Despite the many rewarding experiences of recent months, I’m grateful to come home for Christmas to the Kootenays and my family. It has been an eventful year in B.C. politics with the election in May resulting in a new NDP government under Premier John Horgan. We promised to make life more affordable, to improve the services...

We have more fatal crashes than any other region. Are more drivers in the Southern Interior region of BC notably more stupid than drivers elsewhere in BC? Do so many of us here just not have a clue about winter driving? Or are we so much unhealthier that we have that many more medical crises causing car crashes? The statistics...

As 2018 approaches, it is a great opportunity to reflect on the past year. On behalf of Interior Health, it is my pleasure to recap some highlights. Of course the biggest story of 2017 was the wildfires that tore across several communities. In total 19 hospitals, health centres and residential care homes were evacuated. Close...

A plea for civility in the law, politics and our everyday lives Mid-winter is approaching, with our various seasonal celebrations:  Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and maybe even Festivus? We celebrate our religious and / or ethnic affiliations; we celebrate the return of the sun for longer periods of time each...

Recently, the Auditor General of Canada released a report that addressed the Phoenix payroll that has seriously affected the lives of thousands of civil servants across this country. More than half of the public service sector is caught up in this -- many are being paid well below their proper salaries, some are not being...

Today the Liberal government announced that they have adopted an NDP proposal to close a loophole in the Species at Risk Act. In September 2017, Richard Cannings, MP (South Okanagan – West Kootenay) introduced Bill C-363, An Act to amend the Species at Risk Act (amendment of the List) in the House of Commons which proposed ...

How fortunate we are to have so much snow so early in the season. Rosslanders, being the avid out doors people that we are, were out in droves, cross-country skiing, touring, and snow shoeing. On Friday  we headed up to Strawberry Pass, to the Rossland Range Recreation Site, for our first turns on Lepsoe...

We’re roughly a year away from our next municipal election, and I’m prepared to bet a great deal that the word you’re going to hear most from candidates (especially new ones) is ‘transparency’ – as in, the current council is being less-than-transparent, obfuscating, running a defacto dictatorship at YOUR expense. It’s a...

The Selkirk College Students’ Union has launched a manual for students’ union organisers. The Fundamentals of Students’ Unionism provides student activists and organisers a framework to understand students’ unionism and the student movement. “Students are more in debt now than ever in the history of British Columbia and...

Are we learning anything? Are we trying to solve underlying problems? It's what I've been thinking about as the rinse and repeat cycle of terrorism and mass shootings continues. So many good, innocent people lost. Dreams and legacy unrealized. I don't think it's good enough to just report it anymore with sense of shock, or ...