hearings and promptly posting the recordings. To see my presentation, click “Video 1” for June 5 and use the bar immediately below the screen to advance the time to 48.5 minutes. A […]

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Olympic costs and benefits revisited

Way back in 2003, the CCPA produced a cost-benefit analysis of the 2010 Olympic Games. I think it still stands the test of time, and in any event it was the only such document produced that attempted to distinguish between costs and benefits in a coherent framework (the government tended to confuse the two, with public spending being treated as […]

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Alberta and BC elect more Conservatives than Ontario

In today’s column, Andrew Coyne examines the Conservative government’s decision to increase parliamentary representation in line with population growth for Alberta and BC, but not for Ontario. He suggests that this move is designed to appease Quebec, while steering clear of the obvious motive: additional Alberta/BC ridings are far more likely than additional Ontario ridings to elect Conservatives. PS – […]

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I want my MMP

An Ontario citizens’ assembly on electoral reform has come out in favour of a form of proportional representation known as mixed-member-proportional voting, or MMP. The Ontario Premier says it will be put to the people and will require a popular vote of more than 60%, which arguably makes sense for something as important as changing the voting system (though PR […]

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Fixing elections

I used to be skeptical of fixed election dates, as an American intrusion into our Canadian parliamentary ways. But having them in BC (introduced in 2001, with the last election mandated for May 2005 and the next for May 2009), I like them. It means that the opposition parties can prepare for an election in advance rather than waiting on […]

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Alcan

The Globe and Mail has run three major stories about Alcan in the past few days: Act I: “Alcan says tax makes it takeover bait” (April 27) Act II: “B.C. town may fight Alcan” (April 28) Act III: “$7-billion project deepens Alcan’s Gulf ties” (May 1) Alcan is a major Canadian-based multinational that produces aluminum. Bauxite, the basic raw material, […]

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Cleaning up cruise ships

The Harper government enacts yet another policy from the CCPA. Ross Klein, social work professor turned cruise industry watcher at Memorial University deserves a big round of applause for his efforts to shine a light on this problem. A cynic might comment that this is just an easy reform that beefs up Harper’s green credentials prior to the next election. […]

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Carbon trading on the west coast

This is a fascinating story arising out of BC’s newfound religion on climate change. It seems to me that the devil is in the details when it comes to carbon trading. A hard cap must be set and must be enforced with strong penalties. Allocating emission rights based on past performance is problematic, as it rewards those who are the […]

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Grady on the Conference Board and TILMA

Patrick Grady, a former senior Finance official and leading mainstream economist, has weighed in on the Conference Board’s estimate of TILMA’s economic benefits. He cites the paper that Marc and I wrote and reiterates the points first made on this blog. He also notes that the Conference Board’s own forecast of BC’s economic-growth rate does not seem to reflect its […]

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Canada’s Climate Forecast

The “uh oh” file is growing, as the next IPCC report comes out this Friday. In it are more graphic descriptions about what warming could mean for the planet and by region. Scary stuff that will hopefully take our governments to the next level beyond recognition and half-measures to something more meaningful. Below are some previews from the Toronto Star […]

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BC’s Unusual Expansion

Some notes by yours truly on the BC economy, based on a presentation I gave this past weekend: As a provincial economy, BC is relatively small and resource-dependent. Over past decades, there has been a growing divide between the “two economies” of Greater Vancouver (plus the provincial capitol in Victoria), with a more diversified and service-oriented economy, and the rest […]

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Vancouver’s housing challenge

The story below was the banner headline piece on page one of today’s Vancouver Sun, and is a perfect choice for the “we told you so” file. Three years ago, after being awarded the 2010 Olympics, our BC Solutions Budget (and in subsequent editions) made many of the same points as the Olympics Housing Roundtable’s soon-to-be-released report. This report, and […]

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