Trustees and district staff have been working on the 2015/16 school year budget since January.  On Feb. 23, the first draft of the budget was released.  It is basically a status-quo budget, which means that this draft of the budget maintains everything that we had in the current year’s preliminary budget, with the following...

Contemplating two forms of violence:  physical and emotional Have you ever spanked or swatted your child (or been tempted to)?  Were you ever spanked (or worse) as a child?  In Canada, S. 43 of the Criminal Code protects the right of a parent or teacher to use "force by way of correction".   That section is commonly known as...

“Education should form the Character.”      -- John Dewey “When The People are taught what is best, then they can rule themselves.”                                                                    -- Thomas Paine By Charles Jeanes Good lessons make good people If there is one thing that characterizes the passage from a...

Ed. Note: To read the answers offered by the Independent Investigations Office regarding many of the questions posed below, click here). On the evening of Jan. 30, 2015, Waylon Jesse Edey, of Yahk, B.C. was shot dead by an RCMP Officer, during an “attempted traffic stop”, which took place on the Kinnaird Bridge, near Castlegar,...

Ed. Note: The Source only heard of Krystal yesterday when she messaged me (the editor) on Facebook about her endeavours. As I see our role as sharing unique success stories and neat Castlegar-based efforts, I was only too happy to share Krystal's message. It was incredibly fun to watch Source readers respond with 61 comments...

Since 2005, Eileen Delehanty Pearkes has researched and explored the natural and human history of the rivers of the upper Columbia River Basin.  She speaks frequently at conferences and symposia throughout the Basin on the history of the Columbia River Treaty and its effects on Basin residents.  She has recently completed a...

This column is not meant to be a book review, but a review of what others have written helps us understand where we are and what the future may bring. Historian Arthur R. M. Lower, in Colony to Nation (1957), characterized Robert Baldwin (1804-1858) as being “too cold, too correct, too consistent, and like Aristides, too just...

There has been a great deal in the news over the past few weeks about C-51, the government’s news Anti-Terrorism Act.  It is another one in a series of omnibus bills and contains 62 pages covering everything from expanding the mandate of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to allowing police to seize terrorist...

(Hon. Steve Thompson)  The purpose of this newsletter is to give you facts that with few exceptions can be corroborated that illustrate why nothing less than a complete overhaul of the management of our wildlife and wildlife habitat resource  can reverse the dramatic decline in many wildlife populations and the steady compromise...

(Hon. Steve Thompson)  Once again Minister Thomson I urge you to review an extremely weak argument that has resulted in the Gilpin Grasslands becoming an important motorized vehicle recreation area. None of the salient points in a letter dated Dec. 30, 2014 and signed by Assistant Deputy Minister Gary Townsend will stand up...