Itchy bears, a clumsy eagle and nosy neighbours: BC Hydro’s most memorable outages of 2019 No one likes the power going out, especially during an exciting show or when the home team is close to the winning score. During 2019, BC Hydro responded to around 50,000 trouble calls in the province so far this year. As the year draws...

When it comes to health taxes, Premier John Horgan started with a stumble and then fell over backwards. Now he needs to pick himself up and keep his promise to taxpayers. Here’s what happened. During the last provincial election in 2017, Horgan pledged to get rid of the Medical Services Premium, a fee that cost millions of ...

A Kootenay man, environmental consultant Michael Keefer who lives in Rossland and Cranbrook, was invited to go to Uzbekistan for a conference on solutions to the Aralkum Desert problem.  While there, he toured the area and took many hundreds of pictures.  When I sat down with Keefer, who told me fascinating tales ...

The story of Mercer Celgar is a growing concern — in a good way. One of the region’s largest employers is looking to spread its story about the work it is accomplishing in its West Kootenay-based operation — located at the bottom of the Arrow Lakes water system — in order to grow its green energy ideas. The pulp mill is...

Rossland-based crowdsourcing intelligence platform, Thoughtexchange, announced on December 5, 2019, that it has secured a $20M Series B financing in an oversubscribed round led by Information Venture Partners (Toronto) with participation from existing investor Yaletown Partners (Vancouver) and new investor Voyager Capital...

Scott Fraser, Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation; Regional Chief Terry Teegee, BC Assembly of First Nations; Cheryl Casimer, First Nations Summit; Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Union of BC Indian Chiefs; and Adam Olsen, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands and member of Tsartlip First Nation, have issued the...

Pete Stamper is the new Chief Executive Officer of KC Recycling, and he moved to Rossland with his family in July of this year.  I learned this after receiving his press release announcing that KC Recycling is making significant investments to expand its capacity and will be able to recycle all of Canada’s cathode-ray-tube ...

Railtown is back on track for development as the city looks to make further progress on the promise of 2018 when it revealed a plan for the neighbourhhod. Several new bylaws are in the process of being changed and amended — with a public meeting to be scheduled — by the city to help facilitate and add to the finer...

The Province will restrict vapour product access, flavours, nicotine content, packaging and advertising, and intends to increase taxes on vapour products, to protect youth from risks associated with vaping. “Some vaping manufacturers are using flavours and advertising to entice and normalize vaping for youth – introducing a...

Texas is more than two times as attractive than Alberta for oil and gas investment, according to a new survey of petroleum-sector executives released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan, Canadian public policy think-tank. “Canada’s onerous and uncertain regulations, along with our dearth of pipeline ...