Art and activism are necessary to sustain hope, especially in hard times like the present. In June and July 2021, poets Rita Wong, Emily Riddle, and Sacha Ouellet joined me to record the audio project “From the Prairies to the Pacific Rim,” a poetry exchange and conversation about waterways and the Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline […] More »

B.C. Aboriginal groups are divided on the Olympic issue British Columbia’s First Nations are divided in their support for the Olympics. On one side, the chiefs and band councils of four indigenous communities—the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh—have endorsed the Games and set up the Four Host First Nations Society, an offi cial Olympic partner […] More »

Quebec spent 30 years paying off the debt it racked up for the 1976 Montreal Summer Games. There’s no reason so far to expect that Vancouver will be any different. British Columbian and Canadian taxpayers have already incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in rampant budget overruns—the Athlete’s Village and security budget are only two […] More »

The misbegotten “War on Drugs” has funnelled billions into the pockets of criminals, and drug use is higher than ever. We’re addicted to policy failure — time to kick the habit Shortly after Vancouver was named the host of the 2010 Olympics, Naomi Klein was seething about injustice again. “The Vancouver-Whistler Olympic bid presented the […] More »

Another B.C. election has passed, and the Liberals under Premier Gordon Campbell were able to hold on to power, but it was hard to tell at times which party stood where on the issues and the political spectrum. The environment was a central issue in this election, but it played out in a way that […] More »

[Editor’s note: this series of blog posts on the bombings of natural gas wells in Northern B.C. is running over three days; part one was posted on Monday. Part two ran yesterday. This is the final part of the series.] The RCMP’s recent decision to raise the temperature in this region by officially describing the […] More »

[Editor’s note: this series of blog posts on the bombings of natural gas wells in Northern B.C. is running over three days; part one was posted yesterday. Look for the conclusion tomorrow morning.] If the gas that was coming out the ground in Northern B.C.  smelled like rose petals, it might not be such a […] More »

[Editor’s note: this series of blog posts on the bombings of natural gas wells in Northern B.C. will run over three days, starting today. Look for part two on Tuesday morning and the final part on Wednesday.] When I agreed to take a job as the editor of a small newspaper in Chetwynd, B.C., I […] More »

Publishers, libraries co-operating to get locally published e-books into the public’s hands If the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. gets its way, the province’s libraries will be making a major acquisition this summer without gaining any weight. The association’s Best of B.C. Books Online project plans to purchase electronic rights to a collection of […] More »