HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH? That's the question facing taxpayers regarding the new performing arts centre as we enter the final month of the year. Concerns are being raised about the new costs linked to the downtown location. When this project was proposed, it was seen as a diamond in the middle of a cluster of restaurants t...

THIS WAS AN INTERESTING WEEK for a ground-breaking at the site of the future Kamloops Centre for the Arts on Fourth Avenue. It's a project that could cost as much as $200 million but one that will, along with the Kelson Group's City Gardens, transform the character of the Kamloops downtown.It was almost exactly 10 year...

DEAR MR. PETERS:It has taken me a couple of weeks to write to you regarding your segment on November 14th, 2025. Although I haven't agreed with all your comments over the years, I believe your objective has been to get people to talk or at least discuss or debate the subject. That in itself should have value in our cur...

BRITISH COLUMBIA is one of the most beautiful places to live in the world and we want people to have good, long lives here. Around the world, people are feeling the effects of global economic instability, and in addition, Donald Trump's unjustified tariffs have been an attack on our sovereignty and our economy. That's ...

THE NEWS THAT THE PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE (PAC) cost has climbed to $211 million shouldn't surprise anyone - least of all city hall.The AAP capped borrowing at $140 million, but the project cost can rise far above this as long as the city finds the extra money through reserves, grants, land sales or current and future t...

FOR MANY YEARS, Kamloops council would try to keep its annual property tax increases right around the rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).In layperson's terms, CPI measures the prices of everything households spend money on.If it's not reasonable to think our taxes will be flat year after year, it is rea...

CHANGES TO THE EMPLOYMENT STANDARS ACT have come into effect on November 12th that limits when employers can ask for sick notes due to short-term illness. This will help ease the administrative burden on healthcare professionals while also making sure that people aren't spreading illness or experiencing long wait times...

TEN YEARS DOWN THE ROAD, I wonder what a picture of me will look like. It might be an exact image of how I look at the time. Or, it may not be a realistic image, because it may not actually be me at all. It may be something that bears a slight resemblance to the original subject, but it may have been completely distort...

SITTING UNDER A MARKET TENT in June with Naya Macaulay, my friend and fellow team member at the Kamloops Food Policy Council, a woman strolling up to our booth at the Yew Street Block Party told us, "If you live in Kamloops and have to buy apricots, then you clearly don't have enough good friends." We laughed...

A NEST OF RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL DENIALISTS was treated to a true Kamloops welcome this week.Some of the leading figures pushing to whitewash the horrors of Canada's residential school system slithered into the city for public talks.They were joined by the two OneBC MLAs, people who were elected as BC Conservatives but lef...

PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY has clearly decided which basket to put his eggs in. He hasn't put them all in the same basket, so he has not totally abandoned the old cliche, but his announcements today are clearly designed to load up the energy basket and lighten the environmental one. The huge bulk of his plan is concern...

EACH YEAR ON NOVEMBER 11, British Columbians come together to honour those who served and sacrificed their lives for our country.Everyone has their own connection to Remembrance Day. In my family, I think of my grandfather, who despite not knowing how to swim, served in the Navy during the Second World War. That kind o...

THOSE DESIGNING SOCIAL MEDIA become more and more a source of our daily information - often very sketchy, often an outright lie - but the general public seems to pay less attention to the truth in the writing than the glaring headlines, which are only intended to grab enough interest hopefully to read the entire story....

THERE WILL NEVER BE A WAY to prove what really happened in the cab of Colval Abbinett's pickup truck seconds before it slammed into a small car on McGill Road two years ago.That collision killed Owyn McInnis and forever changed the lives of Riley Brinnen and Owen Waterhouse.Those young men and their families will never...

COLLINS: New budget: Can it pull us through the turmoil? WHEN YOU'RE PRESENTED with a massive document like the federal budget, you are drawn to the big-ticket items. For example, in Mark Carney's budget this week, you probably saw items that would have made your jaw drop. You might have noticed that the government is ...

LAST WEEK, we announced that we will be keeping ICBC basic auto-insurance rates low through 2027. British Columbians are facing pressures with rising costs due to global inflation and Donald Trump's tariffs, and they don't need to worry about their insurance costs rising, too. Up until at least 2027, basic auto insuran...

I'LL ADMIT I FELT A LITTLE SYMPATHETIC toward Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson this week as he outlined the thousands of dollars of damage done to his property since being elected. The mayor had made a point of campaigning in favor of a tougher stance against the homeless, the drug addicts and the vandals who break into homes ...

A FEW YEARS AGO, Donald Trump wrote a book. It was called, "The Art of the Deal." It was his best-selling book. It also was a farce. His co-writer, at one point, suggested he wished he hadn't been involved and both he and the publisher said Trump didn't write a word of the book. The co-writer said it was the ...

BRITISH COLUMBIANS ARE WORRIED about energy use. Across the globe, energy demand is increasing due to artificial intelligence, industrial development and data centres, and everyday people are weary of feeling it in their pockets with rising energy costs. In B.C., we're taking charge of our energy use now to protect our...

MAJOR STAFFING DECISIONS are forthcoming for the City of Kamloops. These decisions are critical to the success of two major projects - the new Performing Arts Centre and the new multiplex for ice skating. If the City screws it up, it will leave us with two large white elephants which will drain us dry. There are severa...

HAVING LIVE IN KAMLOOPS for almost 20 years, it's fair to say my wife and I are committed to this community - in spite of all its flaws.There are only a few factors that could ever compel us to leave.The crime we're seeing in this city is not one of them. We're not about to move to a smaller community and, in every Can...

FOR A WHILE NOW, the City of Williams Lake has discussed the idea of a curfew. Earlier this year, the council passed some motions but did not include a curfew. I think that was the right move.Except for a wartime-type curfew, I find little evidence to show that a curfew does or doesn't work. Most of the studies I've se...

EVERY PERSON DESERVES to have accessible, affordable health care that they can count on close to home. As an MLA, I know that healthcare options are top of mind for my community and that's why our government has been making major investments in Surrey that will not only expand local healthcare access but will also bene...

IN OUR CURRENT HOTBED of political strife, it was difficult to imagine a unifying cause that could bring people from every corner of the political spectrum together. But where Interior Health has a lack of will, there's a way. And they've done it in extraordinary fashion this time, because Canadians unite in the belief...

I DON'T ENVY WOMEN these days. Aside from the debate over women's rights, transgender issues which affect both genders, there have been so many smaller issues creeping in to muddy up the works that I daresay women are wondering what's next. Well, in Kamloops, we go one further. At least temporarily, women can't even gi...

ONE OF THE BEST gifts received in our home last year was the Kamloops Holiday Foodie Box, created by The Stir and the Kamloops Food Policy Council (KFPC) - and I'm thrilled that the KFPC is offering this unique gift option once again! Last year, the first Foodie Box item to disappear in our home was the Authentic Indig...

THE SILVER LINING around some dark economic clouds over the past five years is we're all getting a crash course in basic supply-and-demand economics.During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was the demand side of the supply-and-demand equation that went out of control.People were so uncertain about what was happening and what ...

I HAVE OFTEN been accused of being too trusting. Looking back, I think that's true. I have always had an unfailing habit of believing in the best of people. I don't think that was a bad decision. I have been let down many times, and I know I have also let others down - people who put their faith in me. Trust is a fleet...