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We’re an independent, online news magazine from B.C. founded in 2003. We’re devoted to fact-driven stories, reporting that informs and enlivens our democratic conversation. This feed features our stories, read by AI narration. Our reporting has changed laws, started movements and garnered numerous awards.

  1. 1D AGO

    A Company Was Fined $575,000 for a Construction Worker's Death

    Jeff Caron's sister says that's not enough, and experts say criminal investigations are still too rare in workplace deaths. … Article written by Isaac Phan Nay. A B.C. Supreme Court justice ordered contractor J. Cote & Son Excavating to pay $575,000 Monday after ruling the company's criminal negligence caused the death of one employee and injured another. The sentence comes more than 13 years after the employees were crushed while replacing a Burnaby storm sewer. On Oct. 11, 2012, pipe layers Thomas Richer and Jeff Caron were working in a newly excavated trench when a nearby retaining wall collapsed on them. It crushed Caron to death and seriously injured Richer. The construction company was found guilty of one count each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing death. On Wednesday Justice Michael Brundrett ordered the company to pay $100,000 on the first count and $400,000 on the second, plus a 15 per cent surcharge that funds victim services. The $575,000 penalty falls far short of the $1-million fine prosecutors had called for. Caron's sister Cheyanna Kamahkoostayo said the penalty was inadequate. "I'm upset," she said, while she wiped away a tear outside the courtroom. "He's been swept under the rug again." Company president Jamie Cote declined to comment. University of Regina occupational safety professor Sean Tucker said the fine was a significant penalty and is being closely watched by prosecutors and companies across Canada. Still, he said, the rarity of such convictions hints at the larger issue — that hundreds of Canadians die in workplace incidents each year despite the deterrence of court-ordered penalties. "The system just isn't working," he said after a sentencing hearing last month. "We still have more work to do. This case is a part of it, but we still have more work." Sussanne Skidmore, president of the BC Federation of Labour, said in an email to The Tyee that while it's good to see a significant fine, the case underlines how rarely negligent employers face criminal prosecution. "We hope it sends a message: workplace deaths are preventable, and employers need to live up to their crucial responsibility to prevent deaths and injuries," Skidmore said. "There are far too many instances where employers face little or no accountability, while workers pay a terrible price." The maximum penalty for an individual convicted of criminal negligence causing death is life imprisonment. But for a corporation, the maximum penalty is a fine up to the court's discretion. In 2016, a B.C. court charged Stave Lake Quarries with criminal negligence causing death and fined the employer $100,000 after employee Kelsey Anne Kristian died on her second day on the job. A year later, northern Ontario mining company Detour Gold was fined $1.4 million, after it admitted millwright Denis Millette's cyanide poisoning death was linked to criminal negligence at the mine. The J. Cote criminal case is the result of amendments to the Criminal Code made in 2004, after 26 miners were killed in an explosion at the Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia in 1992. Commonly called the "Westray amendments," the change means courts can hold a company responsible for the actions of its senior officers. "The promise of Westray was justice and accountability for criminal negligence by companies," Tucker said. "With this case, we're reminded again that the promise of Westray has still not been realized." That's partly because only a fraction of workplace deaths are investigated for criminal negligence, Tucker said. United Steelworkers found in a report last spring that between 2004 and April 2025 there have been only 12 successful prosecutions under the Westray amendments — not counting the J. Cote & Son Excavating case. Meanwhile, the report estimates that 900 to 1,000 people die each year from work-related injury or illness in Canada. Approximately one-third of those deaths are from traumatic workplace incidents, according to ...

