After ending strike action in early September following “significant progress” at the bargaining table, the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) last week announced the details of the tentative agreement reached with the B.C. NDP government.  No COLA Unfortunately for the 33,000 workers of the BCGEU, the details of the agreement are not looking good. […]

Being beaten, stabbed, sexually assaulted, shot with arrows, shot by police, lit on fire, and hunted through the streets like animals–these are recent examples of the intense violence inflicted on the homeless population of British Columbia, one of the richest provinces in one of the richest countries in the world.  This isn’t a particularly new […]

Some 1,000 government workers organized with the British Columbia General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) in the liquor and cannabis distribution sector have been on strike since August 15. The main demand of the union is for wage increases to keep pace with rising inflation, with the BCGEU specifically demanding a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) agreement.  While the B.C. […]

On Aug. 15, 1,000 government employees involved in liquor and cannabis distribution went on strike against inflation. This comes months after contract bargaining between the British Columbia General Employees Union (BCGEU) and the Public Service Agency (PSA) broke down over a series of insulting wage offers. After years of below-inflation wage increases and with inflation […]

What would normally be a profitable time of the year for B.C. Ferries has instead become a financial and organizational disaster. Ongoing ferry cancellations have disrupted both passenger and commercial traffic throughout Vancouver, the Gulf Islands and Victoria. The cause of the bulk of these cancellations is ongoing staff shortages with little end in sight. […]

The summer of 2021 in British Columbia was one of the hottest ever on record, caused by a weather event known as a heat dome. This once-in-1,000-years weather event (made 150 times more likely by climate change), saw temperatures of up to 49.6 C in the province. This unbearable heat led to the deaths of […]

The province of British Columbia has been granted a temporary exemption by the federal government to decriminalize all “hard” drugs. The request for the exemption was only made nearly six years after the opioid crisis was first declared a public health emergency by the province. In those six years, some 9,400 people died due to […]

The crisis of capitalism continues to deepen. This has exacerbated the housing crisis and led to an increase in homelessness across the country. Rising inflation and interest rates will only make things worse. The housing crisis in B.C. has been particularly acute, with university students hit particularly hard. According to British Columbia’s 2020-2021 homelessness survey, […]

Major roadways, including access to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal on Vancouver Island and the George Massey Tunnel, were blocked off June 13 during the Monday morning commute by Save Old Growth (SOG) protests. These protests are not the first of their kind, with the ongoing logging of old-growth trees facing a series of resistance […]

The B.C. NDP government is going ahead with its plan to build a new and costly museum to replace the Royal B.C. Museum. Under normal circumstances a government promising to replace an aging museum would be met with praise. And with the ending of most COVID restrictions the provincial government would like us all to […]