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September-October 2016

Canadians need to stop improving gentrifying neighbourhoods

It's our opportunity to put the brakes on run-away real estate prices

John Lorinc@johnlorinc

For our special 50th anniversary issue, Canada’s brightest, boldest, and most rebellious thinkers, doers, and creators share their best big ideas. Through ideas macro and micro, radical and everyday, we present 50 essays, think pieces, and calls to action. Picture: plans for sustainable food systems, radical legislation, revolutionary health care, a greener planet, Indigenous self-government, […] More »

Ottawa groups race to save South March Highlands from developers’ bulldozers

Denise DebyWebsite

[This article has been updated since its early March 2011 publication; please see 5th paragraph] Imagine a major Canadian city fortunate enough to have both an old-growth forest and wetlands, rich in biodiversity and rare habitats, covering an area almost three times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Now picture chunks of it bulldozed for subdivisions […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Adding up the real costs of Vancouver 2010

Jasmine Rezaee

Quebec spent 30 years paying off the debt it racked up for the 1976 Montreal Summer Games. There’s no reason so far to expect that Vancouver will be any different. British Columbian and Canadian taxpayers have already incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in rampant budget overruns—the Athlete’s Village and security budget are only two […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Interview with 2010 Watch’s Christopher Shaw

Cate SimpsonWebsite

Christopher Shaw’s day job is professor of ophthalmology at the University of British Columbia, but since Vancouver launched its bid for the Olympics more and more of his time has been spent campaigning against the Games—first as the founder of No Games 2010 and now as lead spokesperson for 2010 Watch. Shaw’s book, Five Ring […] More »

Wednesday WTF: Wal-Mart's Wacky Wetland Wipeout!

Graham F. Scott

In Salmon Arm, B.C., there’s been a long-standing fight over plans to build an enormous shopping centre directly on the floodplain of the Salmon River. Last fall, the city voted not to allow mall developer SmartCentres to build big box stores on this ecologically sensitive tract of land. Well, now we receive a report that […] More »

How real estate became one big Ponzi scheme

Max FawcettWebsite

So much for that buyer’s market. After it appeared that the balance of power in the real estate relationship had finally swung back to the buyer after almost a decade in the seller’s favour, home prices in most major markets in Canada have resumed their seemingly inexorable climb. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, […] More »
July-August 2004

Yankee Go Home!

Grant ShillingWebsite

The Americanization of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, is driving up land prices in this hippie hideout–and inspiring long-time residents to take matters into their own hands More »