After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Jenny Uechi

Jenny Uechi is Managing Director of Observer Media Group.  She is a special reports writer for National Observer.

Photo of typical Fraser River gravel mining bar by Andrew S. Wright

Money and influence cast long shadow over province's decisions on Fraser River, records suggest

Scientists say money and connections have too much power in B.C. politics, following the green-lighting of a controversial gravel mining project on the Fraser River expected to have serious impact on...

New Tory employment minister brings American-style right-wing agenda to the job

The Harper administration has just appointed Pierre Poilievre, the former Conservative minister for democratic reform, to minister of employment and social development. Maclean's magazine once...
Alanna Mitchell

PuSh Festival's "Sea Sick" a riveting tale about dying oceans

It's a huge shame that Alanna Mitchell's Sea Sick isn't playing on big screens around the world, as Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth once did. Her story about ocean acidification...
Harper with York police

Harper announces increased CSIS powers to combat terrorism

Canada will expand spying powers, criminalize terrorism "promotion" and increase the use of "classified information" to punish non-citizens as part of sweeping changes to improve security, Prime...
Oil sands photo by Andrew S. Wright

NAFTA votes against investigating oil sands tailings ponds

NAFTA's environmental watchdog voted unanimously not to investigate oil sands tailings ponds pollution, despite recommendations from staff to launch a probe. It's the third time a NAFTA probe...

Province approves controversial Fraser River gravel mining project

Scientist says province reneged on promise to protect one of the world's oldest fish populations.
Left:  Parliament. Right: maple leaf engraved on coffins at Beny-sur-mer, France

Sorry, soldiers who died for Canada weren't citizens: government

"What does it matter that maple leaves adorn tombstones of various cemeteries in Europe...? Canada has lost none of its nationals during the last two World Wars, at least not officially," begins an...

Obama's State of the Union good news for Keystone XL opponents

He didn't mention the pipeline by name, but U.S. President Barack Obama clearly referenced Keystone XL in his State of the Union speech tonight.  “Twenty-first century businesses need twenty-...
Dan Cantor speaking in Vancouver

A wizard of U.S. politics tells Canadian progressives how to win

The founder of the U.S. Working Families Party made no bones about his opinion of Canada's Prime Minister during a visit in Vancouver on Sunday.  “This guy Harper is a menace,” he said, speaking...
Kevin Page

Ex-Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page on muzzled scientists, secrecy and "broken" government

"There's no accountability. It's completely, completely broken," said former Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, who was hailed as a "national hero" for insisting that federal government be...