News & Insights

This week’s Supreme Court of Canada review of the federal carbon tax is an important one to watch. At the heart of the top court’s hearing is the question: Is our country ready and able to work together to fight the climate crisis?

Since physical distancing curtails out-of-province travel, the Tourism Industry Association of BC (TIABC) has floated the idea that workplaces should prioritize three-day-weekends so locals have more time to recreate near home.

Just before the pandemic set in Canada, there was much talk among federal decision makers about a “wellbeing budget.” Borrowing from New Zealand and elsewhere, Mr. Trudeau’s mandate letters encouraged multiple ministers to “to better incorporate quality of life measurements into government decision-making and budgeting”.

Most people agree we need to take serious action to address the climate emergency. Working together is our best, and possibly only, chance of solving it. But Canada is facing a major hurdle in its fight against the climate crisis. One of our most important national climate change policies is being challenged in the Supreme Court by provinces that don’t want to take meaningful action.

Clichés be damned! Toronto has shown that when it comes to Airbnb, we can have our cake and eat it too. This week, a provincial tribunal ruled in favour of Toronto’s proposed rules for short-term rentals. The important part is that up to 5,000 Airbnb units could be returned to the long-term residential market in Toronto thanks to the new regulations.

A second provincial court has ruled in favour of Canada's national policy on pricing carbon pollution, and a better future for younger generations. Just before Canada Day, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed the federal government's authority to respond to the global climate emergency, including by putting a price on carbon pollution.

When Saskatchewan and Ontario went to court to fight a national carbon price, we formed a coalition and hired lawyers to push back. Our work shows pricing pollution can go hand in hand with affordability, and Canada has — we argue — a constitutional obligation to take emergency-level action to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees.

After honing in on Burnaby — which has the worst rental market in B.C. and the third worst in all of Canada — we've helped the City craft a bold "Quick Start" housing affordability plan to turn things around.

While many of us face serious affordability challenges, our organization knows pricing pollution is not the source of that problem. The source is high costs for housing, child care, postsecondary, transit, etc. — especially since young people’s earnings have stagnated over the last four decades.