The Georgia Straight’s 2014 Year in Review: it wasn’t all Ebola and ISIS

If you can overlook a mine disaster and a teachers’ strike, you should enjoy some of this year’s less stressful events

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      Another year is coming to an end, and, in some ways, the world seemed to be a grimmer place this year. The triple whammy of Ukraine, Ebola, and ISIS dominated international news headlines. Business journalists chronicled the fall of the Canadian dollar, collapsing oil prices, declining stock markets, and a sputtering liquefied-natural-gas industry. One Malaysian Airlines jet disappeared and another one was shot down. And the Mount Polley mine disaster sent poisonous metals spewing into the Fraser River watershed. Not good.

      Here in the Lower Mainland, we witnessed too much municipal-election mudslinging and not enough competence on the part of TransLink, as demonstrated by the Compass-card shenanigans and all those SkyTrain shutdowns. Homeless people were kicked out of Oppenheimer Park, the Portland Hotel Society found itself mired in scandal, and teachers walked picket lines for months.

      Among the bright spots was a surprising rebound by the Vancouver Canucks under new head coach Willie Desjardins. And the Tsilhqot’in court ruling rewrote the relationship between First Nations and the natural-resource industry, putting a smile on the face of chiefs across the province.

      But enough of the heavy stuff. Every year, the Straight offers a mostly lighter look at what happened during the previous year. Consider it our serving of holiday bonbons. Once you start, you just may not stop until you enjoy the last one.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      cathy

      Dec 20, 2014 at 1:35pm

      The actions and arrests of more than 100 people on Burnaby Mountain protesting against the Kinder Morgan proposed pipeline expansion deserved to get a mention.
      These actions against a giant corporation made news nationally and globally.
      A big omission?