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. In February, […]

Provincial Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott will be in Castlegar Thursday to "meet with party members and local residents about my campaign to become the next Leader of the BC Liberal Party and the next Premier of B.C. " In an interview Wednesday, Abbott said he's no stranger to the Kootenays, and this stop is no ...

What kind of year in politics is 2011 going to be? Very likely another year (or at least ten months) of gridlock at the federal level, with no sign of any so-called game changer on the horizon.   A spring election is looking less likely as the Conservatives try to make a deal with the […]

 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. […]

Tempers ran a little higher than usual at the regular meeting of Castlegar city council Monday night, after Mayor Lawrence Chernoff presented - for the second time in as many weeks - a utility hike recommended by city director of financial services Andre Buss. The staff report outlining the rationale behind an increase of...

 Contention continues even after School District 20 (SD 20) voted 5-3 Monday night in favour of a motion that will table the Planning for the Future document that recommended closing schools in Rossland and Castlegar. The district will proceed, instead, with 'education focussed' public consulations, in keeping with a new...

 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 […]