Op/Ed: How B.C. quietly found a way to permit natural gas plants without environmental reviews
Internal documents released via Freedom of Information laws show that, while the B.C. government was publicly apologizing to the Fort Nelson First Nation for exempting natural gas plants from environmental assessments without consultation, the province quietly used a loophole to allow the exemptions to continue — a...
Op/Ed: Private auto insurance? Be careful what you wish for
Imagine a land where drivers pay 55 per cent more for auto insurance than other drivers in Canada, a land where an insurance company may not cover you because of the city you live in, a land where your automobile insurance premiums isn't based on your driving record but your postal code. That land is Ontario. It's a land that...
Editorial: Could Thoughtexchange help save the world (as we know it)?
We received a press release from Rossland-based company Thoughtexchange announcing the successful closing of about $4 million in convertible note financing from Yaletown Partners and existing angel investors, to fund further expansion. The press release material is included below. Thoughtexchange has been going from strength...
Editorial: Why we should stop this old Rossland tradition
Warning: this editorial may contain triggers for individuals who are highly sensitive about being asked to consider the unintended consequences of their habits, and maybe also their sense of entitlement and self-importance, if they have those in any inflated measure. The old Rossland tradition: it seems that just about...
Column: Pipeline Blockade Signals Deeper Troubles
Recent controversy over a natural gas pipeline blockade and the differing priorities of hereditary chiefs and elected band councillors illustrates a fundamental problem with our systems of governance and economics. Elected councils for the Wet’suwet’en and other Indigenous bands have signed lucrative “impact benefit agreements”...
Column: Political climate heating up
Global warming isn’t a partisan issue — or it shouldn’t be. The many experts issuing dire warnings about the implications of climate disruption work under political systems ranging from liberal democracies to autocratic dictatorships, for institutions including the U.S. Department of Defense, World Bank, International Monetary...
Column: News to cheer or fear for the New Year
Introduction: last year of our Second twenty-first-century Decade (!) Year-end and year-start reviews can be an occasion for melancholy or celebration, and yet I personally feel neither. Mostly I feel astounded to find myself 19 years into the twenty-first century, and the third millennium, when it seems not so long ago that the pregnant year […]
Column: Forestry issues
We’ve heard a lot in the news lately about the challenges facing the oil sector, but much less about the serious problems confronting another natural resource industry—forestry. Two years ago, the United States placed significant import tariffs on softwood lumber. Those illegal tariffs are still in place, yet we hear almost...
Letter to the Editor: We had the referendum
Dear Editor: We just had a direct democracy referendum on the issue of electoral reform. How much more democractic (the will of the people) can we get. The issuewas decided by the plebians not the aristocracy, not judges, not political parties and not politicians. There is no way the Canadian people are going to have...
Column: From the Hill -- Homelessness
In this coldest time of the year, we often think of the people in our area who are homeless. Some have ended up on the streets and in rough camps because of mental health issues, addictions, or a combination of the two. Some are children fleeing abusive parents or women fleeing abusive spouses; others have become disabled. ...