Frankly Speaking

The shocking news that two masked men entered a Quebec City mosque Sunday night, killing six people and wounding another eight, is deeply disturbing. This shouldn't happen anywhere, but it seems particularly out of place in boring, peaceful Canada. It certainly proves that the events of the world as a whole can end up in our front yards when we least expect it. That this happened in Quebec is only slightly less surprising. Quebec is a peaceful and quiet province for the most part, although racial and religious intolerance was fanned several years ago by the former Parti Quebecois government under Pauline Marois. It tried to introduce a charter of Quebec values. Some of those moves were foolishly followed up by campaign statements by the Conservative Party under former prime minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 federal election. Interestingly, the only place in the country where the Conservatives gained seats in that election was in the Quebec City region. This shooting came at t...

It is with both a sense of sadness and excitement that I pass on the news that I will be retiring from my position as Langley Times editor at the end of this month. I have held this position for almost 17 years — far longer than I had initially anticipated. There are two reasons — the terrific people I work with at The Times, and all the amazing people in Langley whom we are privileged to write about and photograph each week. The community newspaper business is very different from most media businesses. Our job is to present news and information to our readers which helps them get to know this community and its goings-on, from information that is just not easily available to them elsewhere. Some people think there is no need for print media any longer, given the advances in technology. There is no shortage of information on the internet, and it is easier than ever to get at, with new mobile devices coming out all the time. However, I challenge them to check out what th...