British Columbia

07/06/20
Author: 
Judith Lavoie
An ancient yellow cedar in an area of Dakota Ridge that's listed as a new cutblock by BC Timber Sales. Photo: Elphinstone Logging Focus

 Jun 5, 2020

Local conservation group asks province to cancel cutblocks containing ancient yellow cedars and unofficial bear sanctuary

A new plan plotting the course of the logging industry on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast over the next five years has placed a treasured forest, home to some of Canada’s oldest trees and an unofficial bear sanctuary, on the chopping block. 

03/06/20
Author: 
Andrew MacLeod
Darcy Dawson: ‘It’s not our fault the virus came out, so we should be able to come back to our jobs as we left it.’ Photo supplied.

June 1, 2020

Long layoffs mean employees lose the right to return to their jobs and businesses face big severance costs.

At 57, Darcy Dawson figured his job as a server in the restaurant at the Holiday Inn and Suites in downtown Vancouver would be his last before retirement. Then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and Dawson became one of the 400,000 people in the province thrown out of work.

30/05/20
Author: 
Ben Parfitt
Fort McKay First Nation member Michael Bouchier, middle, takes his friends on a boat ride toward a Suncor Energy operation on the Athabasca River. The Fort McKay recently won a legal battle against a new oilsands project near Moose Lake. Photo: Aaron Vincent Elkaim

May 28, 2020

A recent ruling by three Appeal Court justices has transformed the nature of Treaty 8 First Nations’ legal battles against the Site C dam and oil and gas development, finding the Crown must consider the cumulative impacts of industrial projects

When Woodland Cree Chiefs met with commissioners of the Crown at Lesser Slave Lake in June 1899 to sign Treaty 8, it’s likely no one completely understood the full scale of industrial development that lay ahead.

17/05/20
Author: 
David Fairey Co-Chair, BC Employment Standards Coalition
Vancouver Coastal Health declared a COVID-19 outbreak at the United Poultry Co. -Google Maps
 
From: David Fairey
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020
Subject: Paid Sick Leave Days Campaign Petition & May 21st Day of Action
 
Please sign our Coalition online petition to the BC government at the link in the e-mail below, and share the link with your networks. Here is a link to an opinion piece on the need for paid sick leave published in The Province newspaper May 3rd:
 
15/05/20
Author: 
Andrea Pinochet-Escudero and Derrick O’Keefe
In 2016, Syrian refugee families stayed at the 2400 Motel, which is on city-owned land along Kingsway.

[A link to the open letter is included near the bottom of the article. There is an option for individuals and organizations to sign on as endorsers.]

May 14th, 2020 

“When push comes to shove, we’re able to support people. So, why don’t we do that all the time?”

This rhetorical question is from B.C.'s human rights commissioner, Kasari Govender, in an article in which she describes homelessness as a “massive public health problem”. 

11/05/20
Author: 
Alex Nguyen
Myn Bee Farnazo is a Medical Technologist supporting testing of COVID-19 patients at the Provincial Hospital of South Cotabato, PhilippinesPhotos: UN Women/Louie Pacardo

MAY 9, 2020

Pandemic brings systemic issues around remittances and migrant labour exploitation into sharper focus

Since mid-March, the enhanced community quarantine imposed on the Philippines’s largest island in response to COVID-19 has caused life to grind to a halt, closing down public transportation and most businesses and throwing people out of work.

The effects of this dire situation have reached Canada, as many overseas Filipino workers and families face the urgent need to send remittances home despite their own precarious situations.

11/05/20
Author: 
Russ Diabo
‘When Trudeau allowed police to violently shut down the protests, it was clear he was offering us only one option: surrender to government dictates and compromise our rights through his termination negotiating tables.’ Photo by Amanda Follett Hosgood.

5 May 2020

Amidst the pandemic, a flawed negotiation approach quietly aims at assimilation, not reconciliation.

When measures to combat COVID-19 went into full effect in Canada, it was on the heels of cross-country protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs blocking a gas pipeline.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - British Columbia