Daycare spaces are in short supply in some areas of B.C. and costs are high.
More than 1,800 new child care spaces should be under construction by this fall, with the latest round of financing from the B.C. government.
New or expanded facilities in 30 communities have been selected from funding applications received in January, said Children and Family Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux. The $11.3 million budget for this year is the third phase of a child care expansion project funded by the ministry.
The province's goal is to have construction underway by September.
"It will vary somewhat from provider to provider, depending on whether they are building a facility from the ground up with this money, or whether they are adding to an existing facility," Cadieux said.
Projects in the Lower Mainland include six sites in Surrey, two each in Abbotsford, Langley and Coquitlam and one each in Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Burnaby, Delta and Squamish.
On Vancouver Island, funding goes to three projects in Duncan and one each in Nanaimo, Victoria, Comox, Port Hardy and Tofino.
In the B.C. Interior, three projects are approved for Kelowna, two in Penticton, and one each in Naramata, Castlegar, Cranbrook, Enderby, Princeton, Houston, Kamloops, Merritt, Vanderhoof and Dawson Creek.
For a full list of facilities and number of spaces, see backgrounder here.
The ministry has posted a new child care map on its website to help parents locate facilities here.
The province provides child care subsidies to qualified low-income parents, and covers about 15 per cent of daycare operating costs. But the cost of land and operations drives the price of child care up to $1,400 per month or more in urban areas. Cadieux said the province is working with municipalities to review regulations.
"We're looking at the restrictions we put on child care providers in terms of outdoor space, in terms of sun access," she said. "We want to make sure that child care is safe and that we have quality, but we also want to make sure that we're not creating a situation that is unreasonable."

Child care spaces funded for 30 BC communities


1,800 new spaces in 30 communities to start construction this fall, minister Stephanie Cadieux says


Karlene Bullock (left) and her mother Delores Johns have been working together for years. The pair have 30 years in the industry.
The new Bagheera Boutique in Fort Langley aims to fill the fashion gap created when Ella’s Clothes Closet in Brookswood closed by bringing back top European brands to Langley, with names such as Laurel, Luisa Cerano, Marc Cain, Wolford, Brax and Vince, along with local Canadian accessories like Suzi Roher scarves, and Vancouver’s Sheereen De Roussea jewelry.
It also brings back Karlene Bullock and her mother Delores Johns, who have dressed the Fraser Valley for over 30 years, the last 10 of them working as a team at Ella’s.
When Ella Little shut down her namesake shop on 200 Street and 40A Avenue just over a year ago, it left a large hole in the market, Bullock said.
“We used to have women coming from Langley, Maple Ridge, White Rock, Chilliwack and all over Vancouver, to shop, and all of a sudden there were no options.”
When the owners of the Victoria-based Bagheera Boutique, Nataliia Bahirova and Anton Solonnikov decided to open their second store in Langley, they reached out to Bullock and Johns after hearing Ella’s had closed.
“They know the market,” Solonnikov — Bagheera marketing manager — said of the mother-daughter team.
“They have a following from 30 years.”
Bullock said she has been flooded with phone calls and emails from people excited that the new boutique is carrying the same lines.
“We want to be the go-to place for shopping for all women in the Greater Vancouver area,” Bullock said.
“Fort Langley is such a beautiful and quaint place, and the perfect getaway for the weekend.”
Johns said service is the key to keep customers coming back.
“It has to be honest service,” Johns said.
“Honest and continuous.”
Johns has been known to do things like drive to Harrison Hot Springs to ensure a bow on a customer’s bridal dress was properly tied for her wedding ceremony.
“Mom’s good at sales, she is good at talking to the customers,” Bullock said.
“There is no one in the valley who can do displays like she does.”
Johns gives her daughter high marks for bringing in the best of fashion.
“She’s very good at the buying,” Johns said.
The Fort Langley Bagheera Boutique is located in the new Coulter Berry building at Glover Road and Mavis Avenue.
Solonnikov said the store doesn’t only cater to the high-end shoppers, but carries low- to medium-priced brands from Europe as well.
Store phone: 604-371-2879.

Familiar faces at the new Bagheera Boutique in Fort Langley


Mother-and-daughter team bring experience and expertise in high-end fashion


Premier Christy Clark and her ministers aren't concerned about a backlash or downturn in B.C.'s hot urban real estate market from their sudden decision to impose a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers in Metro Vancouver.
Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Wednesday the development industry was "taken aback and a bit grumpy" after Premier Christy Clark announced Monday that the new tax takes effect Aug. 2.
Clark confirmed Wednesday that there would be no exemptions to the new tax for real estate sales that were signed but not registered before the deadline. That includes pre-sold condos that were purchased before construction, if they are going to buyers who are not citizens or permanent residents of Canada.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong said tax changes are generally done on short notice, and the government expected there would be some cancelled sales as a result. But the purpose of the tax was to discourage foreign sales and replace them with sales to B.C. residents, he said.
"Part of it relates to the fact that properties going on the market are being scooped up so quickly." de Jong said. "This disruption, this change is taking place in a market where there is incredibly strong domestic demand."
The government intends to put the revenue from the foreign buyer tax into a housing affordability fund, but Coleman said there will be no return to government directly building social housing projects.
New initiatives will be announced in September, with incentives for builders to create more rental housing. The province already provides rent subsidies to 20,000 families to keep them in market housing, and that approach has better results than concentrating low-income people in government housing, Coleman said.

Government shrugs off foreign real estate fallout


Construction industry disruption expected as new tax threatens deals, says Finance Minister Mike de Jong


Almost a year after B.C. farm weddings were banned due to a crackdown on agricultural land use rules, the B.C. government has clarified what commercial activities are allowed on farmland.
Farmers can host up to 10 commercial weddings, concerts or non-agricultural events per year without a permit from the Agricultural Land Commission. Farmers can take payment to host a wedding or other event as long as no more than 150 guests attend and a list of conditions are met, according to regulations that took effect Tuesday.
To qualify, event hosts must provide all parking on the farm rather than along roads, with no permanent parking lots or structures, and the event must end in less than 24 hours. For more than 10 events a year or exceeding 150 guests, properties with farm tax status must apply to the ALC for a permit.
The new regulation also clarifies ALC policies to allow, with no permit, farm tours and demonstrations, hayrides, corn mazes, pumpkin patch tours, harvest and Christmas fairs and special occasion events to promote farm products.
Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick said the regulation requiring farms to generate at least 50 per cent of its revenue from farm products is also scrapped, after consultation in the past year suggested the new rules instead.
The crackdown on farm weddings came last fall, when the ALC issued stop-work orders to B.C. farms including the Fraser Valley, Kelowna and Vancouver Island.
The restriction came after the province expanded farm uses to allow breweries and distilleries to operate on protected farmland with the same rules used to permit wineries. The rules allowed for processing of farm crops into products such as juice or jam for commercial sale.


No permit required for weddings, festivals on farms if fewer than 150 people attend, says Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick


OTTAWA – Contract talks continue between Canada Post and its largest union, but neither side is hinting as to whether any progress has been made.
A federally appointed mediator has been meeting with the two sides since Friday to try to reach a deal.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says if there is no deal by midnight, it would begin job action on Monday by having its members refusing to work overtime on a rotating basis, starting in Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
CUPW served 72 hour strike notice Thursday night, accusing Canada Post of forcing a labour disruption by refusing to bargain in good faith.
The two sides have been deadlocked for months on the issues of pay scales for rural letter carriers and proposed changes to pensions for future employees.
A CUPW news release says the initial job action will cause little disruption to Canada Post customers and that its members will still be delivering mail every day.
The Canadian Press

Postal workers union give details of job action if no deal is reached Sunday


Talks continue, with rotating overtime ban set to begin Monday if no agreement by midnight Sunday


Eileen Zheng donated a kidney to her mother Wei and is encouraging other people to register as organ donors.
When Eileen Zheng wanted to donate one of her kidneys to her mother, family members were at first concerned about the effect of the procedure on both of them.
But five weeks after the surgery, Wei Zheng was recovering from polycystic kidney disease after seven years on kidney dialysis, and Eileen was logging up to 65 km a day on her bicycle. And a year later, Eileen is preparing to ride across Canada to encourage more people to support organ transplants.
"I want to raise awareness, so more people are willing to register after seeing that I'm healthy after donating an organ," Eileen said at a ceremony at the B.C. legislature to launch the bid Monday. "We're hoping to raise at least 1,000 more organ donors compared to last year, and around $75,000 for the Canadian Transplant Association, for the life-saving work they do."
She has three and a half months to make the journey, starting with a Terry Fox-inspired dip of her bike wheel in the Pacific before heading east towards St. Johns, Newfoundland. Eileen's ride is called Gift From Within has a website where people can link to organ donor registration sites in each province, and her route stops and updates will be posted.
There are more than 45,000 people currently waiting for organ donations across Canada. B.C. residents can check their registration status or sign up to become a donor here.

Cross-Canada ride to encourage organ donation


Gift From Within aims to register 1,000 more registered donors and raise money for the Canadian Transplant Association


Cameras were the focus as 70 photographers from across B.C., including Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Kelowna and Nelson, competed in the fourth annual Next Generation BC Amateur Photographer of the Year Contest at the recent Abbotsford International Airshow.
Sponsored by London Drugs and Black Press Media, the contest took place Aug. 12-14, as participants captured their best air, crowd, static, and wildcard shots.
Photographers experienced close-up action at the airshow including Friday's twilight show, and earned the "hot-side" tour at the airshow where they shot exclusive aircraft including the F-35, CF-18, FA-18, Breitling Jet Team, the Snowbirds and more for a chance to win the title of B.C.'s next Amateur Photographer title.
Awarding categories also include The Best in-air photograph ($750 grand prize), The Best ground/static scene photograph ($500 prize),The Best crowd scene photograph ($250 prize ), The Best video submission ($500 prize) all courtesy of London Drugs and honorary acknowledgement for Best Wildcard entry.
For the People's Choice Award Winner, the time has arrived for the public to vote on their favourite photo and be entered for a chance to win BC Lions game tickets.
For voting and contest information, click here.

