Your Commission appointed Robyn Gervais as Independent Legal Counsel for Aboriginal interests. We had no role or any say in this matter. She has now withdrawn as Independent Legal Counsel. We find it extremely disturbing that she has had to take this drastic step. The First Nations Summit applied for standing and was granted...

BC Nurses’ Union members continue to be concerned about the closure of the Castlegar Emergency services on February 4. We want the community of Castlegar to know that our priority is to provide quality and safe patient care. The nurses at Castlegar Hospital will continue to advocate for improvements so that high quality care will […]

Editor, The Nelson Daily On January 6, 2012, the Health Employers Association of BC suddenly announced a unilateral 9%-14% wage rollback for B.C.’s hospital pharmacists. The wage rollback is certain to aggravate an ongoing staffing shortage in BC’s hospital pharmacies, putting all British Columbians at risk. For years, hospitals across BC have been suffering critical […]

February 13, 2012 Ottawa, ON The Honourable Diane Finley, P.C., M.P. Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Room 707 Confederation Building Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Dear Minister Finley, Enclosed please find two letters from constituents which represent the feedback my office has been receiving since the Prime Minister made the announcement to increase the […]

An open letter to the community of Castlegar; Interior Health would like to apologize to the residents of Castlegar and area for not properly informing you of the temporary closure of the emergency department last Saturday. Interior Health has contingency plans in place when facing a service interruption like this, which includes notifying community officials, […]

Editor, The Nelson Daily Do we accept Stephen Harper’s “new Canadian patriotism”? We in the Kootenays, with pacificist traditions from Quakers, Doukhobors, and Viet Nam war resisters, surely must be alerted by a Prime Minister with a vision of Canada standing tall with military muscle beside imperial nations like America and Britain. I fear that […]

The best way to explain my issue would be in chronological order but would require a longer article to accomplish. A condensed version, in this case, is applicable. On December 30th  at 3:50 p.m., our vehicle was caught in a collision with what best described was a pothole. The pothole measured 48 inches long by […]

Dear Prime Minister: We are deeply concerned that your government has already determined the outcome of the controversial Enbridge pipelines proposal even before the panel responsible for assessing its impacts has commenced its hearings. This, in our opinion, has the real potential to completely undermine the independence and...

I read with interest the article that appeared in the December 9, 2011, edition of The Castlegar Source entitled, “MP wants bottled water banned.” In the piece, BC South Interior MP Alex Atamanenko based his recent statement about bottled water in the House of Commons on information that has long been confirmed as false — […]

To the Editor: We of Occupy Nelson would like to thank the City of Nelson, the Nelson City Police and the helpful folks on City Council for assisting us with dismantling the physical Occupation in front of City Hall. We would like to thank the incredibly helpful (and ever-thoughtful) City manager for waiting until our […]