The B.C. government likes to boast that the province's personal income tax rates are among the lowest in the land, if not the lowest. Expect to hear it repeated a lot in TV ads over the coming weeks, when the legislature reconvenes in February and when the 2013 provincial budget is tabled.   On one level they're right. On...

The remarkable Idle No More movement is the biggest and most important national outpouring of grassroots aboriginal anger ever seen in Canada. Not since the late 1960s when Indians (as they then referred to themselves) and Métis confronted governments with demands for justice has such a dramatic and passionate expression of...

In this column I would like to share part of the speech I gave to those attending the “Open Forum” on a culture of peace and Department of Peace in Canada which took place in Ottawa early in November of 2012. Arms trade is big business – in 2010 total military spending in the world was around $1.6 Trillion.  According to the...

I love the power of computer technology and everything connected to it most days. But then there are those days when you just want to throw your computer through the nearest window. Come on, I know you’ve had the urge and I don’t think it matters if it’s an Apple or PC. The struggle to hold back the violence hit me again just...

When Josh Fox received a letter offering him nearly $100,000 for the natural gas extraction rights on his Pennsylvania property, his first reaction was: nice chunk of change. Then he started wondering what was involved in the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process proposed.  Looking for the answer took him on a road trip...

What's in a light? The readings on the first Sunday of the new year focus on Epiphany. An epiphany being one of those moments in life when the light comes on. A comic book illustration light bulb radiating lines over the head of the character concerned. The time a concept in physics or math finally came clear. Or understanding...

“Being determines consciousness, not consciousness, being.” “Philosophers have until now merely interpreted the world; the point is to change it.”                                                        - Charles Henry Marx “The crisis is not material, physical, or scientific, the crisis is spiritual.” “No one is transformed...

Historians, archaeologists, and palaeontologists focus on pivotal moments around which separate eras seem to hinge. It is no different in other disciplines as ecologists define community edges and philosophers erect words around meaning. Meanwhile, down on Planet Earth, climbers, bikers, skiers, and boaters flow over their ...

The Government of BC has been on a borrowing and spending spree for about eight years. A lot of this is being done using the “Public-Private Partnership” model (P3) of which the former Premier Campbell was exceedingly fond. In fact, he was such a leading proponent in Canada that the commercial interests behind the...

 “History is just one damn thing after another.” John Masefield. “Life is understood backward, but lived forward.”Soren Kirkegaard This is it, the final column of Arc for the year 2012. This is the week I have often called “dead week” in my mind but not publicly (people would misunderstand!) because of my strange sense of...