Over the next few weeks I will explore the concept of “Basic Income”. I would be most grateful if you would share your comments, suggestions and concerns with me about this topic as we unpack what it all means in a series of upcoming posts. In this first post we simply provide a backgrounder.

There are few topics more sprawling, or of more importance, than the state of real estate in British Columbia.

This summer, the legislature was called back into session with two weeks’ notice for the last week of July to debate Bill 28, the Miscellaneous Statutes (Housing Priority Initiatives) Amendment Act, 2016. The bill had four main purposes:

1. It added an additional 15% property transfer tax to residential real estate purchased by foreign nationals or foreign-controlled corporations. (‘Foreign nationals’ are individuals who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canadian.)
2. It amended the Vancouver Charter to allow the City of Vancouver to implement a vacancy tax.
3. It created a Housing Priority Initiatives Fund for provincial projects that will be seeded with $75 million and a portion of the new tax revenue. (It is worth noting that Public Accounts documents indicate that the government brought in $500 million more in property transfer tax revenue this year than anticipated, suggesting to me that the initial injection in the Housing Priority Initiatives Fund should be higher.)
4. It implemented recommendations to re-regulate the real estate industry.

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Yesterday, Wednesday March 23, 2016, B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver and Deputy Leader Matt Toner met with Kristen Henry, who is currently on her twelfth day of a hunger strike in opposition to the Site-C Dam. Henry is one of many protesters camped outside of BC Hydro offices in Vancouver, attempting to draw attention to the issue.

My name is Jean Strong. I'm a fourth-year student at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.

In my first semester I was sexually assaulted — twice. And both times it was by people I considered friends.

Today I was in Vancouver meeting with a number of business leaders in British Columbia’s creative economy. My colleague Matt Toner (Deputy Leader of the BC Green Party) and I took the opportunity to visit with opponents of the proposed Site C dam who were camped out in front of BC Hydro’s downtown Vancouver headquarters.  It quickly became apparent to me that what is happening there qualifies as perhaps the most under-reported story of 2016.