While four of six Tsilhqot’in communities are evacuated due to raging wildfires surrounding  their communities,  Christy Clark’s outgoing Liberal government has granted permits to Taseko Mines to conduct extensive pre-construction exploration and drilling for the New Prosperity  mine proposal in a place precious to the Tsilhqot’in Nation.  Never mind that the federal government has twice […]

It’s summertime.  We’re all on holiday, right?  Who wants to think about stuff like governance at this time of year? On the other hand, can we afford to stop thinking about it, given how things are at the highest levels of Canadian politics?    I say we need a fundamental change in the dynamics of […]

Houston, we have a consensus. Well, almost. All three parties in the B.C. legislature now support a ban on corporate and union donations, as well as setting a cap on personal contributions. It's that last one that gets tricky. What's the right cap? Perhaps B.C.'s new government should rip a page out of Alberta's NDP playbook....

The trouble with demonizing the leader of an unpopular government is that it gives the next leader way too much slack. I remember writing a column years ago comparing the hated Brian Mulroney with Paul Martin (who more or less ran Jean Chretien's government). Who was more destructive to the public interest and progressive...

Last Monday I travelled to Washington, DC with Tracey Ramsey, the NDP critic for International Trade.  I was there in my role as NDP critic for Natural Resources, and we were both there to talk about softwood lumber with senators, congressmen and their staff. We had a full day of meetings on Tuesday, going from office to...

Present:  Mayor Kathy Moore and Councillors John Greene, Lloyd McLellan, Andrew Zwicker, and Andy Morel.  Absent:  Marten Kruysse and Aaron Cosbey. Moore shared a bit of good news before the meeting got under way:  she reported that Rossland Summit School's Grade Two class won the Jack Layton Award for Youth Action in...

By Carol Linnett.  This article is from DeSmog Canada. While news of Saskatchewan’s plan for a small geothermal power plant was met with excitement by renewable energy advocates,  experts say British Columbia is far better situated to capitalize on the technology yet has failed to do so. “It should be a little bit of a shock...

Council began with a Committee-of-the-Whole  (CoW) meeting at 5:00 pm on Monday, June 12, 2017,  for presentation and discussion of  the basic principles guiding Council in building its asset management plan and related policies.  John Weninger, Financial Sustainability Strategist partner in Urban Systems, presented information,...

Editor's Note:  Last year, some of us were privileged to hear Sachi Komura Rummel, a survivor of the 1945 Hiroshima nuclear bomb, speak about her experiences. In choosing an illustration for this column by our Member of Parliament, I could have chosen a splendid, colourful shot of an incandescent nuclear-bomb mushroom cloud...

The Broadbent Institute and the Fraser Institute come up with different figures when analyzing the "tax burden" of Canadians.  There's a report produced by statistitian Richard Shillington and economist Robin Shaban for the Broadbent Institute that explains the differences: "The Brass Tax: Busting Myths About Overtaxed...