A Celebration of Life for Beau Dick, one of the great artists of the Northwest Coast, is taking place Sunday at the Museum of Anthropology.

Speakers include Larry Grant, Chief Robert Joseph, Linea Dick, Anthony Shelton, Scott Watson, Dana Claxton.

In Kwakwala, the language of the Kwakwaka’wakw, he was known as Walis Gwy’um which means “big, great whale.”

Walis Gwy’um spent the last four years as artist-in-residence at the University of B.C. where he was a teacher, colleague and mentor. He was a remarkable artist and man who made an impression on everyone who met him.

The celebration is from 2 to 4 p.m. at MOA, 6393 NW Marine Drive.

One of the masks by artist Beau Dick in an exhibition at 560 Gallery in 2012. Jenelle Schneider/PNG)

Dick died on Monday, March 27 at age 61. He was buried in the cemetery at Alert Bay following a traditional Kwakwaka’wakw funeral. A memorial potlatch will take place on the one-year anniversary of his death.

Just before he died, Dick had finished one addition to a set of masks being shown as part of the international art exhibition documenta 14. The masks are now in display in Athens and will move to Kassel in June.

“He placed an ‘action figure’ made in his own image — complete with long grey hair, one of his signature hats, a button blanket robe, and cedar Hamat’sa ring on his neck — on the back of his mask of an orca whale,” wrote Candice Hopkins, Dick’s curator for documenta 14.

“True to form, he was the one pulling the strings. One of the preparators who worked closely on the installation of his work remarked that this is likely where Beau is now, riding on the back of the whale.”

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To mark Canada’s 150th birthday, we are counting down to Canada Day with profiles of 150 noteworthy British Columbians.

If anyone is deserving of the scholarly term “autochthonous” (something springing from the very ground where it is found), it’s this wise Okanagan elder, knowledge-keeper, writer, teacher, visual artist and activist for indigenous people’s rights. Jeannette Christine Armstrong is a powerful literary voice of conscience for her First Nation, for aboriginal peoples everywhere, for British Columbia and for Canada.

She was born on the Penticton Indian Reserve in 1948 and lives there still. It has been said by some that she was born “into the resistance,” a growing awareness of the importance of traditional culture when federal and provincial institutions sought to force assimilation of Canada’s First Nations by dismantling language, belief systems, ceremonies and traditional economies. Among her direct ancestors were Okanagan storytellers. Her parents encouraged that tradition. She grew up in her own language and got a traditional education from elders as well as a mainstream education that took her from a one-room school to a fine arts degree at the University of Victoria in 1978. Today, she’s fluent in both English and Okanagan.

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Perhaps most important, she returned to Penticton from university just as Okanagan leaders decided to make education a priority. They wanted a locally derived curriculum. She helped establish the En’owkin Centre on the Penticton Reserve. A locally run institution, it fuses First Nations knowledge systems with mainstream practice and functions as a post-secondary centre focusing on native cultural, educational, ecological and creative arts. It partners with the University of Victoria, the University of B.C. and other mainstream educational institutions. Among its objectives is to help adult learners obtain the skills they need to pursue higher education. But it seeks to frame this within the context of Okanagan culture, history, language and art. Among the initiatives was its association with Theytus Books, now a division of the centre that publishes works by indigenous writers about indigenous culture. It was the first of its kind to be owned and operated by First Nations.

Armstrong’s novel Slash, the story of a young Okanagan man grappling with alienation, racism and identity during a turbulent time of First Nations militancy, achieved international notice.

She holds a research chair at UBC’s Okanagan campus, studying Syilx oral language and literature. Her own published work includes poetry, short stories, novels and children’s books. Armstrong has won numerous prizes for educational work and writing, including the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Major corporations rely on international students, temporary foreign workers and immigrants to feed Metro Vancouver’s growing high-tech sector, says a study.

In an article titled “Chinese techno-immigrants in Western Canada,” two sociologists describe how U.S. corporations, including Microsoft, have opened high-tech arms in Metro Vancouver to capitalize on Canada’s less-restrictive approach to migration.

“High-tech computer programming and computer systems analysis have been the two most common intended occupations of all skilled immigrants to Canada, most of whom come from Asia,” write SFU’s Karl Froschauer and the University of Calgary’s Lloyd Wong.

In researching what they call the “over-representation of Chinese high-tech immigrants in the high-tech sector,” the two sociologists interviewed scores of workers in an industry said to employ 110,000 people in B.C., mostly in Metro Vancouver.

“Canadian corporations look abroad for immigrants because they spend a very small fraction of their salary budget on training and because B.C. universities produce relatively few graduates in the technology field,” the professors say, citing a KPMG report.

The state of the city’s high-tech industry has become key to the election platforms of both B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan and B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark, with each promising to provide more training and high-tech employment for Canadians.

“British Columbia can be the new Silicon Valley. And it has to be, because we want our kids to have great jobs,” Clark said this week.

Maintaining Clark is trying to distract voters from her failed promise to bring LNG jobs to the province, Horgan said he will help companies “develop and access talent, capital, and expanded markets so we can create good-paying, forward-looking jobs across the province and make B.C. into a true high-tech hub.”

