I was in the budget lock-up in Ottawa back in 2009, when the feds announced a home renovation tax credit as part of the stimulus package, and one of my first thoughts was “kitchen reno”. Months later we had a nice kitchen upgrade to enjoy as our contribution to getting the Canadian economy back on […]
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eaves.ca: Province of BC launches Open Data Catalog: What works
As revealed yesterday, the province of British Columbia became the first provincial government in Canada to launch a open data portal. It’s still early but here are some things that I think they’ve gotten right. 1. License: Getting it Right (part 1) Before anything else happens, this is probably the single biggest good news story […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How much does poverty cost BC?
We’ve known for a long time that we all pay for poverty. We just didn’t know how much. This is the question I investigate in my latest CCPA report The Cost of Poverty in BC. If you’re not in the mood for reading the report, you can watch a short video that summarizes the findings […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Deconstructing BC’s carbon neutral government
Besides the carbon tax, one of the most important BC government climate action initiatives has been the adoption of Carbon Neutral Government. That is, count emissions from public buildings and travel, reduce them as much as possible and pay for carbon offsets to negate the rest. As of the 2010 calendar year, the BC government […]
Continue readingArt Threat: $16.8 million in arts funding goes to BC Arts Council
Last Thursday, July 7, BC’s Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, Ida Chong, announced $16.8 million in funding for the arts, to be administered through the BC Arts Council. This amount is the second-highest level received by the BC Arts Council in its history. In the announcement, Minister Chong apologized for the long delay […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is BC about to drop a new carbon bomb?
Any day now the BC government should be releasing the latest greenhouse gas data for the province, and we will see if any progress is being made towards a legislated 33% reduction in emissions by 2020 (relative to 2007 levels; data will be for 2009 and we know that emissions rose in 2008). Below the […]
Continue readingTerahertz: Democracy or policy?
With the HST referendum underway and ballots supposedly in the mail (I should have mine in the next couple days…) I’ve had a thought that there may be a bigger question than the subtleties of consumption taxation. The question has to deal with two issues near and dear to my heart: Democracy and evidenced-based policy. […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: BC’s Regressive Tax Shift
With much of the talk on taxes in BC about the HST, we issued a new report today that looks at the bigger context for BC’s tax system (Vancouver Sun oped here, CTV News story here). Iglika Ivanova, Seth Klein and I compare and contrast BC’s tax system after a decade where tax cuts were […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Not allowed to talk about poverty
BC Stats put out a release yesterday with the headline “Low Income Cut-Offs (LICOs) are a Poor Measure of Poverty” and author Dan Schrier gets in a dirty hit right in first paragraph: Despite protestations from Statistics Canada that LICOs are not meant to be used as a measure of poverty, there are many groups […]
Continue readingTerahertz: Why I’m voting YES for NO HST
So the referendum is technically on for the BC HST; however, with the postal strike, it’s hard to know when I’ll actually get my ballot. Nevertheless, when my ballot does come, I will be voting yes to extinguish the HST. Of course, it’s not a simple issue. The HST is a simpler tax for businesses […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: BC to Raise Corporate Taxes
Amazingly, BC’s government has joined its official opposition in proposing to restore the provincial corporate income tax rate from 10% to 12%. The same government that cut from 12% to 10% would now reverse itself as part of a last-ditch effort to save the HST. Revenue from a higher corporate tax rate would help finance […]
Continue readingmike watkins dot ca: The Fall of Christy Clark?
B.C. by-election Wednesday to decide if the un-elected Premier of British Columbia gets a seat in legislature
One incredibly obvious plant was from a woman named Anna Lilly.
I’m rarely going to be in perfect agreement with Alex Tsakumis on any topic…
Terahertz: 2 votes, 2 weeks
May 11th. Just over one week after the federal election, myself and voters of Vancouver-Point Grey will be going back to the polls to vote for/against Christy Clark in the byelection she just announced. Perhaps she’s hoping that since the NDP don’t even have a leader yet (not till Sunday) and are likely busy fighting […]
Continue readingTerahertz: My vote for BC NDP leader: Mike Farnworth
After a long campaign, highlighted more by how much the leaders agreed than any substantive disagreements (except maybe on who hates Gordon Campbell the most), voting has commenced for the BC NDP, and I have made my votes. It’s a preferential ballot, and I tried to balance competing needs in my head, yet I don’t […]
Continue readingArt Threat: The things they carried – Photographer Brian Howell explores shopping cart culture
The series comprises 25 large-scale photographs of shopping carts that were purchased firsthand from their owners in Vancouver and around the Lower Mainland.
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