Is it a race for second place?

It's got a pretty good name, but can the B.C. First Party amount to anything more than yet another fringe party destined for irrelevancy?

Slow down: You could save a child's life

Parents are sending their energetic offspring back to the books this week, many of us with a mixture of relief and a bit of sadness. Sadness, because it's just hard to see them growing up so fast and so eager to get out from under our feet.

Courts caught in culture of secrecy

Attendance at a recent law and media workshop organized by the Law Society of B.C. proved to be an entertaining and eye-opening experience.

Why are British Columbians so pessimistic?

It's one of those good-news polls that has to make you feel better on Labour Day weekend: Canadians are feeling more confident about their job situation this year.

Tamil refugees met with racism

The following scenario is purely imaginary. After a months-long sea crossing in a leaky converted freighter, more than 400 people from a nation wracked by terrorism and civil war land on Canada's shores.

Climate change pushes PM's photo op

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent jaunt around the Arctic has all the hallmarks of cheap political theatre.

No tears for drunk drivers caught by new law

At least that's the goal behind new drinking-and-driving legislation that will come into force in less than a month.

Many layers to the Tamil tale

If the 492 Tamil asylum-seekers who recently arrived by boat on B.C.'s shores are "queue-jumpers," then I guess my parents were too.

Recall faces an uphill battle

If you want to get a measure of the daunting odds of a successful recall campaign against a sitting B.C. Liberal MLA, check out the riding-by-riding breakdown of the anti-HST petition.

Government gambling with people's lives

There are thousands of problem gamblers in B.C., but one in particular rarely loses.

QWERTY and other quirks

I learned to type on an old Macintosh, using one of those programs that commands you to type increasingly complex sentences at higher and higher speeds.

Commissioner takes a giant step forward

The "one step forward, two steps back" expression usually applies in the ongoing struggle to try and make more government information public. It seems that once legislation is enacted to ensure more freedom of information, government and/or corporations...

Ready for Premier Carole James?

I know the next provincial election won't occur for another couple of years yet (barring successful recall campaigns in a bunch of ridings before then), but it isn't too early to start thinking what an NDP-led government is going to look like.

Disturbing echoes of the Komagata Maru

The Komagata Maru incident of 1914, in which 387 Indian immigrants aboard a Japanese steamship were turned away from Vancouver and forced to return to India based on racist immigration law, is a blemish on Canadian history.