OP/ED: SD 20 chair speaks to strategic planning
Giving our students the tools and confidence they need to be successful in a rapidly-evolving global environment is our first priority as a Board of Education. To assist us in achieving this goal, we will be engaging our communities in building and maintaining a school system that reflects local priorities, values and...
OP/ED: Interior Health year in review: Message from Board Chair Erwin Malzer
As I mark my first anniversary as Board Chair of Interior Health, I’m looking back on the highlights and challenges of 2015. From wildfires that blazed through much of our region, to major investments in surgical care, and a change in leadership within our organization, it has been quite a year. We saw the departure of Dr. ...
LETTER: B.C. needs to fix its record of brutal inaction on poverty policy
Dear Editor, In response to Deb McIntosh’s recent letter re: the Community Harvest Food Bank’s struggles to assist families and individuals living in poverty, we suggest it is high time that our wealthy province makes some meaningful policy changes so that the families of one in five children in BC don’t have to be dependent...
RANT: From coffee cups to remembrance to refugees - we are getting it ALL wrong
There’s an insidious either/or mentality invading our political lexicon that I think is actually becoming an outstandingly effective camouflage for genuine evil, and it’s making me crazy to see how few people seem to realize how totally they are being manipulated by it. It starts off benign enough – in fact, in such a stupid...
LETTER: Condemning kindness makes no sense - spread it, instead
A flurry of letters and Facebook posts demanding we stop the Syrian refugee immigration and take care of our homeless and vets before refugees got us thinking. We have made donations to two school Christmas funds, the Nelson Food Cupboard, the Calgary Food Bank, the Calgary Mustard Seed, the Poppy Fund, the Canadian Red Cross,...
Head of Food Bank says local working families going hungry, homeless
Dear Premier Clarke, Katrine Conroy MLA, Richard Cannings MP, Prime Minister Trudeau, Castlegar Community Harvest Food Bank can no longer meet the needs of the working poor. We can not continue to rob Peter to pay Paul. We do not have the capacity to raise any more funds than we already do. We operate 100-per-cent on volunteers...
Time out needed for bullies at city halls
There's something about local government that brings out the worst in some people. Staff get spat on. Mayors and councillors are often the victims of what can only be described as cyberbullying. In some towns, process servers would be well-advised to offer volume discounts to local governments. It takes place every which way...
Practical Financial Solutions: Planning for blended families
Blended families are becoming the national norm. Finances are challenging for any relationship and they become even more challenging in the case of multiple marriages or common-law relationships, especially when they include children from previous and current relationships. If yours is a blended family, here is some basic ...
Reform of public land management needed in Alberta to address competing demands and reduce politicization
Land management in Alberta and much of Western Canada can be enhanced if policies ensure that property rights are well-defined and transferable, finds a new book released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. “Disputes over the proper use of land have multiplied across...
OP/ED: Protect water sources from free ranging cattle
Newsletter... I am sharing a few pictures that represent a typical water/grassland scene on the Gipin Grasslands. The pictures showcase the largest tributary to Morrissey Creek before the creek drops into a canyon and an adjacent meadow that was the site of a recent forest thinning burn. Morrissey Creek watershed is one of ...