My brother Kenneth--aged 22--drowned in the Thompson River in 1988. I cannot begin to tell you how that changed me. Nothing like it did my parents, or my sister, or our youngest brother, 21 years old at the time. They were close. Kenneth and I were just beginning to know each other as adults. As the oldest by 8 years, I had...

Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) is partnering with BC Ideas to provide five $10,000 cash awards to reward innovative solutions addressing issues which will improve the lives of residents in the Columbia Basin region. BC Ideas: Solutions for Stronger Communities is an online competition seeking to identify solutions to deal with challenges facing BC communities now […]

  Food and Water Safety after Flooding Heavy rainfall and increased snowmelt have created widespread flooding across the Kootenay Boundary region. Interior Health is advising residents impacted by flooding and power outages to take steps to ensure their food and water are safe, particularly when returning to an area evacuated due to flooding. Floodwaters are […]

Local governments and the public have until the end of this month to come up with a plan to preserve Marshall Lake. That’s all the time the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) will allow for a decision to be made on whether or not the city, regional district or the public are willing and able...

The BC Coroners Service has confirmed the identity of a woman whose body was found floating in Okanagan Lake near Kelowna on June 19. She is Melissa Joy Van Diemen, aged 34, originally from Grand Forks, but most recently living in Kelowna. Ms. Van Diemen was last seen swimming in Okanagan Lake behind City Park on June 13. The...

Ian Jason Peregoodoff, 43 of Grand Forks, has been charged with two counts of arson and damage to private property and two counts of mischief after allegedly bottle bombing the Midway RCMP Detachment and police vehicle on Monday, June 18. Peregoodoff remains in police custody appeared in the Nelson provincial court on Wednesday,...

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...

Interior Health is reminding residents to take extra precautions against mosquito bites this summer.  West Nile virus, a disease that is spread from infected birds to humans through mosquito bites, has been present in B.C. since 2009. West Nile virus (WNv) was first detected in B.C. in the South Okanagan during the summer of...

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, […]

In his book A Fair Country John Ralston Saul argues that, among other things that make us unique, Canadians have developed as a society of community out of our close attention to our First Nations/Metis roots. He sees those roots in every Canadian institution and in most Canadian ways of doing things. It's the basis of our ...