On December 13, 2023, Vancouver City Council passed a motion seeking provincial endorsement for the elimination of the Park Board. The ruling ABC majority has given strong indications that they are seeking the privatization of parks assets and operations as a short-term attempt to balance the municipal budget, embedded within a wider project of neoliberal restructuring.
neoliberalism
In this essay Maria Wallstam and Nathan Crompton provide an overview of the historical evolution of government subsidies provided to Canada’s real-estate sector. State-backed financing and mortgage insurance for the big banks have cost the public billions over the course of several decades – but it’s not the only way to do housing.
Two years into the global pandemic, the BC Provincial Health Services Authority’s strategy has become defined by its contradictions. All social gatherings that depend on and feed voluntary community energies are banned. All social gatherings that feed for-profit business markets are encouraged. All industries that drag workers into harm’s way are exempted altogether from restrictions. The buck stops not with the government or business, but with the individual.
For over a decade we’ve heard breathless celebrations of local and artisanal businesses as the antidote to the runaway corporatization of daily life. Unfortunately, this upbeat narrative often breaks down when the workers in these local enterprises tell their own stories.