Citizens are already divided over the carbon tax brought in by the provincial Liberal government, making the federal leader's scheme an even tougher sell in the province.

The Coast Mountain Bus Company recorded fewer passenger pass-ups between May 1, 2007, and July 8, 2008, compared with figures from the previous year, according to an executive of the TransLink subsidiary.

Civic politicians from Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast don’t want to see community channels removed from the basic packages offered by cable-television providers.

On July 3, 2008, the Straight reported that first-term councillor George Chow—one of four incumbent Vision Vancouver council members—was pondering the “best use” of his time.

What should the provincial government do in the face of a business downturn?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is threatening to trigger a snap election, and if this happens in early fall, it could be bad news for civic parties going into the November 15 municipal elections.

On the 67th day of the Native women’s cross-country trek that started in Vancouver on June 21, organizer Gladys Radek told the Straight that more than 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for a public inquiry into Canada’s missing women.

B.C. Transit has started clearing a forested wetland in Whistler in order to build a depot and fuelling station for hydrogen fuel cell–powered buses, much to the dismay of environmentally minded residents of the resort municipality.

Statistics Canada findings indicate that 4.1 million Canadians don't have a regular physician. But in order to provide primary health care for everyone, we'll need a pan-Canadian solution to recruit and train doctors.

Student unions across the region claim that TransLink is discriminating against students, and plan to make differential transit fares an issue in this November’s municipal elections.

Congolese single mother of six Bitisho Bembeleza is brought to tears every day by the difficulty of finding somewhere suitable and affordable for her and her young family to live in Metro Vancouver.

Human-rights activist Mati Bernabei is more than a little worried about what could happen in Chinese-occupied Tibet once the Olympic and Paralympic Games hosted by Beijing are over.

The provincial government’s claim that the Port Mann Bridge–Highway 1 corridor is congested for more than half the day—a major justification for the Gateway highway-expansion program—is way over the top, according to one Surrey resident.

The president of a new civic party in New Westminster may pull off what second-term Mayor Wayne Wright accomplished two previous municipal elections ago: unseating an incumbent.

The federal Conservative government didn’t consult the film and arts communities before it decided to slash funding for various cultural programs, according to a Vancouver-based executive of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

The federal Conservative government didn’t consult the film and arts communities before it decided to slash funding for various cultural programs, according to a Vancouver-based executive of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.

Drew Noftle and other Vancouver-based 9/11 truth seekers are heading east, holding rallies in different cities before linking up with other crusaders from across the country for a march to Ottawa.

City hall has ordered two hookah lounges to stop operating by August 31. But the owners of these traditional Middle Eastern cafés aren’t letting their businesses go up in smoke without a fight.

B.C. premier Gordon Campbell’s deputy minister, Jessica McDonald, made news lately for receiving the heftiest pay raise when the province announced salary increases for top bureaucrats. Retroactive to August 1, McDonald’s annual pay will increase by almost $105,000, bringing her pay from $243,936 to $348,600.

When members of the Agricultural Land Commission visit Richmond’s Garden City Lands on August 14-before they step into a hotel to hear a new application to shear off the land from the Agricultural Land Reserve-activist Michael Wolfe will be there with wild blueberries.

Former banker David Lee is seeking a Non-Partisan Association nomination for Vancouver city council, according to NPA councillor and mayoral nominee Peter Ladner.

Seals are taking more and more salmon from Native fishers' nets, and Sto:lo Tribal Council adviser Ernie Crey wants the fisheries department to issue permits to shoot the mammals.

The motion seemed straightforward enough. It proposed that Vancouver city council request that Mayor Sam Sullivan write to the Union of B.C. Municipalities and ask the organization to allow the leader of the Green Party of B.C.—the third major party in provincial politics after the Liberals and the NDP—to address its annual convention in September.

The politically influential Vancouver and District Labour Council doesn’t want the Coalition of Progressive Electors to run a mayoral candidate in Vancouver’s civic election this fall, according to VDLC president Bill Saunders.

The Prime Minister’s Office and Calgary MP Jason Kenney, secretary of state for multiculturalism and Canadian identity, were warned that a backlash could result from an apology made outside the House of Commons for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident.

