By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily From one side of the West Kootenay to the other, the regional district has a new chair. Texas-born John Kettle and Area B director was acclaimed as chair of the Regional District of Central Kootenay board of directors on Thursday at their inaugural meeting in Nelson. He replaced Montana-born […]

Next Monday will see a special open board meeting of School District 20 (SD 20), in which trustees will vote on a motion that may well see the district heading back to the drawing board regarding future cuts and district configuration. The meeting, to be held in the Trail Middle School gymnasium at 7 p.m., […]

Riding the high of a successful tri-city bid to host the 2011 B.C. Senior Olympic Games, the tri-city mayors and Chambers of Commerce met last week to discuss further economic development in the region. Castlegar Mayor Lawrence Chernoff, along with Trail Mayor Dieter Bogs and Nelson Mayor John Dooley, met with Chamber of Commerce representatives […]

Last May, the OECD put out figures comparing infant mortality rates in countries around the world. Perhaps the biggest story of all the figures were those attributed to Canada. This country has always boasted of its social stats — life expectancy, infant mortality, university graduates, and other measures of our success as a nation.   But not […]

As one of the key players in the break-away group of 13 NDP caucus members that have been calling for Carole James resignation as party Leader, Kootenay West MLA Katrine Conroy is looking forward to the opportunity to begin rebuilding the troubled party now that James has stepped down.   Placing one of the single […]

VICTORIA — With British Columbia NDP leader Carole James announcing Monday she is stepping down over political infighting, the province’s two mainstream parties are now without a clear leader. Her resignation comes only weeks after B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell — whose popularity was driven down in part by the unpopular harmonized sales tax — announced […]

 This episode of Faultlines on the Real News Network explores how Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is working to conflate the concepts of ‘anti-Israel as an apartheid state’ and ‘anti-semitism’ so that anyone critical of Israel will be considered anti-semitic. Essential viewing for anyone who cares about reason, democracy, and human rights.

So, I guess if you want to break the law – say, counseling someone to commit murder – you might want the judge to be the CBC’s ombudsman. Hundreds of people complained to the CBC’s guardian of what is right and wrong on the airwaves with complaints about the sinister and twisted Tom Flanagan’s Christian […]

By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily A new accounting quirk has the regional district sitting at over $8 million in net debt for 2009, its financial audit revealed recently. The Regional District of Central Kootenay is saddled with $8.5 million in net debt — up from $2.48 million in 2008 — according to the consolidated […]

NDP Leader Carole James mishandled the “Bob Simpson” problem several weeks ago ..and now that has come back to haunt her. At the time, I criticised James for having MLA Simpson turfed from caucus for publicly criticising as lacklustre a speech  she made to the Union of BC Municipalties convention. It was lacklustre.  But although he did not […]