Someone, please! Tell Dan Albas what to think. Westbank First Nations (WFN) plans to open a private hospital, but the rookie MP for the area, Okanagan-Coquihalla, doesn’t know what his opinion should be. He has no problem throwing public money around. Albas supports upgrading the Merritt Civic Centre with your tax money, and...

The world’s in rough shape and it's easy to feel overwhelmed. At the turn of the millennium, I stormed out of university in anger at a global system of economic injustice, environmental pillage, and—in North America at least—social impotence and apathy.This attitude began to change when my tortuous path wound its way to a...

Personally, I believe this system is a good thing, especially for grade 12s. In a year we will be adults and will be forced to take our lives into our own hands and motivate ourselves, because nobody else will care. With the old system, we would be completely unprepared for life outside of high school, relying on teachers and...

Stephen Harper’s no-longer-secret agenda to implement a revolution from the right and dismantle Canada has one major impediment that must really stick in his craw. He is constrained in what he can do by the constitutional division of powers which gives the provinces so much political authority. The really big social items on...

A damning new peer reviewed study, ‘Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize ‘is calling into question not only the safety of genetically modified (GM) food but the stringency of government regulations and assessments.  For the first time, a long term and comprehensive study...

Over 1,000 delegates from 189 municipalities and districts across B.C. are gathering this week in Victoria for the annual conference of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. And for many of them the recent appointment of Bill Bennett as Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development may very well seem like déjà vu. Bennett...

Dear Laurie Charlton, I write in response to your recent condemnation of council's process in hiring our new CAO/CFO. I've added some headings to break things up. Yup, council screwed upI agree. Council made a big mistake when they decided to keep CAO Victor Kumar's resignation confidential, limited their job search to a...

“The strong do what they will, the weak do as they must.”  - Thucydides, c. 405 BCE, viewing Greek wars. I teach a history course entitled “Chosen Peoples”: ancient Israelites, pagans and Christians are the topic. With synchronistic wonder, a crisis has come upon us in the Middle East involving Iran/Persia and Israel/Judah....

Reading letters to the editor and speaking with individuals here and there in our communities has led me to understand that convincing some people that humans have a part in climate change is about as likely as convincing others that our current MP is doing a good job, or that our MLA belongs to the right party. I've had the...

IntegrityBC launched an online petition on Sunday calling on the B.C. government to reconsider its decision not to recall the legislature next month. IntegrityBC noted that Ontario's MPPs are already back in session. In October, they'll be joined by MLAs in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In November, MLAs in Newfoundland and...