Frankly Speaking

Frank Bucholtz photo This instruction to voters was posted all over Sierra Leone (in West Africa), as voters there prepared to vote in a presidential runoff election in March. As noted near the bottom of the poster, the Government of Canada (i.e. Canadian taxpayers)  helped to support the voter education process. The runoff election went very smoothly. If democracy can be that resilient and powerful in Sierra Leone, it most certainly can be the same in B.C. The shouting is almost over. The signs, somewhat reduced in number, will be coming down. Surrey and White Rock voters will elect new councils and a new Surrey Board of Education on Saturday. The same process will take place in Delta, Langley City, Langley Township and municipalities across B.C. It has been a unique civic election campaign. Here in the South Fraser region, there is the very unusual prospect of electing four new mayors. Longtime Delta Mayor Lois Jackson, Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner, White Rock...

Bonnie and I paused for a photo with Robert and Na Tigie Jawara when we visited their home in Kabala, Sierra Leone in December, 2013. Their granddaughter Tigos, who has just turned six, is with them. Students at Kabala Christian School enjoy the shade under a giant mango tree on their school grounds in Kabala, Sierra Leone. Update: The Jawara's three children who live outside Sierra Leone (two attend university in The Gambia, and one is working in South Korea) are now on their way back home for their mother's funeral, which will take place Sunday. Na Tigie's death has had a huge impact on many people there, as she was well-known in so many circles and well-loved by many. Just under three years ago, my wife Bonnie and I had the privilege of travelling to Sierra Leone and Ghana in West Africa. Our daughter Christina (Chrissy) first went to Sierra Leone in 2008, when she was in Grade 12 at Fraser Valley Christian high school in Surrey. She spent most of he...

Brian Mulroney, who has just been named a member of the Order of Companions of O.R. Tambo, South Africa's highest honour for foreign citizens, is not on most Canadians' lists of outstanding prime ministers. However, he showed real leadership in pushing hard for the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa. That release, after 27 years of imprisonment, was the first giant step towards South Afr ica eventually leaving apartheid behind and doing so peacefully. After Mandela became the president of South Africa, he set up a truth and reconciliation commission that was without precedent. That commission served as a model for Canada's own TRC, which under the leadership of Justice Murray Sinclair took an unvarnished look at the tattered relationship between Canada's First Nations people and the rest of society, and specifically the relationships between First Nations and generations of federal and provincial governments, and the churches that ran resident...

Frank Bucholtz photo Everyone using a speedboat service to cross Freetown harbour in Sierra Leone, West Africa must use life jackets - including all the crew members. Such a rule makes abundant sense for the many excursion boats in B.C. waters. My former colleague Sandy Macdougall, longtime reporter at the Tri-City News and Maple Ridge News, made an excellent comment on his Facebook page about the terrible tragedy in Tofino yesterday. He said: "Why aren't all passengers on any size whale watching vessel required to wear either a life jacket or a survival suit? Although the Leviathan II had sufficient life jackets on board, it appears that no passenger or crew member was wearing one. It reminds me of the few occasions when I covered drowning victims at Pitt Lake where the boats involved all had life jackets carefully stowed away and which were entirely useless to the victims because there just isn't time to dig them out and put them on properly in a sudden emer...