Voting open for People's Choice Amateur Photography Competition


Photographers from across the province competed in amateur competition


Jordan Bateman, Canadian Taxpayers' Federation
The B.C. government is hearing objections from businesses and individuals faced with increasing Canada Pension Plan contributions in the coming years, and is the last province needed to ratify the increase.
Instead of joining other provinces in meeting the federal government's July deadline to adopt the change, the B.C. government launched a consultation phase expected to run through August. And they are getting push-back on a plan that would increase payroll deductions and employer contributions starting in 2019.
Jordan Bateman, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, said he's receiving hundreds of responses to his call to supporters to make their views known to the B.C. government. Most concerned are employers who would pay higher contributions for each of their employees.
Employer and employee contributions are to go up from the current 4.95 per cent of earnings to 5.95 per cent by 2023. For each employee earning $54,900, the employer contribution goes up $7 to $8 per month in each of the first five years of the phase-in.
"Obviously, lots of people are concerned about having to pay more," Bateman said. "But the interesting ones are the small business owners who talk about just how close to the edge they are financially."
B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong joined other provinces in agreeing in principle to the expansion in June. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said he is concerned about the decline in workplace pension plans and wants the CPP to move from replacing one quarter of employment income to one third by 2025.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business surveyed its members nation-wide when the CPP plan was announced, and more than 80 per cent wanted consultation and a delay of implementation. Morneau has indicated he plans to table legislation this fall.
B.C.'s refusal to sign on could derail the federal plan, but it shows little intention of doing so.
"British Columbia is committed to engaging with stakeholders in advance of ratifying the agreement in principle," said the statement from de Jong's office announcing the consultation.
The province's consultation website and feedback address can be found here.


B.C. stands in the way of Justin Trudeau government's plan to hike Canada Pension Plan contributions, but likely not for long


Stephen Colbert records an episode of his U.S. comedy show from Vancouver during the 2010 Olympics, expressing amazement about the lack of igloos in February. Expo 86 and the Olympics were designed to put Vancouver on the world map, and it seems to have worked.
With a bit of grumbling behind the scenes, our 85 MLAs have trekked back to Victoria this week to deal with an emergency summer legislature sitting.
The stated purpose of this brief session is to comply with a demand from Vancouver city council for the ability to impose additional property tax on vacant residential properties.
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, a former NDP MLA who likes to direct provincial affairs when he isn’t issuing instructions to Ottawa on pipeline policy, should be careful what he wishes for. B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong was happy to drop this hot potato in his lap, and now Vancouver city hall can try to determine who’s vacationing for a few months and who’s holding an investment property while living somewhere else.
When NDP leader John Horgan began calling for a “speculation tax” of 1.5 per cent on “offshore” investments, de Jong cited a Vancouver survey that showed the number of vacant properties in the city was declining, even as prices were climbing rapidly.
Horgan argues that Metro Vancouver is in the grip of a housing “bubble” that must be caused by foreign money.
“If wages have been stagnant for a decade, which they have, where is the revenue coming from to inflate these prices?” Horgan said last week. “It’s coming from somewhere else. And that’s not sustainable over the long term.”
Another point likely to be made repeatedly this week is that the province stopped collecting citizenship and residency data on real estate purchases back in the late 1990s. De Jong changed that this spring and with great fanfare rolled out the first three weeks of sales data from June.
They showed that only three per cent of purchases of B.C. residential real estate were from foreign buyers, mostly from China. They were concentrated in Metro Vancouver, and accounted for about five per cent of the total value, which suggests they were for higher-end properties.
This was assailed from all sides. Not a big enough sample size, doesn’t prove anything, etc.
(De Jong abruptly announced on Monday that they were imposing a 15 per cent additional property transfer tax on foreign buyers. On Tuesday he released another few weeks of foreign buyer data.)
We have one of those situations I call coffee shop consensus. Everybody “knows” it’s Chinese money pouring into B.C., and that many homes are being left empty, even if the actual evidence doesn’t show that.
Seattle has a similar problem with real estate in choice locations, by the way. Down there, the coffee shop consensus seems to be that it’s those darn San Francisco and Silicon Valley grillionaires who are driving up prices beyond the reach of working folks.
Blaming foreigners is a great narrative. We saw the same thing with B.C. campgrounds. Utter nonsense, but it has “truthiness,” as U.S. comedian Stephen Colbert says. Truthiness comes from the gut, not the brain.
In a recent radio interview with CKNW’s combative talk show host John McComb, de Jong put forward another theory. He mentioned that the aim of hosting Expo 86 and the 2010 Winter Olympics was to put Vancouver on the global map, and it seems to have worked.
Whistler has worked as a world destination too, as galling as it may be to those who insist these were all costly failures.
The real estate boom has had ripple effects in Victoria and other urban centres, with bidding wars for choice homes.
And it’s beginning to reverse a long trend of depopulation from small communities and rural areas, as people are forced to look for something they can afford.
And it’s produced an urban building boom, including the rental market. There are worse problems to have.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc

BC VIEWS: Housing ‘crisis’ decades in the making


Expo 86, and later the Vancouver Olympics, were designed to put B.C. and Vancouver on the world map


Re: Harper-style ads carry on in B.C. (BC Views, May 21).
The sad truth about the advertising for trades training is that there are not jobs for apprentices in their field.
My granddaughter is in month five of the six-month Camosun College trades training program to start her career as an electrician. Not only is no one hiring now, but no one from the class that finished in December 2015 has been able to get hired as an apprentice.
This is a tragic reminder of the many university grads in the 1970s and '80s who could not find employment other than the service industry or a temporary social services grant that paid $100 per week so you could qualify for pogey. Crushing the hopes of these young people is cruel.
I wonder how many apprentices B.C. would have if ferries were built here instead of in Poland.
Ronald Schlosberg, Victoria


Pre-apprentice graduates are having trouble finding work after training in B.C. schools, grandparent says


Re: Tree spikers cling to Lelu Island (B.C. Views, July 20).
Tom Fletcher seems to believe protecting salmon is not only bad, but dishonest. He suggests it’s an effort to cover up an international plot to kill B.C.’s oil and gas opportunities and Alberta’s oilsands.
His column falsely asserts that, along with other groups, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has “poured money into anti-LNG campaigns in B.C., as they funded opposition to oilsands development before them. Indeed, the record suggests the long project to establish what environmental front groups named the Great Bear Rainforest was a strategy to stop hydrocarbon exports from western Canada, even as U.S. sources ramped up production.”
The foundation’s Wild Salmon Ecosystems Initiative supports groups working to ensure that all factors – social, environmental and economic – are fairly respected in development decisions. It does not fund efforts to stop oil and gas development.
Salmon support a huge economy that provides jobs, social and cultural benefits. And, in British Columbia, unlike many other parts of North America, we still have a chance to keep most salmon watersheds intact. This is why the foundation supports the efforts of communities to protect these fish. This means ensuring that scientific evidence is fully addressed in project development, including siting decisions.
We are proud supporters of the Great Bear Rainforest, not because we are “anti” anything else, but because this is a unique region. Like the Amazon and the Great Barrier Reef, it is recognized by experts around the globe as one of the planet’s most important and unique natural wonders.
It is a region that deserved to be protected on its own merits – a fact so clear that federal, provincial and First Nation governments came together with industry and environmental groups to ensure it would be. To portray this impressive collaboration as an anti-oil and gas does a disservice to the broad array of Canadians and First Nations that prioritized its preservation.
The Moore Foundation supported this as part of our commitment to assist groups that seek to protect wild salmon habitats along the West Coast. People, issues, organizations and funds cross the Canada-U.S. border all the time. There isn’t anything unusual about Canadian environmental groups requesting and receiving donations from international foundations that share the same environmental goals.
Ivan Thompson, B.C. Program Officer, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Vancouver

LETTER: U.S. foundations protecting salmon


Representative of Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation says it doesn't support efforts to stop oil and gas development


BC Ferries sailings have been busier this year, thanks in part to strong tourist traffic and no net fare increase.
BC Ferries plans to continue its campaign of price promotions this fall and next spring in an effort to maintain increased passenger and vehicle traffic.
First-quarter results for the Crown corporation show passenger traffic up 2.5 per cent and vehicle loads up 5.1 per cent for the three months ended June 30, compared with the same period in 2015.
Buoyed by a strong tourist year for B.C. and no net fare increase, BC Ferries carried 5.3 million passengers and 2.1 million vehicles in April, May and June. The 1.9 per cent average fare hike was erased by a reduced fuel surcharge due to long-term contracts for cheaper diesel fuel.
Helped by reduced operating costs and higher retail sales from terminals and on-board gift shops, net earnings were $27 million for the quarter, up from $18.8 million in the same period last year. Revenues were up 4.9 per cent to $219 million, while costs for the quarter went up 1.5 per cent to $178.6 million.
BC Ferries CEO Mike Corrigan released the first-quarter results at the corporation's annual meeting in Victoria, where he also announced that unspecified pricing promotions will be offered this fall and next spring. This year BC Ferries has been offering discounts on over-length vehicles pulling boats or travel trailers.
Corrigan also announced he will be stepping down as CEO at the end of the fiscal year next March. He was promoted in 2012 to replace former CEO David Hahn, and presided over a controversial service review that saw sailings reduced on money-losing routes.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone praised Corrigan for reducing operating costs and embracing new technology, including three new medium-sized ferries using liquefied natural gas fuel that have been built in Poland.
LNG retrofits are also scheduled for the Spirit of B.C. and the Spirit of Vancouver Island, the workhorses of the main Tswassen-to-Vancouver Island route.
Corrigan's term also saw the first cable ferry in the BC Ferries fleet, the Baynes Sound Connector to Denman Island. Stone said the cable ferry cut fuel costs by half.

