Redeye

For far too long, manufacturing giants have exploited Canadian consumers by making their products increasingly expensive and challenging to repair through restrictive warranties, software locks, and restrictions on access to spare parts and manuals, forcing people to replace their products more often. Now there’s a private member’s bill before Parliament to give consumers the ‘right to repair’. We talk about the issue and the bill with Matt Hatfield of Open Media.

Roger Emsley has been watching and commenting on a Vancouver Port Authority proposal to expand the Roberts Bank coal and container terminal since 2013. Finally, after almost 10 years, the public may have the answer next month. Roger Emsley joins me to talk about the major threats to biodiversity that the project represents and the pending announcement.

Jim Stanford is Director of the Centre for Future Work and is one of Canada’s best-known economic commentators. The webinar “Pick your poison: inflation, recession…or both” was organized by The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Stanford breaks down the factors that have led to current inflationary crisis and how the Bank of Canada is risking an avoidable and painful recession by just raising interest rates and not looking at the factors that got us here. We bring you his presentation in our episode today.

The UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal – COP 15 – starts in December. Countries from around the world are expected to agree on a biodiversity framework. The federal government has called on the provinces and territories to help meet the key goal of the biodiversity conference: to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve its full recovery by 2050. However, a new independent audit by biologist Jared Hobbs highlights huge legal gaps driving species extinction in B.C. We speak with Jens Wieting of Sierra Club BC.

The Living Wage is the hourly rate that a family of four needs to live modestly in BC. It has been calculated every year since 2008. This year’s report was released two days ago and it shows that, for the first time in a decade and a half, the living wage has significantly increased, driven by a spike in the cost of food and shelter. The rate was calculated in 22 communities across BC this year. We talk with Anastasia French, Provincial Manager of Living Wage for Families BC.

In March of this year, Québec senator Rosa Galvez tabled Bill S-243, the Climate Aligned Finance Act. Her bill aims to hold governments and financial institutions to account for their actions, and halt the widespread financial backing of fossil fuels. We speak about the bill with Bruce Campbell, Senior Fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University's Centre for Free Expression.

Despite dire predictions that the pandemic would be a big blow to provincial finances, most provinces have enough funds to pay for the important programs and investments that Canadians need, according to a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives national office. Here in BC, the extent of the province’s fiscal and economic latitude goes well beyond what is discussed in the national report. We speak with economist Alex Hemingway.

The Superior Court of Quebec has issued a landmark decision, finding that police roadside interceptions are often based on skin colour rather than on road safety objectives. Judge Michel Yergeau ruled that the law allowing for such arbitrary detention can no longer stand. The case was brought by Joseph-Christopher Luamba, a 22 year old black Montrealer, who told the court he prepares to pull over whenever he sees a police cruiser. We speak with Laura Berger, staff lawyer with the Canadian Civil Liberties association, an intervenor in the case.

On November 1st, a provincial committee released their report on the toxic drug supply and overdose crisis. The report contains 37 recommendations looking at everything from BC's proposed decriminalization to treatment beds. In response, nearly 60 organizations and individuals released an open letter saying the report obscures the issue of a poisoned drug supply, and recommends nothing outside of the status quo. We speak with Caitlin Shane of Pivot Legal.

City Beat reporter Ian Mass joins us to talk about the new Vancouver City Council’s first meeting. This includes a motion to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, Chinatown, street nurses and police, who appear to want to champion social service reform in the DTES all by themselves.

In February this year, the estimated cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project jumped by more than 70%. When the Trans Mountain Corporation announced the increase back in February, we were told that the government would spend no additional public money on the project. A new report by independent economist Robyn Allan says this is not the case, and that the federal government is hiding the real situation from Canadians. We speak with Eugene Kung, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law who commissioned the report.

One of the first pieces of business the new Vancouver City Council will deal with is a motion from newly re-elected Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung asking council to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism and the definition’s list of examples. City Beat reporter Ian Mass joins me to talk about that motion and other plans coming from this new city council.

Thousands of Ontario education workers hit picket lines on Nov 4 after the Ford government passed Bill 28, using the notwithstanding clause to deny workers the right to strike and imposing a contract on 55,000 CUPE members. We speak with Ryan Kelpin, PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at York University and research associate at the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

In April 2020, a group of academics in the Netherlands wrote a manifesto for a post-pandemic recovery. It proposed an approach to building economies where green and socially valuable sectors were promoted, and harmful industries like oil and gas, and even advertising, were demoted. This fledgling movement is called Degrowth. Now a new book helps bring the ideas of degrowth out for discussion. The book is The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism. We speak with one of the book’s three co-authors, Aaron Vansintjan.

In September, Cuban citizens at home and abroad cast their ballots in a referendum on the country’s new Families Code. The Code passed by 67%, expanding legal rights for women, children and LGBTQ+ people. The new code has been described as one of the most progressive piece of social policy in the world. Owen Schalk is a writer based in Winnipeg. He was in Cuba this spring and he joins today to talk about the new Families Code.

This week Vancouver City Council considered the final report of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Task Force. The report was developed in a partnership with Musqueam Indian Band, Squamish Nation, and Tsleil-Waututh Nation and the City of Vancouver. The task force states that the calls to action are the first of their kind in Canada and will lead to Vancouver becoming both a national and world leader in implementing a clear strategy towards UNDRIP and reconciliation with nations whose lands and waters the city occupies. We speak with task force co-chair Christine Boyle.force co-chair Christine Boyle.Read the report: https://council.vancouver.ca/20221025/documents/p1.pdf

In 2001, Dr. Norma Dunning applied to the Nunavut Beneficiary program, seeking legal recognition of her status as an Inuk woman. In the application process, she was faced with a question she could not answer, "What was your disc number?” Her new book Kinauvit: What’s Your Name is the result of two decades of research into the Eskimo Identification System and its impact on Inuit lives. It’s also a personal account of her search for her grandmother. We speak with Dr. Norma Dunning.

A new report by Independent Jewish Voices documents in detail the reprisals, harassment and intimidation faced by Canadians who engage in scholarship and activism in the area of Palestinian human rights. The report discusses how this chilling effect blunts and shapes the discourse around Palestinian rights and criticism of Israeli policy. We speak with report co-author, Sheryl Nestel.

Municipal elections on October 15 changed the political landscape all over the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. Redeye collective member Ian Mass joins us with his City Beat report to talk about the surprises and some of the challenges facing these new municipal governments.

On September 14, Marjorie Griffin Cohen gave the 2022 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture at an event organized by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC office. Her talk was titled Handle With Care: Growth through the care economy benefits people and the climate. In it, she looks at the blind spots in economic thinking that devalue the care economy and in doing so, miss opportunities for expanding the economy in a way that meets people’s needs and address the climate crisis.