A few days ago, former BC NDP premier Dan Miller had an op-ed in The Vancouver Sun in which he criticized his party’s insufficient enthusiasm on resource development. As regular readers of this blog may be aware, I take a slightly different point of view. Please see here for my
Continue readingTag: Vancouver Sun
Song of the Watermelon: Vancouver Sun Letter
A letter of mine in the Vancouver Sun today, this one about the “Disappearing Palestine” ads on public transit here in the city. I try to defend the ads against the absurd charge that they target Jews. Click here to read it. Filed under: Ethnicity, Letters to the Editor, Middle
Continue readingLet Freedom Rain II: No Vancouver Sun, BC residents are NOT split on twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline
Whenever I see a headline in a newspaper describing a poll, I take it with a grain of tar. For example, a recent Mustel poll about support for twinning the Kinder Morgan pipeline showed that 46.2 oppose the pipeline while 44.4 support it. Close, eh? But here’s the real story:
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Vancouver Sun Letter
A letter of mine found its way into the Vancouver Sun today. This one comes in response to a piece last week by Senator Mobina Jaffer about the role of Canada’s Senate in protecting minority rights. In my letter, I argue in favour of abolishing the Senate and ensuring fair
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Heather Scoffield reports on the Canadian Index of Wellbeing’s stunning finding that Canadian quality of life declined by a quarter between 2008 and 2010, while the Vancouver Sun and Lindor Reynolds comment on the collapse in well-being far beyond the economic damage
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Social Connectedness: An Op-Ed
One thing I know about caregiving is that it cannot be done well by one person alone. We need friends, family… we need support. And that support is really only very effective if it is coordinated. So, to that end, I have given a lot of my time and energy
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Crude lies
Pipeline spill risks are low, Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines “… with modern pipeline design and mitigation measures, the risks are very low… “What we can say is that at Enbridge, we take our responsibility very seriously. An ounce of prevention may be worth a pound of cure, but we certainly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Plenty of commentators are rightly speaking out against the Cons’ anti-democratic omnibus bill, including Tim Harper and the Star-Phoenix and Vancouver Sun editorial boards. And even John Ivison can’t muster much more than “but the Libs did it too!” in defence of
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Liberal’s own fast ferry
Last August, Chad Skelton of the Vancouver Sun reported on a conference call between BC Hydro president Dave Cobb and senior staff. Cobb said the utility was being forced by Liberal policy to pay private power producers huge sums for unneeded electricity. ” ‘If it doesn’t change, it would be
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Add to your bookmarks
Keep your eyes on 2010 Gold Rush – News and Views on Vancouver 2010 (And Beyond) From Bob Mackin. On Twitter, follow hashtag #LiquorLeaks as Bob reports on Liberal friends maneuvering to take over the province’s lucrative liquor distribution system. Don’t expect corporate media to follow this story. They will
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Spread this story and these links
Ian Reid adroitly captures the question to be answered about BC Rail: “Why did the BC Liberals want to shut the trial down? What were they so afraid of that they would compromise the civil service, the administration of justice and maybe even the law to keep it out of
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Unjust deserts
Without reporting anything on the BC Liberal HQ purge beyond the party line, Vancouver Sun reporter Jonathan Fowlie provides the pols an uncritical platform to assure us that all goes well in la-la land, Clark’s senior staffer to run B.C. Liberals 2013 campaign cleanup “[Newly appointed campaign director Mike] McDonald
Continue readingThe Straight pummels Globe & Mail and other ‘important newspapers’ for lack of F-35 coverage
Charlie Smith asks the “The $10-billion question: why isn’t the F-35 scandal on the front page of “important” newspapers?” Good question. Well, we know about the Globe & Mail. Loved Bush, adored the Iraq invasion and endorsed Harper. But the rest of the media? So where did the Globe and Mail
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Toothless media accommodates political fraud
In 2006, Rafe Mair wrote News Media, Defanged for The Tyee. It included the headline: “Politicians, not too long ago, feared the press.” Of course misreants particularly feared Rafe Mair during his post-politician days. Rafe had been a successful lawyer and a capable cabinet minister in Bill Bennett’s coalition and
Continue readingPostmedia’s conservative Jeff Lee fawns over 60’s wingnut mayor ‘Tom Terrific’ Campbell
Polarizing 60’s radical mayor Tom Campbell has died. Nobody has paid much attention. That’s because the Rob Ford inspiration was a raging right winger and hater of all things non-conservative. He was a disgusting wingnut who makes Rush Limbaugh and Pam Geller seem like puppy worshippers. Leave it to the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Jim Hoggan Op-Ed in Vancouver Sun: Who Gets A Say In Our Democracy?
Tanker disaster.jpg Jim Hoggan, DeSmogBlog co-founder and president, has an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun today discussing the "ethical oil" crowd's attacks on democracy in the Enbridge Northern Gateway public hearings. Head over to the Vancouver Sun to read it: "Who gets a say in our democracy?" Here is an
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Sun buries reader critics
Craig McInnes is a member of the Editorial Board of The Vancouver Sun so I assume his column speaks with authority of the newspaper’s editors. Tuesday, he applauded the CBC’s refusal to correct the conflict of interest involved in Legislative Bureau Chief Stephen Smart reporting on the Premier while his
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Treading on the public welfare
News Item, January 11, 2012: “Shaw Media announced Wednesday that it has filed an application to the CRTC for a 24/7 regional, all-news channel for the province. “The channel is set to launch this summer, pending approval from the CRTC, which is the country’s broadcasting regulator. The new channel will
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Oil industry ramps up the pressure
As Ian Reid succinctly observes, the Vancouver Sun “has apparently merged with Encana’s communications department and is now almost desperately spinning the Northern Pipeline on their behalf.” Postmedia, the Sun’s owner, styles itself a conservative publisher but it is that only by redefining the label. In fact, a real conservative
Continue readingAusterity for me but not for thee?
Today the news sites are jam packed with interesting tidbits about government spending and the disparity of wealth in this country. First out of the gate is the fact that CEO’s and CFO’s earned the median Canadian income by noon today. According to a report by economist Hugh Mackenzie, of
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