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B.C.’s new Auditor General for Local Government has refused to take part in a performance review of her office by a former deputy minister appointed by her supervisors. Basia Ruta, who became Canada’s first local government spending watchdog in 2013, has been under fire in the legislature in recent weeks after producing only one report in her first two years. For the second time in recent months, Ruta has retained her own lawyer in an effort to fend off attempts to examine her...

Editor: An open letter to President Weeks and the UNBC Board of Governors I write you today with great concern over the current strike at the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). From Ontario, I have kept abreast of the issues, negotiations and dialogue made public. Speaking as proud alumni of UNBC, I am deeply disappointed in the administration’s latest actions by responding to the media, rather than the UNBC Faculty Administration (UNBCFA) at bargaining tables. To me, your...

Editor: An open letter to UNBC Administration and Faculty Association Speaking on behalf of the undergraduate students at UNBC, we are disappointed with the lack of progress made in negotiations during the strike. It is imperative that both sides come to a compromise. At this point, nobody is going to attain what they set out to get in the beginning. At school, you are teaching us to think critically and become problem solvers. We are told, it is not necessarily about the program we are in,...

Classes at the University of Northern B.C. and its other campuses should be back to normal Friday morning. On Wednesday evening, the university applied to the Labour Relations Board for access to a specialized process, available only for negotiations on a first collective agreement. In a statement on the UNBC website, President Daniel Weeks said: “Either party may apply for access to this specialized process. One effect of such an application is to suspend any strike activity that may...

  Mike Richard knew that dust accumulating in a sawmill was a fire hazard. The Lakeland Mills’ mill manager, however, was not aware it posed an explosive hazard prior to the April 23, 2012 explosion and fire that destroyed the mill and resulted in the deaths of Alan Little and Glenn Roche. “I felt too much dust was a fire hazard,” he told a six-man coroner’s jury Monday. “I saw a number of dust fires when I was a millwright.” He testified that even though the Babine Forest Products...

What a difference a year or so, and a new council, makes. In late 2013 the issue of downtown parking raised its head as the council of the day mulled bringing back parking meters and, in 2014 it drastically increased off-street parking rates only to scale back the increases after a public uproar. Now Mayor Lyn Hall, who was one of the councillors who sought to re-examine off-street parking rates last year, has floated out the idea of lowering them even further. “A number of months ago, we...