iN DISCUSSION: Cannabis, Boultbee, Richmond fallout

This is where cold hard facts give way to the hottest of takes, mostly mine I suppose.

Want to include yours? Listen, this isn’t the comment section, this isn’t social media. Discussion and debate requires context and a wee bit of bravery — we need your name and where you’re writing from. Build it in your account or email me any time.

Oct. 20, 2025 newsletter editorial

I’m back from a short vacation this morning and I found our feature story today on seven years of cannabis legalization quite interesting.

In short, it’s been a very bumpy ride and no one, it appears, is really making much money at it.

So what was the point?

Well, I was speaking with some younger family members who recall a short period of time being forced to buy weed from sketchy people in the black market.

But for most of their buying years, they’ve been able to walk into a store and buy safe legal supply.

That’s perhaps the most laudable part of Canada’s legalization scheme. That and arguably lower prices and more selection. But it appears there’s a lot more we could do.

Another week, another Boultbee drama

I’m still holding out hope for Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee.

She was a bright light under a BC Conservative Party that has been doing an impressive job in opposition, at least compared to the old Liberal Party. The Conservatives are showing why that party needed to go, it lost vigour and compass once they were ousted from power.

They were never an effective opposition. These Conservatives remind me of Gordon Campbell’s Liberals while in opposition in the 1990s. They were dogged on everything. And yes even NDPers should appreciate that — it should make governments better.

Few embodied that spirit like Boultbee. She’s intelligent, outspoken and mostly transparent.

And now an independent because of more infighting in that party with leader John Rustad.

As Jesse Thomas broke down in our story yesterday, she’s been a lightning rod for drama. That’s a very eventful first year. It wasn’t all under her control, of course, but at some point she should be making more headlines for her role as critic of the NDP, not her own struggles and battles in the public arena.

Let’s hope her second year in office has knocked some rough edges off, and she shows growth and stability.

Shockwaves from Cowichan First Nations decision

Not an opinion but a prediction: It doesn’t matter what the BC Supreme Court decision granting Aboriginal title over fee simple lands of some 150 homes in Richmond really means — we won’t know for a while, I guess.

What will matter most is how people react to this.

I don’t think the City of Cowichan really knew what the decision meant when it wrote to homeowners this week with a sort-of doomsday tone. I think a lot of homeowners and landowners in BC are already fearing and reacting similarly.

Will they see this as the inevitable consequence of and fault of governments constantly kicking BC First Nations issues (they are rather unique in Canada) down the road and finally being forced to negotiate as it appears the court intended? Or will they see a previously unknown threat to property and future plans, an unacceptable uncertainty about living and working in such an environment? What will their reaction be?

Tara Armstrong Recall Countdown

Tara Armstrong Recall Countdown

Tara Armstrong is currently the MLA for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream. She rode the coattails of the BC Conservative Party, got elected, then rejected and left the party to serve as an Independent within weeks because the Conservatives were too left wing. Now she gets to spout moronic, hateful rhetoric and claim that her riding supports her.

Elections BC says you can recall an MLA if 40% of eligible voters in the riding sign a recall petition — but not for the first 18 months after an election. Some people started an online petition calling for a byelection once she made a shift to independent, then got herself a raise by forming her own party, but it won’t mean anything until the countdown clock hits zero.

So let the countdown begin!