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What a year it’s been in B.C. politics. This month marked one year since the cliffhanger 2017 election. Following weeks of political uncertainty, Christy Clark and her Liberal Party were ultimately removed from power by the thinnest of margins possible. Clark resigned her seat in Kelowna soon thereafter and the party was left to pick…
Another Earth Day has come and gone, but what have we really learned? The more evidence accumulates that humanity is facing a veritable emergency as a result of global climate change, the more it seems our political leaders are unable or unwilling to act with the necessary urgency. This paradox was on display last week…
The past year has seen some of the most dramatic and unlikely political outcomes in provincial history. By the thinnest of margins, and ultimately on the call of B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor, Christy Clark and her B.C. Liberals were finally ousted from the legislature – a stunning end to the party’s 16-year run in power. With…
It’s budget week in B.C., and the expectations on the NDP provincial government couldn’t be higher. Under the Liberals, housing costs grew out of control in a wildly overheated real estate market. The result was windfall profits for the former government’s corporate donors, and increased precarity for renters and middle and low-income people. All eyes…
For John Horgan and the NDP, the honeymoon is over. For many of the party’s long-suffering supporters, the euphoria felt last summer – after Horgan and Green leader Andrew Weaver cobbled together an agreement to kick out the BC Liberals and let the NDP hold power – has turned to demoralization and even feelings of…
The Vancouver neighbourhood of Marpole has become a flashpoint in the fierce debate over how to solve the city’s housing emergency. Some local residents have objected loudly to the municipal government’s announcement that 78 units of temporary modular housing are being built at the corner of 59th Avenue and Heather Street. Over 2000 people have…
For weeks now Vancouver has been covered in ads urging us to “Fight for Beauty,” promoting a so-called exhibit downtown. With bus shelters ads, google ads, youtube ads, and countless full page newspaper ads, this one of the most prominent marketing campaigns the city has seen in years. But what is really behind this supposed…
Three years ago this fall, Burnaby Mountain became a flashpoint in the cross-Canada battle against the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and its aggressive pro-pipeline agenda. In late 2014, the Texas-based multinational Kinder Morgan began carrying out test drilling for their proposed Trans Mountain expansion project. This supposed “twinning” of an existing pipeline from northern…
With the neoliberal consensus shattered worldwide, the soon-to-be new B.C. government must act decisively Progressive politics should be a broad and ecumenical church. No one is born a socialist, a liberal, or a conservative; we are all learning and evolving beings, with ideas shaped by our upbringing, race, gender, class position – and by the…
The month of May has been one of the strangest interregnums in the history of a province that has had its share of idiosyncratic and, well, wacky politics. Election night left everybody hanging, and the recounts and absentee ballots – which were only tabulated two weeks later – only narrowed the margin of the closest…
The B.C. election is going to come down to the wire. Polls show a tight race between the BC Liberals and the NDP, with the Green Party in third place and within striking distance in a few seats on Vancouver Island. On May 9, voters in B.C. will make a clear choice on whether to…
Call it the 16-year itch. Christy Clark and the BC Liberals are looking more and more like a government that has worn out its welcome. This was bound to happen at some point, even to a party like the Liberals who enjoy the overwhelming support of the province’s business and media establishment. Sometimes the grudges…
There are more than half a million renters in British Columbia. In Vancouver fully half of us rent, although you wouldn’t know it from the way homeowners, developers, and real estate agents dominate the media and political discussion of housing. While those in the market get all the attention, the worst victims of our city’s…
