Vancouver activists corrupt Occupy movement
This blog comes to you from the United States …where the Occupy movement is real and still relevant.Make no mistake about it there is a BIG difference between the majority of those keeping the Occupy movement alive down south and those Occupy pretenders in Vancouver/Victoria who have co-opted and stolen the original cause. ...
Wake up and listen to Occupiers
The amazingly resilient Occupy phenomenon is running up against the same ugly reality that so many social movements have encountered over the past 20 years: There is a world of difference between influence and power. Governments and the corporations they serve have power — that is, the power of money (and the law) to make ...
COMMENT: Making the case for electoral finance reform
Catching a politician with their hand in the cookie jar is far more juicy than actually building a better cookie jar, so it's little surprise that proposing changes to BC's electoral finance laws is hardly seen as sexy. But if voters truly want accountability and transparency restored to BC politics, it starts with prying the...
Stephen Harper’s social engineering
The Harper government’s announcement that it will change the laws regarding capital gains taxes to encourage more charitable giving strikes an ominous note for the country’s political culture. Harper is mimicking the Conservatives in Britain who are trying to pull the same trick with what they call the Big Society initiative...
Greenpeace returns ocean destruction to Canadian tuna giant Clover Leaf
Greenpeace activists visited Clover Leaf Seafoods’ Canadian headquarters this morning to return cases of the company’s canned tuna products and deliver a platter of simulated marine life remains, representing the wasteful fisheries the company sources from. “Canadian consumers deserve better than Clover Leaf’s canned ocean ...
Kudos to Harper for shipbuilding methodology
It’s as much a tradition as Hockey Night in Canada: awarding federal contracts on the basis of political seats, powerful clout and, in essence, attempts to bribe voters. I saw that personally while covering Parliament Hill, when Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney overruled all technical assessments and recommendations...
Occupy: What can it teach the left?
The occupy movement has been a like a powerful cleansing wind blowing over the political landscape – exposing not just the obscenely rich, and criminally irresponsible political elite, but almost every other political player too: cowardly liberals, cautious social democrats, the strangely silenced churches, social movements...
COMMENT: The costs of being aboriginal in BC
Being First Nations in BC comes at too high a price. We all know the statistics: dismal success at (white) school; endemic poverty on and off reserve; half the prison population despite being only three percent of the Canadian population; high incidence of sexual abuse; the too high a percentage of children in care; high...
ANALYSIS: What is the Keystone XL Pipeline — and why is it so controversial?
By Lois Beckett in ProPublica.By the end of this year, the State Department will decide whether to give a Canadian company permission to construct a 1,700-mile, $7 billion pipeline that would transport crude oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. The project has sparked major environmental concerns, particularly in Nebraska,...
COMMENT: Time of use billing has always been the plan for Smart Meters
A confidential report on BC Hydro Smart Meter Business Case by Horizon Technologies Inc. states that "BC Hydro will maintain the same rate structures when Smart Meters are first put in, and implement new rate structures afterwards; so that Smart Meters aren't blamed for higher rates."Read the full confidential report here.Rich...
