Land value tax should replace community amenity contributions
According to the City of Vancouver, “community amenity contributions (CACs) are in-kind or cash contributions provided by property developers when city council grants development rights through...
Editorial: Canada’s Trump tirade unification plan
When it comes to unifying catalysts, there’s nothing quite like a good presidential tirade. That appears to be a key take-away from the recent G7 summit. As has been well documented, Prime Minister...
Trudeaumania 2.0’s glamour train is rapidly running out of track
Conventional wisdom is that, while bizarre, it is a badge of distinction as Canadians to have the world’s most powerful person suddenly like his adversary, the cultish nuke-hungry autocratic...
B.C. housing crisis cure: more supply and transit, less red tape
Second of two parts So what caused B.C.’s housing crisis and what should the BC NDP government be doing to preserve jobs and make housing more affordable? In 1990, the average mortgage rate was...
Twitter terminations are not always clear-cut for business
Almost as quickly as Roseanne Barr’s Twitter meltdown hit the headlines and racist rants by others gained infamy on social media, the perpetrators of those outbursts were fired. Welcome to the...
Editorial: Phoenix pay system payback time
The federal government’s interminable Phoenix pay system fiasco reinforces the need to bring meaningful accountability to the ranks of government bureaucracy, especially at its most senior level. At...
Infusion of private capital could help revive Vancouver’s lifeless public parks
A friend, broadcaster Jody Vance, swears to me she did not pull strings last week to get her issue heard on the local news. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, though. I’m about to do the...
Meeting the main man staking out Kinder Morgan middle ground
The man in the middle is quite a man. Ernie Crey, leader of the Cheam First Nation, has arguably emerged as the most important factor in finding the middle path in the national and provincial...
The case for more empathy in the new world of law
Theresa Wiseman, a nursing scholar from the University of Southampton, describes empathy as having four characteristics: •perspective taking – recognizing another’s truth as our own; •refraining...
Best ways for business to manage the new social media minefield
Privacy issues related to social media have been all over the news in the last few months. As public debate continues, employers should carefully consider how they use the personal information about...