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...

Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) invites Basin youth ages 15-29 to sign up now for CURRENTS: Columbia Basin Trust Youth Water Forum 2010, being held at Halcyon Hot Springs in Nakusp, September 24-26, 2010.  “CBT is looking forward to engaging youth in water issues in the Columbia Basin for a second year at CURRENTS,” said Heather Mitchell, CBT Program Manager, Water […]

 As we head into a new political season it looks depressingly like the old: a stand-off between the malignant minority government of Stephen Harper and the seriously diminished Liberal Party and its hapless leader Michael Ignatieff. Both these parties and their leaders are so off the mark in terms of what Canadians want and...

Autism is the most common neurological disorder that affects children in our nation. Currently, one in every 200 people in Canada has been diagnosed with some form of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). If we look specifically at children, this number jumps up to one in 165, or .6 per cent of all children. Diagnoses are […]

Selkirk College and Amnesty International will be launching the fall Mir Centre for Peace Lecture Series with a passionate and important talk by Alex Neve, Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada. His lecture, Protecting Human Rights: What’s Happening to Canada’s Voice, will focus on the concerns surrounding Canada’s fading human rights leadership and will put a […]

I must admit: I have certain rules in handling responses from readers to postings on this blog.  No libel, no swearing, no racist remarks, no name-calling. But I do NOT try to kill off comments from people who disagree with me (although I wonder how could they!).  I don’t disqualify them because their submissions  have spelling ...

The decision by B.C.’s “Acting” Chief Electoral Officer Craig James to stall the anti-HST petition until court cases are dealt with MUST be challenged in court. I believe he’s wrong; he made a mistake; he went far beyond his proper role in validating a petition. He has in effect destroyed B.C.’s democratic  petition legislation,...

Well, that didn’t take long!  Remember all those promises BC retailers wouldn’t use the HST to rip off consumers? And the Premier, the Finance Minister and the business community wouldn’t lie to us, would they?Been to Zellers lately?I was there today and the cashier asked, before ringing up the total for my single item, if ...

After years of deteriorating farm income, mounting debt and ill-designed income stability programs, can life on Canadian farms get worse?  It certainly appears so. The government is forecasting that the price of many farm commodities will decline in 2010.  And despite a complete overhaul by the Conservative government, farm...

If anyone had any doubt it is game over for Premier Gordon Campbell, the latest Angus Reid poll spells it out in black and white.  But what’s worse are the figures that also show that, even with a new leader, the Liberals are heading for an election disaster.That will be Campbell’s political legacy, barring a miraculous...