Column: We owe Greta and the world's youth more than a Nobel Prize
Many people, including me, expected Greta Thunberg to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was deservedly awarded for ending more than 20 years of conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.Greta and the young people worldwide urging adults to care about their future don’t need a Nobel....
Column: Choose your government: Canadians and a perilous future
The moment, the prospects, the significance This is my second and final column on the federal election at hand. I write this feeling very uncertain about what Canadians want from politics. I have just recently told a friend in a conversation about the election – one of many – that I think conservatism in Canada is weak. But...
LETTER: Kudos to striking kids, federal parties need to step up
To the Editor, The Fridays For the Future youth strike last Friday was inspiring. Around the world, millions of youth and their supporters marched and demanded real climate action from the adults. By ‘real action’ I assume the youth mean action that avoids the forecasted global catastrophe and delivers the Paris Accord goal...
RANT: On cops, Crown, courts and criminalty - a wake-up call is required
I just published an article about prolific offenders that is going to have many locals feeling furious, and justly so. It’s about two local prolific offenders who, between the two of them, are facing 40 separate charges for crimes committed within a two-week span. Both have been arrested – within that time frame – at least ...
Editorial: What to do?
Current and anticipatory grief The reality of the continuing extinction of many so species is profoundly upsetting. Readers may wonder why old people should care. For example, I’ll be dead in a few years myself; it will be up to others to live their lives diminished by the loss of caribou and many other creatures, many...
Op/Ed: Few things are as dangerous as economists with physics envy
By John Rapley, for Aeon Two questions: is it good or bad that professional athletes earn 400 times what nurses do, and is string theory a dead end? Each question goes to the heart of its discipline. Yet while you probably answered the first, you’d hold an opinion on the prospects of string theory only if you’ve studied...
COLUMN: Political Intelligence, Elections, and the Demos
Some Elections matter more: this should be one Canadians are about to choose a national, federal government on October 21. It is a more significant choice for our nation than we have faced in many elections, and not because Canada alone is facing some unusual circumstances: the entire human world and the non-human species...
Column: Our biodiversity crisis -- connecting the dots
The polar bear has become the poster child for climate change impacts in the Arctic. Sea ice, which the bears depend on for hunting, is melting at an ever-expanding rate. For other species, climate impacts are not as direct. The 2019 State of Canada’s Birds report found aerial insectivores like swifts, swallows and nightjars...
Editorial: It’s back-to-school time. Drive much?
It’s time to reflect on our driving habits, and on the facts cited below – especially for the safety of everyone’s children. According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, motor vehicle incidents are the leading cause of unintentional injury and death in Canada for children from 1 year old to 19 years old. The BC Injury...
Column: From the Hill -- Health Care, and Ride the Riding 2019
As I knock on doors across the south Okanagan and West Kootenay, one issue is a common topic of conversation—health care. Canadians are rightfully proud of our public health care system, and the NDP is proud that it was Tommy Douglas who fought for the free, universal program that we enjoy. It is not perfect, but...
