By Bhagyashree Chatterjee, The Squamish Chief, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
What do Premier David Eby’s latest mandate letters for ministers mean for Indigenous peoples?
These letters, all dated Jan. 16, shape the government’s priorities, and this term, they focus on “reconciliation, economic growth, and community well-being.”
Continue reading What B.C. Premier Eby’s mandate letters mean for Indigenous peoples
Anna Kindy was sitting in her Campbell River office. Her assistant stood almost out of the frame long enough to wave, before handing Kindy a headset and disappearing. The thing I find refreshing about Kindy is she doesn’t sound like a politician, which is understandable because she only recently became one. She and her husband are both doctors. Anna Kindy was elected as the MLA for North Island on October 19, 2024 and is the Health Critic for the Conservative party Shadow Cabinet, but has yet to sit in the legislature.
This fact emerged when I asked her about the trips between her home in Merville and the provincial legislature.
Continue reading Anna Kindy: Waiting for the legislature, the Health Crisis & Being the MLA for North Island.
By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
After years of construction, nearly 100 arrests, billions in government subsidies and dozens of environmental infractions, B.C.’s long-promised liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export industry is poised to start shipping overseas this year.
It’s been more than a decade since an idea to transform a little northern B.C. industry town into the first community in Canada to export LNG across the Pacific Ocean was just a twinkle in a corporate boardroom. This year, LNG Canada will send its first shipments from Kitimat, B.C., to Asia, marking Canada’s entry into the global LNG market.
Continue reading how 2025 is shaping up to be a big year for LNG in B.C.
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
First Nations leaders say they must be part of “Team Canada” — and decision makers on resource projects — to combat looming U.S. tariffs as they head into a key annual summit with the B.C. government.
Eby’s opening remarks at a press conference for the ninth B.C. Cabinet and First Nations Leaders’ Gathering on Tuesday focused on the province working closely with Indigenous leadership to address challenges, such as housing affordability, the toxic drug crisis, global inflation and the threat of the U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
However, chiefs with the First Nations Leadership Council made it clear that making headway on rights and title issues, decision-making around resource projects and aligning B.C. laws with the province’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) were their priorities over the next two days.
Continue reading No ‘Team Canada’ without First Nations land rights, BC leaders say
By Patrick Penner, Tri-Cities Dispatch, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Port Moody is advocating for the province to test universal basic income (UBI) as a way of tackling poverty.
On Tuesday, council endorsed a wide-ranging list of requests to be sent to B.C. Premier David Eby as well as the minister of housing, the minister of social development and poverty reduction, the Lower Mainland Local Government Association, and the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.
Continue reading Port Moody calls on province to trial universal basic income in its poverty plan