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In light of the political manoeuvring in B.C. over local high-tech jobs and training, the study by Froschauer and Wong quotes the president of a large B.C. high-tech association who says a key reason “Microsoft chose to open a Vancouver office was because of the easier immigration rules.”

The unidentified high-tech CEO told the researchers there’s a crucial reason Microsoft did not simply open its computer development “campus” in Redmond, Washington, which is headquarters for the global tech giant.

“It’s like two hours away, so why would they open up this campus in Vancouver?” said the CEO.

“It’s much easier to bring in (migrants from India) and others, and that’s the reason they came. And their intention is not to recruit people away from other companies in the Lower Mainland but to bring fresh people in, and that’s what the larger companies do. Small ones don’t have the means.”

High-tech companies in B.C. and Alberta also often cross the U.S. border to recruit Chinese and other foreign students, say the authors, because international students in the U.S. are generally not allowed to remain in the country after they graduate, whereas they can stay after graduation in Canada.

The sociologists do not estimate the proportion of Metro Vancouver’s high-tech sector that is made up of immigrants, international students or temporary foreign workers, but they quote the CEO in confirming migrants are “very, very useful. I don’t think we could evolve our sector without” them.

Many of the techno-migrants interviewed in the study say it’s often an advantage to be a migrant in Canada’s high-tech sector.

But others said being born outside the country can be a disadvantage, particularly because of difficulties with language.

Some people from China told the researchers that migrants from India don’t have as many problems with language, since many in the former British colony were educated in English from their childhoods.

Some high-tech executives in Metro Vancouver and Calgary favour temporary foreign workers over immigrants, add Froschauer and Wong, whose article appears in the new book, Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada (UBC Press), edited by Wong.

The sociologists learned some corporations prefer “to bring employees to British Columbia on a temporary work permit” because they can be retained longer than immigrants, who have more freedom regarding where to work.

Provincial and federal immigration programs “do not tie employees to the company, whereas the temporary work permit does,” the authors say.

The number of high-tech migrants to Canada, especially from China, is likely to continue to grow in the future, say the authors.

Another chapter of Trans-Pacific Mobilities describes how most high-tech migrants, even if they’re struggling to find jobs in Canada, have no intention of going back to their homeland in China.

“They probably know that the heyday of the ‘sea turtle’ — overseas migrants returning home to work — is over and will have no wish to join the ranks of the ‘seaweeds’ (overseas returnees waiting to find a job back home),” write professors Lucia Lo of York University, Shaolu Yu of Rhodes College and Wei Li of Arizona State University.

In addition to overseas migrants losing their old social networks in China, the professors say many high-tech migrants “came to Canada, not necessarily to advance their own careers, but to seek a better education and future for their children. Thus, returning to China is less likely to be an attractive alternative for them.”

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The B.C. Green party wants to create three different health ministries, the B.C. NDP says it will boost hospital operating room times to reduce surgical wait times, while the B.C. Liberals plan to keep renovating and building new hospitals – with $2.7 billion earmarked in spending for such capital construction in the next three years alone.

The governing Liberals are also promising to increase the number of medical doctors graduating from the University of B.C., from the current 288 to 400 by 2025. UBC is already one of the largest medical schools in North America, but Liberal MLA Andrew Wilkinson, a medical doctor, said it should expand even more “because we need more doctors.”

The Liberals have committed to funding the training of 500 more nurses per year (about 1,300 registered nurses graduate each year) by 2022. The Liberals are emphasizing their record on doubling medical and nursing school spaces and building new hospitals to contrast with the NDP’s record of “failing to build a single new hospital” in the decade (1991 to 2001) it was last in power.

The three major parties in this B.C. election campaign are diverse in their approaches to many issues, but all are in agreement that home care, long-term (residential) care and mental health need to be bigger priorities. Amid the opioid crisis, there’s consensus among the parties that more services are needed, especially for addictions treatment.

The Liberals say that on top of the $1.5 billion being spent on mental health and addiction treatment, they will add another $165 million over five years for more recovery beds, counselling, research and housing for the most vulnerable. The NDP wants police to disrupt illicit drug supply chains and will advocate for tougher penalties on fentanyl drug dealers.

The Greens and the NDP believe a whole new ministry is needed to tackle mental health and addictions. The Greens also want to revive a healthy living ministry that the Liberals killed off after the 2010 Olympics. The focus would be on health promotion, disease prevention and active lifestyles. The Greens say their third health ministry would be focused on management of the overall acute care system.

“It’s not about creating more government bureaucracy,” said Green party spokeswoman Jillian Oliver, adding that having separate ministries means other priorities are getting just as much attention as, say, hospital budgets.

Hospitals gobble up at least one-third of the $20-billion provincial health-care budget but the steadily increasing allocated amount never seems to be enough to make a sizeable dent in waiting lists, now at an historical high.