    5 min

  2. 1D AGO

    The UCP Tried to Kill a Health Story with Claims That Didn't Stand Up

    The government cited numbers that its own data contradicted. … Article written by Brett McKay. The Alberta government was quick to react when an Investigative Journalism Foundation investigation revealed that the amount of overtime worked by paramedics in Edmonton had increased by 81 per cent between 2021 and 2024. The report was republished by several media outlets across Canada last summer through the Local Journalism Initiative. Staff from Premier Danielle Smith's office and the Ministry of Hospital and Surgical Health Services immediately began messaging reporters and editors, claiming that data had been omitted and asking that the story be rewritten or deleted. At least one news outlet complied with the government's request. But after filing multiple access to information requests, the IJF found that information cited in emails from the premier's staff doesn't line up with data from the province's own health agencies. That's a serious problem, said Lorian Hardcastle, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Calgary. "In many cases, government is the only one with access to particular data," she said. "And so it's essential to government accountability to democracy for them to be honest and open and transparent with that data." "Where that data is false, or where that data is misleading or is manipulated in a way to make it seem more favourable, all of that is really problematic," Hardcastle said. "And it takes away the ability of the public to hold the government's feet to the fire to make improvements." Inaccurate data also makes it harder for those working in the system to make needed changes, she said. The emergency medical services or EMS staffing shortage and the reliance on paramedics working overtime just to keep ambulances on the road have been a persistent Alberta issue. The IJF investigation found Edmonton emergency medical services overtime hours had jumped 81 per cent in three years and overtime costs had increased from $5.3 million to $10 million. Steve Buick, a government relations officer in the premier's office, raised three issues in a July 2025 email to the IJF and other media after the report was published. Despite Edmonton EMS working more than 134,000 hours of overtime in 2024, Buick wrote that presenting the increase in overtime as a problem is misleading. "First, overtime as a percentage of total worked hours in Edmonton EMS is down by more than half, to 2.8 per cent in 2025 to date compared to 6.3 per cent in 2024. The 2025 figure is only slightly higher than 2022 or 2023," Buick said. "EMS has expanded significantly in recent years so total hours and overtime hours are up sharply, but overtime as a percentage of total worked hours is not. Omitting that data is unacceptable; it reflects a standard that would never be accepted in any other context." These statistics were repeated in a separate email from the Health Ministry asking for the story to be altered. Data subsequently released through an access to information request shows that overtime as a percentage of hours worked is significantly higher than the figures quoted by Buick and has consistently hovered around 10 per cent in recent years. In 2024, 9.9 per cent of all hours worked by Edmonton EMS were overtime, up from 9.8 per cent in 2023, according to data from Alberta Health Services. Between January and July 2025, overtime made up on average 10.11 per cent of hours worked, hitting a low of 8.18 per cent in January and a high of 11.44 per cent in March. So where does the statistic about overtime hours quoted by Buick come from? According to the provincial health agency Acute Care Alberta, the 6.3 per cent figure represents overtime as a percentage of total paid hours, which is "greater than actual worked hours as they include vacation, training, sick hours, etc." Even using this metric, the amount of overtime worked by Edmonton EMS has increased since 2022. In 2022 overtime accounted for five per cent of tot...

    8 min

  3. 1D AGO

    The Slimy BC Invader That Came from the West

    The violet tunicate is a hermaphroditic reproducer that shellfish farmers have been blasting off oysters for nearly a century on the West Coast. … Article written by Grace Kennedy. It didn't arrive on a meteorite, crashing into a suburban town to feast on human flesh. But an alien blob has been circulating in British Columbian waters, spreading its colonies in marinas and oyster farms. It arrived from the west, likely as a stowaway on ships from Japan or Korea, or as a hitchhiker on the backs of oysters. Once it arrived, it thrived. Now, it is found across the eastern Pacific, from California to Alaska. It is the violet tunicate, Botrylloides violaceus: a colonial sea squirt that looks surprisingly similar to a blob of slime. Made of hundreds of individual animals called zooids, the violet tunicate spends its adult life attached to hard surfaces such as docks, ships, rocks or mollusks. Its life history sounds like something out of science fiction. The colony feeds together, with the zooids arranged in a chain pattern around a shared tubular structure called a siphon. The zooids share a blood supply, spread throughout the surface tissue, called a "tunic," which helps protect the colony. The violet tunicate uses a chemical to prevent other species from adhering to surfaces near it and can increase the size of its colony through asexual budding. It also reproduces through hermaphroditic sex. Each zooid is both male and female. When it is time to reproduce, one zooid releases an egg into the membrane of the colony's tunic. The egg grows in that pouch for one month and then bursts from the colony as a tadpole about as wide as a strand of spaghetti. The tadpole swims for a few hours before settling on a nearby rock or dock. Within two weeks in the summer — or four in the slower winter months — the new violet tunicate colony will be made of more than 100 individual zooids. Not a lot is known about violet tunicates in their native range, although a study from the 1970s found it was one of the most common biofouling creatures on Japanese cultured pearl oysters. Some of those oysters were imported to Ladysmith Harbour in 1912 to supplement depleted stocks of native oysters. Most arrived uncleaned, and many different invasive hitchhiker species spread along the B.C. coast. The government takes a closer look Thomas Therriault, a scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, commonly known as DFO, was called in the early 2000s to take a closer look at the violet tunicate and other invasive sea squirts like it after mussel farmers in Prince Edward Island expressed concern about new kinds of species infiltrating their farms. "It was the very early days of our science program on aquatic invasive species at DFO," Therriault told The Tyee. Industry partners wanted to get a better handle on what these sea blobs were, where they were coming from and what they were doing in Canadian waters. "They're basically the precursor to vertebrate life," Therriault said, describing the tunicates. Therriault began a national risk assessment on tunicates, published in 2007. He assessed the violet tunicate, alongside the Mediterranean golden star tunicate, the solitary club tunicate from the northwest Pacific, the cold-water vase tunicate and the taxonomically complex Didemnum tunicate. While his initial assessment was focused on aquaculture in the Atlantic provinces, Therriault soon found that tunicates were spreading in the Pacific, too. But shellfish farmers out west weren't too put out dealing with the blobs. "'They're not really causing us as much of a problem,'" Therriault remembers being told. And that's still true — for the most part. Therriault's 2007 assessment labelled violet tunicates as high risk for aquaculture, and a recent DFO report reaffirmed the designation. But B.C.'s nearly 500 shellfish farms have found successful methods for dealing with the invaders. Pressure washing effectively removes the tunicates from shellfish and gear — so long as...

