The natural resource curse

On average, economies of resource-rich countries do not outperform countries lacking those natural materials. According to Jeffrey Frankel, Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard’s Kennedy School, this results from undesirable side effects of resource extraction…

A cunning plan

Gaining billions of dollars, with a promise of $50 billion more, by selling an unneeded product to a single customer for a multiple of market value ought to earn IPPs a featured place in the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

Learning politics

A British television series broadcast in the 1980s may explain public administration better than any political science journal or textbook. This video clip from Yes Prime Minister could be about British Columbia’s approach to climate change, or it could be about the BC NDP’s response to COVID-19, or flooding, or about any emergency that confronts the province.

Pessimism seems appropriate

Instead of following science, which says fossil fuel production must decrease immediately, Canadian governments use taxpayer dollars to increase the output of coal, oil, and gas. I will be gone before the worst happens but people I love will face devastation. Pessimism seems appropriate.

Politics harder than it looks — Updated

Instead of giving up power to climate activists, NDP leaders are more likely to drive them out of the party. There remains a chance Anjali Appadurai will not be allowed to run for NDP leadership. People joining the party are required to make a declaration of support for party policies and principles of John Horgan’s NDP. The climate activist and her followers seem to oppose both.

Screwed!

Because corrupt practices of the past are not easily resolved in court, it may be too late to save the billions of dollars that will flow to private power producers. But it is not too late for voters to punish political figures who originated or tolerated this grand scheme. They sit on both sides of the BC Legislature.

Straight talk about lame talk

New owners took over The Georgia Straight two years ago. That quickly led to changes that are not reader-friendly. However, their website still offers useful commentary and is particularly worth visiting when Martyn Brown’s work appears. His latest column is a critique of a person often seen and heard in BC media…

BC is good at climate action failure

Peter McCartney wrote about government and industry turning northeast British Columbia into a sacrifice zone: If this destruction were happening in the Lower Mainland or the Capital Regional District, it would be unthinkable. But successive provincial governments have allowed an entire region to be sacrificed to gas development—and even given billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the companies responsible.