With nearly 90,000 patients waiting for surgery, surgical wait times are a chronic challenge. Former health minister Terry Lake acknowledged in an exit interview that he regrets his government was not more successful in finding ways to tackle wait times for scheduled operations. Lake said although a surgical committee was set up three years ago to find ways to reduce wait times, he frankly admits the issue took a back seat to the fentanyl crisis, especially in the past year when overdose deaths kept escalating.

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“My focus shifted somewhat and I probably didn’t spend enough time on surgical wait lists as I could have,” he said. 

While someone else will be the next health minister, the now retired (from politics) Lake said population aging and patient expectations are two of the big factors causing wait lists to consistently grow. Although there’s been a 178-per-cent increase in the number of knee replacements in 15 years of Liberal rule and a 116 per cent increase in hip replacements, the latest report by the Canadian Institute of Health Information shows 40 per cent of patients are not getting hip replacements within the benchmark time of six months and just over half of patients are not getting knee replacements in the same time period.

The Liberal government drafted a 2015 policy paper about improving operating-room efficiencies and wait-times, but many of the recommendations have not been implemented apart from increasing the number of cases being contracted out — with public funding — to private surgery centres. Lake said just before the election writ dropped: “We have to find cost-effective ways to meet demands. We need to look at dedicated hospitals or outpatient clinics that can do those types of surgeries. Insofar as private clinics, I think we can contract for ‘X’ number of surgeries, while holding them to stiff quality controls, as long as it’s publicly paid and doesn’t violate laws.”

Soon after Lake made those comments, the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) disclosed it had signed a $30-million contract with a new private surgery clinic that will handle thousands of outsourced day surgeries over the next five years. Private clinics can only do minor operations since they can’t keep patients more than one night under current regulations.

Judy Darcy, a good bet to become health minister if the NDP wins the May 9 provincial election, said there wouldn’t be nearly 100,000 patients waiting for surgery if public hospital operating rooms weren’t sitting idle 18 per cent of the day. No operating rooms have extended hours, she said.

“There is unused capacity there and we think that one of the solutions is to extend hours, just like what the government finally did for MRI clinics, to reduce the incredible backlogs.”

Yet Darcy concedes a chronic shortage of operating room nurses is a factor in OR scheduling. And while the Liberal government has indicated willingness to depend on private clinics more through publicly funded contracts, the NDP is wary of that approach. 

Although there are many nurses who prefer working in private surgery settings, the NDP agrees with the B.C. Nurses’ Union that private clinics “drain” hospitals of nurses and doctors. Darcy said the trend toward contracting out is “worrisome” and the NDP would do rigorous audits to ensure patients aren’t queue jumping or that private clinics aren’t directly billing patients for services usually covered by the provincial health insurance scheme.

Darcy said she doesn’t buy Lake’s mea culpa that the opioid crisis has been so much of a distraction that the government has been unable to fix long wait times.

“The crisis in surgical wait times has been going on for many years. The government has been bragging about having a $2-billion surplus at the same time that people have been waiting too long for everything.”

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Yet another tent city has taken over an empty Vancouver lot as activists continue pleas for government to act on the homelessness crisis.

Around 9 a.m. on Friday, organizers with the Alliance Against Displacement helped about a dozen homeless people establish the “Ten Year Tent City” in an empty city-owned lot at 950 Main St. in the Downtown Eastside.

Activists and homeless people laid down tarps, pitched tents and painted over graffiti with anti-poverty messages. Two men hammered together a wooden frame for a semi-permanent structure, before fire officials told them to take it down.

The encampment’s name commemorates those who pitched tents on the same site a decade ago during a visit by a rapporteur from the United Nations ahead of the 2010 Olympics, according to organizers.

Along with an empty lot at 946 Main St., the site has been slated by the city for the development of 30 social housing units in partnership with B.C. Housing and Lu’ma Native Housing Society.

But Maria Wallstam, an organizer with the Alliance Against Displacement, said people have grown tired of waiting on the government to supply more $375 shelter-rate units.

Homeless advocates and the homeless erect tents in a vacant lot on Main Street in Vancouver, Friday, April 28, 2017.

Wallstam said the tent city was set up 11 days before the provincial election to draw attention to what her group perceives as a failure by candidates to adequately address homelessness in their platforms and debates.

“The parties are silent about it,” she said. “This a crisis and we need them to commit to building social housing now.”

Wallstam said an urgent need for action was highlighted in a report released earlier this week by Megaphone magazine, which noted a surge in homeless deaths in recent years. Megaphone is calling for the provincial government to form a “death review panel.”

And with ongoing police harassment and public apathy toward the homeless, their peril should become an election issue, Wallstam said. “We need to deal with this right now.”

In response to the Megaphone report, B.C. Green party leader Andrew Weaver issued a statement of support for the magazine’s call for a death review panel. Weaver also highlighted his party’s plan to address homelessness, found in its platform, which includes a pledge to construct 4,000 new units of affordable housing each year.

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The NDP pledges in its platform to create a provincial poverty-reduction plan and conduct an province-wide homeless count. The Liberals do not mention homelessness in their platform, but in an email a spokeswoman said the B.C. government is providing more than $203 million in 2017 for more than 14,000 emergency shelter spaces, subsidized units and rent supplements to support those who are already homeless or at risk.

