Dear editor, Road maintenance in our area has deteriorated drastically over the last few years. During the first 10 years of privatization of highways maintenance the system worked fine. The Ministry required the contractors to maintain the same number of employees, equipment and yards that the M.O.H. previously had. The Ministry had full time inspectors […]

Dear editor, At a council meeting on Monday night, Rossland City Council recommended eliminating Development Cost Charges and the Regional sewer service cost recovery charge and replace them with a connection charge. Instead of paying the current $3,362 and $2,500, respectively, for a single family dwelling, the charge will...

Your Commission appointed Robyn Gervais as Independent Legal Counsel for Aboriginal interests. We had no role or any say in this matter. She has now withdrawn as Independent Legal Counsel. We find it extremely disturbing that she has had to take this drastic step. The First Nations Summit applied for standing and was granted...

Dear editor,The City of Rossland garbage tax is $85 per year. Of that money $50 goes to the contractor (Davies Sales and Service) for weekly pickup at curbside and delivery to the Trail landfill (that’s only 98 cents per week per household). $35 goes to the City for spring and fall debris curbside pick up (the City raised...

BC Nurses’ Union members continue to be concerned about the closure of the Castlegar Emergency services on February 4. We want the community of Castlegar to know that our priority is to provide quality and safe patient care. The nurses at Castlegar Hospital will continue to advocate for improvements so that high quality care will […]

Editor, The Nelson Daily On January 6, 2012, the Health Employers Association of BC suddenly announced a unilateral 9%-14% wage rollback for B.C.’s hospital pharmacists. The wage rollback is certain to aggravate an ongoing staffing shortage in BC’s hospital pharmacies, putting all British Columbians at risk. For years, hospitals across BC have been suffering critical […]

February 13, 2012 Ottawa, ON The Honourable Diane Finley, P.C., M.P. Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Room 707 Confederation Building Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Dear Minister Finley, Enclosed please find two letters from constituents which represent the feedback my office has been receiving since the Prime Minister made the announcement to increase the […]

Dear editor, The Agenda for the February 13 Rossland Council Meeting, sent out on February 7th includes a Request for Council Decision to repeal the Development Cost Charge (DCC) Bylaw and the Sewer Capacity Charge Bylaw. A further Request for Council Decision is for a Service Connection Capacity Charge to replace DCCs.     ...

An open letter to the community of Castlegar; Interior Health would like to apologize to the residents of Castlegar and area for not properly informing you of the temporary closure of the emergency department last Saturday. Interior Health has contingency plans in place when facing a service interruption like this, which includes notifying community officials, […]

Editor, The Nelson Daily Do we accept Stephen Harper’s “new Canadian patriotism”? We in the Kootenays, with pacificist traditions from Quakers, Doukhobors, and Viet Nam war resisters, surely must be alerted by a Prime Minister with a vision of Canada standing tall with military muscle beside imperial nations like America and Britain. I fear that […]