After more than two weeks of an occupation of downtown Ottawa and serious border blockades in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act on February 14.  Local police forces had seemed unable or unwilling to act and both the Ontario and Alberta governments had asked for...

After more than two weeks of an occupation of downtown Ottawa and serious border blockades in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act on February 14.  Local police forces had seemed unable or unwilling to act and both the Ontario and Alberta governments had asked for help.    That […]

 I first moved to the Kootenays in 1985 with my partner and first child. After a leaving a few times for work we finally settled here in 1993 with two more children because we love it. Now I’ve lived here longer than anywhere else in my life and I plan to stay for the rest of my life. At least I hope I can…. Several months ...

I’ve been in Ottawa for the past nine days, in the centre of the protest by the “Freedom Convoy”.  My offices have been flooded by emails and phone calls on both sides of this issue, so I want to make it clear where I stand and why. First, a short description of how the last week in Ottawa has gone.  The organizers of the...

No person nor party can claim only it represents the true meaning of liberty and freedom, and anyone who is truly serious about the words needs to take time to read about democracy in history before entering into conversation about the concepts. Not a lot of time but at least a day of deep reading. Freedom is not what a teen...

Parliament began sitting again this Monday, facing its first full agenda since the late summer election.  Most committees will be meeting for the first time and we will see the first Private Member’s Bill debates.  I’d like to highlight some of those Private Member’s Bills in my upcoming columns, since some could produce...

Robert Frost began his poem “Mending Wall” with the line, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” He could have been speaking for wildlife. Walls and fences fragment their habitat, limit travel for food and mating, block migration routes and cause death. (As do roads.) A 2011 study found “the fence along the U.S.–Mexico...

When people do things they shouldn’t, they often try to distract attention from their actions. Guardian writer George Monbiot notes that many corporations fuelling the planet’s destruction spend significant resources to shift attention away from themselves and onto us. “The deliberate effort to stop us seeing the bigger picture...

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;  The proper study of mankind is Man.     -- Alexander Pope “Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature. . . . Is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the...

As light slowly returns to the Northern Hemisphere, we anticipate brighter days ahead. It’s a good time to consider the wondrous combination of forces that make life on Earth possible. Above all is the sun — the ultimate source of all our energy. But we rely on plants, algae and some bacteria to obtain this energy through...