Posts from — January 2010

BC’s labour movement, always quick to criticize the Campbell government for its fiscal and economic shortcomings, has decided to offer some positive suggestions from surprisingly conservative – even very Conservative — sources.
Two economic policy papers debated at the BC Federation of Labour’s recent convention drew inspiration from such unlikely political leaders as former Social Credit premier Bill Bennett, Newfoundland’s Danny “Chavez” Williams and Alberta’s Ed Stelmach to backstop proposals for a dramatic overhaul of corporate tax and royalty regimes.
The recommendations were rolled up in the federation’s “action plan” and adopted by convention delegates as policy, making them the framework for labour’s BC economic agenda.
While one paper focused on a wide range of private sector initiatives, where four out of five BC workers have jobs, the other offers prescriptions to make the public sector a better pillar of a strong economy.
At the core of the policy, prepared by longtime BC budget analyst Will McMartin, and Iglika Ivanova, an economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, is a recommendation to increase public spending to 18 percent of BC’s gross domestic product, as it was in the era Bill Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm.
That’s a $4.5 billion lift to about $34.5 billion from the current 15.6 percent level under Gordon Campbell, a legacy of his many years of corporate tax cuts.
The federation argues this new revenue could fund:
•    an increase in health funding, where BC is spending less per capita than seven other provinces;
•    a province-wide childcare program, akin to Quebec’s, which generates $2 in economic benefits for every dollar invested, while freeing up more women to work and reducing child poverty;
•    a 50 percent lift in welfare benefits, with the goal of reducing homelessness and its associated costs;
•    about $400 million a year into affordable housing to create jobs and reduce poverty;
•    reduced tuition for post-secondary and apprenticeship training to improve workforce skills; and
•    a clear long-term budget commitment to the Auditor General so he or she can be sure the money is well-spent.
As the federation sees it, this sort of public spending will do much to restore luster to an economy in which, as the BC Business Council laments, “the sources of growth in recent years can simply be described as real estate and shopping.”
Where to find the new cash?
BC’s unions like the idea of a royal commission into taxation, the first in this province in a century, to identify the level and mix of taxes best suited to a strong economy.
But labour is impressed by the efforts of Williams and Stelmach to squeeze more money out of oil royalties. For starters, says the Fed, book about $1 billion a year based on Alberta’s expectations for increased revenue. And if you link BC water rates to consumer prices for the electricity generated you could add another $1.8 billion to $2 billion a year.
Then there’s corporate taxes. After reviewing the doubling of corporate profits between 2002 and 2008, the federation believes business should chip in an additional $2.5 billion a year, leaving about 80 percent of profits in the hands of business.
While this may cause fainting spells in corporate board rooms, the federation argues this leaves a significant share – about $1 billion a year — of Campbell-era tax cuts intact.
Crown corporations would not be let off the hook. Labour’s goal: make them step up for another $1 billion a year.
There you have it: a renewed public sector investing to make the private sector strong!

January 2010

The heaviest Coke bottle ever: Life or Inuuq, three feet of solid granite by Jerry Ell at Canada Northern House.

I expected the polar bear, the arctic wolf, the extraordinary wilderness videos, but not the three-and-a-half foot solid granite Coke bottle engraved with images from Inuit life.

But it’s all there in Canada’s Northern House, the first exhibition space to be “activated” for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. The two-floor pavilion opened today.

Like most Canadians, I spend most of my life with my back turned to the north, although that’s where most of our country and much of our future lies. I’ve visited the Western Arctic on a single occasion, Yellowknife twice, Nunavut never.

But Northern House, a joint project of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut made me want to pack up and go.

The space at 602 West Hastings includes a remarkable art gallery with a number of modern Inuit masterpieces, including one centred on a carved narwhal tusk.

Upstairs, it’s all about a remarkably beautiful and often icebound land, home to about 100,000 people, now producing gold, diamonds and much else. It’s well worth a visit.

The Coke bottle? It’s one of 14 commissioned by Coca Cola to be auctioned off at the Games to benefit the Aboriginal Youth Legacy Fund.

With the curtain going up on the 2010 olympic Winter Games in 29 days,  seven out of 10 British Columbians think the whole effort is costing too much.

That’s much higher than the 50-50 split on the issue in the rest of Canada in an Ekos poll released today.

When CBC Newsworld host Evan Solomon asked Ekos president Frank Graves if a gold medal in hockey would move the numbers in favour, Graves laughed and said, “probably.”

He then added that a tepid economic recovery, sketchy job market and growing government deficits have all contributed to a public view that now is not the time to host an event Vancouver,  BC and Canada pledged to host in 2003.

The Olympic Village Neighbourhood Energy Utility stacks in action.

The Olympic Village’s Neighbourhood Energy Utility,  scheduled to open officially tomorrow, is receiving a final touch-up under the Cambie Bridge, but it is already driving energy, generated from waste heat in the sewer system, to the Olympic Village.

In the long run, this demonstration project may be one of the most important legacies of the Games, a green energy generator that may later be expanded to East False Creek Flats and beyond.

Why five stacks? Each has a role. Today’s steam is a from the system’s boiler.  Others serve other purposes, venting scrubbers and even the emergency diesel back-up generator.