U.S. tribe takes B.C. government
to court over infrastructure consultation
Published 4:52 pm Friday, October 17, 2025 By Lauren Collins
A Native American tribe in Washington State is taking the B.C. government to court for prohibiting the Nation from participating in consultations for multiple infrastructure projects. Lummi Nation, which is based in western Washington, filed the petition for a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court in Victoria on Sept. 29.
The Lieutenant Governor and the Environmental Assessment Office are listed as respondents. None of the claims have been proven in court. Responses to the civil claim must be filed within 21 days if the respondents live in Canada or within 35 days if they live in the United States.
Read more at: https://nanaimobulletin.com/2025/10/17/u-s-tribe-takes-b-c-government-to-court-over-infrastructure-consultation/
Canada's housing crisis rests
in the hands of politicians
It doesn't take a mathematical genius to figure you why we have a housing shortage in Canada. The federal government welcomes thousands of immigrants without having the resources to look after their needs when they arrive, not the least of which is a place to live. Hotels are not the answer.
Our provincial government still taxes the daylights out of people who want to buy a home but can't come up with the $15,000 or so for the property transfer tax, close to the amount you'd need for a downpayment. As long as we've got these obstacles politicians are blowing smoke. - Aug. 28, 2025
Aug. 17, 2025
Don't tell me your problems without offering solutions
The world is mired in a stinking mess all because of politics. No one is paying attention to the real problems but rather indulging in one-upmanship, finger pointing and character assault. It’s everywhere, our province, our country and the world.
Just look in our neck of the woods with rampant politicking over the recent ferry contract with China. Premier David Eby is catching it from all directions – the provincial Conservatives and everyone who sees a TV camera and a microphone. The political players appear more interested in slamming Eby than building ferries. The real numbers don’t really seem to matter.
It’s about a one billion-dollar deal, and Eby’s job is to get the best for British Columbians. There’s a parade of critics, all with no answers. None bring with them alternatives bids on the project. It was a B.C. Ferries decision but ultimately that corporate body answers to the provincial government and the premier.
All they are contributing the red herring about communism and cheap Chinese labor. The quality of labor and steel used must surely be built into the contract. Finger pointing and blathering in the wind doesn’t bring solutions, only more problems. Unless they have something better to offer it might be a good option to sit on the sidelines for a while.
It’s a similar story with other challenges like health care, homelessness, crime and mental health. The biggest threat facing democracy is politics.
250816
Trump got what he bargained for in Canadian election
You had to read between the lines before our last federal election when U.S. President Donald Trump sounded like he was endorsing Mark Carney, whom he described as “a man I can work with,”. Boy is he working him like a hamster in a flywheel all the while taking us to the cleaners on virtually everything.
Trump has a way about getting what he wants, and that is a trade deal to his benefit. That’s understandable considering he’s president. Trump’s first red herring appeared to be the fentanyl flowing through our ports on the way to the U.S. criminal market. Though the denials from our government have been flowing like Niagara Falls, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a totally different story to tell.
It is understandable that Trump would prefer Carney as PM – Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had the audacity to talk back to him.
250810
Things shouldn’t
happen this way
One year ago I was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, Blood cancer or MDS. I just completed my first year of chemotherapy, 84 four treatments.
This week I accompanied our eldest son, Scott, 61, to the BC Cancer Centre in Abbotsford to begin radiation treatments that will continue daily for the next seven weeks. Apparently the tumour in his head has been hanging around for some time but now is making its presence felt. Surgery is not an option, it’s impacting his vision, hearing and other lifestyle altering challenges. If not treated it would continue to grow, crowding his brain.
You can't plan ahead for the challenges that Mother Nature has in store for us, but at what time is it more than enough?
I’m stable but that Father Time is sneaking up on me with age-related challenges. I’m holding the line and am what you would consider healthy, but at half speed.
250718
Province needs to clamp down on
big pharma
It’s sad to see a child’s life slipping away while a drug is available to extend her life. The province has reversed an earlier decision and will now fund a special drug at a cost in the neighborhood of $1 million a year for Charleigh Pollock of Langford who has rare Batten disease.
The Health Ministry announced earlier that funding for the medication would not be restored after a panel confirmed that recent information had already been considered. Health Minister Josie Osborne said the cost of the drug did not impact the decision.
That raises the question of highly-expensive drugs. Pharmaceutical companies rake in huge profits so it is they who should bite the bullet and make rare medications available at a bearable cost.
The provincial government has the bargaining power to force the drug companies to lower those prices if they want to sell any of their highly-profitable products in our province. Those high profits should be used to offset rare and expensive drugs.
There are other patients in the province who are on outrageously-priced drugs. Pharma should be constrained in their pricing if they want to do any business in British Columbia. If not, take your business elsewhere.
250710
A little blowback
for those Yanks
We've always known some people have more gall than brains. Six U.S. Republican lawmakers are raising a stink over Canadian wildfires sending smoke drifting across the international border into their states. Oh, how terrible! They point to our forest management and arson as possible factors behind the fires. And shockingly, they did not resort to blaming climate change. They should engage that great fence builder President Donald Trump for his vast knowleged border walls. Walls have two sides so they could come in handy for other uses as well.