Campaigners say that while the B.C. Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, it doesn’t protect transgender people.

Community advocates like Kathleen Bigsby are upset that the aging Trout Lake Community Centre won’t be replaced because of cuts in the city’s proposed capital plan for 2009–2011.

Park board commissioner Allan De Genova told the Straight that he will support the reelection bids of Vision Vancouver councillors Raymond Louie—one of his two rivals for the party’s mayoral nomination—and Heather Deal.

On July 8, Vancouver city council approved a motion to review zoning regulations in the West End, the neighbourhood that’s the traditional home of the city’s LGBT community.

Effective August 18, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's chief of staff, Daniel Fontaine, will serve as vice president of communications and marketing for MITACS.

NDP Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix believes that a victory by former NDP Vancouver-Fairview MLA Gregor Robertson in this year’s Vancouver mayoral election would be a significant shot in the arm for the provincial NDP.

The South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority is calling for proposals to deter terrorist attacks against the SkyTrain and West Coast Express.

Despite the province's climate-change policy and a social contract with the public to maintain properties as forests, more and more logging corporations are hoping to convert private forestlands into real estate.

The mayor of Gibsons isn’t comfortable that ICBC is giving out names and addresses for a fee and allowing private parking-lot operators to trace and bill car owners for unpaid parking tickets.

Jamie Lee Hamilton’s credentials as an LGBT–rights activist go back as far as 1978, when she participated in Vancouver’s first gay-pride march. In an ironic twist of fate, Hamilton finds herself having to defend her seat on the Vancouver Pride Society’s board of directors after this year’s 30th-anniversary Pride Parade on August 3.

The going rate for a budget room—with shower but no view—at Vancouver’s Budget Inn Patricia Hotel on East Hastings Street is $69 per night. For the not so budget-conscious traveller, the Renaissance Vancouver Hotel Harbourside on West Hastings Street can provide more appropriate digs for $289 a night—no breakfast.

The editor of the street paper Megaphone is pleased with a Vancouver council decision giving the paper’s publisher, The Street Corner Media Foundation, a licence for soliciting for charity.

First-term city councillor Kim Capri says she has decided not to seek the B.C. Liberal nomination for the Vancouver-Fairview seat that was vacated on July 15 by former NDP MLA Gregor Robertson.

Do you favour a smoking ban on beaches?

Historian Henry Yu wonders what modern-day multicultural Vancouver would be like if history had taken a different course in the early 1900s.

Starting at noon on Saturday (July 19), members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users will mark the group’s 10th anniversary at Oppenheimer Park. It’s the same park where, a year before VANDU was incorporated in 1998, Ann Livingston and other advocates for the health-care rights of addicts planted crosses to commemorate the deaths of drug users in the Downtown Eastside.

B.C. Solicitor General John van Dongen says he isn't against the creation of a regional police force, but local politicians' support will be needed if an amalgamated force is to take on gang violence.

With 73,000 Canadians expected to be diagnosed with skin cancer this year, a leading Vancouver dermatologist warns that a tan means the skin has in fact been damaged and is trying to protect itself.

With 73,000 Canadians expected to be diagnosed with skin cancer this year, a leading Vancouver dermatologist warns that a tan means the skin has in fact been damaged and is trying to protect itself.

B.C. Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell has spoken with Vancouver councillor Kim Capri about options for the latter’s political career, but the first-term city councillor won’t say what was said and by whom.

The B.C. Liberal party candidate in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, where Vancouver’s supervised injection site is located, wants drug addicts taken away to an “island”.

COPE external cochair and council candidate Ellen Woodsworth is very much aware of the legal issues, as well as the urgency, involved in striking a deal with Vision.

A former university teacher from Beijing who wants to be next mayor of Richmond says his campaign will be built on three issues.

Native women and activists who have set out from Vancouver on June 21 for a cross-country march to raise awareness about missing women are expecting Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean to walk with them when they enter Ottawa on September 12.

Suzanne Anton wants to see a clothesline outside every new home in Vancouver. The Non-Partisan Association city councillor has one, and she said that she rarely uses her electric dryer, even in winter.