Poll

MP Richard Cannings speaks to ongoing housing crisis

Canada is in the middle of a housing crisis, and the south Okanagan, Boundary and West Kootenay areas are very much in the middle of that crisis.  This is an urgent and rapidly growing problem that demands the cooperation and priority of all levels of government. The crisis has emerged out of a perfect storm of factors....

Budget 2021: More promises but everyday Canadians are left holding the bill for the pandemic while the ultra-rich enjoy a free ride

Many struggling Canadians hoped that today’s budget would offer meaningful supports and steps towards recovery. But more than that, they hoped that it would be the ultra-wealthy who have profited from the pandemic who would be paying for these supports, not the workers who have been hit so hard.  According to local MP, Richard...

MP Cannings: Important to thank people to help those with addictions

Last year, Gord Portman saved two people in a house fire in Penticton.  When he saw his picture in the local newspaper, he said to himself ‘Oh boy I need help.” Gord was addicted to drugs. So he turned to Discovery House, a local organization that helps men battle their addictions, and he now thanks Discovery House for saving...

Letter: The promise parties keep making -- and breaking

Dear Editor: Monday, February 1 marked the four year anniversary of Trudeau's broken promise on electoral reform.  “We are committed to ensuring that the 2015 election will be the last federal election using FPtP” It was a key campaign promise which Trudeau repeated over 1800 times. An all party parliamentary committee, ERRE,...

COLUMN: From the Hill -- BC apple farmers and food security

Many sectors have been hard hit by the pandemic, and agriculture is one of them.  Despite concerns about food security and pleas to buy local, orchardists and farmers in the region have had a number of serious headwinds facing them over the past year. B.C. apple growers have had to deal with huge production from just across...

Column: U.S. crisis shows need to speak truth to power

 As was demonstrated in the U.S. last week, many who are motivated by fear and ignorance are feeling emboldened — and desperate. It’s not just in the United States. Irrational, authoritarian, anti-science rhetoric and action has been heating up from Brazil to India to Hungary, and is fully entrenched in places like Russia and China.  […]

Letter: We must be vigilant

Dear Editor. We fought global wars, and millions of people died to defend and protect our human rights, including our right to have democratic governments. Last week’s invasion of the Capital Hill in DC was nothing but a stunning attack on democracy, perpetrated by none other than the President of the United States. It was ...

2020 was quite a year -- with some good things in the works

A surprising thing happened at The Narwhal during the very-bad-not-at-all-good year of 2020: we wrote more good news and solutions-focused stories than ever before By Carol Linnet, for The Narwhal You don’t need me to tell you what the seven years of 2020 have been like.  But if the pandemic has revealed anything...

RDKB Board Highlights - Fall & Winter 2020

2020 Board Highlights NOVEMBER 2020 A general overview of discussion items & major decisions from the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) Board of Directors meetings in November and December 2020. The next board meeting is January 13, 2021 at 1 p.m. on Zoom. DECEMBER 9 West Boundary Recreation Grant to Red Earth...

A glimmer of hope for dwindling Kootenay caribou and biodiversity

After significant public pressure, the B.C. government and its logging agency BC Timber Sales (BCTS) have committed to pause logging and road-building in a remote old growth valley north of Revelstoke, which is critical habitat for the North Columbia caribou herd. A total of 276 hectares of proposed logging and more than 10...