Vancouver has been home to several tent cities in recent years, most recently last year at 58 West Hastings St. and in 2014 at Oppenheimer Park. In 2011, a tent city was constructed outside the Vancouver Art Gallery during the “Occupy Vancouver” protest.

Maple Ridge, Abbotsford and Victoria have also been home to tent cities in the past two years.

Preliminary numbers from the 2017 Metro Vancouver homeless count released last month show that 3,605 people in the region were identified as homeless this year, a sharp 30-per-cent increase from the previous count of 2,777 in 2014. Between 2011 and 2014, the number rose only five per cent.

Sarah was part of the homeless group putting up tents at an empty lot in the Downtown Eastside.

A 21-year-old woman identifying herself only as Sarah said she became homeless just two months ago after being evicted from a Downtown Eastside single-room occupancy hotel.

Sarah, who is pregnant, said she was pitching a tent so that she and her boyfriend could have a place to stay together, after bad experiences in shelters with bedbugs.

She has refused transitional housing offered to her, which she said are typically for women only and would prevent her boyfriend from staying with her.

“I just decided to move into a tent,” she said. “So far, so good — besides the cops, this city and the weather.”

Robert Bonner, who was helping set up tents Friday, said activists were there “just to prove that nothing has changed” and to pressure the government into concentrating on housing policy province-wide.

Bonner disputed B.C.’s retired marketing slogan for the province as “The Best Place on Earth.”

“Well, it is for some,” Bonner said. “But for a good majority of people living below the poverty line, it’s no picnic.”

City staff, firefighters and police arrived shortly after the first tents were pitched.

Spokesman Tobin Postma said in an email that while the City of Vancouver supports people’s right to engage in lawful protest, it does not support protests in the form of encampments on city property, which in the past have raised health, safety and fire concerns.

“The individuals at 950 Main are violating the Trespass Act and the City Land Regulation Bylaw and have been directed to remove any tents or other structures and depart the property,” Postma said.

“If there are people on site who are homeless, City staff are working with B.C. Housing to secure accommodation for those who are willing to engage with us.”

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A longtime member of the Independent Soldiers gang is behind bars after allegedly carrying a firearm contrary to a court order.

Donald Bryce Lyons, 45, was arrested in Revelstoke on April 14 by B.C.’s anti-gang unit.

He remains in custody and is scheduled to appear in a Vernon courtroom on May 11.

Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Lyons was the subject of a drug investigation in Vernon when he was arrested on the gun charge.

“In the course of that investigation, Lyons was found to be in possession of firearms against a court-imposed prohibition,” Winpenny said Friday. “He is being held due to those charges.”

She said the original drug investigation is ongoing.

Donnie Lyons with his IS tattoo on his right side.

Lyons’s arrest came three weeks after Dustin Rogers, a 26-year-old member of the Independent Soldiers, was found murdered near the intersection of Wilson Jackson and Jordache roads in Vernon.

Rogers had travelled to Thailand and Indonesia in the weeks before his death with other members of the IS from Calgary. His gang-mates then attended his funeral on April 15.

Lyons has a long history with police. He had his parole revoked in November 2014 for hanging out with criminals, just months after being granted statutory release on drug trafficking and firearms convictions in both Manitoba and B.C.

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In December 2012, he was returned to prison after allegations he put a hit out on someone. Corrections officials couldn’t confirm the information, and he was later released.

In July 2013, he was accused of assaulting a girlfriend and picked up for violating his parole. He was charged with assault and later pleaded guilty to uttering a death threat.

Parole documents from 2014 state that he was “observed by police with three other men who all have criminal records.”

“The three men were wearing disguises, were in possession of weapons, and were believed by police to be planning to break into a marijuana grow-op.”

Two of those caught with Lyons were also on parole conditions.

After he was returned to jail, Lyons claimed to corrections officials that he didn’t really know the men he was with, and that they had each denied they had criminal records.

The parole board wasn’t buying it.

“The board notes that you were in the community for less than a month before your release was suspended,” the decision said. “You chose to put yourself in a high-risk situation and you appear to have been involved in the planning of potential criminal activity.”

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Andrew Weaver said Friday he is done with provincial politics unless the Green party can gain at least one more seat in the legislature.

Appearing at a Postmedia News editorial board in Vancouver, Weaver refused to say what he considered to be a minimum acceptable outcome in the May 9 provincial election.

“Why I don’t like answering that question is because it sets an expectation,” he said. “Right now, we know the sky’s the limit. We’re in the hands of the people of B.C. Whatever number of seats we’re given, we’ll be grateful for that. If they don’t like our vision and give us zero seats, obviously it’s been a failure.”

Weaver was more definitive in terms of his personal future, saying he needs to add at least one MLA or he plans to walk away after he completes his next four-year term, should he be re-elected on May 9.

“If I do not see what I have internally thought was success in the B.C. Greens, I will step aside. I will run my term … and that means I’ve failed. Going back in, if I’m the only MLA, then I’m done.”