More discounts coming as BC Ferries traffic rises


Vehicle traffic up 5% with no net fare increase and discounts offered for vehicles pulling boats and travel trailers


TORONTO – Few Canadian television events qualify as a momentous occasion for the nation, but Saturday's Tragically Hip concert promises to be special.
It seems like much of the country will be tuned into CBC's live broadcast of "The Tragically Hip: A National Celebration" from Kingston, Ont., when factoring in home screenings and community viewing parties.
Yet how many people will watch is anybody's guess at this point.
"This is an unprecedented event for us," said Jennifer Dettman, CBC's executive director of unscripted content.
The sentiment is true on many levels, she adds.
The last stop on the Hip's "Man Machine Poem" tour is widely expected to be their final performance, as lead singer Gord Downie is facing terminal brain cancer. After tickets to the tour sold out within minutes, fans launched a campaign urging the CBC to carry the band's Kingston show as a live TV event.
Dettman wouldn't speak to the contract negotiations that led to the Hip agreeing to the broadcast.
"CBC made both a competitive and financially responsible offer to acquire the broadcast rights, and we're thrilled to be able to offer this national celebration to as many Canadians as possible," she said.
The concert won't just be on the main CBC network, it will also be broadcast through various other platforms such as CBC Radio One, the CBC website and its YouTube and Facebook channels.
With so many viewing options, that will make it tough to capture how many eyes and ears are focused on the Hip this Saturday.
That's where ratings agency Numeris comes in. The Toronto-based company tracks viewership figures by using meters and viewing diaries prepared by a panel of Canadians representative of the population.
Their data shows that most huge audience draws are typically live programming, led by major sporting events.
The Super Bowl is the biggest TV event nearly every year â€” drawing about six million to eight million viewers in recent years â€” while a handful of other annual celebrations like the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes and Grammys are perennial favourites too.
The gold medal game of the men's hockey tournament at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics is considered to be the most-watched broadcast ever in Canada. It drew 16.6 million viewers, according to data from Numeris, about double the number of people who tune into most Super Bowls.
Those kinds of numbers will be hard to beat, even for a rock band with as much Canadian clout as the Hip.
Numeris spokesman Tom Jenks wouldn't guess how many viewers will tune into the CBC broadcast, but acknowledges it'll probably be a pretty big number.
The agency said it will be counting every public screening â€” from restaurants to movie theatres to community viewing parties â€” and each person streaming the concert on their phone. Viewers who playback the show on their DVRs within seven days will also be included in the final numbers.
"Our system captures all viewing," Jenks said.
Potentially driving those numbers higher is the decision make the Hip's concert a one-time broadcast, with no encore presentation and no availability on on-demand platforms.
"Our goal was to bring the experience of this live concert to Canadians in that moment," Dettman said.
"I'm sure the band will figure out what they will want to do with the concert afterwards."
She said the goal is to give all Canadians the same "crescendo" feeling that will ripple through the arena in Kingston.
"Our goal is to bring the experience ... to as many Canadians as we can," she said.
"The idea that we're all together experiencing this moment at the same time is really special."
Follow @dfriend on Twitter.
David Friend, The Canadian Press

Televised Tragically Hip show an 'unprecedented event:' CBC


Whether it's home screenings or community viewing parties, much of Canada will be tuning in for iconic rock band's final bow


B.C. Day, on Monday, Aug. 1, is an opportunity to celebrate this spectacular province. See how well you know British Columbia.

B.C. DAY TRIVIA QUIZ: How much do you know about British Columbia?


A routine check-up at the hospital has turned into a nightmare for a Prince Rupert woman.
A month-and-a-half after having an endoscopy to inspect her nose and throat, Joan Dudoward received a letter from Northern Health stating that the endoscope used at the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital was not cleaned properly.
From April until the end of June 2016, the endoscope, which is a flexible tube with a light and a camera used in nonsurgical procedures, was being cleaned with the wrong cleaning solution to disinfect the equipment. There were 104 patients affected and Dudoward was one of them.
“I was majorly stressed out,” she said in an exclusive interview with the Northern View. “I'm a cancer survivor. I try to keep my health up for my mom, I'm a caregiver for a 95-year-old woman.”
Dudoward had gone to the Prince Rupert hospital for an endoscopy on June 29 at 3:30 p.m. after complaining to her physician about reoccurring plugged ears and a sore throat. She received the letter from Northern Health on Aug.24, which stated the error did not impact the diagnostic outcome of the tests and the process error has been corrected.
The letter also states that the BC Centre for Disease Control has been consulted and “the risk of a patient being exposed to a virus as a result of this process error is extremely low.” The contact number for the director of acute care services is offered in case she has any other questions or concerns. Dudoward has many.
She called to find out why the instrument wasn't cleaned, what had happened and how many people had gone through the procedure before and after her. “She said she's not permitted to tell me anything about this,” was the response Dudoward said she received.
The vice-president of medicine for the Northern Health authority, Dr. Ronald Chapman, was quick to respond to media inquiries and stressed the importance of transparency. He said, based on previous experience, once they realized the mistake had occurred they consulted the BC Centre for Disease Control as well as the Northern Health infectious disease specialist in Prince George.
“The risk for the patient is extremely low. We're not concerned that it will at all have any negative impact on their health,” Dr. Chapman said. He added that it's Northern Health's policy to make patients aware even if the risk to them is low. “We believe it's important to be open with those patients and to be fairly transparent so at least they are aware of the mistake. In this case, we don't recommend any particular follow up or tests for the patients.”
This type of process error has happened before, Dr. Chapman confirmed. Not with the same scope, but he said there are many different endoscopes used and each are made by different manufacturers that have various recommendations on how to clean the equipment.
“The health sector is run by human beings and it's fairly complex. If mistakes do happen what we encourage our staff to do is to make management aware so they can learn from that experience,” he said. “I'm happy to say where those mistakes have happened in our environment, a process has been put in place and we haven't had any repetitions after some of those learning experiences.”
For the 104 patients that were affected by this incident, Dr. Chapman said their general practitioners have been notified and if they have any questions they can speak to them and the infectious disease specialist. They can also contact Northern Health's Patient Care Quality Officeto register a complaint.
For Dudoward, who had a bone marrow transplant in 2011 to battle leukemia, she is concerned and has already scheduled a meeting with her physician in early September.
“I'm thinking that my body is not going to be able to fight off infection like I was able to before the cancer because chemo takes a lot out of your body so this is like a bomb exploding in my life,” she said.

VIDEO: Prince Rupert woman treated with unclean medical equipment, Northern Health, B.C. Centre for Disease Control confirms more than a hundred affected


Two months after having an endoscopy Joan Dudoward received a letter telling her that the endoscope used was not cleaned properly.


SURREY, B.C. – Fraser Health has launched a poster ad campaign bolstering its ongoing drive to raise awareness of what it says is the overdose crisis in British Columbia.
The posters will be displayed at transit stops, bars and restaurants, and are aimed at recreational and regular drug users, their families and friends.
One message on the stark, black and white posters says: "If you use drugs: Have a plan. Go slowly. Use with a buddy. Carry naloxone."
The posters also offer instructions for anyone finding an overdose victim, directing them to call 911, start emergency breathing and use naloxone, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Fraser Health says in a news release that it is confident about the effectiveness of the campaign because the posters were tested in focus groups of regular and recreational drug users.
In April, B.C.'s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency linked to the soaring number of opioid overdoses, and the declaration remains in effect.
Dr. Victoria Lee, Fraser Health's chief medical health officer, says the poster campaign is an extension of the health authority's ongoing public awareness campaign, but she says much more has been done to fight overdose deaths.
"We've created new substance-use beds to provide safe and supportive environments for people (who) require additional support on their road to recovery," Lee says in the release.
Over the last 12 to 18 months, Fraser Health has opened 50 new substance-use beds, including a three-bed program for youth and a 12-bed facility for women who are pregnant or have newborns.
A further 97 beds are slated to open by 2017 across the region, which stretches from Burnaby, through Surrey to White Rock and east to Hope.
The announcement of the poster campaign and the update on available substance-use beds comes as Fraser Health prepares to mark International Overdose Awareness Day on Aug. 31.
The Canadian Press

New Fraser Health poster campaign raises awareness of opioid overdoses


Stark posters warn of overdose dangers to be displayed at transit stops, bars and restaurants aimed at recreational drug users


Surveillance footage taken at 68 Schooner Street in Coquitlam on July 26 shows two people appearing to dump a dog's body into the trash.
BC SPCA staff are looking for the public's help to identify two people who tossed a dead dog into a Dumpster about a month ago in Coquitlam.
Officials were alerted to the remains by the city's animal control, said Lorie Chortyk, the SPCA's general manager of community relations. Necropsy results that were just received suggest the young, female Boxer-cross likely died of extreme heat exposure.
Security footage from 68 Schooner Street shows a light-coloured van pulling up behind the building, and two people getting out to discard the animal.
"Someone will know this dog," Chortyk said. "They will recognize the people in the footage."
She added the SPCA is not so focused on how the dog was discarded, but how it died. Charges of animal cruelty could be considered if it turns out the animal died after being left in hot car, for example.
"If there was no wrongdoing in this case, then we just close the file. We just want to know what happened."
Anyone who recognizes the people or the dog's blue and grey collar with red and black leash are asked to call the BC SPCA's animal cruelty hotline at 1-855-622-7722.
The last time a dog's body being left in a Dumpster made headlines was in 2012.
A German shepherd named Captain was found beaten and bleeding in a Dumpster in Kitsilano four years ago.
His owner, Brian Whitlock, was jailed for 60 days for causing unnecessary suffering to the animal.

VIDEO: Dead dog thrown in Dumpster in Coquitlam


The BC SPCA trying to identify two people after a Boxer-cross that had apparently died of heat exposure was found in a Dumpster.


Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have reached tentative agreements, averting the prospect of a labour dispute that has loomed over the talks for months.
In a statement, Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk says the agreements were reached "voluntarily," but provides no other details about the deals themselves.
The issue of differences in paycheques for rural mail carriers — most of whom are women — and urban letter carriers had been at the forefront of protracted contract talks between the two sides.
The negotiations were extended twice since the weekend, when a deadline expired on a 72-hour job action notice issued last Thursday by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
The two sides were in talks nearly around the clock at the request of a special mediator appointed Friday by Mihychuk.
Canada Post described the tentative agreements as short-term. It said they are for two years and that four-year contracts were typically negotiated in the past.
"The agreements will avert a work disruption, bringing much-needed certainty in the postal system for our employees and customers," said Canada Post in a statement. "Canadians can now use the postal system with confidence."
The tentative agreements, however, still must be ratified by the members.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is Canada Post's largest union, representing more than 50,000 postal workers
The Canadian Press

Canada Post, postal union reach tentative deals


Two sides avert job action that has loomed for months


In a frame from protesters' video, Donald Wesley Jr. walks through a geotechnical testing area on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert. 'We have a lot of spikes put on this island,' he says.
Amanda Stanley, “science program officer” for the Seattle-based Wilberforce Foundation, headed up to Prince Rupert a couple of weeks ago to check on one of her projects.
That would be the camp on Lelu Island where a splinter group of Tsimshian tribal members and supporters maintain an effort to blockade and disrupt testing required for an environmental permit application to construct a liquefied natural gas terminal.
Stanley tweeted a picture from the camp, looking past a Mohawk warrior flag at the coastline. “So inspired by these defenders of land, water and salmon,” she wrote.
Wilberforce, the California-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Hawaii-based Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and others have poured money into anti-LNG campaigns in B.C., as they funded opposition to oilsands development before them. Indeed, the record suggests the long project to establish what environmental front groups named the Great Bear Rainforest was a strategy to stop hydrocarbon exports from western Canada, even as U.S. sources ramped up production.
So what’s been going on at this “science program” on Lelu Island? Its own multi-media promotion material provides some glimpses, featuring sweeping allegations and efforts to block scientific evaluation with crude threats and intimidation.
A video series called “A Last Stand for Lelu” shows two self-styled warriors confronting drilling vessels. Their RCMP escort boat suggests these ships and habitat study crews had federal permits to conduct testing at the time.
[Watch video below.]
One man, identified as Donald Wesley Jr., walks the island with a rifle over his shoulder. Among his claims is that the drilling isn’t for testing, but is actually the start of construction on the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal, which still awaits a decision from the Trudeau cabinet.
Wesley says that since crews didn’t present permits to him personally, “they’re the radicals. They’re the extremists. They’re the terrorists.”
Then he describes his preparations.
“We have a lot of stuff on the island to keep [away] helicopters and drillers, the geotech drillers that want to come onto the island and start borehole testing,” he says. “We have a lot of spikes put on this island.”
OK, who’s the extremist?
The video series is co-produced by a fellow named Tamo Campos, identified as a representing “Beyond Boarding,” with a link to an expired website.
Campos came to prominence in B.C. protest circles during the recent oil pipeline standoff at Burnaby Mountain. He appeared with his grandfather David Suzuki and other well-known protesters in a carefully choreographed show of entering a court-ordered restraining zone and briefly being arrested.
Again, they were interfering with authorized scientific testing while attempting to create the impression for media of grassroots opposition.
Wesley, his father Donald Wesley Sr. and a supporter from Hartley Bay named Matthew Danes, claim to represent hereditary chiefs. In June, a dozen Tsimshian hereditary chiefs and elders issued a letter stating that Wesley Sr. “took it upon himself to occupy Lelu Island solely on his own accord” and doesn’t represent the community.
“We do not appreciate Mr. Wesley inviting environmental militants and outsiders into our territory without the respect and manners dictated by the protocols of our ayaawyx [laws],” they wrote.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office required Pacific Northwest LNG to consult with five aboriginal communities. The Metlakatla, Kitselas, Kitsumkalum and Gitxaala bands have benefit agreements for the project signed or in progress. The lone holdout, Lax Kw’alaams, elected a new council last fall that embraced the project with conditions.
And 40 Lax Kw’alaams students just graduated from pre-apprentice training sponsored by the provincial and federal governments and the UA Piping Industry College of B.C.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc
A LAST STAND FOR LELU - PART 7: Warriors from VoVo Productions on Vimeo.

BC VIEWS: Tree-spikers cling to Lelu Island


Who's behind Prince Rupert anti-LNG protest camp? A father, his son, and their U.S. foundation backers [WITH VIDEO]


The union representing most workers at Canada Post has issued a 72-hour notice of job action as it tries to bargain a collective agreement with the Crown corporation.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says the notice spells out what actions it is planning, but stops short of a full-blown walkout.
CUPW national president Mike Palecek says Canada Post forced the labour disruption by refusing to accept a request from the federal labour minister to continue negotiations with the help of a special mediator.
But a spokesman for the agency says that's not the case.
The union's strike mandate was set to expire at midnight.
The two sides have been in negotiations for more than nine months but are far apart on key issues including pay equity for rural carriers and proposed changes to the Canada Post pension plan.
The Canadian Press

Postal union issues strike notice after it says Canada Post refused special mediator


Notice means delivery could be cancelled as early as Monday


Revelstoke dam on the Columbia River is due to have a sixth water turbine added, but Site C is BC Hydro's priority today.
BC Hydro is going ahead with its planned four per cent rate increase this year and deferring more debt to future years as it revises its electricity demand forecast downward.
The provincially-owned utility has not asked for an increase in its government-imposed rate plan despite a revised demand forecast with $3.5 billion less revenue over the next 10 years. BC Hydro has filed a three-year plan with the B.C. Utilities Commission that would increase rates four, 3.5 and three per cent in the next three years. The four per cent increase is already showing up on customer bills as an interim increase.
With the Site C dam on the Peace River and other upgrades amounting to $2 billion a year, the plan includes additional deferred debt until 2023, when Site C is due to be completed. BC Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald said the long-term nature of capital projects means its capital cost savings don't start until the next decade.
BC Hydro has also cut some of its familiar Power Smart activities, such as the fridge buy-back plan and incentives for energy efficient light bulbs.
McDonald said BC Hydro is seeing lower revenues due to two warm winters and downturns in mining and forest products. It still projects growing overall demand as population and economic growth continue.
NDP energy critic Adrian Dix said the new deferred debt represents roughly $500 for each of BC Hydro's two million customers, and it is a political move to get the B.C. Liberal government past next year's election.
The 10-year rates plan imposed by Energy Minister Bill Bennett in 2013 overstated demand to justify the construction of Site C, and translates to a 28 per cent rate increase. It allows the utilities commission to regain control over approving customer rates by 2020, after five years of political direction.
Dix said with the new demand forecast and commodity prices expected to remain low, BC Hydro should have added a sixth turbine to its Revelstoke dam for $450 million before embarking on the $9 billion Site C project.


Four per cent rate hike already in effect, more to come as BC Hydro looks for savings to offset slow industrial demand


Doug Kelly, chair of the B.C. First Nations Health Council
With patients in urban areas having difficulty finding a family doctor, the situation in rural B.C. is going from bad to worse, MLAs on the province's health committee were told Monday.
Ed Staples, a member of the B.C. Health Coalition, described his efforts to improve the situation in Princeton, a community of about 5,000 people that four years ago was down to one doctor providing on-call service.
Princeton now has four full-time doctors and two nurse practitioners, but there are still people who can't find a doctor in the region, including Penticton an hour and a half away. A recent search of the College of Physicians and Surgeons website turned up the nearest doctor accepting patients in Courtney on Vancouver Island, Staples said.
Health Match BC, the province's web portal for recruiting doctors, nurses and other health professionals, currently has more than 400 general practitioner vacancies, with 37 communities seeking 85 doctors. The result is "bidding wars" between communities to offer incentives to relocating doctors, and foreign doctors using a rural community as an entry point before relocating to the Lower Mainland, he said.
The B.C. government has announced its latest videoconferencing service for health care, linking psychiatrists with young people in Cranbrook. The service is available twice a month at the local Children and Family Development office, supplementing visits by specialists in communities such as Cranbrook and Princeton. Health Minister Terry Lake says video conferencing and electronic health records are a key part of the solution for reaching patients across B.C.
Doug Kelly, chair of the B.C. First Nations Health Council, told the committee of an Abbotsford doctor who travels to Carrier Sekani territory around Prince George for part of his practice, in a pilot project with Northern Health.
Kelly said video links and nurse practitioners are part of the solution to delivering rural and remote care, but the main obstacle is the business model for doctors that has them cycling through as many as 20 patients an hour to bill enough to cover their office overhead.
Committee members were also reminded that graduating doctors are increasingly reluctant to take on the demands of family practice, especially in smaller communities where they may find themselves on call around the clock.

