A year ago (February 2012), the province's Ombudsperson released a comprehensive report addressing the crisis in B.C.'s home and community care system, including 176 recommendations for a creating a more accessible and accountable system. The centrepiece of the provincial government's response was the announcement that it would create an Office of the Seniors Advocate, following an extensive community consultation process.

As mentioned in last week's Speech from the Throne and Tuesday's 2013 provincial budget, B.C.'s population is aging. It's projected the seniors population in B.C. will double over the next 25 years -- meaning more than 30 per cent of our population will be over the age of 65 by 2036.

Note: Samara Canada has been gathering ideas for reforming Parliament. All the ideas they have collected are being posted on their blog, which you can find here. What follows is our contribution.

Here's the big dilemma: Whatever reforms are made to Parliamentary practice and conduct, the simple truth is that, for now, citizens have lost faith in politicians. However, they trust their fellow citizens, and just as they do with juries, are prepared to delegate important decisions to them.

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Yesterday's Speech from the Throne reads more like a list of what this government sees as its main achievements than a true framework for going forward. New initiatives are few and far between, sandwiched between pages of self-congratulatory recap of the natural gas strategy, the jobs plan and highlights from the last budget.

As many of you have likely heard, late last week we at the CCPA lost a great friend, and Canada lost one of its greatest advocates for children. See here and here.

The sudden and untimely passing of Clyde Hertzman comes as a terrible shock. Clyde was the life partner of our former Chair and prolific research associate Marcy Cohen, and was himself a long-time research associate with the CCPA-BC (you can find a wonderful CCPA paper he wrote here).

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On February 11, British Columbians are enjoying a well-deserved new stat holiday. With the inaugural Family Day, Premier Christy Clark has made good on a promise made during her bid for the B.C. Liberal leadership. The winter stretch needed a new long weekend, and many will appreciate this new-found time with family and friends.

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In a new report we released this week, Seth Klein and I show there's a clear need of tax reform in B.C., both to raise new revenues and to make our tax system more fair (Vancouver Sun op-ed here, CTV News story here).

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I got way off my usual research agenda this morning for a business panel on CBC radio. The topic was the economics of casinos, the result of the City of Surrey voting down a new casino proposal. I have often disparagingly compared stock markets to casinos, but in fact I knew relatively little about the actual business of casinos. I don't even buy lottery tickets. Perhaps it is the economist in me that knows the odds are stacked against me.

The provincial government, First Nations and environmental organizations alike have all hailed it as an ecological triumph and a shining beacon of a new economic order based on conservation principles.

Yet when it comes to talking openly about one of the hallmarks of that emerging economy -- a project that cashes in on the carbon-storing capacity of trees in the Great Bear Rainforest -- not one of the principles is anxious to talk.