He allowed that running for the Greens “is not the easiest path to the legislature” and that “we don’t have a lot of career politicians. We have a lot of principled people.”

Weaver, a climate-change authority on leave from the University of Victoria, was elected B.C.’s first Green MLA in 2013 in Oak Bay-Gordon Head. The Greens are fielding candidates in 83 of 87 ridings this election.

On the contentious issue of B.C.’s grizzly bear trophy hunt, Weaver said he would make it mandatory for anyone who kills a grizzly to pack out the meat to their home, a condition that would effectively eliminate foreign trophy hunters.

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He said his law would allow continued hunting by aboriginals, including for ceremonial purposes, as well as residents who are prepared to eat the grizzly meat. “We do support hunting for food.”

He said he also supports science-based wildlife management, noting there may be times when there are “a few too many angry male grizzlies killing cubs.

“You may have to make difficult decisions, you know, when we need to harvest a couple of male grizzlies because … there are too many and they’re killing the cubs.”

That notion is ridiculous to wildlife researchers. 

“He is not only on the wrong side of history on the grizzly hunt issue, but he is also ‘dead’ wrong,” said Chris Darimont, an associate professor at the University of Victoria.

Research shows that when older males are shot the cub killing goes up, Darimont said. 

“Other males fill vacancies left by those slaughtered,” he said, adding those new bears on average are less related to the cubs in the area. Killing resident cubs sets in motion “the chemical cascades to enable females to breed again. Otherwise, these females can be with their cubs for up to two more years and not on the dating scene.”

The Liberals have pledged to end grizzly hunting in the Great Bear Rainforest, a move the party acknowledges will save only about 11 bears per year. The NDP has promised to ban the trophy hunt province-wide, while leaving open the possibility for hunts where the grizzly meat is consumed. One way to regulate such hunts may be to require hunters to turn over those parts of the grizzly that might be used for trophies, including the head and pelt, the NDP says.

The province estimates there are 15,000 grizzles in B.C.

Asked by the editorial board if the Greens are opposed to growth, Weaver said: “I can tell you a scientific fact: Exponential growth or continued growth in a finite system has one solution, and that’s collapse. It’s an economic fallacy to think that we can continue to grow forever.”

He did predict a new industrial revolution is in the offing, making “previous ones pale in comparison,” based on a movement to non-carbon-emitting energy systems. “That will lead, yes, to massive economic growth” for those positioned to lead, he said.

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Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver with the Vancouver Sun/Province editorial board.

A man was taken to hospital early Saturday after falling about 30 metres from a trail near Wreck Beach.

Vancouver Fire assistant chief Peter Bridge said the man, who was in his early 20s, was walking with friends on Trail 4 at about 1 a.m. Saturday when he fell off a cliff. Two rescuers with the department’s technical rescue team were lowered down to the unconscious man, who was bundled up and then lowered down to the beach below.

A Coast Guard hovercraft brought the man from the beach to Spanish Banks where an ambulance was waiting.

The entire rescue took a little over two-and-half hours, said Bridge.

The man’s condition was not known Saturday.

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A Nanaimo doctor suspended for defying an Island Health order to use a new software, says he was acting to protect his patients’ safety.

Dr. Paul Mitenko is one of seven internal medicine specialists at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital who went back to using pen and paper to order medication and tests such as X-rays and blood work, on Thursday morning.

By late morning, Mitenko said he got a phone call telling him he was suspended for 24 hours.

“It’s not a moment of shame for me. It’s a moment of pride,” he said. “We thought it was something that had to be done by conscience.”

The internal medicine department joins the hospital’s intensive care unit and emergency department in abandoning the software, which is part of IHealth. IHealth is Island Health’s $174-million program to connect all acute-care and diagnostic services through one electronic patient medical record, originally set to expand to Victoria by the end of 2017.

Mitenko said orders made using the software have been deleted, modified, transferred or delayed. The software has also been criticized by staff for being too cumbersome and taking time away from patient care.

One of Mitenko’s own patients, who had a bowel disease, was taken off heavy intravenous drugs and, accidentally, given nothing to replace them.

“Not until he sees a surgeon that night and says: ‘Aren’t I supposed to be getting some oral cortisone for my bowel?’ The surgeon said: ‘Yeah, you sure are. I ordered it last night. And that damn computer system missed it.’ It wasn’t until the next day that the patient got the medications he needed,” Mitenko said.

Errors have also occurred with sensitive dosages such as insulin, blood clotters and anti-coagulants, he said.

The doctors aren’t against electronic health records, but say the software should be safer. They don’t believe it’s safe enough, after one year of working with Island Health to find solutions, Mitenko said.

“This is the worst situation I’ve ever seen in a hospital in the 30 years I’ve been here,” Mitenko said.

Dr. Ben Williams, who has helped lead the introduction of IHealth, said he could not comment on personnel matters.

The paper orders submitted are being entered into the IHealth system by other physicians, he said.

However, the hospital does not have the capacity to accommodate if too many more doctors revert to paper orders.

