When asked recently what she thought of Jack Layton’s proposal to increase the payout of the Canada Pension Plan (by gradually increasing premiums paid by workers and employers) Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party replied:“I’m not sure why Jack would propose that. I think that’s a very poor idea. It would constitute...

 I'm going to ask you to imagine something for me: you're at the Castlegar Golf Club with your (husband, father, best friend) and he has a heart attack. You know it's a heart attack because it's his second one. The ambulance comes, and you're shocked when they turn onto the highway toward Castlegar instead of Trail, since...

For a cynical kind of person, holidays provide a great opportunity to be, well, cynical. I am actually pretty indifferent about most holidays, not seeing the point of many events people seem to get excited about, like Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and even Easter. Well, actually Easter is okay, but only because of the chocolate...

What are the key issues that progressives need to be fighting to rid the country of Stephen Harper's wrecking crew? One is the tar sands and the Enbridge pipeline, which would see giant oil tankers plying the waters off the B.C. coast. Another key issue is the Harper government's oft-announced plan to begin its so-called...

 New Democrat Agriculture Critic, Alex Atamanenko (BC Southern Interior) is fed up with the partisan antics that Conservative Members of Parliament are using to obstruct the work of the Standing Committee on Agriculture. According to Atamanenko, all they had to do at last week’s meeting was vote on a motion to request a 30-day extension to complete […]

 Wow – newsflash – the City of Castlegar is actually considering enforcing its own bylaws. Stop the presses, she says sardonically.   That shouldn’t be news at all, if you ask me … it should just be a given ….but the sad part is, I guarantee a hue and cry when residents start having to […]

It’s quite a come down. From in-your-face arrogance to a total retreat in a matter of a few months, the big money behind Quebecor’s determination to set up a Fox news North is now looking pretty humble.There’s no doubt that part of this is overreach on the part of Pierre Karl Peladeau and his junkyard-dog front man Kory...

 We've all had moments, I think, during which a computer made us feel profoundly stupid (My dad had one that, every time an error message popped up, it would also emit an evil laugh. Seemed funny at first, but Lord, how we learned to hate that computer). The cause of frustration, for most of us, is often the complicated nature...

Almost hate to admit it, but I am old enough to remember the advent of television in Canada. In Montreal, in the early 1950s, it all began with two television stations: CBMT (English) and CBFT (French), and we would watch, mesmerized by anything they broadcast',even the Indian head test patterns, with their various very...

Did you know that parents want their children to have access to well-stocked libraries in their schools? Were you aware that they’re very concerned that provincial governments aren’t doing enough to ensure that there’s enough money to pay for these books and libraries? Or that increasingly teachers have to dig into their own...