Category — Economy

He was a rampaging Republican governor who tore up contracts to crush Wisconsin’s public sector unions, triggering a massive occupation of the state legislature. His apparent victory helped drive the Tea Party movement into high gear just two years ago.

Corporate executives across North America cheered, hoping for similar battles in their own local markets.

But now, in a dramatic example of how nothing in US politics stays the same, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is facing recall. The state’s unions, given up for dead, needed 540,000 signatures, but they gathered more than one million, weighing 1.5 tonnes, in a state with only three million voters.

It’s a plot Gordon Campbell would recognize, although he dodged recall. Not Walker, who must now face a mid-term vote along with four senators and the lieutenant governor. A state-wide referendum in Ohio defeated an anti-union initiative there, and Indiana is in turmoil over similar legislation.

Crushing the labour movement is always easier said than done.

Vancouver’s future economic success hinges as much on increasing the supply of affordable housing as it does on competitive taxes, the executive director of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission told council Tuesday.

It could also be more critical than a “rendering farm,” the massive computer hardware installation that makes data-heavy industries like digital special effects firms happy to be here. (The VEDC is working on one of those as well.)

Lee Malleau, who was unveiling the VEDC’s Economic Action Strategy, said Vancouver is emerging as a key hub of the video and digital special effects sector, along with Los Angeles and London. But unlike those two cities, Vancouver lacks reasonably-priced housing.

Creating that housing will be essential, Malleau said, if the city is to continue to attract international talent, whose wages will go much further in cities with cheaper homes.

Ever since Vancouver’s low barrier shelters opened in the wake of Gregor Robertson’s 2008 election victory, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association has carefully monitored aggressive panhandling, open drug use and numbers of street homeless in its 96-block district.

The latest summary, circulated last week by the BIA’s Charles Gauthier, shows that the benefits continue for downtown businesses, with incidents of street disorder trending down as shelters open.

Increasing housing costs and stagnant earnings  are putting young families on an economic treadmill, according to new research by UBC professor Paul Kerhsaw. They can’t get ahead no matter how hard they work.

The problem is nation-wide, but the worst right here in BC, Kershaw says, which until recently was proclaimed The Best Place on Earth. His solution: provincial childcare programs to reduce the cost of raising a family. Will business leaders heed his call? In this recent column for Business in Vancouver, I express my doubts. [Read more →]