IHealth was unveiled in March 2016 at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, Oceanside Health Centre and Dufferin Place residential care facility. Nine weeks later, doctors in the intensive care and emergency departments voiced concerns about patient safety and reverted to pen and paper orders.

In July, Health Minister Terry Lake ordered a review of the system by Dr. Doug Cochrane, the province’s patient safety and quality officer.

Cochrane found potential for errors and said Island Health should have spent more time tailoring software to the needs of front-line workers, before introducing it. He said the system needs to be modified and cannot be rolled out at facilities in Greater Victoria or the rest of the Island until that happens.

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On Feb. 17, Island Health’s board and administration agreed to suspend the order-entry component of IHealth, at the urging of the Nanaimo Medical Staff Association. Seventy-five per cent of association members in a vote said they wanted the system suspended until it was improved.

Island Health reversed that decision last month after it found the software is too entrenched in other electronic health records. Instead, it committed to adding extra support for staff while improvements are made.

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Non-resident patients have stuck B.C. health authorities with $75 million in unpaid hospital and ambulance bills over the last five years, according to figures given to Postmedia News by the authorities.

On an annual basis, unpaid bills have varied, from a high of $16.6 million written off by health authorities in 2012-13, to a low of $13.3 million in 2011-12.

The amount is dwarfed by the $334 million health authorities collected from non-resident patients, either through insurance or direct payments, but represents a cost taxpayers wind-up having to absorb. It’s an issue that has been on the radar of provincial health officials in the past.

In 2006, then-Health Minister George Abbott encouraged health authorities to find ways to collect for services delivered, because B.C. “is not in the habit of providing free health care for the rest of the world,” when the amount owed was around $10 million per year. More recently, a Ministry of Health official wasn’t made available to comment on the current numbers, citing rules preventing civil servants from speaking to the media during election periods.

Postmedia put the question of how big a concern the unpaid medical bills of non-residents should be to the B.C. Liberal and NDP campaigns.

Liberal communications staff member Alexis Pavelich emailed an unattributed comment noting that all health authorities have policies with respect to the collection of bills and that writeoffs are “fortunately rare,” amounting to less than one-10th of one per cent of health funding.

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Health authorities do, however, work hard at collecting fees, said Vancouver Coastal Health spokeswoman Anna Marie D’Angelo, because “it is important for health-care sustainability.”

“We never deny urgent and emergent health care based on someone’s ability to pay,” D’Angelo said in an emailed response, “but we do expect to be compensated as our health care is not free, it is paid for by the taxpayers of B.C. and is intended for their use.”

Of the health authorities, Vancouver Coastal, the biggest patient-receiving jurisdiction, had the biggest outstanding bill at $40 million over five years. (It also collected the most at $133 million.)

D’Angelo said they collect 65 to 75 per cent of bills to non-resident patients. And while VCH’s uncollected billings are larger than other authorities, it’s also the authority that sees more tourist patients and provides the most specialized care.

It’s also difficult to tell whether patients might be coming to Canada specifically for health care. D’Angelo said the information that the health authority collects doesn’t capture the reasons that non-patients are in Canada.

“To put things in perspective, VCH has an annual budget of $3.2 billion, which is spent on acute and community health-care services for more than one million people in the province,” D’Angelo said.

The figures don’t separate-out patients by nationality, and include anyone not covered by the Canadian medical insurance system.

The Lower Mainland’s Fraser Health Authority had the second-highest amount of bills owing at $15.4 million over five years, which spokeswoman Tasleem Juma said “has remained fairly consistent,” at between $2.4 million and $3.3 million per year.

All the authorities reported that their finance departments keep track of billings to non-resident patients and are making efforts to collect payments for unpaid amounts.

“Our finance department makes every effort to work with the patient, family or insurance companies to obtain payment,” said Andrea Palmer, spokeswoman for the Northern Health Authority, before accounts are sent to a third-party collection agency.

Northern Health, which covers most of the province north of Quesnel, had the smallest amount of unpaid bills at $348,960 over four years. (The agency was unable to provide earlier years of figures due to a change in technology.)

At Island Health, which covers all of Vancouver Island and part of the Central Coast, “billing and collection work is strongly, but compassionately, engaged right from the patient’s initial presentation,” said spokeswoman Meribeth Burton in an email.

Island Health had the third-highest amount of non-resident bills left owing at $5.6 million over the past five years, and fourth-highest amount collected at $34.3 million over five years.

Burton said Island Health makes personal contact with patients owing $100 or more and sends out invoices for four consecutive months for accounts under $2,500 before turning them over to a collection agency. Accounts over $2,500 are only turned over after considering possible legal action.

Interior Health, which covers the south Cariboo, Okanagan and Kootenays, saw $4.6 million in unpaid bills over five years, while collecting on $46.6 million. 

“Any unresolved accounts without a payment plan are outsourced to a third-party collection agency,” said spokeswoman Darshan Lindsay in an email.

The Provincial Health Services Authority, which takes in Children’s Hospital and B.C. Women’s Hospital, saw the second-lowest amount of unpaid bills at $1.5 million over five years, while collecting $14.4 million.

