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Column: Dam likely a boo boo

City council cancelled its Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for last night, and discussions of Scout Island’s future were postponed.

City council cancelled its Committee of the Whole meeting scheduled for last night, and I understand discussions of Scout Island’s future were postponed until council meets with members of the Nature Trust and the Field Naturalists. Good plan, in my opinion.

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I’ve been a Vancouver Sun reader for years. Sometimes I’d read the National Post to get another opinion, but no need for that now because the Sun has turned half of itself into the National Post. The Sun, Province and 171 other “Canadian” newspapers are owned by a large corporation, Postmedia. Postmedia had financial problems and was bailed out by a group of creditors led by a U.S. hedge fund. With newspapers, as with anything else, owners call the shots, and with one owner for most of our national newspapers, a foreign owner to boot, one size fits all. So much for the free press.

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The 11th Paddle for the Peace, held near Fort St. John last Saturday, attracted a lot of people from “out of town” including dignitaries and politicians. Events were held in other parts of the province in support of the cause, which is to stop the construction of the Site C dam. What the Paddle didn’t attract was much attention from the mainstream media. B.C.’s Christy Clark government has made a number of misjudgments, but the Site C dam is likely to go down in history as the biggest boo boo of all. There are so many reasons against building the dam and the reasons for it don’t really hold water, pardon the pun. Dams are so 1950s. There are so many less costly and less damaging alternatives to hydro power now, however, there is one thing you can say about Premier Clark. Once she has the bit in her teeth it seems nothing will stop her.

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Over the last week or so I’ve had three e-mails supposedly from a bank telling me my access card is blocked and to respond to the e-mail to get it fixed. Good try, but there’s one large mistake. I have never ever had an account at that bank.

Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.