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Whatever past pitfalls you've experienced on Mother's Day as a biological mom or stepmom, remember that you can change it just by how you choose to think about it. We create our own reality. We all matter in our child(ren)'s life.

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Give your tired old herb garden a serious reboot this spring with a fresh take on growing those things that can truly make you happier. Planting your own cocktail herb garden means that you can whip up a fancy drink at a moments notice.

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One thing I have learned from my cross-Canada tour is that once you get outside of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Ottawa, it ain't sunny ways. More and more Canadians are feeling that the system is rigged against them. And one of the most disturbing economic indicators is the rising number of working poor. Over the last six years, the number of people who identify as working class or poor has shot up from 29 per cent to 44 per cent. This is a dramatic shift in Canadian society, but Justin Trudeau just doesn't seem to get it.

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Several national commissions on Canada's health-care system have recommended adding prescription drugs to our publicly funded universal medicare system. No federal government has ever acted on those recommendations. Not yet, anyhow. By creating 'pharmacare-junior,' Premier Wynne and Minister Hoskins are in essence calling on the federal government to help finish the job and create a pharmacare program for all Canadians of all ages.

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A simple Google search of "political promises in Canadian real estate market" gives you an idea of where our minds are at this election. The sentiment is pretty clear. Canadians want to know what our next provincial government is going to do about the simmering B.C. real estate market?

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Mother's Day is just around the corner and we still haven't found the perfect gift for our mom. If you're a Last Minute Lucy like us then you're probably stressing over on what to get her. Our dishes require little prep time so kitchen so you can spend less time in the kitchen and more quality time with your mom.

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My last few overseas trips have been to Asia and the discrepancy between how recycling is handled here in North America versus other continents is silently alarming. Soon, I'll be making my way to Cambodia and in my research of Siem Reap, I stumbled upon a great recycling program that addresses some of my concerns.

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The Gord Campbell-led Liberals had substantially more votes than our principal opponent, the B.C. New Democrats - some 40,000 votes. We owned the popular vote, right from the moment that the polls closed. We'd end up with three percentage points more than the NDPers, in fact. But we were still losing.

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I was the master of ceremonies at my brother's wedding. I wanted to engage the audience and what better way than using humour to do so. I searched for some wedding jokes for ideas but they were just too cliché-ridden. I stumbled upon some "Before Marriage and After Marriage" jokes using a play on Bollywood movie titles

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No poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being. Worthy causes, but unattainable aspirations at first glance. What is the meaning of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) if, as critics attest, their attainment is "virtually impossible?"

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Sustainability is a complex and sometimes challenging dialectical concept, much like beauty, justice, democracy, and equality, etc. By dialectical I mean it is difficult to analytically define the term; more commonly you have to discuss the matter conceptually and show examples to illustrate your arguments.

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We cannot allow PharmaCare to force any of the 25,000 British Columbians living with Crohn's or colitis to give up a treatment that's working well in exchange for a lower cost alternative. This is a possibility in the province and a worrying prospect for people who have finally found stability.

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Being a successful freelancer is a confidence booster, but some people ask me, "are you actually getting paid to write?" My eyebrows cave in, and I realize at times that even though there are successful freelancers out there on YouTube and television, many still believe that the writer's life is simply a hobby that brings minimal success. The truth is, if you do things in a certain way, you can travel the world, collaborate with C-suite professionals on projects, and help others during your career.

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As Mother's Day approaches, Canadians will be celebrating the people who brought us into this world and nurtured us as we developed. Most of the adulation will be due to social graces, such as care, kindness, and those life lessons that always come in handy. But there are other reasons -- specifically molecular -- making Mom a baby's best ally.

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There are many who ascribe the value of a sin tax to non-medical cannabis use. The argument for high taxation levels is to increase government revenues and discourage the use of an inebriating substance. Proponents of this argument might go as far as to say the more tax the better. This creates a problematic externality.

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If parents and schools make it too easy for young people to shirk their work, it's unlikely that these youth will ever be willing or able to do what's necessary, in order to excel in their training or in their future jobs. If a young person has had helicopter parenting and/or has graduated from a college that coddled them, how can they overcome these disadvantages and achieve success in the workplace?

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When corruption and callous disregard for the marginalized can be so richly rewarded, what incentive do my students have for being good? When cheating does not preclude you from occupying the highest office in the province, why should they listen to my warnings about plagiarism?

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Every Canadian has a stake in this issue. All women are at risk for developing ovarian cancer, yet there is no reliable screening test, no vaccine to prevent it. Progress is long overdue and it's about time for government to step up its support.

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I'm tired of pacifists. I'm not going to be polite around them anymore. I'm not going to be accommodating in polite society and pretend that while I differ, I respect the pacifist opinion. I don't. Pacifists are wrong, and this is why. Pacifism tolerates, even abets, terrorism and fascism -- and the war and violence that come from them.

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The biggest threat to our strong real estate market and local economy is a generation of buyers who, in pursuit of the housing dream, throw caution to the wind, assume a crippling mortgage, and take on more debt than they can handle.

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The so-called B.C. Liberals aren't liberal. They try to run government like a business. B.C. is the only province without a poverty reduction plan. Not a word on this from the corporate premier. Clark likes to brag about BC's strong economy, but she won't address the gross inequality in our province or the record number of children in poverty.