    5 min

  4. 2D AGO

    Governments Need to Ensure That MAID Safeguards Don't Harm Individuals

    Rigid restrictions can deny rights and push people outside a regulated system with safeguards. … Article written by Kathryn Andrusky. Public debate about medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada has centred on eligibility and safeguards. The focus is often on where to draw the line — who should qualify, and under what conditions. Less attention has been paid to an equally important question: how do the rules shape the decisions people make in real life? As the Alberta government moves ahead this month with legislation that could limit access, it — like all governments — should carefully consider the impact of its changes. Policy discussions tend to frame the issue in one of two ways. Either access is too broad and needs tightening or safeguards must be strengthened to protect vulnerable people. But that framing misses something important. Safeguards don't operate in isolation. They influence how people understand their options, how they time decisions and whether they can access care within a regulated system at all. A common assumption is that restricting eligibility reduces risk of premature access or errors in assessing cases. But for people living with persistent, intolerable suffering, removing access to a structured pathway does not remove the suffering itself. It changes the context in which decisions are made. When access is constrained, people are not left with no options. They are left with fewer supported ones. Decisions may move from formal medical systems — without the same assessment, oversight, or continuity of care. In that sense, risk is not eliminated. It is displaced from a system with legal and medical checks and balances to an informal one. This dynamic is especially visible among patients whose deaths are not considered reasonably foreseeable. These so-called Track 2 patients face stricter safeguards, including a longer assessment period, multiple independent evaluations and requirements to ensure treatment options have been carefully considered. They're often described as a single category, but the group includes people with severe, long-standing conditions that have not responded to treatment, as well as conditions that are difficult to predict over time. When policy relies on rigid timelines — such as a requirement that death be foreseeable within a certain period — it redefines eligibility and the way we think about MAID. The focus shifts away from the experience of suffering and toward how confidently a trajectory can be predicted. In practice, that creates a tension. People whose suffering is significant may still be excluded, not because their condition is less serious, but because it does not fit within a defined timeframe. The result is not simply a denial of access. It can change how and when decisions are made. When access depends on meeting specific criteria within a particular window, some people may feel pressure to act earlier than they otherwise would. This is often discussed in the context of conditions such as dementia. Where advance requests remain uncertain or unavailable, individuals may conclude that their only opportunity to make a decision lies before they lose capacity. That can move decision-making into earlier, more uncertain stages of illness — not because people prefer it that way, but because policy leaves little room for anything else. More broadly, these frameworks do more than regulate access. They shape what counts as acceptable suffering within the system. By drawing lines based on prognosis or timing, policy risks shifting away from individual assessment and toward categorical exclusion. Suffering that does not fit neatly within those categories does not disappear. It becomes harder to recognize within the system. The language of protecting the vulnerable plays an important role in these discussions, and for good reason. Protection matters. But vulnerability is not a single, fixed state. People differ in their capacity, their insight and the persistence of their ...

