Financial Transaction Tax: Making the financial sector pay its fair share Brussels, 28 September 2011 – Today the Commission has presented a proposal for a financial transaction tax in the 27 Member […]
Norm Farrell
Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.
Union guy stealing my cookie
From BNET, Today’s CEOs think Henry Ford was a chump. Case in point: Larry Young, the CEO of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. In 2009, DPS made $555 million in profit and […]
Canadian media is unsustainable
Phil Hochstein, head of the ICBA, a construction industry lobby group, has long been an articulate tool given red carpet access by media that fear we might go a day without hearing from a pro-business spin doctor. Today Hochstein is selling the results of a poll his organization sponsored. Not surprisingly, the survey report matches ICBA’s view of the world.
Scapegoats. Do we have ours chosen?
Human nature leads us seemingly to need scapegoats in times of trouble and hard times. When a full economic meltdown occurs, when the one percenters have gained near the entire wealth of […]
First Hahn, now Hayes and the rest must go
David Hahn’s lucrative reign as BC Ferries CEO is ending but more substantial change is needed at the company. The Board failed in its governance role and BC Liberals should now scuttle […]
Party with the plutocrats
From Sister Sage’s Musings “Local right-wing gadfly and embarrassment to the city, Vancouver’s Paris Hilton, Leah Costello, is hosting war criminal Dick Cheney at her very elite, very right wing Bon Mot […]
Keep business happy: no red tape, no taxes
Some believe that businesses should pay no taxes and HST serves part of that purpose. A remaining aim of business is to pay no income tax but, because ruling parties find that […]
Insatiable appetites
An apothegm repeated often in programs treating alcohol abuse: One drink is too many and one thousand is not enough. The statement also applies to business leaders and their lobbyists. No matter the subsidies […]
The master of red tape reduction
Humanists associate Dick Cheney with war crimes but his legacy of malevolence is broader. In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed legislation exempting hydraulic fracturing from oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act. […]
Callow victims support billionaires’ coup
Coup: A quick, brilliant, and highly successful act; a triumph. By extension, a takeover of one group by another. Guardian columnist George Monbiot provides his view of a coup against democracy in […]
Taking on Goliath
Salt Spring Forum and Salt Spring Island Conservancy hosted noted western Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk Wednesday to hear details of his new book, Empire of the Beetle. It is an examination of “how human folly and a […]
Liberal scorn for sustainability
After examining Mihlar’s collection of writings, one may conclude that he holds a senior newspaper position, not for cogent analysis or deft word construction, but for reliable parroting of talking points from obscurantist ‘research’ facilities. Mihlar is not one to provide graceful penetration of complicated economic questions. Instead, we get repetition of chatter from the right-wing information machine.
Our neighbour devours its greatness
The Fall of the United States, CommonDreams.org, John Atcheson: Welcome to the late great United States – a country in economic and moral free fall. A country in thrall to a cult of […]
Cut that red tape again, please
Premier Clark is barnstorming around the province celebrating jobs week. Not wanting to incur more debt and commit new spending, she intends to repurpose planned expenditures. Of course, she also repeats the […]
Let’s play political football with Kitimat
BC Government Online Newsroom, British Columbia to develop liquefied natural gas industry, Sep 19, 2011: “Premier Christy Clark today announced British Columbia will take four key steps to create a prosperous liquefied […]
Legends of journalism or dreary old white men?
Top, L to R, Roy Peterson, Shirley Stocker, Bruce Hutchison, Jack Webster, Pat Burns, Pierre Trudeau, Peter Reilly, Tim Ralfe, Len Norris, Warren BarkerBottom, L to R, Denny Boyd, Harvey Oberfeld, Frank […]
David Hahn skippered the M.V. Deficiencies
More worthwhile reading today at The Tyee, from investigative reporter Andrew MacLeod, a fine journalist who does not work in an echo chamber rewriting background papers issued by flacks working for government […]
For service with distinction, to BC Liberals
The fatally flawed Order of British Columbia must be scrapped. Rushing to aggrandize themselves and their own financial backers, BC Liberals destroyed the award’s intended essence. It was supposed to recognize: those persons who […]
Americanization of heath care undesirable
We commonly hear claims that Canadian healthcare is not sustainable. Most of these statements originate with corporate PR institutes whose objective is to create business opportunities for private clients. The aim is […]
Conservation must be our central order of business
Unless we practice conservation, those who come after us will have to pay theprice of misery, degradation, and failure for the progress and prosperity of our day.(Gifford Pinchot 1865-1946, first Chief of […]

That was quick. The war to bring Jesus home rejected by majority of Americans? https://time.com/7382231/iran-us-israel-war-support-polling-trump-republicans-democrats/ The majority of Americans disapprove…