250704
Emergency wait lists
miss the bottom line
Island Health Authority’s introduction of online emergency waiting times has the Opposition B.C. Conservatives calling for the program to be available province wide. It sounds great on the surface, but what will it really solve with the service which is in such utter disarray?
Rural hospitals are still shutting down emergency departments over weekends due to staffing shortages. The provincial government appears to be unable to solve the problem, nothing is happening. To give them credit, they are trying to recruit more doctors, but that’s a slow process, like a waiting line itself.
Since emergency service lineups continue to stretch out in both urban and suburban hospitals, it begs the question of what the root cause is. Are there that many real emergencies or are emergency rooms being used as walk-in clinics?
It would be enlightening to see the breakdown of how many visits are genuine emergencies. That could help health authorities set their priorities by separating emergencies from routine doctor visits. Perhaps it’s time to separate the two by opening walk-in services to take the load off real emergencies.
Posting the wait times for such walk-in clinics would be helpful, leaving emergency departments to focus on things that need immediate attention.
‘The Electric City’
is not a pretty picture
250526
City council recently got a reality check when new projections put their five-year fiscal plan in fairy tale land.
Soaring infrastructure costs make the figures in that plan unworkable throwing property tax projections out of sight. Money earmarked for infrastructure falls far short of new estimates.
From this point on city councillors will need to put on their thinking caps to determine real priorities for present and future necessary expenditures.
The city has engaged in frivolous spending in recent years – like bicycle paths to nowhere, electric vehicle charging stations, electric cycles. That’s a can or worms in itself.
An unattribued YouTube video is floating on social media and it’s not a pretty picture of what it calls “The Electric City.” By this morning it had 1,200 views. You can watch it HERE if you have the stomach for it.
250528
Today's biggest problem
is not enough intercourse
Go ahead, look it up in the dictionary – “communication or dealings between individuals or groups.”
As society, we don’t agree to disagree any more because of fear of offending, ending civil debate. It has become a question of your opinion against everyone else’s without room for the other side. Refusal to talk to each other has led to no talking at all with nothing but platitudes or insults.
I’ve been publishing opinions for years but I notice they have become toothless, holding back for fear of hurt feelings. More of us need to say it as it is. We need to do a lot more thinking and a lot more debating without anger. Or insults.
I’m stepping out with this little section of the universe – Opinionated and Uncensored – so we can say what we think by injecting more piss and vinegar to stir people to do some serious thinking. Agree or disagree, as long as it makes you think, as long as it gets your brain in gear.
If you disagree, don’t hesitate to respond, or ignore it. We all need a little more discourse. If that offends you, there’s a delete button on your computer.
And that's my opinion.
Pay me now or pay me later, the fake tax cut
250525
Most of us remember that old Fram oil filter advertising campaign.
When is a tax cut not really a tax cut? The one Prime Minister Mark Carney promised during the election campaign. It’s time to look that gift horse in the mouth. He’s not cutting spending, in fact he’s spending more. So where does the money come from to cut taxes? It’s simple, the way government does it is just to borrow more money, adding to the debt.
Carney is just delaying paying off the tax cut, with interest added, for you to pay for years and years. That’s akin to withdrawing cash on your credit card to make the monthly credit card payments.
It’s time to derail the MP gravy train
250525
Justin Trudeau is set to collect more than $8 million in pension and severance pay from taxpayers if he lives an average lifespan.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh will also cash in big when they leave Parliament.
We hear great indignation from the masses every time these numbers pop up, but after that jab of a sharp poker stick in the butt fades away.
If Canadians are really that upset, get after your MPs and Parliament as a whole to make changes to these allowances rather than wait another four years to regurgitate the same puke.
Just keep in mind, the same people who are collecting these great cashouts are the same ones we are asking to end that practice. Fat chance.
To fair somewhat fair, MPs actually pay into their pension funds, not as much as you and I do, but they chip in. To put it in perspective, anyone age 65 today will inch closeto half a million dollars by age 85. Not millions, but it keeps the wolf from the door.
So, who’s going to kick off a national campaign to redesign the Parliamentary benefits plan? I’m not holding my breath.
Luring American medics is smoke and mirrors
250524
Premier David Eby’s confidencein his scheme to lure health care works to B.C. from the U.S. is a matter of day dreaming. The province conducted a campaign to get the Americans to settle here and Eby said later there and been surprising initial interest.
That’s where it falls down, interest in the idea is not the same as signing a contact. Eby's vitriole is more about getting even with Donald Trump. Lotsa luck, Big Boy.
All those supposedly coming here from the U.S. have likely not looked at the value of the cheap Canadian dollar, under-staffed medical facilities, being overworked and insufficient funding to keep the system going. And the denial of our personal freedoms. There’s a rude awakening in store for them. The pay cheque is 30 per cent cheaper due to the exchange rate, even before taxes.
And don't forget the thousands of B.C. health care workers who were fired for refusing to be injected with what they considered a dangerous product. Put them back on the job first before pie-in-the sky immigrations schemes.
