It’s back to court for the B.C. Teachers Federation. No, it’s not suing the government. It’s got bigger fish to fry this time. Now the BCTF is after Google.

As Keith Fraser reported in The Province last week, it’s filed a B.C. Supreme Court suit against the Internet giant because it hosted a blog (bcpolyblog.blogspot.com) which, it says, casts the federation and its president, Jinny Sims, in a less-than-flattering light.

The writ vigorously refutes a number of the blog’s comments.

For instance, the lawyers categorically deny that Jinny Sims kidnapped Big Bird. They also strenuously object to suggestions that she threatened to kill the iconic Sesame Street character.

Thank goodness for that. I love Big Bird.
Read the rest of this entry »

In England, they’ve banned junk food in school cafeterias and replaced it with nutritious food. Not everyone is happy about it.

One parent, Julie Critchlow, was so enraged by the low-fat pizza being served in the cafeteria that she started selling contraband food at lunchtime.

Kids would shove their pound notes through the fence rails. And, in exchange, she would stuff greasy hamburgers and fries into their hungry, waiting hands on the other side of the school gate.

Critchlow is an extreme example. But she’s a reminder of one reason why schools in B.C. still sell junk food to kids.

Some parents insist on their child’s right to eat whatever they want, even if it’s killing them.

And have no doubt, junk food is killing us.

Read the rest of this entry »

If they ever start a training school for politicians, federal Liberal leadership hopeful Michael Ignatieff might want to register.

He’s been a widely quoted professor of politics at Harvard. He’s written a gazillion brilliant books on politics. He’s moulded thousands of bright minds seeking to understand it.

But as a practising politician, without the benefit of any tutoring, he seems determined to maintain his amateur status.

If there was a politicians’ school — let’s call it the School of Talk — Ignatieff’s campaign would make a great case study.

Read the rest of this entry »

They say their new housing strategy is a “paradigm shift.” By that, I think B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman means to say he’s doing something new, maybe even radical. But is it?

Keep in mind that when we talk about housing we’re talking about two very different issues. First, there’s affordability.

Coleman’s plan does a lot about that. Rent supplements will make a big difference for families struggling to keep a roof over their heads, working parents a hair’s breath from becoming homeless.

But what about people who are already homeless? Those who are chronically unemployed, desperately poor and live under the viaducts, on park benches and in parking garages?

Read the rest of this entry »

The anti-Olympics crowd is back in action. The Eagleridge Bluffs protesters from Canada’s richest neighbourhood squeezed in next to the anti-poverty activists from Canada’s poorest one.

And they sat beside some guys who can best be described as people who just like to complain a lot.

They spent an hour together last week heaping criticism on the 2010 Olympics. They even suggested the Games could go back to Turin for a second round. After all, Turin has all the facilities. They could just re-use them.

Cost over-runs made an easy target. Easy, because I suspect even government officials, who so blithely dismiss the possibility of over-runs in public, are privately chewing their nails.

And they talked about the impact of the Olympics on the people who live at society’s margins.

If the Olympics create an economic boom they reasoned, then property values will go sky-high. If that happens, most of the decrepit, low-rent hotels on the Downtown Eastside will be demolished to make way for swish new ones catering to a wealthier crowd.

I can buy the argument that we’d better be concerned, but not their quirky logic.

Read the rest of this entry »