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Opinion General

PARKER: A joy ride from the wrong side

When I turned 14, I wrote a 730-day countdown to my sweet 16. It wasn’t that I was expecting anything special to happen for me — this was long before MTV started that craze — it’s just that I knew my life was about to change for the better. The day of my 16th birthday...

JONESIE: Sometimes I should just shut up

My neighbour’s a good guy. Usually I only see him over the fence. He works many nights and most weekends on his yard, often with his family tending fruit trees, scaling ladders, moving dirt and rock. I’m usually wearing painting shorts, Crocs and a wife-beater and I wave at them from Dandelion Alley secretly hating...

GOG: Get it? Athletic rhymes with pathetic

'THEY DISPLAY LANGUAGE SKILLS SECOND ONLY TO THOSE OF THE COOKIE MONSTER' I have finally figured out why it is that team sports annoy me. I mean watching them, of course, participating being totally out of the question. (Many decades ago I was persuaded, against my better judgement, to try out for a high school...

LOEWEN: Everyone’s entitled to an opinion

'WE NEED FOLKS WITH THESE KINDS OF OPINIONS BECAUSE, FRANKLY, IF WE'RE LEFT TO THE OTHER OPINIONS OUT THERE, WELL, WE'RE SCREWED.' So with that, I thought I'd take a final walk The tide of public opinion had started to abate The neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk I could see...

PARKER: The sweetness of doing nothing

I spent the first three months of last summer unemployed. It wasn’t an “I’m living off of EI” unemployment, either. I tried that route but they didn’t buy the story about me taking a female lover and leaving my job to follow her to the B.C. Interior. Fair enough, I suppose.  Without the pressure of...

GOG: Stop calling these things ‘rest’ rooms

Whilst browsing in the mall the other day I was once again reminded of my age, this time by my bladder. This is a moment I dread since it involves undergoing one of the most painful rituals of adult male life: The use of a public rest room. There is nothing restful about it. Ladies...

LOEWEN: If it ain’t one thing, it’s your mother

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.” — Oscar Wilde May means Mother’s Day for most of us. And if you weren’t raised by a harridan wielding a strap to strafe your back with, chances are you probably have a pretty warm feeling when you think of your...

PARKER: Crossing the bucket off my bucket list

I like to consider myself a pretty worldly twenty-something year old. This one time, I built houses in Guatemala and yeah, I feel like because of that I’m allowed to dub myself experienced in the ways of the earth. I guess also because I grew up with three brothers — but that’s another story. I have...

JONESIE: Time to move on from this old house

I suppose it’s a natural evolution but it sure doesn’t feel that way. As families grow, old bits slough off and we have to say good-bye with a For Sale sign. We are moving from our little house, our home for the last 15 years. And since that damn sign went up out front, I’ve...

GOG: How you can help me help you survive this damn flight

I recently had to be somewhere else in a hurry, and the only way of achieving that is, of course, by flying. It’s been a while since I had to travel by aeroplane, and I had forgotten just how dreadful an experience it is. First one must face the ritual humiliation of “security” where in...

LOEWEN: Letter to a younger ‘bro’

'THEY WON'T ADMIT IT; BUT SOME OLD DUDES HATE YOU FOR THIS IN-BORN GENIUS OF YOURS' You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face And show the world all the love in your heart Then people gonna treat you better You're gonna find, yes, you will That you're beautiful as...

PARKER: I don’t want to grow up

ACCIO, FUTURE! On Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m. on the dot I handed in my last university paper. It only had to be 1,250 words, so — naturally — I wrote 1,000 and included a 300 word title. That’s just the way I do. The first thing I did after handing it in was cry...

EDITOR’S NOTE: All your news at a glance

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our focus each day is gathering and presenting news and information with the greatest impact on your daily life and most often, that comes from local reporters right here in your city. But not always. That’s why we also bring you some of the best reporting in the country through Canadian Press, so...

JONESIE: The trouble with apologies

So yes, I was grumpy. Fine, I admit it. I’d already spent 15 hours of a badly-needed weekend behind the wheel. So there’s that. And my trip was to Calgary and back so needn't say more, right? But so what, big deal. “This isn’t a 'purple truck,'” my wife said. “And it’s not a truck,...

LOEWEN: Exorcising the toxic manager

'TAKE HEART. IF YOU STAND YOUR GROUND, YOU'LL PROBABLY BE FINE.' I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more nah, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more Well, he hands you a nickel And he hands you a dime And he asks you with a grin If you're havin' a good time...

PARKER: Resisting the call of the freedom marketers

THE COST OF FLOWER CROWNS AND DANCING IN DUST This week on the Internet there are two kinds of people — those who went to Coachella, and those who are bitching about not going to Coachella. It happens every year in April. Music festival season kicks off and hundreds of thousands of soul-seeking, fashion-forward, bohemian-hippy...

JONESIE: Sorting fragile secrets one email at a time

Sorry, Mrs. Lee, I’m not returning your email. Nice try, but you know darn well I didn’t place an order with your shipping company. I won’t be hiring programmers from India, either. No, I don’t need your SEO. I don’t care if he's a Nigerian prince, I am not giving you access to my bank...

GOG: Fine, I’ll go, but I won’t like it

I’ve been invited to a party. I don’t like parties. No one likes parties. Secretly we’d all rather be sitting quietly at home with a glass of Shiraz and Margaret Atwood. But instead we congregate in someone’s ugly kitchen and pretend we’re having fun. It won’t be fun. It will be hell. There will be...

LOEWEN: The Return of The Messiah: The humanities reborn?

'THE MESSIAH MAY HAVE RETURNED. HIS NAME IS HARRISON ARGATOFF.' Well I've been faithful And I've been so good Except for drinking But he knew that I would I'm gonna leave this place better Than the way I found it was And Jesus gonna be here Be here soon (Tom Waits, “Jesus Gonna Be Here”)...

PARKER: When life imitates Instagram

Once, in the middle of a breakup, I had a boyfriend turn to me and say: “This is because I don’t Instagram enough, isn’t it?” To be fair, I’m pretty sure his full thought was something about not being a creative, free-spirit type — and that’s not even why we were breaking up — but...

JONESIE: Just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you should

I must be getting old because I think I’m feeling nostalgic for old rules in the news publishing business. Doesn’t sound like me. Old newspaper rules that make no sense today must fade out, change or die.  Publish a submitted news release? For some, sure, why not? Space isn’t a problem and re-writing press releases...

GOG: All these buttons and not a single one for Ovaltine?

This week I decided to take a mad leap into the twentieth century and buy a Radar Range, apparently now known as a 'microwave oven.' All I wanted was a machine to heat my porridge in the morning and my Ovaltine at bedtime. Put the mug in, turn the dial, hit 'Start' and presto, steamy...