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Les Leyne

Les Leyne

Times Colonist

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Les Leyne: B.C. premier says he has 'zero desire' to talk northern pipeline

Les Leyne: B.C. premier says he has 'zero desire' to talk northern pipeline

Premier David Eby ratcheted up the emphasis on his hard “No” to a northern B.C. oil pipeline Wednesday, supported by coastal First Nation leaders...

previous day 4

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: B.C. premier says he has 'zero desire' to talk northern pipeline

Les Leyne: B.C. premier says he has 'zero desire' to talk northern pipeline

Premier David Eby ratcheted up the emphasis on his hard “No” to a northern B.C. oil pipeline Wednesday, supported by coastal First Nation leaders...

previous day 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Tariffs on softwood lumber

Tariffs on softwood lumber

The more lifelines governments throw to the sinking forest industry, the more tangled it gets in the quicksand of U.S. trade policy. That policy is...

thursday 2

Castanet

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Premier defends Cowichan title appeal before chiefs

Les Leyne: Premier defends Cowichan title appeal before chiefs

Premier David Eby and key First Nations leaders did their best Tuesday morning to smooth over differences over the province’s appeal of the B.C....

thursday 10

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Lumber subsidies make for a vicious circle

Les Leyne: Lumber subsidies make for a vicious circle

The more lifelines governments throw to the sinking forest industry, the more tangled it gets in the quicksand of U.S. trade policy. That policy is...

05.11.2025 3

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Lumber subsidies make for a vicious circle

Les Leyne: Lumber subsidies make for a vicious circle

The more lifelines governments throw to the sinking forest industry, the more tangled it gets in the quicksand of U.S. trade policy. That policy is...

05.11.2025 2

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: A street-level glimpse at crime and the courts

Les Leyne: A street-level glimpse at crime and the courts

The same day that Premier David Eby and federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser talked about bail reform, three B.C. Supreme Court verdicts were posted...

02.11.2025 20

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Cowichan land-title litigation has years to run

Les Leyne: Cowichan land-title litigation has years to run

There are 86 lawyers listed on the first page of the reasons for judgment in the B.C. Supreme Court decision on the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal...

31.10.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Cowichan land-title litigation has years to run

Les Leyne: Cowichan land-title litigation has years to run

There are 86 lawyers listed on the first page of the reasons for judgment in the B.C. Supreme Court decision on the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal...

31.10.2025 4

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Eby fumes at erosion of respect for law

Les Leyne: Eby fumes at erosion of respect for law

Premier David Eby was up in the legislature last week under fire for assorted shortcomings and had to come up with an omnibus defence to all the...

30.10.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Eby fumes at erosion of respect for law

Les Leyne: Eby fumes at erosion of respect for law

Premier David Eby was up in the legislature last week under fire for assorted shortcomings and had to come up with an omnibus defence to all the...

30.10.2025 3

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: BCGEU deal wipes out cost-cutting efforts

Les Leyne: BCGEU deal wipes out cost-cutting efforts

There will be jubilation and relief in the workers’ ranks with a tentative deal to end the B.C. General Employees’ Union strike against the...

29.10.2025 8

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Bail reform requires major change of attitude

Les Leyne: Bail reform requires major change of attitude

There are volumes of legal and political arguments about the concept of bail, but where it all lands at ground level is in the B.C. Prosecution...

26.10.2025 10

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Party brass urge Rustad to quit, as amazing downhill run gains momentum

Les Leyne: Party brass urge Rustad to quit, as amazing downhill run gains momentum

Seven more cars have piled into the train wreck that is the Conservative Party of B.C. as the management committee of the party urged Leader John...

24.10.2025 2

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Party brass urge Rustad to quit, as amazing downhill run gains momentum

Les Leyne: Party brass urge Rustad to quit, as amazing downhill run gains momentum

Seven more cars have piled into the train wreck that is the Conservative Party of B.C. as the management committee of the party urged Leader John...

24.10.2025 2

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Northern power push expedited

Energy Minister Adrian Dix has a stirring set-piece speech — available on demand — about how former premier W.A.C. Bennett created B.C. Hydro and...

23.10.2025 3

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Northern power push expedited

Les Leyne: Northern power push expedited

Energy Minister Adrian Dix has a stirring set-piece speech — available on demand — about how former premier W.A.C. Bennett created B.C. Hydro and...

23.10.2025 70

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Vince Ready is the dealmaker of last resort

Les Leyne: Vince Ready is the dealmaker of last resort

Labour dispute rule of thumb: When you see the words “Vince Ready” show up in coverage of a work stoppage, you know things are really bad. But...

22.10.2025 2

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Vince Ready is the dealmaker of last resort

Les Leyne: Vince Ready is the dealmaker of last resort

Labour dispute rule of thumb: When you see the words “Vince Ready” show up in coverage of a work stoppage, you know things are really bad. But...

22.10.2025 90

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Proposal to allow secret meetings with First Nations needs a hard look

The specific reasons why local governments can legally hold secret meetings are being broadened under a bill introduced this week to include dealings...

12.10.2025 5

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Pipeline politics

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s accusation Tuesday that B.C. Premier David Eby is being “un-Canadian” in dismissing her oil pipeline idea is...

11.10.2025 3

Castanet

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Three sets of B.C. and Alberta premiers clash over pipelines

B.C. and Alberta have been fighting off and on over pipelines for more than a decade now, but the latest intensifying spat looks to be the most...

