PART II: This past year, my staff and I had the privilege of assisting constituents faced with federal bureaucratic problems – unfair treatment, misinterpretations or just plain despair at not seeing any hope in their particular plight.  For the most part, I find the federal public service is exceptionally professional, knowledgeable and helpful, and should not be […]

What a way to spend a morning! (See Cops get radio hosts drunk …for a cause story by clicking here). First, I want to say thanks to the Mountain FM team for allowing me to sit in on their unorthodox “social experiment”.   I’ll confess that, as I drove down to the radio station this […]

Introducing a new column for The Nelson Daily: Greening Up – What can I do? Michael Jessen has been following energy issues since the 1973 oil crisis. He has authored more than 700 newspaper and online articles about sustainable lifestyles, waste reduction, and climate change. Currently, Jessen is an efficiency and renewable energy advisor and operates […]

The day after the Rekindle the Spirit of Christmas event on Dec. 4, a person calling him/herself Dirty Hippo posted a long, strongly-worded message on Bhubble criticizing the Charlie Brownness of the Christmas tree in the town square. I wouldn’t refer to it as a tirade, just a firmly-stated, humourously-toned, panning of the organizers’ choice […]

 A year ago I wrote a column reflecting on the activities of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), the Canadian branch of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism. The latter is an international pro-Zionist group whose sole task is to redefine anti-Semitism to mean virtually any criticism of Israel. It developed at the behest of […]

One of the hallmarks of a democratic state is its commitment to free, public and political expression. Indeed, no society can call itself truly democratic if it does not guarantee its citizens the inalienable rights to gather, communicate their opinion and demonstrate their support for or against any political position they wish. If these assertions […]

PART I:  The past year has been an eventful one.   In January the Haiti earthquake hit. My staff and I worked for days with Foreign Affairs, a School District and Mt. Sentinel School of South Slocan to safely locate, press for transportation assistance, and rescue a class of high school students caught in Haiti.   […]

Christy Clark’s suggestion that the next BC Liberal leader will need to get a “mandate” from BC voters through an early election shows she doesn’t understand our parliamentary system. And former attorney general and author of the fixed election date legislation Geoff Plant’s statement that the legislation did not anticipate the current situation is absurd. […]

What a year it has been in B.C.–but that’s nothing, compared to the year that lies ahead! We’ve watched a Premier win a third consecutive election and then lose it all and announce, following months of public rejection and derision, that he will step down;  we’ve seen the Official Opposition, with its best opportunity in a decade to achieve victory, turn […]

 After hearing the perspectives of many of the key players in the latest round of nastiness inspired by School District 20’s (SD 20’s) Planning for the Future document, I can only conclude that the well-being of the entire region is at stake, and in more far-reaching issues than education alone. The angry rhetoric being wantonly […]