Experts are questioning Doug McCallum's plan to ditch the $1.65-billion LRT project and build SkyTrain instead. The experts are questioning the price tag, saying a SkyTrain system could be $1-billion more expensive to build, and predicting a SkyTrain switcheroo will set back the city's transit plans by 20 years.  None of this will deter McCallum and his council. The Province newspaper's Michael Smyth is here with his take on the day's headlines.

In the days leading up to Halloween, we’re checking out true crime, real history, and local ghostly folklore around the province of British Columbia. In this installment, CKNW producer Amir Ali connects the Komagata Maru incident with the murder of an officer involved in the case.

Crowds overflowed from the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver last evening, as people gathered to remember the victims of the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend.  Are there concerns closer to home within the Jewish community? Ezra Shanken, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver joins the show to talk about how the Jewish community in Vancouver is feeling.

Extremist violence and threats in the United States have dominated the news over the past week, with a dozen pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats, and the murders of 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  But there are extremists closer to home too. Candyce Kelshall is an Adjunct professor of Terrorism at Simon Fraser University and President of the Canadian Association of Security and Intelligence Studies, and says extremism is on the rise.

After hearing a segment on the Jon McComb Show where Jon talked to author Caris Craigg about confronting the man who murdered her family, Jon was contacted by a woman named Nikki who told us that she is a victim of John Horace Oughton, who you may know as the Paper Bag Rapist. He’s believed to have sexually assaulted more than 100 women and children across the Lower Mainland in the 1980s. Nikki was eight years old when she was raped.  This past February, Nikki summoned the courage to confront her attacker face-to-face. We sat down with Nikki to hear the story.

For this installment of the Haunted BC series, we don’t have to travel very far because it’s the story of a murderer called Rene Castellani, who worked right here at CKNW. To find out more, we’re joined by Eve Lazarus, the author of Murder by Milkshake.

The Yes side got off to a better start in the Pro-Rep referendum campaign but maybe the best hope for the No side is confusion around the three PR voting system on offer and the struggle to explain to voters how these systems will work.  The Province newspaper's Michael Smyth is here with his take on the day's headlines.

Two volcanoes in Washington State (just south of Vancouver) have been flagged for having a “very high threat” of eruption.  We talk to Dr. Janine Krippner, a Postdoctoral Researcher and Volcanologist at Concord University to find out if Vancouver is in danger from a volcanic eruption.

As ballots begin to arrive in your mailboxes for the proportional representation referendum, there’s a new TV ad that’s generating a lot of discussion because it claims that PR would result in extremists gaining power in the BC legislature.

Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) from the Vancouver branch are walking off the job at 9 o’clock this morning.  President of the Vancouver local branch of the CUPW, Jennifer Savage joins the show to speak to what the union is fighting for.

The first full week of the referendum on electoral reform is coming to an end and the Yes side supporting proportional representation has had a strong start with 1,000 people at a high-energy rally in Victoria headlined by John Horgan and Andrew Weaver.  The Province newspaper's Michael Smyth is here with his take on the day's headlines.

Chapter 1:

-The owner of a North Vancouver townhouse, who has been operating the home as an illegal hostel, has been slapped with new fines and could face more punishment down the road.  Emily Yu has been marketing the 14-bed operation as the “Oasis Hostel” over the objections of her neighbours. Last year, her strata corporation won a Civil Resolution Tribunal ruling against the operation, which was later upheld by the B.C. Supreme Court.  On Wednesday, the strata won another Supreme Court victory, this time finding Yu in contempt of court for ignoring those previous rulings.

Chapter 2:

-With so much at stake in the by-election in Nanaimo, political parties here in B.C. are acting quickly to try and claim the seat in the legislature that will soon be vacated by the city’s new Mayor, Leonard Krog and one federal New Democrat MP has already got the backing of Premier John Horgan to become the provincial NDP’s candidate for the seat.  We’re joined by Federal MP Sheila Malcomson to ask her why she is looking to move from Federal to Provincial politics.

Chapter 3:

-In yet another change to its story, prosecutors in Saudi Arabia are calling the killing of a Washington Post columnist a “premeditated” crime.  A statement this morning is quoting the Saudi Attorney General as saying that investigators have now come to that conclusion, because of evidence presented by Turkish officials.  Justin Trudeau says the federal government is considering the suspension of permits which allow armoured vehicles to be sold to Saudi Arabia. So what sanctions should Canada be looking at, and what do we know about the potential costs to Canadians?  We catch up with The Washington Post’s Senior Political Report Aaron Blake as well as the Globe and Mails Parliamentary Reporter Steven Chase.

Chapter 4:

-Here in B.C. we’re becoming all too familiar with extreme weather, and challenges caused by wildfires and flooding. And for the people who are forced to leave their homes - potentially never to return - the trauma of that can have an impact on their mental health. Which raises the question: as the effects of climate change become more and more apparent, is there a need to focus on the mental health impacts that will be associated with that?  Dr Amy Lubik, who is a health researcher joined the show to talk about mental health and climate change.

The Mayor of Calgary is in town today as part of a series of events here in Vancouver, where organizers are hoping to poach some of our best and brightest, and encourage them to move to Calgary. So how real is the threat that cities in Metro Vancouver could lose out to cities like Calgary in the years ahead?  The Mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, is here to discuss.

NDP MP Sheila Malcolmson will be the NDP candidate in the crucial Nanaimo byelection, after local MLA Leonard Krog won the mayor's job there on the weekend. For the NDP, losing is not an option here. The Province newspaper's Michael Smyth is here with his take on the day's headlines.