B.C. Emergency Health Services, which operates the B.C. Ambulance Service, wrote off $7.8 million from non-resident patients over five years, but collected $36 million.

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Two young girls and a 30-year-old woman are dead after a devastating three-car crash in Coquitlam on Friday evening.

Police said impairment was not a factor in the accident, which happened just before 6:20 p.m. on Lougheed Highway, north of Pitt River Road.

The young woman and two children, ages three and nine, were in separate vehicles. Eight people in total were involved in the crash, with many of them sent to hospital with varying injuries, said a Coquitlam RCMP statement.

On Saturday morning, police were asking for witnesses or anyone with in-car footage of the crash to come forward. Lougheed Highway was closed between Chilco Drive and Pitt River Road well into Friday night, but was reopened again Saturday.

Five minutes after the first advance polls opened at 8 a.m. on Saturday, there was a lineup of more than a dozen people waiting to cast their ballots at an Abbotsford church.

Elections B.C. spokesman Andrew Watson said the number of people voting at advanced polls has been steadily rising over the last decade, from five or six per cent in the mid-1990s to 20 per cent in 2013.

“Given the trend, we’ve definitely planned for it,” he said.

The updated Elections Act also designates six days for advanced polling this year, up from four last election.

“When we ask people why they didn’t vote, they often respond that they wanted to, but they were too busy,” said Watson. “We want to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to vote.”

Those in line Saturday morning cited busy schedules and being away on election day as reasons for lining-up.

“I’ll be out of town on election day and unsure if I’ll make it back before 8 p.m.,” said Lovella Schellenberg, who voted in Chilliwack on Saturday morning. “Every vote counts.”

The polls will be open again Sunday, as well as Wednesday through next Saturday, May 6.

The polls will be open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on those days, but voters should note that not all advance-voting places are open every day of the advance-voting period, said Watson.

The polls and the dates and times they’re open are listed on the Where to Vote app, available through elections.bc.ca/wtv.

A complete list is available at elections.bc.ca/2017-provincial-general-election/where-to-vote.

The statistics for advance voting will be published the day after each day of advance voting at elections.bc.ca/resources/statistics/.

In the last provincial election, about 20 per cent of the votes, or 366,558 votes, were cast in advance.

Voters are asked to bring their Where to Vote card and acceptable voter ID with them to the polls.

A list of acceptable voter ID is available on the Elections B.C. website at elections.bc.ca/2017-general-election/voter-id.

On May 9, polls will be open between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. and votes can also be cast at district electoral offices until 4 p.m. that day, said the release.

For more information visit the Elections B.C. website at elections.bc.ca.

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 — With files by Susan Lazarak

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The B.C. government says it has done nothing wrong by redirecting money from the income-assistance cheques of recovering heroin addicts to pay private methadone-dispensing clinics for treatment.

In documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court last month, the provincial government says private clinics can charge extra for counselling services not provided by a doctor, and that such fees can be paid for out of a beneficiary’s monthly income or disability allowance.

Laura Shaver is in the methadone-maintenance program and sued the province in November 2015 in what could become a class-action suit.

Shaver’s notice of claim says she was forced to sign a government-drafted agreement at the Yale Medical Centre in Vancouver because she need treatment for a heroin addiction and there was no room at a public facility.

The fee agreement is $60, which is reduced by about $42 through a government-provided supplement, leaving the remaining $18 to be drawn from her monthly support allowance.

The government’s response to the civil claim says it didn’t force Shaver to attend the private clinic, which the province says operates separately from government.

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The B.C. Liberals used the election campaign Saturday to pick a new fight with the City of Vancouver, saying if re-elected they’ll strip the city of its powers to restrict natural-gas use in new building construction.

Andrew Wilkinson, Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Quilchena, said a Liberal government would change the legislation that lets the city set its own building code, called the Vancouver Charter, and remove its ability to crackdown on the use of fossil fuels like natural gas.

“We’ve come to the conclusion the only way to deal with this situation is to repeal the city’s ban on natural gas,” said Wilkinson.

The city’s natural-gas restrictions, which have been known for at least nine months, are set to come into effect May 1.

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Vancouver has insisted there is no actual ban on natural gas, and it’s simply trying to move toward more energy-efficient developments that reduce pollution.

“The city wishes to clarify that it is not banning the use of natural gas in Vancouver,” a press release from the city said Saturday. 

“The City’s new rezoning policy (the Green Building Rezoning Policy which comes into effect May 1, 2017), sets energy efficiency and emissions targets for new buildings only, and only if a developer seeks a rezoning. How a developer meets those targets is up to them; it can involve a mix of better insulation, thicker windows, and better design, as well as opting for renewable energy. Developers can choose to build new buildings with natural gas, provided they can meet the energy efficiency and emissions targets (50 per cent decrease in GHGs).”

However, the changes do place energy-efficiency rules on new developments, which some in the development community have said are so restrictive that they effectively constitute a ban on traditional natural gas, because it’s unlikely developers would choose to build with gas connections under the rules.