Video links grow as rural health care shrinks


Small communities have more than 400 doctor vacancies, with 'telehealth' and visiting specialists filling gaps


COQUITLAM — Shergo Kurdi lifts his shirt to reveal a pale, mottled patchwork of burn scars on his belly and chest — a legacy, he says, of years spent ironing fabric in a Turkish clothing factory after he and his family fled war-torn Syria in 2012.
Now, nine months after arriving in B.C. with his parents and four siblings, the 15-year-old refugee is preparing to enter Grade 10 and wants to one day become a police officer.
"I like ... to help people," Shergo said, explaining that he likes the idea of giving back.
Shergo and his siblings are the cousins of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose lifeless body was photographed on the shores of a Mediterranean beach last September. The picture spread across the globe and jarred the world into responding to the Syrian refugee crisis.
In the wake of the photograph, the Canadian government committed to taking in tens of thousands of displaced Syrians, a pledge that paved the way for the Kurdi family's arrival in late December.
Speaking in broken English at his aunt's home in Coquitlam, Shergo talked about how difficult his job was in Istanbul. Shifts sometimes lasted as long as 24 hours, he said, and frequently he didn't get paid.
The teen used a metaphor to explain how his life has been affected by the move to B.C.
"It's like a flower: (if) he doesn't have water he (will) die. Come to Canada, he has water and opens up again," he said.
Shergo's sister, 16-year-old Heveen Kurdi, also spoke positively about her time in Canada, and of being reunited with her father, Mohammad Kurdi, who spent nine months in Germany trying to get his family out of Turkey and missed the birth of his youngest child.
"The whole family (is) together again," Heveen said, smiling.
She explained that after finishing grade school she wants to study dentistry at university. She added that she'll provide free dental work for her family, which prompted her mother, Ghouson Dakouri, to grin and chime in with "Mom is first."
Still, Heveen said she thinks about her friends and family back in the Middle East every day.
Housing, jobs still concerns
The challenges aren't over for the Kurdis, as they continue to grapple with finding permanent lodging and securing employment for Mohammad.
The family of seven initially lived with Tima Kurdi, Mohammad's sister, in Coquitlam. But since June they've resided in a group home in downtown Vancouver alongside dozens of other Syrian refugees while they wait for a stable living arrangement to open up.
The Kurdis said the facility accommodates about 70 other people, mostly children, and that their living quarters consist of only two sleeping rooms.
Work is also a challenge. Mohammad, who is a barber, said he must be available to inspect a possible home at a moment's notice, which makes it difficult to maintain regular, full-time working hours.
Heveen said she hopes they find somewhere permanent to live before September, so she won't have to risk moving schools and starting over yet again.
Seated on a couch in Tima's home with his family around him, Mohammad smiled as his youngest child, 13-month-old Sherwan Kurdi, dragged a toy dog through the living room.
Speaking through his sister, Mohammad said he feels happy and proud to see his kids like this, the trauma of their ordeal fading from memory.
"Seeing the kids, it's happy," said Tima. "He's happy."
Geordon Omand, The Canadian Press

Kurdi family settles into life in Canada, but still no luck finding a home


Children are cousins of Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, whose body was photographed on a beach last fall.


Modified versions of the 1969 Camaro SS and other popular vehicles will soon be eligible for B.C. collector plates, allowing occasional use for parades and car shows.
The B.C. government is expanding its collector vehicle licence system to include eligible modified cars made between 1958 and 1974, to capture the popular "muscle car" era of the 1960s.
The ICBC collector plate program gives car enthusiasts a lower-cost licence plate that allows occasional use for parades and classic car shows. ICBC plans to take applications starting in 2017 for eligible modified vehicles up to 1974, and replica cars resembling North American production cars from 1942 and earlier.
With strict rules that the cars must be in "collectible condition," changes will take in modified popular cars from the Dodge Duster to the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang, as well as replicas of the popular Ford "deuce coupe" from the 1930s.
Premier Christy Clark announced a break for older cars this spring, allowing vehicles from 1940 or earlier and their replicas to run without fenders or mud flaps when the highway is dry and paved.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone said the collector car industry is significant for B.C., with registered collector vehicles having doubled to 26,000 in the past 10 years.
"We want to see this specialty vehicle program remain viable, preserve vehicle history and evolve with the times," Stone said. "That's why we are opening up the opportunity to owners of specialty cars within the 'muscle car' era."
Currently, the standard collector plate is available to cars 25 years or older, as well as discontinued or limited production vehicles 15 years or older. It requires a stock engine with no performance enhancements, no rust, dents or "significant wear and tear" of the interior.
Modified vehicles from 1958 or older are currently eligible for collector plates, if they retain the shell of the original body but have parts replaced or modified in the chassis, engine, suspension, steering or brakes.
Owners have to apply for a collector or modified collector plate, with purchase and parts bills, photos and inspection reports.
Applications for collector and modified collector programs are available on ICBC's website, www.icbc.com, and can be dropped off at Autoplan brokers.

Collector program expanding to 'muscle cars'


Collector plates will be available next year for modified as well as stock cars made between 1958 and 1974


Courses offer loaner equipment and training in casting and proper fish handling.
Children aged five to 15 can take advantage of fishing instruction sessions being held around the province by the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. this summer.
The Learn to Fish program has been running since 2006. It provides loaned fishing gear as well as instruction on how to cast and retrieve, identify different fish species, handle fish properly and fish ethically within the regulations.
Locations and registration information for Learn to Fish courses is available here.
The Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. is financed by revenue from B.C. fishing licence sales.
A sample of the instruction videos available on the society website:

Free fishing lessons for kids [with video]


Learn to Fish program offers instruction and loaner equipment to help children aged 5 to 15 catch a trout


Toronto MP Carolyn Bennett is sworn in as Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, November 2015.
The federal government’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is preparing to get underway in September.
With five commissioners led by B.C. judge Marion Buller and a budget that has swelled by a third to $54 million before it even starts, this inquiry has one big advantage over all the previous studies of Canada’s intractable problems of poverty and violence in aboriginal communities.
In this case, the politicians all agree what the outcome is going to be. They’ve been saying so for months, since the Justin Trudeau government got elected on this and other passionate, if questionable, promises.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, a member of the We Wai Kai Nation on the B.C. coast, a former Crown prosecutor and chair of the B.C. Treaty Commission, announced the terms of reference last week. She stressed that the inquiry will not attempt to retry cold cases, but to examine the “root causes” of the high numbers of missing and murdered women.
Next up was Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett, who has no doubt at all what those “root causes” are: racism, sexism and the lingering effects of colonialism. Bennett has been meeting steadily with grieving families since being appointed, and now accepts that racist, indifferent cops are the main “root cause.”
Bennett explained this conclusion from New York in April, while attending a “Women of the World” summit. It’s an “uneven application of justice,” she told The Globe and Mail, a phrase we’ll hear again and again.
“You end up with people who have been told it’s an overdose, or a suicide or an accident,” Bennett said.
RCMP have reported close to 1,200 unsolved cases of murdered or missing indigenous women since 1980, a figure that Bennett scoffs at. What’s her evidence? She’s talked to families, and knows it’s “way more” than that.
One of the previous inquiries was by a United Nations official, James Anaya, in 2014. He noted the alarming statistics of education outcome and violent offences against women, and referred to 660 cases documented by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. He also described being besieged by demands for a national inquiry, as he went through the stacks of studies that have already been done.
“Since 1996,” Anaya wrote in his UN report, “there have been at least 29 official inquiries and reports dealing with aspects of this issue, which have resulted in over 500 recommendations for action.”
As the latest inquiry was being launched, Perry Bellegarde, the current Assembly of First Nations national chief, recited Bennett’s speaking points about the conclusions it will reach.
Bellegarde told CTV the problem is vastly under-reported because “…oh, it’s an accidental death. Oh, it’s a suicide.” Then he called for more money for housing and other programs via the failed Indian Act system.
There are several glaring factors that apparently will not be discussed, because they fall outside the politically correct boundaries of this pre-determined narrative.
One is the even more alarming number of aboriginal men and boys who are victims of violent crime.
Another is the rate of domestic abuse reported by indigenous women, which Statistics Canada estimated this year at about 10 per cent of their population. That’s three times the national average, but it was not mentioned amid the demands for justice at the inquiry.
Another key issue that is forbidden from discussion is the social and economic viability of remote communities. Some of them haven’t been able to maintain clean water and safe housing, much less education and employment, despite billions in spending every year.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc

BC VIEWS: Missing women inquiry pre-determined


Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett's position boils down to blaming racist, indifferent cops


Solitude in the wilderness is still available in B.C., between holiday weekends when demand peaks at B.C.'s most popular parks.
Foreign visitors and those on package tours are a small fraction of the demand for B.C. Parks campgrounds around the province, but B.C. resident campers are still using a few tricks to get spaces for high-demand parks.
Some have protested the use of online reservations by motorhome tour operators who sell them as part of a package for tourists.
"Our provincial campsites are not products to be sold, they belong to the people of B.C.," Green Party leader Andrew Weaver said this week.
Environment Minister Mary Polak told Black Press numbers are being tracked for the current year, and the proportions haven't changed much. In 2015, fewer than one per cent of reservable B.C. Parks spaces were booked by tour operators, who also use private camping facilities.
Three quarters of reservations are from within B.C. The second highest share is from Alberta at 14 per cent, the U.S. accounts for 3.6 per cent, the rest of Canada 2.8 per cent, and all European countries combined are 6.6 per cent of the total.
The BC Parks system has 10,700 camping spaces in total, and 5,600 are reservable, to manage demand for the most popular spots.
First-come, first-served sites are kept out of the reservation system in some popular locations to accommodate travellers who drop in along the road. For high-demand periods like the recent Canada Day weekend, savvy campers work the reservation system.
At Golden Ears Provincial Park, one group booked for two weeks as soon as the 90-day eligibility window opened, then dropped the first week, giving them the coveted Canada Day weekend dates before they were generally available.
"Every year we look to change things to keep people from cheating, and every year they find new ways," Polak said. "Really the only answer is going to be finding a way to expand the number of sites that we have available."
It's shaping up as a record year for the Discover Camping reservation service, with 92,000 bookings so far this year.
B.C. Parks has added four new sites for this summer. Reservations can be made for Garibaldi Provincial Park in the Whistler area, Ruckle Provincial Park on Saltspring Island, Okanagan Falls Provincial Park, Inland Lake Provincial Park near Powell River and Dry Gulch Provincial Park near Radium Hot Springs.

