Category — Economy

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 →]

With all-candidates’ meetings over and five days of door-knocking remaining before Saturday’s election decision, I realize there were three questions I expected but seldom encountered at all candidates’ meetings. I participated in about six meetings, I think — it’s all a blur — from small community centre affairs to the large transportation forum chaired by Gordon Price last week.

But I heard little about:

1. The crisis for renters

Although half the city rents, few meetings had the intensity we experienced in 2008 with “renovictions” soaring and vacancy rates near zero. The situation for renters has not improved, but the very significant launch of  a new rental housing coalition got little coverage last week. Only Vision Vancouver is making specific commitments to help renters and has generated significant new rental housing construction since the last election.

2. The crisis in the global economy

Although Greece’s economy imploded since nominations closed and Italy has gone to the brink, the economy almost never arose. Meetings generally stayed close to local issues like zoning and housing prices. (Many discussions centred on the impact, if any, of mysterious “foreign” investors.)

But Vision’s platform does lay out specific proposals to support job creation and innovation in Vancouver. I spoke hopefully, in an early-campaign news release, of “economic recovery,” a prospect that seems to be fading in light of the latest news.

3. Climate change and global warming

Perhaps because support and engagement around the Greenest City Action Plan is so broad, there were few arguments about the need to work harder to make Vancouver green.  But the decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline means that the push to export bitumen from Metro Port Vancouver will intensify. Vision is the only party with a comprehensive environmental program and convened a special council meeting last year to shine a light on growing oil exports from our port.

Without a strong Vision team at all three levels — council, school and parks — Mayor Gregor Robertson will be hard-pressed to deliver on these commitments, despite their obvious importance.

Did “common sense” put Toronto in near-terminal decline? That’s the disturbing conclusion of veteran Toronto urban affairs writer John Lorinc, who traces Toronto’s crumbling transit infrastructure and fractured politics to Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution of the 1990s.

With Suzanne Anton’s NPA crew offering voters a Vancouver version of Harris’ “common sense” platform in the Nov. 19 election, Lorinc’s deep analysis of “How Toronto Lost Its Groove and Why the Rest of Canada Shouldn’t Gloat,” published in the latest issue of The Walrus, makes for unsettling reading.

Harris’ first blow came in 1995, according to Lorinc, with a botched amalgamation of a dozen cities into the Greater Toronto Authority, a “smaller government” scheme that left the region with 25 mayors, 244 municipal officials and a destructive competition among larger municipalities for economic development and senior government funding.

The second hit came in 1997 when Harris “relieved” municipalities of education funding obligations but handed them the cost of public transit and housing. (Although Lorinc holds up Metro Vancouver’s governance system as a model, it arguably has many of the same deficiencies.)

Of course, Vancouver is not the GTA and a Vancouver election is not the same as an Ontario election. But the “common sense” philosophy is a direct link between Harris, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and the NPA platform. All in all, it’s a cautionary tale.

The economic downturn is exacting a higher toll on immigrants than other Canadians, according to this new analysis, as immigrant levels of unemployment rise and wages stagnate.

The findings suggest that cities like Surrey, Burnaby and Vancouver, with their high share of recent immigrants, may find their economic recoveries lagging as well.