Tax rate; how should cannabis be sold; how many councillors? and, local citizen honoured.
Rossland City Council Meeting, October 23, 2017 Present: Mayor Kathy Moore, and Councillors Lloyd McLellan, Andy Morel, John Greene, and Marten Kruysse. Absent: Andrew Zwicker and Aaron Cosbey. Public Input Period: 1. Rossland Dispensary owner Jeff Weaver spoke about the coming decriminalization of cannabis by the...
Opinion: Some Encouraging News on the Climate Front
The BC government has announced a key step toward creating a new, more effective climate-change strategy. The multi-sector Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council is charged with advising the B.C. government and delivering its first public report in one year. Karen Tam Wu, acting BC Director of the Pembina...
Opinion: Yes, we need to tax the rich
You have to hand it to the rich in dealing with the tax reforms proposed by the Liberals. They didn’t even have to put pen to paper or pick up the phone to protest the taxman messing with their ill-gotten wealth. They got the poor besotted small businessperson to fight on their behalf. In this newly fact-free world it didn’t...
Column: time to talk about universal pharmacare
Universal pharmacare is a hot topic on Parliament Hill these days. The concept is simple—a single program that would ensure that all Canadians had free access to prescription drugs. Canada is the only country in the world with universal health care that doesn’t include the cost of drugs in its coverage. And that doesn’t...
Short term rental rules, knotweed bylaw, a paramedic for Rossland, National Championships here in March
Public Hearing: 6:00 pm, Tuesday, October 10, 2017 Present: Mayor Kathy Moore, and Councillors Lloyd McLellan, Marten Kruysse, John Greene, Aaron Cosbey, Andy Morel, and Andrew Zwicker. This Public Hearing was scheduled to receive public input on the following draft bylaws: a) Business Licence Bylaw No. 2326, 2017, and...
Street Light Requests: Recommendations by Rossland City Council
Committee-of-the-Whole Meeting: 4:00 pm, Tuesday, October 10, 2017 Present: Mayor Kathy Moore, and Councillors Lloyd McLellan, Marten Kruysse, John Greene, Aaron Cosbey, Andy Morel, and Andrew Zwicker. Public Input Period: A resident complained about the light outside his place because it "lights up my place like a ball...
COLUMN: The Corporate Assault on Science
The fact that science is the foundation for civilization and democracy should be self-evident. Regrettably, that connection seems often to escape our collective consciousness. We tend to think of science narrowly as restricted to high-tech, laboratories, and the development of electric cars or travel to Mars. But everything...
Editorial: Bill C-365 is a time-wasting distraction
Conservative Member of Parliament Mel Arnold wants to make theft of firefighting equipment, which theft causes "actual danger to life," a specific Criminal Code offense with a maximum penalty of imprisonment for life. That's the same maximum penalty as mischief causing actual danger to life. Anyone who was evacuated from...
COLUMN: A Bill to improve the Species at Risk Act
Last Friday, I tabled my Private Members Bill, C-363, in the House of Commons. This bill would patch a large loophole in the Species at Risk Act, or SARA, that has allowed previous governments to wilfully ignore scientific advice as to which species need protection in Canada. SARA is designed to be transparent and timely. ...
COLUMN: The other reasons for rising ICBC rates -- what we weren't told
The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia which was, only a decade ago, a financially sound crown corporation, is on the ropes today. What happened? The information ICBC offers on its “Rate Pressures” web page speaks of “significant external pressures on ICBC’s insurance rates”. From 2014 to 2016 the number of crashes...