Provincial campsite rush mostly B.C. residents


Few BC Parks bookings going to commercial operators, solution is more campsite spaces, Environment Minister Mary Polak says


Wood products exports from Canada to Asia were down 18 per cent in the first six months of 2016, with the biggest decline being softwood lumber from B.C. to China, according to the Seattle-based Wood Resources International.
Lumber sales to China are on pace to drop by 50 per cent this year compared to 2014, as B.C. lumber producers direct their sales to a healthy U.S. lumber market, according to customs data tracked for the Wood Resources Quarterly (www.woodprices.com).
The latest edition notes that by value, 75 per cent of B.C.'s exports to Asia in 2015 and 2016 are in the form of lumber, while 77 per cent of exports from Washington and Oregon are logs.
Asian demand reached a record high in 2013, with China passing Japan as the largest importer of North American wood products in 2011. The B.C. and federal governments promote wood construction in China and Japan, and B.C.'s forest minister is required to conduct an annual trade mission to China, Japan and other Asian countries.
The shift in demand provides extra urgency for talks to renew the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber agreement that expired last year. B.C. sales are booming without the export cap that both Ottawa and Washington have agreed will be required.

Lumber exports shift to U.S. as China sales slump


Asian demand for B.C. wood products peaked in 2013, analyst says China sales on pace for 50 per cent drop


Premier Christy Clark and Environment Minister Mary Polak plug in an electric car at an announcement of the government's latest climate change plan in Richmond Aug. 19.
A B.C. Liberal operative was out with the online spin hours before Premier Christy Clark confirmed the much-leaked news in a Friday afternoon announcement at an obscure location in Richmond.
The, er, freeze is continuing for B.C.’s ground-breaking, world-saving carbon tax, which hasn’t changed since before Clark was elected in 2013.
The spin was Olympic-themed, with a picture labeled to show B.C. as a swimmer far out in the lead in the pool, to symbolize that it’s the other provinces that need to catch up in the race to save the planet.
Clark has been saying that for years, and there is merit to it. Even without a tax on “process emissions” such as from cement kilns, B.C.’s carbon tax encourages imports of non-taxed cement from the U.S. and China.
Alberta business professor Andrew Leach, who advised the Stephen Harper and then Rachel Notley governments on greenhouse gas policies, summed up the problem this way.
“Until the rest of the world has policies that impose similar cost, you’re not actually reducing emissions to the extent you think,” Leach said. “You’re just displacing the emissions and the economic activity to other jurisdictions.”
Alberta is moving to join B.C. with a modest carbon tax, but the NDP government plans to spend the proceeds rather than return them in income tax as B.C. has done. And Washington state and most of the rest of the world have no carbon tax as such, so their businesses benefit from B.C.’s “climate leadership.”
B.C.’s foreign-funded eco-radical community was, needless to say, appalled. The Pembina Institute’s Matt Horne and career protesters Tzeporah Berman and Merran Smith were named to the premier’s advisory committee last year, along with business, academic and aboriginal representatives.
They concluded that increases to B.C.’s broad-based tax on carbon fuels should resume its upward march in 2018.
Other committee members, including the mayors of Surrey, Comox and Burns Lake, were not heard from. Public discussion on this issue is now reduced to a staged conflict between those who demand a holy war on deadly carbon dioxide “pollution,” and those who don’t care if their grandchildren perish in a hell-fire of fossil fuel use.
We’ve just come off another El Nino year, like the hot year of 1998. Regular readers will recall the last time I discussed this topic was this spring, where I questioned the premier’s dire warnings of another horrendous forest fire season.
What followed has been one of the slowest forest fire seasons in the last decade, although dry conditions have finally emerged this month. Climate predictions, like next week’s weather forecast, are less than consistent.
I am regularly sent messages calling me a “climate change denier,” the nonsense term that continues to be used by federal Environment Minister Catharine McKenna among many others. I know of no one who denies that climate is always changing, at times dramatically.
If you wish to believe that paying an extra seven cents a litre for gasoline in B.C. is helping to slow the very gradual increase in temperatures we’re seeing in the northern hemisphere, you are free to do so.
You may even be persuaded to take a government subsidy and buy an expensive, short-range electric car. Me, I’m off to Prince Rupert and Revelstoke pretty soon, so I’ll stick with my little four-cylinder gas sipper for now.
Hydro-powered B.C. represents a small fraction of the less than two per cent Canada contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. We’re not the problem, and no, the world is not looking to us for guidance.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc


Premier Christy Clark isn't going into next year's election with a promise to jack up Canada's only significant carbon tax


TORONTO – Fans of the Tragically Hip across the country will be able to watch or listen to the band's final concert on its upcoming tour, in what the CBC describes as a "national celebration" of the iconic Canadian group.
The public broadcaster will carry the Hip's hometown show in Kingston, Ont., live on its television, radio and online platforms on Aug. 20 starting at 8:30 p.m. ET.
CBC announced the plan as the band released its 14th studio album, "Man Machine Poem," on Friday.
"The Tragically Hip is a band that has had a lasting influence and impact on this country and they are beloved," said Jennifer Dettman, CBC's executive director of unscripted content.
"We want to make sure that all Canadians had access to this concert on whatever platform they should desire. We're really putting on what we call a national celebration for this band."
The tour is expected to be the final one for the band, following the recent shocking revelation that lead singer Gord Downie is battling incurable brain cancer.
Internal discussions about the possibility of carrying the Kingston concert began after the tour was first announced, Dettman said, but conversations started in earnest with the Hip's team after seeing tens of thousands of signatures for a petition asking for a broadcast of the show.
Dettman said the CBC also hopes to have more special coverage of the band in the lead-up to the concert.
"I think it really will be a very big cultural moment for us," she said.
"The band has had such an incredible impact and influence on Canada. They sing about our country and they tell our stories and they make great music.... I think we really want this concert to be this wonderful, national celebration where we pull the country together, and we really just all enjoy, watch, listen to the Tragically Hip."
On Friday morning, a handful of people lined up outside HMV's flagship store in downtown Toronto to be among the first to purchase the Hip's new album.
Longtime fan James Cashman said he made an hour-long trip from the city's east-end suburbs to get the disc.
"It's going to be their last one and the poor guy is sick, you know. It's really sad," said Cashman, a 64-year-old retired funeral assistant.
Cashman said he was glad to hear the band's Kingston show would be broadcast on television, noting he couldn't afford concert tickets.
"The tickets were gone so quickly, this resale thing, it's not good. They should just put out two tickets per person, you know. Then everybody has a chance."
Demand for concert tickets was overwhelming, with all 15 shows across Canada selling out almost instantly. Ticketmaster told The Canadian Press that roughly 1.3 million fans tried to buy tickets during the public sale but only several hundred thousand seats were available.
Earlier this week, a new batch of tickets went on sale after the band tweaked its stage design to accommodate more fans, but those seats also sold out immediately.
Fans have been fuming about the exorbitant mark-ups on tickets being sold on secondary websites like StubHub and classified sites like Craigslist and Kijiji.
Members of the Hip also seemed to be displeased with how ticket sales went.
Guitarist Rob Baker responded to a fan on Twitter, saying that they were "sad and concerned" about the sellout.
"We make every effort to make sure it is fair” much beyond our control," he tweeted. "We want fans rather than the connected."
CBC said the concert in Kingston will be carried on CBC Television, CBC Radio One, CBC Radio 2, its YouTube channels, and cbcmusic.ca.
The tour will launch July 22 in Victoria.
– With files from Canadian Press reporter Cassandra Szklarski.
Follow @lauren_larose on Twitter.
Lauren La Rose, The Canadian Press

CBC to broadcast final concert of the Tragically Hip


'A national celebration': CBC to air finale of Tragically Hip's tour in hometown


Aboriginal elders brought a Coast Salish talking stick into the B.C. legislature this week, in a solemn ceremony that had little lasting effect on the heckling and interruptions of political debate in Victoria.
A replica of the totem pole on the grounds of Government House, the ornate stick represents the right to speak and receive a respectful hearing in aboriginal tradition. It was carved by Songhees artist James Delorme and presented to former Lieutenant Governor Steven Point in 2011 at a ceremony to mark the official naming of the Salish Sea.
Current Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon was on hand May 11 to present the stick to B.C. legislature Speaker Linda Reid, with a ceremonial prayer in the SENCOTEN language by elders Elmer George and Mary Anne Thomas.
"We present it to everybody this House but also to everybody that may come through these doors in the future," said Chief Ron Sam of the Songhees Nation.
Reid said in a statement the talking stick will remain in the legislature until the next election in May 2017.
After the ceremony, Reid continued her struggle to maintain order in the rancourous debate of question period, which has declined more frequently into shouting matches as the next election approaches.

Talking stick tradition comes to B.C. legislature [with video]


Totem symbolizes Coast Salish tradition of respectful listening, with little effect on ill-tempered debate in Victoria


Two men and a mining company in receivership have been charged with 18 pollution infractions related to their shut-down gold mine on an island near Prince Rupert.
Benjamin Mossman and Dirk Meckert are scheduled to appear in Prince Rupert provincial court Sept. 7. Also charged is Banks Island Gold Ltd., which went into receivership after being shut down last year for provincial permit violations.
The Yellow Giant mine was ordered shut down by the Ministry of Environment in July 2015 after a tailings spill was reported on a tip. There is one charge of failing to report a spill of a polluting substance, and the other 17 charges are for failing to comply with permits.
North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice raised the issue in the legislature this spring, after receiving a letter from the Gitxaala First Nation referring to two separate tailings spills. Rice said the ministry did not inspect the operation for 15 months, until receiving a complaint.
NDP mining critic Norm Macdonald told the legislature a worker at the mine "became fed up, put his job on the line, sent the ministry and me a tip and pictures that documented what was going on there."
Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett said the mine was shut down when the situation was brought to its attention. The mine's 90 employees lost their jobs.
The province has a $420,000 security bond from the mining company, to provide ongoing monitoring. In March the mines ministry and Banks Island Gold removed explosives from the mine site and in May ministry technical staff assessed the hazardous materials on site.
The B.C. Conservation Officer Service, which recommended the charges, would not comment on the current condition of the Banks Island site, because it is evidence for the prosecution.

