Last spring I wrote a column called “Is this what a police state looks like” in response to the dangerous police actions surrounding the G20 Summit in Toronto.  I argued–as many have–that police states don’t pop up full blown over night. They develop slowly in direct proportion to people’s willingness to accept new definitions...

NDP leader Carole James was so quiet for so long, many of her own supporters wondered where she was all summer.  With the HST and the Liberals imploding, it would have been a great time for the wanna-be Premier to show her stuff, to take the lead, to convince British Columbians she’s no wasteful socialist extremist. Then she...

I confess that I did not, as promised, spend the summer thinking about the new paradigm of local, national and global politics. It was the perfect summer at my log cabin in Saskatchewan and I spent most of it swimming to the end of the lake and back, picking blueberries and swinging in my Mexican hammock.  But I did spend...

I love BC politics.  It’s often more dramatic than some of the prime time offerings offered up for our entertainment on the big screen or the tube. And, whether you see him as the hero or the villain, Premier Gordon Campbell deserves an Oscar and an Emmy.He was on the canvas, bruised and beaten down; his enemies could smell his...

The current Bill C-391 to abolish the gun registry appears to be receiving a lot of media attention these days. The Conservative government is cranking up its publicity campaign to abolish the registry, pitting different regions of the country against each other. If we were to look at how this is playing out in the […]

Last week I talked about upgrading an existing computer or buying a new one.  This week, I'd like to look at the in-between option of buying a used one.  New has a lot to be said for it, but the reality is that a lot of us don't have $1000 kicking around to drop on a shiny new computer.  So, if you're going to look at used,...

[Editor's note: Part one of Mr. Oberfeld's column should be right below this one. I decided to print the two simultaneously as this is an important issue and one that will only become more and more urgent as corporate newspapers struggle to survive in an age of declining revenues]It’s no secret that, to any branch of the news...

How do you tell the difference between journalism today and prostitution?  Hmmm...  Sorry: it’s not a joke; there is no punchline; it’s only a question I’ve been asking myself since reading the ”major”  Vancouver  newspapers last weekend.Saturday Aug. 28 on page A-16 in The Vancouver Sun there were two captivating stories: ...

It’s actually hard not to laugh! But really, we should be crying. Finance Minister Colin Hansen stood before the cameras this week and told British Columbians he had no idea his own Finance Ministry officials were holding extensive discussions with federal counterparts in Ottawa on the HST in March, 2009 … a few months before...

 I talked to someone yesterday who came in with her son and a list of specifications for a new back-to-school computer. I started running through it and realized that we were talking about a HIGH end computer. I warned her that she was looking at a $5,000-6,000 and asked what it was for. Her son […]