Frankly Speaking

The horrific crash involving a train and an ambulance at the Crush Crescent railway crossing in Langley on Friday should never have happened. An 87-year-old patient, Helena Van Gool, who was being transported in the ambulance, died after the crash. It involved an eastbound ambulance which had pulled across the tracks to the Glover Road intersection. The ambulance, with the patient and two attendants, was struck in the rear bumper area by a CN container train. The train was heading northeast on CP tracks, to join up with the CN line at Rawlison (232 Street). It isn't clear if the ambulance was in its position before the crossing arms went down, but it would have been easy for the driver to activate emergency lights and siren and get across Glover Road. To see how it all happened, see the video of the train running into the rear of the ambulance at this link from CTV News . The resulting traffic chaos was a nightmare in Langley. The train was stopped on the tracks for almost ...

I have quite deliberately ignored the federal election campaign until now. It made no sense to write about leaders who talked too much about nothing during the month of August, when no voters were paying attention anyway. However, it is now time to share a few thoughts. This is my column published in the Friday edition of The Peace Arch News and Surrey-North Delta Leader. Although the federal election has legally been under way since Aug. 2, it only really began in earnest this week. There was one leaders’ debate in August, the details of which no one can now recall.   There were very few signs up in August, and they were ignored by almost everyone. Attempts by candidates to portray themselves as saints and their opponents from other parties as the worst types of sinners have, for the most part, gone unheard. Far too much media attention focuses on party leaders. This is not only unhealthy for democracy, as it makes leaders think they are in charge of the entire campai...