We used to be almost arrogant to American friends about our superior health care system. You could see a doctor pretty well any time you needed one, get a specialist and a hospital room.
Now we’re not much beyond Third World status when it come to looking after our sick people. That in itself is sick.
What would Barry say?
2505019
“Idle thoughts of an idle fellow” was the way the late Barry Broadfoot used to float interesting topics for readers to digest.
I can imagine he would have had a few choice words about the goings on at Vancouver Island University where instruction and education are taking a back seat because of a lack of funding.
I can envision Barry's perspective to those problems in light of frivolities such as an 1,100 pound Nanaimo bar world record.
Or, "let them eat cake." I bet that’s what he would have said.
Boycott is only hurting every-day Americans
250509
Donald Trump is not going to inconvenience me. And I’m not going to get even.
Toronto Blue Jays are playing in Seattle this weekend, an event that usually lures thousands south of the border for those days. Data provided by the Whatcom Council of Governments comparing the number of B.C. license plates crossing the border into Washington State found that in April 2024, 200,853 vehicles crossed, compared to 98,576 in April 2025.
As of Thursday afternoon, hundreds of tickets were still available for all three Blue Jays games this weekend. Lt.-Gov. Denny Heck said his office had received information that reservations for the weekend were down by half.
By boycotting the weekend events Canadians are not hurting Trump, they’re only punishing our friends down south, and ourselves. Don’t let Trump spoil a good weekend, jump in the car and see the Jays in action.
It’s more than just a weekend in Seattle. WestJet is suspending nine routes to the U.S due to lower demand. Many of the suspended routes are to tourist destinations such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla.
Getting even does not solve anything. We're not as powerful as a lot of us might imagine ourselves to be. While we're at it, let's welcome a lot of Americans to Canada.
Lots of housing but nobody can afford it
250520
When the one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing. We’re hearing Metro Vancouver has more than 2,000 new condos sitting unsold and empty. That is expected to rise to nearly 3,500 by the end of the year.
There are 16,000 condo listings overall in the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board. Low presales are leading some developers to rethink projects.
That raises the question about the price point of those projects. Building multi-million-dollar condos does not solve the problem of affordability for the majority of the population.
NDP union supporters
switched to Conservatives
250507
There are many side stories to the federal election with analyses galore. The most unthinkable is the number of New Democrats who flipped their votes to the Conservatives. After winning 25 seats in the 2021 election, The NDP plummeted to just seven seats.
Union workers appear to have played a key role. UBC political science professor Terri Givens said there is a shift of people who are union workers who typically in the past might have gone NDP or Liberal.
“They’re frustrated with the last 10 years. They’re also looking for somebody who’s going to say the things they want to hear, and that’s something that Poilievre has really tried to do is to be the person who’s out there saying what people want to hear on things like housing and immigration and affordability., Given added.”
Ipsos Public Affairs President Darrell Bricker says it’s clear what drove that shift. “If you’re a member of a working class union, particularly if you are a male member of a working-class union at least, they don’t feel that they have a place in that particular version of the New Democratic Party.
Ipsos data shows of those who voted for the NDP in 2021, 19 per cent switched their vote to the Liberals this election, but five per cent went to the Conservatives, which could amount to more than 151,800 voters.
While five per cent might not seem like a lot, it could shift the balance when progressive votes split between the NDP and Liberals, and make the Conservatives more competitive, Bricker said.
Mid-Island communities reliant on natural resources like Nanaimo-Ladysmith, North Island-Powell River and Cowichan-Malahat-Langford switched to the Conservatives.
Bricker said this is in part due to the Conservatives’ efforts to appeal to voters who were more focused on affordability.
“What we saw was working people who weren’t really motivated by the issue of what was going on with the United States, really focused more on the affordability question, which normally would be enough to keep them pinned down with the NDP,” Bricker said.
“This time around, they actually saw Poilievre and the Conservatives as being a viable option on that question.”
It's time to quit dating, get married
250430
Before Monday's election we had a minority Liberal government with the New Democrats holding them to ransom. Now after the election we have a minority Liberal government with the New Democrats holding them to ransom.
A source tells me a confidence agreement is going to happen with the Liberals being just short of a majority and the NDP, with seven seats, can ensure there’s not a quickie defeat of the government. So why don’t they just quit dating and just get married? They've been shacked up long enough.
The world trade war extendsfarther than U.S. President Donald Trump. China has imposed 100-per-cent tariffs on canola oil, canola meal and peas in retaliation to Canada imposing levies on Chinese-made electric vehicles, steel and aluminum. Canola farmers are getting hit hard by the tariffs while also dealing with uncertainty around U.S. tariffs. Cheapo stuff from China will not be so cheap any more.
At one time the Made-in-Canadalabel used to stand for quality, an offset to foreign imports. In recent years that standard has been watered down with faux products. Now when you check the labels of products too many say “packaged in Canada”, or “imported for,” leaving us scratching our heads. It’s time to proudly display the Made-in-Canada label again on all the products that are proudly produced in our country.