    7 min

  5. 2D AGO

    Flight Attendants Renew Call for Unpaid Work Legislation

    CUPE's Wesley Lesosky said he's worried the next part of the investigation will skew in employers' favour. … Article written by Isaac Phan Nay. Eight months into Ottawa's investigation into flight attendants' allegations that they're forced to do unpaid work, the union is raising concerns that it won't result in any change. Ottawa launched its probe last August after Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job in part because they are not paid their hourly wage for work done before takeoff and after landing. According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents approximately 20,000 flight attendants in Canada at airlines including Air Canada, WestJet and Porter Airlines, that's standard practice in the airline industry. The government says it's committed to ensuring attendants make at least minimum wage. Jeff Morrison, president and CEO of the employers' group National Airlines Council of Canada, said in an emailed statement that the current system is already in line with labour laws and appropriately compensates attendants for all their work. Still, the federal labour program, which is doing the review, is asking employers to self-audit their pay records as the investigation continues. But Wesley Lesosky, president of the airline division of CUPE, said that lets employers cherry-pick data that's favourable to them. He's calling for the government instead to examine pay records from the union, explicitly define what constitutes work and make airlines pay attendants their hourly wage for all hours on the job. "I have strong concerns, because the employers can hand-pick best case scenarios," Lesosky said. "I don't think this is going to get to the crux of the issue." According to CUPE, most airlines only pay attendants while airplanes are in motion. That means they're often not paid for briefings at the gate, during safety checks at the terminal or while helping mobility-impaired customers board, all examples of what the union calls "ground work." Unpaid work was a key issue for Air Canada flight attendants during last year's bargaining, which culminated in a three-day strike that grounded about 500,000 customers' flights last summer. Air Canada agreed to pay flight attendants for up to an hour of ground work before takeoff at half their normal hourly rates during the agreement's first year, increasing to 70 per cent by the fourth year. With the agreement, Air Canada joined Delta Air Lines, Porter Airlines and Pascan, which are among the small list of companies that compensate flight attendants' ground work. But at other airlines, Lesosky said some flight attendants aren't being paid minimum wage across all their hours worked. He added flight attendants should be paid at their full hourly rate for any work they do. "Let's say you work for a retail establishment," he said. "If the employer requests you stay an extra 30 minutes, you have to be paid for that time." According to the latest available data in Canada's Job Bank, flight attendants nationally earned anywhere from $15.35 to $75.98 per hour Federal jobs minister Patty Hajdu launched the probe into whether or not flight attendants were doing unpaid work last August in response to the Air Canada strike. In February, the federal government published a report on the first part of the probe. In the report, the federal government said employers and employees agreed that ground work must be considered in pay schemes, but disagreed on how payment should be structured. Employers said that their current pay already accounts for ground work. Meanwhile, according to the report, employee groups said the hours of unpaid work means some flight attendants are paid below minimum wage when their total pay is divided by their total hours worked. In an email, Hajdu's office said the government's responsibility is to uphold the Canada Labour Code, which explicitly says employees must be paid at least minimum wage. "While the first phase of the probe did not find evidence...

    7 min

  6. 2D AGO

    Please Advise! Carney Is Up, Eby's Down. Where Are We?