Banks Island miners face 18 pollution charges


Gold mine near Prince Rupert shut down last summer for permit violations, owners charged for failing to report spill


ICBC wants to increase basic auto insurance rates by 4.9 per cent – the fifth straight annual increase – as it continues to grapple with rising numbers of crashes, claims and dramatically increasing costs.
The typical driver will pay $3.50 a month or $42 a year more for basic insurance if the hike is approved.
But the corporation is also raising optional rates by 2.8 per cent so the average customer who buys both basic and optional insurance with ICBC will see their insurance bill rise $5 a month, or $60 a year.
ICBC CEO Mark Blucher said the basic rate hike would have been much worse – 15.5 per cent translating into a $130 annual premium increase – had the province not approved another major transfer of $472 million from the optional to the basic side of operations.
A compounding factor has been the long decline of interest rates, which result in less investment income revenue to ICBC.
"These external pressures have really created a perfect storm and it's a really significant challenge for the organization," Blucher said in an interview Thursday.
ICBC had raised rates 5.5 per cent a year ago, and the province's rate smoothing policy requires the annual change be within 1.5 per cent of the previous year's increase.
The number of crashes has climbed 15 per cent in two years and damage claims are up 11 per cent.
Vehicles are increasingly reliant on technology and expensive materials that have become more costly in recent years as the loonie sagged against the U.S. dollar.
Despite much safer vehicles, injury claims have soared to $2.4 billion, up 60 per cent from $1.5 billion in 2008.
"We've seen no evidence that these strong trends are abating," Blucher said. "In fact, if anything, they're continuing to escalate going forward."
Blucher also noted there are more cars on the road in B.C. today – 3.1 million up from 2.8 million in 2011 – and people are driving more because of cheaper gas, contributing to more accidents, particularly in densifying urban areas.
And he pointed to personal injury lawyers as an aggravating cause of ICBC's spiralling claims costs.
"B.C. is the only province in Canada where you can sue another motorist for even a minor traffic accident," Blucher said, noting an increase in lawyer-represented claims and advertising by injury law firms.
Internal operating costs have been cut by $186 million a year, and ICBC is counting on more savings ahead, through its modernization program, by more aggressively combatting insurance fraud and from a hoped-for drop in distracted driving as motorists respond to stiffer penalties.
But transfers from the optional side to bolster the basic side will likely be needed for the foreseeable future, Blucher said, because basic premiums can't keep up with rising costs.
In a surprise move, the B.C. government will this year forgo extracting its usual $160-million annual dividend from ICBC's optional side into general revenue.
"Forgoing the dividend this particular year is one strategy amongst a litany of others we're employing to get that basic trate increase down," Transportation Minister Todd Stone said.
Stone said the $514 million the province has transferred out of ICBC in dividends since 2012 is small compared to the $1.4 billion over the same period that has been shifted from the competitive optional side to basic to apply downward pressure on basic rates.
The minister would not say if the government would permanently give up the ICBC dividend.
Adrian DIx, the NDP critic for ICBC, said the dividends to government have exceeded $1.2 billion since 2010 and predicted they'll resume after next year's election because the BC Liberals are "addicted" to using ICBC as a "profit centre."
Dix said the reliance on shifting huge amounts of capital from optional to basic raises troubling questions.
"Next year they've got to find that $472 million," Dix said. "What they've done is create a disaster at ICBC and their only hope is to deceive the voters until after the election."
He said ICBC's new move to hire more claims staff underscores problems with completing the computer modernization that was supposed to make operations more efficient.
"The transformation project has taken longer than World War 2 and is not close to finished."
ICBC's basic rates rose 11.2 per cent in 2012 and at least five per cent every year since.
The new rate hike is subject to B.C. Utilities Commission approval.
ICBC Rate Pressure Charts

ICBC seeks 4.9 per cent basic rate hike as crashes, costs climb


$60 a year increase for most drivers once optional auto insurance increase is included


Using a backdrop of new construction in Victoria, Finance Minister Mike de Jong and Premier Christy Clark announce a new property transfer tax on foreign buyers that took effect this week.
The lights came back on in the B.C. legislature last week to reveal the government’s sudden decision to impose a 15 per cent tax on foreign property purchases in Metro Vancouver.
This came after months of government refusal to intervene in a heated urban market in ways that might devalue properties for people whose homes represent a large chunk of their life savings.
It remains to be seen whether this large wrench applied to the problem will cool the market, or trigger declining property values as similar efforts have done in other major cities. The extent of the ripple effect on B.C. communities outside Metro Vancouver is also something that will be closely watched.
Premier Christy Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong announced the tax with a week’s notice, leaving realtors and developers scrambling to close deals before thousands more in property transfer tax was imposed on foreign buyers.
This dramatic intervention was based on less than five weeks of information on the nationality of buyers. Early results showed foreign buyers represented five per cent of Metro Vancouver real estate sales. Another two weeks of data showed a spike to nearly 10 per cent, and suddenly the big wrench came out.
Housing Minister Rich Coleman acknowledged that the surprise tax left the real estate industry “taken aback and a bit grumpy.” They worried foreign buyers might back out of deals after sellers have bought another home. They also fear that the tax might pop the real estate bubble, causing a rapid reversal of the long sellers’ market that has taken on a life and a psychology of its own.
One thing is certain. The province’s windfall from the property transfer tax can only grow even further as foreign buyers pay up.
The size of this windfall was shown in the government’s audited public accounts for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which de Jong released just days before announcing the new real estate tax.
The property transfer tax has been a cash cow for the province since Bill Vander Zalm introduced it in the 1980s, and by 2015-16 it had reached about $1.5 billion. For comparison purposes, that’s almost twice as much as total provincial revenue from the forest industry.
The current B.C. budget had forecast that property transfer tax revenues would decline this year and next year. The public accounts showed that for 2015-16, the government took in $468 million more than expected, meaning real estate accounted for most of the provincial surplus.
How much more is raked in by the new transfer tax on foreign buyers remains to be seen, but it will be substantial. And Coleman allows that he has been developing “a really cool plan” to use that money to improve the housing situation for lower-income people.
A couple of weeks ago I described the clamour of urban protesters demanding that governments build thousands of units of social housing. Coleman has long rejected the idea of social housing projects that create clusters of poverty, and he assured me last week that isn’t going to change.
B.C. has 20,000 low-income households getting a rent subsidy today, and Coleman suggested that will be increasing. He’ll be announcing new measures in September to stimulate construction of new rental housing.
It remains to be seen how that will work as well. But it gives the B.C. government lots more money to spend in an election year.
This is the latest of a string of Clark’s election-year fixes. I’ll look at some others in a future column.
Tom Fletcher is B.C. legislature reporter and columnist for Black Press. Email: tfletcher@blackpress.ca Twitter: @tomfletcherbc

BC VIEWS: Real estate tax increases windfall


Finance Minister Mike de Jong found an extra half billion from property transfer tax last year, with much more to come


The Sylvia Platters perform during the 2016 Fraser Valley Music Awards on Saturday night at the Abbotsford Arts Centre. Performances were interspersed between the announcement of the winners in 12 award categories.
The first-ever Fraser Valley Music Awards took place in Abbotsford on Saturday night, with winners announced in 12 categories.
The event was held at the Abbotsford Arts Centre and was hosted by CIVL Radio.
The winners in each category were:
– Hip Hop – Saint Soldier of Abbotsford;
– Blues – Harpdog Brown of Surrey;
– Folk/Roots – Brennan Sinclair of Abbotsford;
– Pop – John Welsh Band of Harrison Hot Springs;
– Rhythm and Dance – You Say Party of Abbotsford;
– Loud – We Hunt Buffalo of Langley;
– Jazz – Eli Bennett of Port Coquitlam and Vancouver;
– Experimental – Cheap High of Abbotsford and Mission;
– Alt – Doja of Abbotsford and Victoria;
– Rock – Little Wild of Abbotsford;
– For and by Youth – Quinn Sojonky of Abbotsford; and
– Production, Singer/Songwriter, Musicianship – Rick Genge of Chilliwack.
The event attracted about 110 applications representing more than 300 musicians. Jurors then evaluated the entries and narrowed down the list to four or five nominees in each category, followed by the announcement of the winners on Saturday.

First-ever Fraser Valley Music Awards presented


Event was held Saturday at the Abbotsford Arts Centre


The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte at Sandringham, 2015
Victoria will be home base for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge when they make their second visit to Canada in late September.
There has been no confirmation yet, but the schedule suggests the royal couple will likely bring their children Prince George and Princess Charlotte with them.
The visit starts with an official welcome Sept. 24 in Victoria, with the traditional review of the Honour Guard and speeches. The next day Prince William and his wife Kate will visit Vancouver.
The royal couple have accepted the B.C. government's invitation to visit the area now known internationally as the Great Bear Rainforest, with a stop in Bella Bella on the remote Central Coast on Sept. 26.
Sept. 27 features stops in Kelowna and Whitehorse, with an overnight in Yukon and a visit to Carcross Sept. 28.
The Duke and Duchess return to Victoria Sept. 29 and travel to Haida Gwaii on Sept. 30. The tour winds up in Victoria Oct. 1.
The Duke and Duchess made their first official visit to Canada in 2011, with stops in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Charlottetown, Yellowknife, Slave Lake and Calgary.
Prince William and his brother Prince Harry visited B.C. with their father Prince Charles in 1998, including a ski vacation to Whistler.

