Opinion

Growing up as a kid in Saskatchewan, I remem-ber many weekends during the winter spent in curling clubs. My dad was an avid curler. He took up the game in high school and played for many years until he stopped when we moved to B.C. in 1988.

The labour dispute between B.C. teachers and the provincial government is getting ugly. This week, the Liberals introduced legislation (Bill 12) that imposes the teachers' expired contract until the spring.

Canada's new Governor General Michaelle Jean was sworn in this week. Jean was born in Haiti, and is now a resident of Quebec.

I thought about my mom a lot this past Sunday. And although there's nothing unusual about that, the reason I was thinking about her was out of the ordinary. This past Sunday was the Heart and Stroke Mother Daughter Walk.

It struck me the other day just how selfish and focused on material things most of North America is.

A beautiful new hospice facility was opened to the public this week.

A picture tells a thousand words. That couldn't be more evident this week. On our front page we have a first-hand account of the destruction Mother Nature can cause, the human tragedy that ensues and the painful aftermath as the clean-up begins.

I for one, am lost without CBC radio. With the lockout dragging on, there is talk, mostly on competing stations, of listeners permanently switching their knobs to other stations.

Last week I was off on vacation. It was the ultimate road trip that took my dad and I down the west coast of the United States. We started our trip in Seattle with a game at Safeco Field between the Mariners and my beloved New York Yankees.

Along with the rest of the world, we on the Sunshine Coast watched with horror as yet another part of the world was flattened by a vicious water-fuelled storm.