    Fasten your seatbelts, says Dr. Steve. The ride is just starting. … Article written by Steve Burgess. Dear Dr. Steve, Thanks to floor-crossings and byelections, Mark Carney has a five-seat edge in Parliament. B.C.'s NDP government has only a one-seat majority. What's the difference? Signed, Provincial Dear P, After their respective elections, Mark Carney and David Eby were in remarkably similar situations — perilously balanced on the edge of majority and minority. How things have changed. Since the federal election Carney has gone from strength to strength with floor-crossings as steady as a midnight parade of love-crazed salamanders. Then with a trio of seats up for grabs in Monday's byelections, Carney drained a trey at the buzzer. Now he's Major Mark. Carney can do what he wants. He could pick fights with the Pope. He could post pictures of himself as Jesus. Why not? He's been gathering enough converts. And then there's Eby. He does not have a five-seat majority — just one. It's the difference between Mighty Mouse and church mouse. This week, that difference was demonstrated starkly. Lately the Eby government has been wrestling with DRIPA, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. The act was passed in 2019 under then-premier John Horgan, aligning provincial law with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But in December, a B.C. Court of Appeal decision over mining rights found in favour of the Gitxaała Nation. Following the 2025 decision granting the Cowichan First Nation title over a parcel of land on the south arm of the Fraser River, the business community and some property owners have been thrown into a panic. News stories have fed fears of a dire threat to homeowners. In this payback scenario, First Nations come knocking on your door, saying "Hey, nice TV, think I'll take it. And your house too, settler. Go settle in the back alley." Fearmongering aside, the recent decisions have put legitimate legal issues into play. In proposing to suspend DRIPA, the Eby government was seeking leeway to deal with them. And this week Eby discovered just how much leeway he has. The premier has less wiggle room than a WestJet economy passenger. He's a 20-pound cat in a shoebox. Unlike the cat, Eby is not feeling comfortable. The plan was to make the DRIPA suspension a confidence vote. All you need to make that work is votes and confidence, and Eby soon found he had neither. A number of NDP MLAs voiced their concerns, but they could always be cajoled with gentle reasoning or a cast-iron skillet. However, Vancouver-Strathcona MLA Joan Phillip privately made it clear to the premier that there was zero chance she'd go along. And that's all it took. A single defection and the government was facing defeat. Navigating a confidence vote would make the Strait of Hormuz look like a pleasure cruise. Never mind. What now? There's a chance the legislation could still pass now that it's no longer a confidence vote. Certainly the Conservatives ought to play along — they view DRIPA with about the same amount of enthusiasm as the upcoming David Suzuki tribute concert. But when the NDP made it a confidence vote, the Conservatives were sort of stuck. They faced the painful choice of either supporting the government, supporting Aboriginal title or facing an election. Sophie herself never faced such a dilemma. Now that it's no longer a question of bringing down the government, Conservatives, or at least Independents like Elenore Sturko, could vote for the suspension of DRIPA. Lord knows they want to, and that's just the beginning. Given a chance, the Conservatives would dump DRIPA straight into the wood chippa. Eby has to envy the prime minister. Wouldn't a few floor-crossings be nice for the premier? If Marilyn Gladu can make the switch, anything's possible, right? Maybe a disgruntled John Rustad? Maybe an episode of Extreme Caucus Makeover? Or maybe you play the hand you were dealt. Like the song says, gotta...

    4 min

  7. 3D AGO

    BC Backs Off on DRIPA Amendments. For Now

    Facing the potential fall of the government, the NDP backpedalled. But Eby reiterated sections of DRIPA need to be paused. … Article written by Andrew MacLeod. It was up to government house leader Mike Farnworth to back out of a confrontation over Indigenous rights that could have seen the BC NDP government fall. In recent weeks Premier David Eby has insisted a bill is urgently needed to pause sections of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, and that the vote on it would be a matter of confidence, meaning the government would fall if it failed to pass. "The bill will not be coming in today or this week," Farnworth said Monday afternoon, adding that when it does it will not be put forward as a confidence measure. Despite the premier's comments, a bill becomes a matter of confidence only if the house leader or the minister introducing it says it is, Farnworth said. "The reality when it comes to a confidence vote is it's what happens in the house." Farnworth acknowledged that the government wouldn't have enough votes on its own to pass the bill. While Eby's NDP government holds a one-seat majority in the 93-member legislature, Vancouver-Strathcona MLA Joan Phillip has indicated she won't support suspending sections of DRIPA. "We recognize that this is an important issue," said Farnworth. "We know that one of our colleagues, Joan Phillip, Indigenous individual, has significant concerns and has indicated she's not prepared to support that." Plans to amend or suspend sections of DRIPA have been fiercely opposed by First Nations leaders. At a news conference Friday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and husband to Joan Phillip, said he wouldn't speak for his wife but that she opposes amending or suspending DRIPA. "She is absolutely heartsick about where this issue sits at the time," Phillip said. "As for the other MLAs, they need to vote their conscience." "To say we are frustrated or angry would be an understatement," said Robert Phillips, First Nations Summit leader, at the same news conference. "This is a historical moment for First Nations and we will not back down." The B.C. government passed DRIPA in 2019 unanimously and with celebration, making the province the first to commit to aligning its laws with the 46 articles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP. Eby, who was attorney general when DRIPA passed, says the need to pause sections of the act arose from a December B.C. Court of Appeal decision in the Gitxaala case about mining claims. In a 2-1 decision, three Appeal Court justices overturned a B.C. Supreme Court decision and ruled the province had incorporated UNDRIP into its laws through DRIPA and that the province's "free entry" mineral tenure system, which allows claims to be staked online, was inconsistent with UNDRIP. The lower court had already found that the system breached the Crown's duty to consult under the Canadian Constitution and needed to be modernized to allow for consultation with Indigenous nations. Speaking Monday afternoon, Eby said he still believes sections of DRIPA need to be paused before it is used to strike down more B.C. laws in the courts. "I believe very firmly that we need to pass either legislation that pauses the effect of the declaration act or that pauses it in order to address the serious litigation risk faced by the province," he said. Eby said Joan Phillip's unwillingness to vote for such legislation has forced the government to reconsider how to move forward. "That obviously changes the math for us, and no one on our team has any interest in sending British Columbians into an election." The government is talking with Independent MLAs and hopes that by removing the proposed bill from being a confidence vote they will consider it on its merits rather than a question of whether or not the government should fall, he said. Trevor Halford, interim leader of the Conservative Party...

