As the year has wound down, it’s time to look back on it and forward to 2017. 2016 has seen many dark clouds. The election of Donald Trump was perhaps the darkest one of all. Justin Trudeau appears to have lost his appetite for proportional representation, and climate change is accelerating. No one would blame…
Is Kinder Morgan going to be Justin Trudeau’s Standing Rock?
I’ve been one part saddened and one part outraged by the video footage coming out of Standing Rock, North Dakota over the last number of weeks as passive, unarmed water protectors are attacked on a daily basis, sometimes by police in riot gear. Police and security forces have not hesitated to use attack dogs, Taser…
The passing of Fidel: A giant who contributed so much to making a better world
On Friday, November 25, the world lost one of history’s most selfless individuals. Fidel Castro passed away at the age of 90. Born into a very wealthy family, Fidel began standing up for the underdog at a surprisingly young age. His father owned a farm thousands of hectares in size and employed hundreds of poorly…
Making real “dates” for dumping fossil fuels
Some great news on the climate change front this week as Canada joins the ranks of a number of other nations in committing to a firm date by which we will no longer be burning coal. The Liberal government announced on Monday that by 2030 coal use in Canada will be a thing of the…
Bernie Sanders: 2020
I just woke up from the worst nightmare I’ve ever had — Donald Trump won the U.S. election! But wait. It’s not a nightmare — it really did happen! We will be debating and analyzing Tuesday’s election results for a generation to come. But for me the No. 1 takeaway is the outright opposition within…
Affordable housing: Gregor Robertson still doesn’t get it
It’s perfectly clear to anyone paying attention that we have a housing crisis in Vancouver today — a crisis that has been with us for quite some time and is only continuing to get much worse. But the only thing more troubling than the crisis itself is the lack of leadership and complete absence of…
A tale of two school boards: One fiery, one fired
One of my fondest political memories is the night when results came in for the by-election of a brand new Vancouver School Board in 1986. Two years earlier, in 1984, COPE (Coalition of Progressive Electors) had won a bare majority on the school board, electing five of the nine trustees. They had campaigned very heavily…