Thanks to the Seven Summits Centre for Learning (Seven Summits), Rossland still has Kindergarten to Grade 12  (K -12) education within its city limits.  When School District 20 decided to close Maclean Elementary School, sell that building and move its former students into the former Rossland Secondary School building, and ...

Our government established a special committee to consider the subject of proportional representation, and the committee noted that “it must be apparent to all that the present system of election in single-member constituencies meets fully the purpose intended only when not more than two candidates are nominated.” The committee...

Dear Editor, On behalf of a large concerned group of students and local community members, it has come to our attention that there is a lack of senior support financially in the Kootenays, let alone across the province. The local Senior outreach and support program (SOS) under the Castlegar district community services that ...

Fishing is as emblematic to Canada as ice hockey. It’s also a way of life with a long tradition in coastal Indigenous communities. But since European contact, it’s been all but eliminated as an economic development opportunity for them. As Canada struggles to come to terms with reconciliation, court cases are helping define...

A reader has notified me of a disturbing incident.  It was just paper -- three pages of it -- tacked to a fence in downtown Rossland, but the reader reported that it was an attempt to spread hate in our Mountain Kingdom.  The targets were the usual ones that bigots love to hate:  "liberal,"  feminist, Jewish,  LGBTQ;  and the...

I would like to preface this by saying I have long been a vehement – almost rabid – supporter of the Blueberry Creek Community School Hub (BCCS). I lobbied hard, both personally and professionally, for SD 20 to sell the BCCS property to its non-profit society to keep the school in operation. It is, thus, truly with a heavy ...

"Sweep away the community of honest brokers in America [and] we'll be left with a culture and public dialogue based on assertion rather than authenticity, on claim rather than fact." -- U.S. journalist Ron Suskind, 2004 While you were going about your daily routines this week, the Trudeau Sunny Ways government was rushing...

The U.S. election was a chilling illustration of the atrocious state of public discourse. It doesn’t bode well for a country once admired for leadership in education and science. As public relations expert and former David Suzuki Foundation board chair James Hoggan writes in I’m Right and You’re an Idiot,  “polluted public ...

There’s been a flood of posts recently contrasting a naked or near-naked Melania Trump with Michelle Obama looking elegant. Alt-right criticism of Michelle, almost without exception, is abhorrent and racist. But is unfair criticism of one woman *in any way* addressed by inviting ridicule and mockery of another? Michelle is extraordinary. She would be a […]

To The Editor: Did you replace the batteries in your smoke alarm after changing the clocks back for Daylight Saving Time? With apologies to Saskatchewan residents, who do not adjust their clocks, safety advocates have often repeated this handy mnemonic device as an easy way to remember that batteries in smoke alarms must be...