I’m sorry I didn’t get this posted in time to make Sunday dinner – I’ll aim to post Sunday mornings from now on, but …well, it’s Sunday morning, so don’t watch the clock. Cartoons end when they end, man. The reason for my tardiness is that I couldn’t settle on a recipe – I kept […]

Hmmmm – it looks like the provincial election isn’t going to be the humdrum rubber-stamp we were all expecting for the West Kootenay region. Bill Bennett, MLA and B.C. Minister, was in Castlegar today to acclaim Jim Postnikoff as the BC Liberal candidate – meaning two-term incumbent Katrine Conroy (NDP) won’t be just walking away […]

Like most parents in Canada, I have grieved for Rehtaeh Parsons, the 17-year-old teenager that committed suicide April 7 after being sexually assaulted two years ago. After the assault, she was cyberbullied until her breaking point. As a parent, this terrifies me. I know I am in way over my head. Every parent feels that “kids...

The day I picked up a copy of Stéphane Hessel’s Time for Outrage! at my local bookstore was the day the Royal Bank of Canada’s hiring practices made headlines. There was confusion about what RBC was being accused of. Was it outsourcing? Was it off-shoring? Was it an abuse of the temporary foreign workers’ program? Whatever ...

As we move towards the end of another session of Parliament I always like to reflect on the events of the past year.  Locally my office has continued to assist constituents who run into difficulties with the federal government bureaucracy.  We have been able to help people in obtaining justice from Revenue Canada and Citizenship...

Part 3 of the Municipal Act regulates all aspects of elections, from elector and candidate qualifications to the resolution of conflicts and irregularities. The scope of the Act’s election regulations meets all that can reasonably be required to assure fair and open elections in Yukon municipalities. However, elections are to democracy what oxygen is to […]

So how much is too much? It's a question worth asking after B.C.'s political parties reported their 2012 fundraising hauls last week. And quite the haul it was. Between them, the B.C. Liberals and NDP brought in more than $17 million. The Liberals alone raised $10.15 million, nearly $4 million dollars more than their Ontario...

My last column gave examples of referendum procedures with less than democratic consequences and of a two-stage referendum process which conforms to the principles of the Yukon’s Municipal Act. In this column we will examine the rationale for the Act’s exclusion of two politically sensitive issues, budget and taxes, from the...

One of the first pieces I wrote for this space focused on self-talk. The kind of conversation I might have with myself when seeing someone standing or sitting on the street, looking worn down and asking for a contribution from my pocket to his or her hat. Self-talk says a great deal about world-view. I can wonder how that...

“Don’t let another day go by, without the magic touch, embracing you, revealing you…  Change your mind.” – Neil Young. Change your Mind. It has become, almost without my noticing it, basic to my understanding of existence that matter and spirit are antitheses. They are “at war”. The Austrian oracle/ clairvoyant/ mystic, Rudolf...