What to do about the Senate? Abolishing it would put a merciful end to this remnant of royal trappings. Judging by the experience of the past few years, however, abolishing the Senate would bring us closer to a Vladimir Putin style democracy. I do not want to abolish the Senate, I want to see it restructured with a new focus...

This is of more than academic concern right now as the Harper Conservative government will eventually unveil the full details of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). From what we know about it now this agreement is little more than a ‘corporate bill of rights’. It gives corporations...

Even though I found it stultifying, the secondary school I attended was considered quite progressive, largely because students could elect in third year to stream their arts and science education into arts or science. I couldn’t wait to free myself of math and science. I was fine with basic arithmetic, but when teachers started...

Boston, Massachusetts is a city of firsts. One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded by Puritan colonists in 1630. The first public school in the country opened in Boston in 1635 and the first American subway started up there in 1897. The Innovation Cities™Program has ranked Boston as the number […]

BC Southern Interior MP Alex Atamanenko is critical of the latest Budget Implementation Act, Bill C-4. The 300-page bill amends dozens of acts and contains many measures that are not budgetary.  “Once again, the Conservatives are trying to cram through major changes without sufficient study by Parliament.  What is disturbing...

So often, in news coverage, valuable opinion/editorial writing requires focussing on controversy and those issues which divide us (this has been particularly true in The Source of late), so it's a real delight when I get to write about something unreservedly wonderful. On Oct. 9, a reader named Angela Erickson posted this...

 Over the past year we have heard a great deal about various voter-suppression phone calls or “robocalls,” as they have become known, that were made during the last federal election. Six applicants from six federal ridings sought an annulment under the Canada Elections Act of the 2011 election results in those ridings, based...

A recent headline announced that JP Morgan has reached a tentative $13-billion settlement with the US government for the role it played in creating the 2007-8 mess that left many nations, including Canada, in a prolonged state of economic dysphoria. JP Morgan was a central actor in the play that created this mess. How much ...

I write in response to letters penned by Mr. Malcolm, CEO City of Castlegar and Councillors McIntosh and Heaton-Sherstobitoff in regard to written comments made by me in response to what I felt was an over-reactive rebuttal penned by Kyra Hoggan to the letter from Paul Thederen published in the October 3, 2013 edition of the...

Updated Last July the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources announced that the province’s wildlife populations are healthy. The Ministry’s statement is a perfect example of what happens when governments turn their back on transparency and accountability. After all, any attempt at due diligence will quickly reveal...