By: Bill Bourgeois In the past two decades, British Columbians have witnessed two starkly different approaches to managing the province’s forest resources. Following the so-called “war in the woods” in the early 1990s, the Provincial Government responded with a series of initiatives emphasizing land-use planning, greater...

Rossland will send a letter to support the West Kootenay Regional Airport’s (WKRA) pitch to get West Jet service into Castlegar. Coun. Kathy Wallace raised the motion as a late addition to the agenda at last week’s regular council meeting on June 11. “Part of the time constraint is that this [issue] is coming to […]

I have been writing about politics lately.  Now I will turn my attentions to a wider subject, minds and consciousness. It is a great virtue of history that—through its study--people can be cured of thinking they are undergoing something unique, when in historical fact something very similar has happened before. Harper is in...

  Candace Batycki doesn’t want more flights or more airlines at the Castlegar airport because the increase in traffic would lead to greater carbon emissions.  At the June 11 Nelson City Council meeting, Councillor Batycki spoke against a motion that would support an effort by municipal leaders in the West Kootenay to lobby WestJet to […]

With no other explanation, other than to dismiss the legislation as “unnecessary red tape”, one deeply buried line of Bill C-38, the Conservative government’s 2012 Budget Bill states:  “The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act is repealed”.  And with these 10 words the Conservatives ‘Trojan Horse’ bill, as it has come to be called, […]

A campaign to decriminalize marijuana in B.C. is putting local politicians on the spot – including Castlegar’s Mayor Lawrence Chernoff. A coalition of eight B.C. mayors, through Stop the Violence BC campaign, sent a letter in April urging provincial leaders to “support the regulation and taxation of marijuana”, citing public heath concerns and crime reduction […]

Four area chambers of commerce have offered regional airport representatives their endorsement in a bid to encourage WestJet to come to the Kootenays – meanwhile the Castlegar chamber is being flooded with letters of support from local businesses. Just last week, WestJet invited members of the West Kootenay Regional Airport Advisory Committee (including Castlegar Mayor […]

Nelson City Council, normally quite an amiable group, descended into a tense stalemate Monday during a long discussion about the legalization and regulation of marijuana. The discussion included some acrimonious exchanges between Mayor John Dooley and Councillor Donna Macdonald.   Council was debating a motion that, if passed, would have had the mayor sign a […]

The vision of a unified transit system covering both the Kootenay Boundary and Central Kootenay regions is a step closer to reality, according to Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff. Chernoff is also chair of the newly-formed West Kootenay Transit Committee, which had its first meeting Wednesday. “We met yesterday with BC Transit, and that’s when it […]

WestJet has asked representatives of the West Kootenay Regional Airport Advisory Committee to meet with airline staff later this month to discuss why WestJet should come to Castlegar (see also: http://castlegarsource.com/news/westjet-clarifies-invitation-19383). Castlegar mayor Lawrence Chernoff, Nelson mayor John Dooley, city manager John Malcolm and former MP (and air traffic controller) Jim Gouk will be among the […]