Editorial: Treachery or a higher duty?
On Friday, September 8, Dr. Darryl Plecas, then a Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly, agreed to serve in the Legislature as Speaker. His party promptly disowned him ― first, kicked him out of the Liberal caucus, then on Saturday, September 9, the Liberal Party executive voted to strip him of membership in the Liberal...
Op/Ed: Looking to Finland for Better Educational Outcomes
By David Buckna In a July interview, BC Education Minister Rob Fleming said: "I think our government just has a completely different and fresh attitude towards public education. John Horgan made it clear his priority as premier is to make sustained investments in the school system, because it pays enormous social and economic...
BC Government's Credit Card Charges for 2016-17
There's nothing quite like poring through 87,527 credit card charges to the B.C. government's plastic in 2016/17. Charges that can often be on top of a company's billings to existing government accounts. For instance, last year, Sensus Communications billed the government $79,286, while various ministries put an additional ...
Op/Ed: We Need to Stop Killing Endangered Right Whales
Article by James Wilt, first published in DeSmog Canada. The summer of 2017 was an extraordinarily deadly one for North Atlantic right whales, a species already hovering on the brink of extinction. Investigations are ongoing into the cause of death of 15 right whales off the Atlantic Coast of Canada and the U.S., although...
Column: Floods and Sponges
When the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlán in 1325, they built it on a large island on Lake Texcoco. Its eventual 200,000-plus inhabitants relied on canals, levees, dikes, floating gardens, aqueducts and bridges for defence, transportation, flood control, drinking water and food. After the Spaniards conquered the city in 1521, they...
Labour Day Message —We have a lot to celebrate
For the first time in 16 years, B.C. workers have much to celebrate on Labour Day. Both the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Green Party campaigned for a government that would make life more affordable, fix the services people count on, create jobs, act on climate change, and build a sustainable economy that works for everyone. Now,...
Column: From the Hill -- More research, please
In this technological age, information and innovation are seen as the key to building a strong, healthy economy, and the key to information is research. As post-secondary education critic for the NDP, I have talked to many university and college representatives about their concerns and needs. These representatives range...
Op/Ed: Extreme storms like Harvey and climate change: 'This is the new reality.'
By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. This article was originally published in Common Dreams. As Hurricane Harvey continues to batter Texas—and as the death toll from monsoon flooding in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh surpasses 1,200—experts are putting a spotlight on how climate change is linked to the "unprecedented"...
River Talk: The Columbia River Treaty and the Free Trade of Water
Eileen Delehanty Pearkes has been researching and writing about the history and politics of water in the upper Columbia Basin since 2005. Her book on the Columbia River Treaty, A River Captured, was released in 2016. Recently, her travelling exhibit on the Columbia River Treaty, curated for Touchstones Nelson, won a national...
20,000 days of nature conservation
At the end of this summer, Wednesday (August 30 2017), the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) will mark exactly 20,000 days of conservation. This milestone provides an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the work done by NCC and our partners each day, and the conservation we need to accomplish in the 20,000 days to come....