We recently highlighted the faulty logic of a pseudoscientific argument against addressing climate change: the proposition that because CO2 is necessary for plants, increasing emissions is good for the planet and the life it supports. Those who read, write or talk regularly about climate change and ecology are familiar with...

Last week I decided to write this column about income tax.  Not only is it tax time for all of us, but the KPMG tax scam story was in the news, and the Liberals had just voted with the NDP on our opposition day motion to rid Canada of tax measures that benefit only the very wealthy.

To the Editor: I was recently visited by a representative of Access Gas offering me participation in the Customer Choice Program which guarantees you stable pricing for the gas you receive via Fortis for the next five years.  The program is well presented and documented and is perfectly legitimate. But although this all sounds...

Scissors and Paste The academic supervisor for my post-grad thesis in history would not have approved of what I do in this edition of the Arc. He dismissed the method (with a curl of his lip) thus: “writing with scissors and paste, Charles.” I have looked over several pieces of writing recently, some of it my own, and I am ...

In 2011, I travelled with my family down Yukon’s Hart River. It’s one of seven pure rivers in the Peel River watershed, a 68,000-square-kilometre wilderness that’s been at the centre of a legal dispute for many years and a land-use planning debate for more than a decade. For two weeks, we fished from the river’s vibrant green...

Health-care spending by provincial governments has increased by 116 per cent since 2001, and even though increases have slowed recently, health care is projected to consume an even larger portion of program spending over the next 15 years, according to a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

This past weekend the Globe and Mail reported that lobbyists in the province have been making political donations on behalf of their clients, effectively camouflaging the identity of the real donors and breaking B.C.'s Elections Act in the process. On Sunday, Elections B.C. announced it was conducting an investigation into the Globe's findings. Five days later, the entire matter was referred to the RCMP.

This past weekend the Globe and Mail reported that lobbyists in the province have been making political donations on behalf of their clients, effectively camouflaging the identity of the real donors and breaking B.C.'s Elections Act in the process. On Sunday, Elections B.C. announced it was conducting an investigation into ...

Apparently, fossil fuel companies protect watersheds and rivers by removing oil. That’s according to comments on the David Suzuki Foundation Facebook page and elsewhere, including this: “The amount of contamination occuring [sic] from extraction is far less than if we just left the oil there to continue polluting the waterways.”...

In my few years of reporting on Rossland City Council, I have observed different styles of interaction between Council members, and between Council and the public; I have observed different concerns and priorities.  But always, our City Councils seem to have been concerned to do the best thing for Rossland and its people --...