    4 min

  8. 3D AGO

    Ballet BC's Upcoming Production Brings Star Power

    Events, contests and other initiatives by The Tyee and select partners. Ballet BC's Upcoming Production Brings Star Power This May, celebrated choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber present their new work at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Ballet BC 14 Apr 2026 14 Apr 2026The Tyee Our journalism is supported by readers like you. Click here to support The Tyee. URL copied to clipboard! SHARE: 68 SHARES 0 This May, celebrated choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber present their new work at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. … Article written by Ballet BC. Ballet BC's UNITY, an evening of dance featuring the world premiere of FOR GLASS by internationally acclaimed choreographic duo Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, is coming to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre May 7-9. Ballet BC's season finale, UNITY will be a full-evening world premiere by two of today's most in-demand choreographic voices. The new creation FOR GLASS harnesses the physicality and emotional range of Ballet BC's full company of 20 dancers, with music by Philip Glass performed live onstage by a string quartet. FOR GLASS marks the highly anticipated followup to Smith and Schraiber's celebrated 2025 debut with Ballet BC, Obsidian. With a movement language shaped by years dancing with the Batsheva Dance Company and infused with their own deeply expressive style, the voracious duo's work has been praised as "wild and rebellious" (Le Figaro) and "astonishing in its creativity and depth" (Los Angeles Times). "I am always inspired by the work of Bobbi and Or, and am thrilled Vancouver gets another opportunity to experience it, following an incredible run of global successes," says Ballet BC artistic director Medhi Walerski. "Their approach to creation is fresh and exciting — deeply dedicated to their craft, they bring openness, care and an exceptional work ethic to the way they collaborate with the dancers in the studio. Their choreographic voice is diverse, blending a strong movement language, theatricality, beautiful musicality and thoughtful composition to create a piece that is both powerful and sensitive. It's the perfect finale for a remarkable season for Ballet BC." Bobbi Jene Smith is an alumna of the Juilliard School, North Carolina School of the Arts and Royal Winnipeg Ballet School. From 2005 to 2014, she was a dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company. Or Schraiber is a dancer, choreographer, actor and filmmaker. Also a former dancer with the Batsheva Dance Company, he studied acting at the Stella Adler Studio and performed in the Broadway production of The Band's Visit (first U.S. tour). In 2023, Smith and Schraiber choreographed the off-Broadway production of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Lucille Lortel Theater in New York City. Their film work includes Boaz Yakin's Aviva (2019), Terrence Malick's The Way of the Wind (2025) and Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! (2026). Together they are founding members of the Broken Theater and the American Modern Opera Company, and have choreographed original works for some of the world's finest dance companies, including the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, Ballet BC, the Los Angeles Dance Project, the Batsheva Ensemble, GöteborgsOperans Danskompani and others. 'UNITY' featuring 'FOR GLASS' takes place May 7-9 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. Tickets are on sale now at balletbc.com. Arts for All seating starts at $19 thanks to the generous support of Simons.

    4 min
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We’re an independent, online news magazine from B.C. founded in 2003. We’re devoted to fact-driven stories, reporting that informs and enlivens our democratic conversation. This feed features our stories, read by AI narration. Our reporting has changed laws, started movements and garnered numerous awards.

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