Think you can avoid the carbon tax by riding your bike? Think again
British Columbians are now paying even more to heat, eat and drive to work. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's most recent carbon tax hike has found a willing follower in British Columbia Premier John Horgan. When Team Trudeau was fighting against several provinces at the Supreme Court of Canada, saying he should be able to impose…
We need the power to recall local politicians who are doing a bad job between elections
Most people probably haven’t spent much time in a champagne room, but taxpayers in the Kamloops area have paid the tab for that kind of fancy night out. Folks there are grappling with a shocking amount of bad spending by their local government, and it’s highlighting our province’s need for a municipal auditor general and…
To attract the investment required to develop resources, mitigating the risks of policy uncertainly needs to be a top priority
By Jairo Yunis and Elmira Aliakbari The Fraser Institute The COVID recession has hurt Canada’s natural resources sector, with supply disruptions, commodity price declines and greater uncertainty regarding future demand. Not surprisingly, capital investment in the Canadian mining industry has dropped to its lowest level since 2009. Of course, business investment should be a key…
It’s time to rein in the runaway salaries instead of saying you are going to and then reneging
In gift-giving etiquette, de-gifting is the most egregious foul. It’s worse than a re-gifter. There’s all the fanfare of opening the gift and thanking the giver. But then the gift is unceremoniously repossessed. Pro tip: don’t invite TransLink to your next birthday party. TransLink made headlines last spring when executives issued a press release saying…
Governments have more resources and delays can drag on for years. Indigenous peoples pay heavily for the delays in resolving their claims
At any given time, the government of Canada is dealing with hundreds of legal matters with Indigenous Canadians. This is inevitable given the complexity of Indigenous rights, the history of Canadian policy and patterns of government ‘lawlessness’ that left the country liable for the administrative misdeeds of the past 150-plus years. The number, diversity and…
The Yukon government recently unveiled a procurement policy that offers a roadmap for Canadian jurisdictions like B.C.
The Business Council of British Columbia sees “a generational opportunity to accelerate and realize a new future where Indigenous communities and businesses are equitably participating in B.C.’s open trading economy.” And Kim Baird, a First Nations leader and advocate, says: “From resource extraction projects on First Nation traditional territories to First Nations developing their reserve…
‘This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a facility where MAID is not offered’
You might think the middle of a global pandemic is less than an ideal time to disrupt the operations of a hospice where palliative care patients receive comfort as they approach death. If so, you would not share the apparent thinking of the B.C. government or its local Fraser Health Authority, which is forcing layoffs…
The impact of oil and natural gas is significant, whether it is for salaries, Indigenous jobs, or GDP
By Mark Milke and Ven Venkatachalam Canadian Energy Centre How much do the oil and natural gas industries contribute to British Columbia’s economy? One way to see the impact is to look at those of Indigenous ancestry. Their employment proportions across sectors and incomes reveals a lot about where the good-paying jobs are, and also…
Elections will turn us away from dealing with the real issues. And we don't seem to have the means to conduct safe voting
We would really like to have many things right now, even though the prospect of getting them any time soon is rather low. A vaccine against COVID-19 is likely at the top of the list. A bit more certainty about our work and social prospects is probably a close second. Instead of dealing with the…
Absent a wholesale restructuring of the economy, meeting the 2030 goal will be an impossible task
By Jock Finlayson and Denise Mullen Business Council of B.C. Targets. We all know what they mean, or think we do. Several words convey essentially the same notion – e.g., goals, objectives, ambitions and intentions. The idea is about getting something accomplished at some point in the future. This brings us to B.C.’s greenhouse gas…