New Democrats said tonight's defeat of bill C-391 must be followed by a genuine attempt to fix the registry and unite rural, northern and urban Canadians. “I have spoken with many of my constituents in communities across my riding and heard the opinions of those on both sides of the issue," said Alex Atamanenko, M.P. for B.C....

Trust. It’s a small word, but it represents a very big concept: perhaps one of the most powerful positive characteristics we allow in our personal or business relationships.And, apart from perhaps the medical profession, there may be no business that DEPENDS more on the trust of its customers than the news business, especially...

A new regional sewer cost sharing agreement may be getting closer to reality as Trail, Warfield and Rossland have now agreed in principle upon the method of cost sharing to be used. An ultimate solution to the issue still seems far out on the horizon, however. With parallel talks aimed at amalgamating the region happening...

Last spring I wrote a column called “Is this what a police state looks like” in response to the dangerous police actions surrounding the G20 Summit in Toronto.  I argued–as many have–that police states don’t pop up full blown over night. They develop slowly in direct proportion to people’s willingness to accept new definitions...

Everywhere you go, there is a unique local lingo. It’s inevitable. Something--a place, a street, a stereotype--acquires a nickname and it slowly evolves, through common use by the community, into a term that outsiders might not completely understand. We even had a special Kenning family lexicon growing up, most of it coming...

NDP leader Carole James was so quiet for so long, many of her own supporters wondered where she was all summer.  With the HST and the Liberals imploding, it would have been a great time for the wanna-be Premier to show her stuff, to take the lead, to convince British Columbians she’s no wasteful socialist extremist. Then she...

Plans, plans, plans. Rossland has been producing plans, planning documents and planning committees at a rapid and productive pace over the past half decade or more. Indeed, through the Visions to Actions process, the Official Community Plan, the Strategic Sustainability planning process, and the Climate Change action committee...

I confess that I did not, as promised, spend the summer thinking about the new paradigm of local, national and global politics. It was the perfect summer at my log cabin in Saskatchewan and I spent most of it swimming to the end of the lake and back, picking blueberries and swinging in my Mexican hammock.  But I did spend...

I love BC politics.  It’s often more dramatic than some of the prime time offerings offered up for our entertainment on the big screen or the tube. And, whether you see him as the hero or the villain, Premier Gordon Campbell deserves an Oscar and an Emmy.He was on the canvas, bruised and beaten down; his enemies could smell his...

The current Bill C-391 to abolish the gun registry appears to be receiving a lot of media attention these days. The Conservative government is cranking up its publicity campaign to abolish the registry, pitting different regions of the country against each other. If we were to look at how this is playing out in the […]