If I was younger and had more energy and resources, I’d try to find the answers to at least some of the following questions. Maybe some readers know them already.
MPs Jim Prentice (from Alberta) and Jay Hill left the Harper government last year.
Now Stockwell Day, Chuck Stahl, and John Cummins, all from B.C., are saying adieu on what may be the eve of an election. Question 1: What’s going on? Question 2: Does anyone know of many (any) specific instances where the Harmonized Sales Tax benefits to businesses “trickled down” to the consumer?
Natural gas may be a “clean” fuel but the process used to get the gas from what used to be inaccessible areas isn’t. Hydraulic fracturing and fracking uses ginormous amounts of water and chemicals and can result in leaking wellheads, water contamination, aquifer destruction, and, in some areas, earthquakes. The province of Quebec has banned it. But natural gas is worth billions and billions of dollars to the economy, and the B.C. government sees no problems with it. Question 3: Is the province — or anyone — doing any studies to determine the cumulative effects of fracking?
Watching the recent City Hall budget meeting on TV, I understood CAO Brian Carruthers to say no city taxpayers’ money had gone into the $50,000 for the design and operational plans for an indoor turf facility because the money comes from the Central Cariboo Joint Committee. Question 4: Doesn’t the City contribute funds to the Central Cariboo Joint Committee?
The globe has seen one disaster after another in the last couple of years, each seeming worse than the last. All hell has broken loose in Japan, with an earthquake of great magnitude, a tsunami of equally great magnitude, serious damage to nuclear plants, and to top it off, the Shinmoedako volcano erupted.
Question 5: What and where next?
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.