10.10.2025 4

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Three sets of B.C. and Alberta premiers clash over pipelines

B.C. and Alberta have been fighting off and on over pipelines for more than a decade now, but the latest intensifying spat looks to be the most...

10.10.2025 2

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Pipeline argument looms over legislature agenda

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s accusation Tuesday that Premier David Eby is being “un-Canadian” in dismissing her oil pipeline idea is dead...

09.10.2025 2

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Pipeline argument looms over legislature agenda

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s accusation Tuesday that Premier David Eby is being “un-Canadian” in dismissing her oil pipeline idea is dead...

09.10.2025 20

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Legislature should unite for Xavier's Law

There’s one specific move politicians resuming the legislative session this week could make that would make B.C. a much safer place. The days will...

08.10.2025 4

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Legislature should unite for Xavier's Law

There’s one specific move politicians resuming the legislative session this week could make that would make B.C. a much safer place. The days will...

08.10.2025 3

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Ferry system over-stressed, underfunded, says CEO

Nobody wants to sail in a boat built in some autocratic country with a poor human rights record that cheats and lies, started a trade war with us and...

28.09.2025 10

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Deficit warning flags fly for finance minister

Standing in front of hundreds of public officials who are legally prohibited from operating in the red and fretting about how tough it is to reduce...

27.09.2025 3

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Deficit warning flags fly for finance minister

Standing in front of hundreds of public officials who are legally prohibited from operating in the red and fretting about how tough it is to reduce...

27.09.2025 3

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: B.C. Conservatives' soap opera story arc could go anywhere

Here’s a synopsis of the latest instalment of my favourite soap opera: As the (B.C. Conservative) World Burns. This week’s episode was pretty...

26.09.2025 3

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: B.C. Conservatives' soap opera story arc could go anywhere

Here’s a synopsis of the latest instalment of my favourite soap opera: As the (B.C. Conservative) World Burns. This week’s episode was pretty...

26.09.2025 2

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: 'Anything goes' attitude leads to downtown decay

B.C. has slid into an attitude of “endless accommodation” of antisocial behaviour by desperately ill people on downtown streets, says the man at...

25.09.2025 3

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

'Disordered' downtowns

There will never be a Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention where a crisis of one sort or another is not on the agenda. The very design...

25.09.2025 20

Castanet

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: UBCM resolutions show downtown distress is B.C.-wide

There will never be a Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention where a crisis of one sort or another is not on the agenda. The very design...

24.09.2025 20

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: UBCM resolutions show downtown distress is B.C.-wide

There will never be a Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention where a crisis of one sort or another is not on the agenda. The very design...

24.09.2025 2

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Electric hydrofoil ferry could be the future

That sleek little electric, carbon fibre hydrofoil vessel zipping quietly back and forth off the breakwater Monday morning? That could be the future....

19.06.2025 20

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Province offers $5M fund to battle shoplifting

There’s a new $5-million pool of provincial money being made available to B.C. police for use in fighting non-violent crime like shoplifting. In the...

01.06.2025 10

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Premier heads west to give investors a 'big hug'

Premier David Eby’s lacklustre four-month legislature session just wrapping up this week created more problems than it solved. Maybe a change of...

30.05.2025 5

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Eby's mining vision is confounding

B.C. premiers have a history of magnificent dreams involving either untold riches or epic public works — or both — in northern B.C. W.A.C. Bennett...

29.05.2025 20

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Eby's mining vision is confounding

B.C. premiers have a history of magnificent dreams involving either untold riches or epic public works — or both — in northern B.C. W.A.C. Bennett...

29.05.2025 3

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Infrastructure minister admits error, but NDP will press on

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma took a refreshingly novel approach when it came to defending the NDP’s power grab in the legislature earlier this...

28.05.2025 3

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Infrastructure minister admits error, but NDP will press on

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma took a refreshingly novel approach when it came to defending the NDP’s power grab in the legislature earlier this...

28.05.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Skimpy legislative package blamed on rookie MLAs and too much talking

Considering all the problems, it’s strange — as the legislature takes a one-week break before the sitting draws to a close — how little the NDP...

21.05.2025 5

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Skimpy legislative package blamed on rookie MLAs and too much talking

Considering all the problems, it’s strange — as the legislature takes a one-week break before the sitting draws to a close — how little the NDP...

21.05.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Premier backs opposition critic, for good reason

Premier David Eby is on the correct side of a controversy involving a government attempt to get the RCMP to probe an embarrassing leak. But it took a...

16.05.2025 30

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Premier backs opposition critic, for good reason

Premier David Eby is on the correct side of a controversy involving a government attempt to get the RCMP to probe an embarrassing leak. But it took a...

16.05.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Fumbled hiring of Eby adviser is under fire

Esquimalt boy Michael Bryant, intensely political since his toddler days, found himself in the middle of a political controversy Tuesday that has more...

15.05.2025 7

Times Colonist

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Fumbled hiring of Eby adviser is under fire

Esquimalt boy Michael Bryant, intensely political since his toddler days, found himself in the middle of a political controversy Tuesday that has more...

15.05.2025 4

Vancouver Is Awesome

Les Leyne

Les Leyne: Eby puts political torque on U.S. nurse poaching effort

Premier David Eby put a lot of political torque on B.C.’s effort to poach U.S. nurses from Pacific coast states while delivering an update on the...

14.05.2025 40

Times Colonist

Les Leyne