When Justice Kenneth Affleck jailed a senior who was honestly motivated to improve the world, the judge was following a long-established Canadian legal tradition. It dictates: Punishment need not fit the crime when the perpetrator is a white-collar criminal or a senior officer of a wealthy corporation.
Continue readingTag: Mount Polley
In-Sights: Premier Horgan, where were you on Mount Polley?
Compare the passage of 4 years without a charge against Mount Polley operators to the quick response when a rude 19-year-old released an adult-sized blow-up doll over West Vancouver’s Ambleside beach. He was arrested within two weeks and faces a charge of mischief under Canada’s Criminal Code.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Economist observes that the effects of climate change fall disproportionately on poorer people, rather than the wealthier ones who have caused more of the damage: The costs of global climate change will again be unevenly (and uncertainly) distributed, but harm will often
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Rachel West charts how higher wages and improved social supports can reduce crime rates and their resulting costs.- Lana Payne comments on the glass ceiling still limiting the wages and opportunities availabl…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Jackson examines the effect of a federal minimum wage – and how it would benefit both workers and employers. – Dylan Matthews offers a primer on a basic income, featuring this on how a secure income has little impact on individuals’
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: BC teachers and First Nations on the frontlines
My guests today help take a fresh look at two issues where British Columbia is on the front lines of bigger social conflicts: that over the future of public education and that over resource development on First Nations lands. https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/podcast-140905-bc-frontlines1.mp3 My first guest is Helesia Luke, life-long public education advocate and member of the board
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Eve-Lyne Couturier discusses the rot in the state of Canadian labour negotiations, as workers outside of the 1% are being systematically denied any of the benefit of economic growth. – Meanwhile, Dean Baker points out that it’s only by choice that the vast
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot discusses how a market-based society makes people unhealthy in a myriad of ways – and how it’s worth maintaining our innate reluctance to value everything and everybody around us solely in terms of dollar values: The market was meant to emancipate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jack Peat argues for trickle-up economics to ensure that everybody shares in our common resources (while also encouraging economic development): Good capitalism is the ability to promote incentives and opportunity in equal measure. Sway too far one way and the potential of
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Mount Polley: Questioning business as usual
There are many frames that can be used to try to understand the disaster that unravelled last week at the Mount Polley mine in central British Columbia when a dam holding in a tailings pond burst and spilled millions of litres of toxic sludge into creeks and lakes. My aim
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