Any cop, lawyer, judge or prosecutor knows that when you give in to blackmail, it’s not the end of the shakedown. Not by any means! Too bad the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission never learned that lesson.It’s only a few months ago that the CRTC caved in to the demands of Canada’s private television...

As you may have noticed I haven’t been blogging much over the last couple of weeks. (Largely this is because I have been immersed in fighting the privatization of the local sewage treatment system). But in part it is the result of having some doubts about what the point is. I often say to people that the left – whatever that...

British Columbians cannot afford to let Enbridge bring the devastation of the BP oil spill to their coast. That’s the message a delegation of B.C. First Nations is bringing back from the Gulf of Mexico today, after a four-day tour of the Gulf Coast area affected by the BP oil spill. “Everywhere we went people told us the same […]

The hurt has begun: BC consumers are now being hit with a higher sales tax (HST) almost every where they turn.  And as a result some of those who can hardly afford it, like food servers, are already taking the hit.A friend of mine told me the following story: each morning he has coffee and toast at a neighbourhood restaurant;...

 When is a bank bail-out not a bailout? When the Canadian bankers’ Association President, Nancy Hughes Anthony says so. In her letter to the Vancouver Sun (which published my blog on the issue)  Hughes Anthony points out that not a single bank went bankrupt and therefore did not require a bail out.But call it what you will ...

Wow! What a pleasant surprise. There, as CTV Vancouver’s local news top story tonight (Tuesday), was a hidden-camera investigation into B.C.’s program to prevent voluntarily self-restricted problem gamblers from entering casinos.  The system failed … repeatedly … as a supposedly “listed” problem gambler entered three Vancouver-area casinos, gambled, and cashed in his proceeds without a single security […]

A group of eight British Columbia medical and health organizations are calling on the provincial government to enact province-wide legislation banning the sale and use of cosmetic pesticides. The group is also clarifying two common myths surrounding cosmetic pesticides because of emerging evidence of human toxicity, especially to the vulnerable, young and old.  “Despite the completion […]

The sorry spectacle of Conservative cabinet ministers flying around the world defending banks from a tax to cover their next, inevitable, meltdown is bad enough. What is perhaps worse is that it is being largely justified by the perpetuation of the myth that Canada did not have to bail out its banks.Wrong.We are, according ...

In March, the government released a discussion paper intended as background for its Canada-wide public consultation on pension reform and Canada’s Retirement Income System.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s not surprising. It involved only three town-hall meetings, three by-invitation expert roundtables, and a voluntary on-line component.  You could also write in. Their plan […]

 Is it my imagination or are the NHL refs favoring the U.S. teams when they play Canadian teams? This radical thought crossed my mind last year during the playoffs: it just seemed to me that whenever I watched a Canadian team in the NHL playoffs come up against ANY U.S. contender, the refs were tougher on […]