Are Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland's officials misleading her about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? Freeland signed the agreement Thursday in New Zealand, but repeated her assurances that critics shouldn't worry -- the government hasn't committed to ratifying it and consultations and a full debate will precede a vote...

The West Kootenay Friends of Refugees are getting ready to welcome a family of four Syrian refugees, parents and their two small children, to our area.  Thanks to the generosity of people in Rossland, Trail, Fruitvale and Castlegar, we have raised enough funds to begin the sponsorship of the Abdins, who are expected to arrive...

First Nations governments and the BC government, with the support of ForestEthics Solutions, Greenpeace, Sierra Club BC and five forestry companies, have announced the fulfilment of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. Eighty-five percent (3.1 million hectares) of the remote wilderness region’s coastal temperate rainforests...

Pipelines are a hot topic in Ottawa and across the country these days.  Last Wednesday the Liberals outlined their plans for a revised environmental assessment process for pipelines, and on Thursday the Conservatives put forward a motion asking the House to support the Energy East pipeline. Here is the overall picture: the ...

By David Suzuki With the December Paris climate agreement, leaders and experts from around the world showed they overwhelmingly accept that human-caused climate change is real and, because the world has continued to increase fossil fuel use, the need to curb and reduce emissions is urgent. In light of this, I don’t get the ...

Food from "away": It's becoming common knowledge that most of the food we eat here in BC comes from other places:  rice from Asia or California, oranges and orange juice from Florida, Texas or California, vegetables and almonds mostly from California, wheat and other grains from the prairies,  and convenience foods -- prepared...

Right up to the last federal election the Canadian government held firm to the position that an inquiry on the subject of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada was not needed.  The government believed that the problem could be dealt with by way of criminal justice reforms.  Criminal justice incorporates law enforcement,...

A local group has spent more than half of $600,000 allocated to meet community needs in the Lower Columbia, but is still looking for more economic development projects to support. Economic and tourism development were identified as the top community priorities during extensive public consultations last year by the Community...

In the last column I reviewed a few of the main activities and initiatives of 2015 for the Kettle River Watershed Management Plan. Today I want to look ahead to 2016, sharing a few of the priorities in the Plan that our Steering Committee and Advisory Group are committed to achieving. On November 19 we held a second meeting...

Justin Trudeau is fond of saying "Canada is back," and in some genuinely gratifying ways it seems to be the case.  But by far the most important and substantive evidence for this claim is still missing: an indication that the new government is willing to seriously address the issue that a genuine return to normal rests upon. ...