Two members of my family are teachers; I will therefore limit my comments on the dispute between the teachers and the government to its constitutional aspect. Through the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act of 2002 the government had attempted to curtail the B.C. health workers’ rights to collective bargaining....

The Lower Columbia Region is thriving! The most recent economic statistic in a series of published metrics highlighting our thriving economy is the number of jobs posted in the Lower Columbia Region. From January through August 2014 there has been 1,040 different employment opportunities posted at the Community Skills Centre!...

Taken aback by complete strangers walking up to you this summer to shake hands? Well, that's because they're back. Candidates on the hustings for a city hall near you. And despite their enthusiasm, it's not a passion shared by most voters if past elections are any indication. Even though local governments in B.C. oversee more...

It appears that in the recent referendum about 27% of Trail’s eligible voters voted in favour of a combined pedestrian / pipe-bridge. It also appears that 64% didn’t bother to vote at all, maybe because they had been told by their Council that it would not cost them anything in additional taxes… so why bother. But what about...

It has been a beautifully hot summer in the Boundary area but that will soon be replaced by the next ice age. This Friday at 7:00 p.m. the Grand Forks Border Bruins begin their 44th season in the KIJHL when they host the 100 Mile House Wranglers. This marks the Wranglers very first appearance in Grand Forks. The ice event...

Edited The Grand Forks Fall Fair was cancelled this spring when there weren't enough volunteers to come forward and organize it. However, the River Valley Community Church stepped up and helped the existing volunteers pull the event together.  New additions from last year were lawnmower races, a petting zoo and zucchini races. ...

The second annual Park in the Park car show has grown from last year with more cars, more vendors and more entertainment for the Aug. 17 event. Over 30 vendors were set up in “Vendor’s Alley” on the sidewalk next to the BMX track by City Park. Next to the vendors were the cars that came from all over Western Canada and some...

Human Solutions (Skyhorse Publishing, May 2014) is a chilling and accomplished debut about cults, crime, and the lengths we’ll go for love by novelist Avi Silberstein, inspired by the true story of Paul Schäfer, an ex-Nazi who founded the Colonia Dignidad in Chile in the late 1970s. To most people, Javier Gonzalez is an...

Search and Rescue teams, with help from the 442 squadron Cormorant helicopter, scanned the shoreline of Kootenay Lake from Nine Mile, north of Nelson, on to the Corra Linn Dam near Bonnington Sunday with no luck locating the missing Surrey man.   It was the third day SAR members searched for the 56-year-old Surrey resident ...

The BC Coroners Service has confirmed the identity of a man who died following a hiking incident near Silverton on Aug. 29. He was Nicholas Ioan Llewelyn-Smith, aged 31, from the Orara Valley, New South Wales, Australia.  Llewelyn-Smith was camping with several friends at the Bannock Point campground south of Silverton on the...