B.C. royal visit looks set up for the children


Victoria-based schedule means it's likely Prince George and Princess Charlotte will accompany their parents William and Kate


Guns seized from visitors entering Canada at the Huntington-Abbotsford border crossing, 2014.
Canadian Border Services Agency has seen a 116 per cent increase in the number of firearms seized in the Pacific Region in the first half of 2016.
With a 10 per cent increase also recorded in the Prairie region, the CBSA is working with U.S. officials on a firearms awareness campaign to remind Americans about restrictions on bringing guns into Canada.
"Attempting to smuggle firearms across the border can result in immediate forfeiture, hefty fines and even significant jail time," said Kim Scoville, CBSA's regional director general for the Prairie region.
Visitors entering the border inspection line should declare any firearms at their first opportunity. Border services officers will take possession of the weapon if it is declared, but the visitor has the option of shipping it back under CBSA supervision or surrendering it without prosecution.
The RCMP has procedures for visitors bringing firearms into Canada


Guns intercepted at Pacific region border crossings up 116 per cent compared to this time last year


The B.C. government has approved a master development plan for a new year-round ski resort in the Cariboo Mountains west of Valemount.
Valemount Glacier Destination Resort is a $175 million project led by Oberto Oberti, who designed the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden and the controversial Jumbo Glacier Resort proposal west of Invermere.
The Valemount plan includes lifts and gondolas that would carry skiers and sight-seers to the summits of Mount Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Mount Arthur Meighen. Its vertical drop of 2,050 metres would be higher than Whistler-Blackcomb and the largest in North America.
"There are very few places in the world, and none in North America, where you go and ride a lift to the very top and the glacier is below you," said Jill Bodkin, a director of the company.
Valemount is a remote community of about 1,000 residents near the Alberta border east of Prince George. The region is west of Jasper National Park, which attracts visitors from around the world.
On the project's website, Oberti says people will travel to Switzerland for this kind of mountain resort experience, so a three-hour drive from Prince George isn't an obstacle to success.
Valemount Mayor Jeanette Townsend called the master plan approval "exciting news." She said the community attracts visitors who stay there to avoid the expensive accommodation in Jasper and the resort will take it to the next level.
Chief Nathan Matthew of the Simpcw First Nation said his community has been involved since the beginning, and he sees the project as an important economic development for the northern part of Simpcw's traditional territory.

B.C. approves Valemount glacier resort plan


Designer of Kicking Horse and Jumbo resorts gets approval to proceed with $175 million project east of Prince George


Dramatic finishes in triathlon and epic battles on the soccer pitch were among the high points of the action in Abbotsford this morning at the BC Summer Games.
See our coverage from today so far:
Waterskiing: Kelowna's Isaac Athens, Halle Gainey takes firsts in slalom
Rugby: North-south battle in girls action (video)
Golf: Mission golfer Claggett leads after first day of Games
Wake boarding: North Van's Harman soars to gold
Canoe and kayak: Paddlers love cutting through the water
Swimming: Opening race kicks off competition
VIDEO: Equestrian dressage at Summer Games
Softball: Scores from Games opening day (with video)
Swimming: Opening race kicks off competition (with video)
Synchronized swimming: Celebrating the beauty (video)
Shotput: New record set by Surrey's Gabri
Rugby: Fraser Valley defeats Thompson-Okanagan 17-12 (with video)
Soccer: Fraser Valley boys down Kootenays 1-0
Javelin: No record, but golden throw for Chong
High Jump: Langley's Sara Enzo leaps to gold
Long Jump: Surrey's Malcolm Borsoi is golden
Baseball: Fraser Valley boys 4-3 over Island-Central Coast
Paddling: Canoe and kayak racers hit the water
Girls beach volleyball: Opening action (with video)
Girls Triathlon: Victoria's Leipoldt claims gold in girls triathlon
Triathlon: Okanagan boys sweep
Girls soccer: Fraser Valley 4-0 over Caribou North (final)
Boys soccer: Vancouver 2-1 over Vancouver Island (final)
Boys soccer: Fraser River 5-0 over North West (final)
Girls soccer: Island girls lead Thompson Okanagan 1-0 at half
Slideshow of Friday afternoon action:
Slideshow of Friday morning action:
In case you missed it, check out our slideshow and video from the BC Summer Games opening ceremony.
View our digital online magazine about the BC Summer Games.

GAMES ROUNDUP: Triathlon drama, soccer action Friday


Soccer foes faced off and triathletes endured to claim gold at the BC Summer Games in Abbotsford


Students return to public school next week, with changes to curriculum and some provincial exams.
Students are returning to class next week in most of B.C.'s public schools, with enrolment expected to be up province-wide for the second year running.
Education Minister Mike Bernier says early forecasts show about 529,000 students, an increase of 2,900 from last year. But that increase is centred on fast-growing school districts, while many rural areas continue to struggle with declining student numbers.
Among changes that parents and students will see this year is a new curriculum in place up to Grade 9, with a test year for changes in the senior grades. Bernier said the new emphasis on collaboration and communication skills does not mean a watering down of the basic skills, and is designed to improve students' ability to work at modern jobs.
Report cards are to continue this school year, but the ministry is reviewing its system with an eye to providing more frequent updates. Parents are being consulted on the changes, Bernier said.
Foundation Skills Assessment tests in grades four and seven are also continuing after years of protests from teacher unions, but that program is also being examined for possible changes. FSA tests will be "enhanced" but not eliminated, Bernier said.
Provincial exams continue for graduates in math and English, but science and social studies will now be assessed at a classroom level rather than school-wide tests, Bernier said.
The ministry provided a series of top-ups to education funding this year, for bus service and to keep selected rural schools from closing. Applications are still being taken for a transportation fund until Sept. 30, requiring districts to drop across-the-board school bus fees to qualify.
Districts may still charge transportation fees for international students or those from outside a school catchment area.
NDP leader John Horgan highlighted the crowding in Surrey school district, where 7,000 students remain in portables despite an expansion program. The NDP says the B.C. government's claim of record per-student funding ignores a reduction of education funding as a share of the provincial economy.
"Since 2001, the B.C. Liberals have dragged public education funding in this province from the second best in Canada to the second worst," Horgan said.

B.C. school enrolment up for second year


Some urban districts struggle with overcrowding, special funds for declining rural schools, bus service to take effect


B.C. has 300 seniors' care facilities, and residents and their loved ones are to be surveyed on conditions.
More than 250 volunteers have signed up to compile a survey of seniors in residential care, and B.C.'s Seniors Advocate is looking for more.
The 27,000 seniors living in 300 residential care facilities around the province are being asked about their experience with care home staff, the quality of food, privacy, medications and other conditions.
It's the first comprehensive survey done in B.C., to measure resident satisfaction and provide a "roadmap" for improvements, said Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie.
Interviews will be conducted in person by trained volunteers, and a matching mail-out survey will be sent to each resident's most frequent visitor.
The project is seeking volunteers with a range of professional backgrounds, ages and ethnicities. To apply as a volunteer, visit www.surveybcseniors.org or call the Office of the Seniors Advocate at 1-877-952-3181.


Volunteers to ask seniors about staff, food, privacy, medications and other conditions in residential care


By JIM REITH, President Abbotsford Airshow
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2016 Abbotsford International Airshow – Heroes of the Skies! Gadgets, special suits, technology and the coolest flying machines… Learn what it takes to be a HERO at the 2016 Abbotsford International Airshow!
From August 12-14, Heroes of the Skies take flight over the Fraser Valley for the 54th annual Abbotsford International Airshow. Watch in awe as we welcome back the world-class Breitling Jet Team from Europe in the second and final year of their North American tour. Explore the McDonald’s Kids Zone and Science World on the Road! Experience Friday’s twilight show and fireworks finale! And, watch in awe as the Screamin’ Sasquatch Jet Waco, Boeing and US Navy Super Hornets, Snowbirds, Skyhawks and others take to the sky!
The Airshow is pleased to welcome the involvement of several key players in the aviation industry, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Eurofighter and more. Spectators will see Boeing’s involvement in dramatic fashion – as the aerospace giant will bring two jets to do corporate flying demos with a full array of simulated weapons, a simulation trailer and the test pilot will be available to talk about the exceptional capabilities of the aircraft. Lockheed Martin and Eurofighter are also on-site in various capacities with educational and promotional pieces.
“An aspect of the Airshow’s strategic vision is to strengthen key partnerships with aerospace organizations such as AIAC Pacific who produce an annual Aerospace & Defence trade show in conjunction with our airshow, and the CBAA which will hold its annual convention next year at Abbotsford in conjunction with the airshow as well. Looking to the future, we expect the Abbotsford Airshow will have a major aerospace trade show event occurring in the days prior to the public weekend show in the style of Farnborough and Paris airshows.”
Heroes of the Skies tell the stories of everyday women and men who work hard to make the world a better place, in their own communities and beyond. We are proud to honour them at this year’s Abbotsford International Airshow! Tickets for this action-packed weekend are available at Save-On-Foods or by clicking abbotsfordairshow.com.
Next Generation BC Amateur Photographer of the Year
Finalists for this year’s 4th annual Next Generation BC Amateur Photographer of the Year contest have now been selected. From Vernon to Victoria and from Surrey to Smithers, seventy finalists have been chosen from all corners of BC to move forward and compete in an intense competition at the Abbotsford International Airshow, where they will race against the clock to complete daily photo challenges. Finalists will shoot 10 of their best photographs and/or videos, to be reviewed by a judging panel — one will come out with the title of 2016 Next Generation Amateur Photographer of the Year. Almost 3,000 entries were received from 80 B.C. communities.
Whether you’re a finalist or not, this is a show you won’t want to miss: The Abbotsford International Airshow is world-renowned for its prestigious performers and family-friendly entertainment. The 2016 Airshow on August 12th through 14th will feature two jet teams, (Snowbirds and the European Breitling Jet Teams ) a Friday twilight show with fireworks, the Canadian Forces Skyhawks parachute team, and the US military jet, the Super Hornet to name but a few. More details visit www.abbotsfordairshow.com.
CLICK HERE FOR INTERACTIVE AIRSHOW SPECIAL INCLUDING VIDEO
Photographhs by Ken McAllister - 2015 Next Generation Amateur Photographer of the Year. Photographs featured from the 2015 Abbotsford Airshow.
Congratulations to all of the finalists in the 2016 Next Generation Amateur Photographer of the Year contest, sponsored by London Drugs, the Abbotsford International Airshow, and Black Press. To see photo gallery click here. See you there!


The Abbotsford International Airshow takes place Aug. 12-14 and includes US Navy Super Hornets and the Breitling Jet Team