After a lot of thought and weighing of pros and cons, I decided to write this article - hopefully one in a series - about an issue very close to my heart. Living in a small town such as this one means there is a certain amount of risk in revealing a personal issue to the public, but at the same time, I don’t feel I have a lot...

 Anyone who has had the chance to sit through something like this past Monday’s School Board meeting, could never, with any good conscience, vote for a political party that has a history of cutting school funding then gives tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations of the world. It’s painful to watch committed community ...

 There will be no excuse for anyone not to vote in the next provincial election, thanks to the NDP’s choice of Adrian Dix as its new leader. For years, how many times have we heard those who do not vote saying “They’re all the same.”? Well, not this time.  Adrian Dix and Christy Clark are […]

Stephen Harper’s announcement that he is going to reach his deficit elimination goal a year early and do it by lopping $11 billion off federal spending is in effect lifting the veil on his long feared “hidden agenda.” It is hidden no more as the polling numbers, for both his leadership and his party’s support, […]

The mistake most people make in rating election debates is they assume all the candidates start as equals.  But unless they’re all neophites, that is simply not true: one is already the Prime Minister or Premier or Mayor–and it’s up to the others to knock him/her of the top perch. It was a good debate, […]

A huge dilemma came up in my life last night: the English language leaders debate for the election was on the same night as the season finale of What Not to Wear. I love What Not to Wear. For me, each episode is a veritable treasure trove of information I store away in my little […]

Democracy: government for and by the people. It's a novel concept, that the people directly affected by the actions of a government can or should have a say in the decision making process. In parts of the world right now people are willing to sacrifice their lives to gain democracy. Indeed, the notion of people having even ...

Ask anyone who has lived under a dictatorship and they will tell you of its ugly features: A Supreme Leader who rules with an iron fist; legislation pushed through by a rubber stamp legislative assembly with little or closured debate; government officials ordered into silence or fearful of speaking up; and a press denied the right to even […]

spack·le    [spak-uhl]  Sh (initial capital letter) Trademark . a brand of quick-drying, plasterlike material used to fill holes, small cracks and other minor surface defects Some of the digital tools available today seem to help us overlook dire problems in order to expedite trivial tasks. The series of Windows Cloud commercials are prime time offenders. The ad with the exasperated mother desperately trying to air brush […]

There are lots of questions remaining about the BC Rail scandal…. the biggest being ‘why did the Liberal government pick up the $6M defence lawyers’ tab for two convicted criminals?’.   This week I had a chance to keep that question–and story-alive, by appearing on broadcaster Stirling Faux on-line business show This Week in Money.  Here’s […]