Happy New Year, everyone! May your New Year’s resolutions be successful. In keeping with the season, here are a few of my wishes for 2019. Progress on the basic income front Last summer, the provincial government appointed a three-person panel of experts to look at the viability of guaranteed basic income in BC. CBC Radio…
Category: climate change
2018: A year of ups and downs for social justice
This is my last blog of 2018, so now is a good time to reflect on some of the highlights centering on social justice that were significant to me this year. To start, I was so heartened to witness the comeback of COPE, a party very important to me and one I’ve been heavily involved…
Calling the federal budget “progressive” doesn’t make it so
Many have suggested that Tuesday’s federal budget was a progressive one. I am not so sure. While it contained many welcome initiatives, such as improved parental leave and significant increases in funding for indigenous issues, I was very disappointed to see three critical items omitted. First on the list is a national childcare program. I…
Letting the light in for the New Year
As the year has wound down, it’s time to look back on it and forward to 2017. 2016 has seen many dark clouds. The election of Donald Trump was perhaps the darkest one of all. Justin Trudeau appears to have lost his appetite for proportional representation, and climate change is accelerating. No one would blame…
Is Kinder Morgan going to be Justin Trudeau’s Standing Rock?
I’ve been one part saddened and one part outraged by the video footage coming out of Standing Rock, North Dakota over the last number of weeks as passive, unarmed water protectors are attacked on a daily basis, sometimes by police in riot gear. Police and security forces have not hesitated to use attack dogs, Taser…
Making real “dates” for dumping fossil fuels
Some great news on the climate change front this week as Canada joins the ranks of a number of other nations in committing to a firm date by which we will no longer be burning coal. The Liberal government announced on Monday that by 2030 coal use in Canada will be a thing of the…
Are the federal Liberals really serious about climate change?
Like many Canadians, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals during their first year in office. I even suggested in a previous blog that the saying “they campaign from the left but govern from the right” might finally no longer apply to the current incarnation of the party. But I suffered…