COMMENT: CUPE looks for alternate venue for Winterfest
The following is a press release issued by CUPE local 2262: We all love Winterfest and your Castlegar city workers know that it's an important annual community event. Unfortunately, the unresolved labour dispute with the City of Castlegar would put the usual ceremony behind a legal picket line. Given this, CUPE Local 2262 is...
CUPE to picket Winterfest
Ed. Note: This is a press release issued by CUPE via Marketwire: With the ongoing labour dispute and the City's refusal to bargain, CUPE city workers will be maintaining picket lines during Winterfest, including the planned tree lighting on December 5. CUPE 2262 president Leford Lafayette said that members regret that they ...
Stop Making It Worse
We must cease making large, long-term capital investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure that “locks in” dangerous emission levels for many decades. – The Keystone Principle What we do matters. That belief motivates each of us every morning...
Op/Ed: Tim Horton’s question percolates through Nelson council candidates
“We don’t have a Timmy’s in Nelson” I told the guy pouring my double-single behind the counter, “and my friend here had me up at the crack of dawn to get down here.” “Well there’s one coming ‘atcha soon” he replied. A few minutes later the same gentleman came over to our table to elaborate. “I’m the owner of this place” he ...
OUT OF LEFT FIELD: A new (for me) and very personal take on Remembrance
It’s Remembrance Day. For me, that’s always been a sad, solemn day. But this year, everything has changed, for me, as I have this year lost people who completely deserve wreaths at the Cenotaph in their honour. Before this year, I remembered ideas, not real people. This year, I’m remembering people I knew and loved. And not...
ELECTION RANT: Castlegar residents need to wise up
I don’t think it will come as any kind of wicked surprise to anyone that I’m a supporter of democracy – I’ve always pushed people to rock their vote, participate and be involved. I usually totally enjoy elections. This one? Not so much. I can’t wait until it’s over – which will be in roughly six generations, if the ugliness...
OP/ED: Castlegar Council says City strike misguided, urges Union to reconsider
Ed Note: The following is a press release issued by the City of Castlegar in response to CUPE 2262's notice, given today, of full strike action. The union representing Castlegar’s unionized city workers has decided to take full-blown strike action effective Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014. “We have bargained in good faith and at...
COMMENT: City pans union for hijacking election; speaks to labour stalemate
Ed. Note: This press release was issued Monday night, after CUPE's delegation to council's regular meeting, but before CUPE's public announcement of fullblown-strike action issued this morning: CUPE 2262, the Union representing city workers in Castlegar has taken to the press to boast about how they dominated the Castlegar ...
Four Prime Questions about Harper’s Response to Ottawa Shooting
Two weeks after the senseless murder of a soldier on Parliament Hill (and another earlier in Montreal) there are several things we know and many we don’t. Obvious questions have been asked and inconvenient ones have been left aside. We know — and indeed could predict one second after the shooting — that Stephen Harper would...
Corrupt elevations: killers of Canadian soldiers and the Jian Ghomeshi scandal
Is Canada at war? This is not the simple question it once was. We have witnessed the steady degradation of language, as Orwell predicted, so that “war” has been cheapened by repetition. War on poverty, war on drugs, war on diseases, etc. have left us jaded about the meaning of war. War on terror is another such phrase with ...