Among the critics of the plan is B.C.’s restaurant industry, which has warned the ultimate effect will hurt small businesses and restaurants that use natural gas for cooking, patios, fireplaces and barbecues. Ian Tostenson, president of the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association, said Saturday that it’s unrealistic for Vancouver to ask the industry to transition to “renewable natural gas,” which is a different product that’s more expensive.

“It’s semantics, they are banning natural gas,” he said of the city. “But they are saying we’re not because it’s renewable natural gas. But there’s not enough renewable natural gas.

“Over the last year we’ve had a lot of small-business owners absolutely concerned around the uncertainty of this issue,” he added. “I really appreciate for our sector the provincial government stood-up and did something.”

Wilkinson brushed aside questions about why the Liberals didn’t use their majority to make the changes months ago, rather than leaving it to two days before the rules come into effect, during an election campaign.

“The ban is about to come into place Monday,” he said. “It’s timely to get out the word now so people don’t’ make decisions and face a flip-flop.”

He also said a re-elected Liberal government wouldn’t go so far as to take away the city’s larger building-code powers when it cracks open the charter for amendment.

“Our plan is to keep the existing availability of natural gas in place and that may require a small change to the Vancouver Charter,” he said. “Overall things will stay the same.”

Still, the move is likely to provoke an angry response from the Vision-controlled Vancouver city council, which has frequently clashed with the provincial Liberal government.

It could also be an attempt by the Liberal party to shore up votes in the business community on the eve of the May 9 election in several Vancouver-area ridings that could be close races.

The city pointed out that the province quietly changed the B.C. Building Code just after the election began to bring the rest of the province into similar compliance with Vancouver’s new energy-efficiency rules. The Liberals dispute that, saying Vancouver’s language remains much more restrictive and the change isn’t the same.

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The third annual Cannabis Hemp Conference and Expo promises something for everyone.

For the lab-coat set, a keynote address by neurologist Dr. Ethan Russo promises to illuminate the pharmacology of cannabis. Or, if you’re hungry for a different experience, Vancouver’s self-styled, “weed-diva” Watermelon will show you some tricks for cooking with marijuana.

“We have really focused this year on the workshops as a way for people get a hands-on experience with cannabis as a medicine in four different ways, as a topical for healthy skin, cooking with cannabis, organic home-growing, and healthy edibles and cannabis juicing,” said organizer Salimeh Tabrizi. “Not everyone can smoke or bake, but juicing is an alternative for people who need it.”

The conference — slated for May 6 and 7 at the University of B.C. — includes a full program of workshops and panels, along with five international experts to deliver keynote talks on topics from medical uses for cannabis to hemp as an industrial crop.

If you listen carefully you may even hear the strains of reggae music wafting down the halls, but definitely not as loud as recent marijuana-driven gatherings.

“We respect the activists who have been pushing and fighting for legalization for the past 30 years, but 4/20 is a cultural phenomenon with freedom and activism,” said Tabrizi. “This is more of a gathering of experts and about education. We want to talk about your mother who has cancer and how she might use cannabis to relieve her pain and nausea.”

Unlike past years, this year’s conference takes place with the express promise of marijuana legalization in Canada, which has inventors, creators and potential businesses gearing up for commerce. Thirty exhibitors are booked to display wares at the Expo, many of them from the medical and scientific sectors.

“We have 50 speakers who are going to talk about the research that has been done on cannabis and its potential as a medicine, as a replacement for opioids and the genetics of cannabis,” she said.

Growing knowledge of the human endocannabinoid system — cannabinoid receptors found throughout the brain and peripheral nervous system — is opening the door to a diversity of medical uses for cannabis and its derivatives, she said.

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Scientists in the U.K. and B.C. have created a “lab in a cell” to study one of the world’s most-widespread, sexually transmitted diseases.

Using a gene-editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9, the researchers are able to alter the properties of white blood cells in specific ways to see how chlamydia bacteria are able to penetrate and overwhelm cells, according to microbiologist Robert Hancock of the University of B.C.

The process has already revealed new drug targets and identified key genes involved in fighting chlamydia infection, described in the journal Nature Communications.

More than 130 million people are infected each year worldwide and 100,000 cases are reported in Canada, but the real number may be much higher.

Chlamydia overwhelms a white blood cell.

Chlamydia is called “the silent disease” because in many individuals symptoms are mild to unnoticeable and that means the disease often has weeks or months to do its damage.

In men, chlamydia can lead to painful discharge and, in some cases, infertility. In women — who are least likely to have noticeable symptoms — it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, a painful often permanent condition.

“At that point you can take away the infection, but it doesn’t make any difference, the PID is chronic,” said Hancock, the study’s lead author.

PID is also a common cause of infertility in women.

The researchers at UBC and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the U.K. were able to overcome a significant scientific hurdle, one that can be used to unlock the secrets of other pathogens.

“The form of chlamydia that causes problems in people will only grow in people, so there are very limited options for researchers to investigate new treatments or to understand how the disease works,” he said.

Animal models are problematic. Because the human strain won’t thrive in mice they require a “mouse-adapted” strain of the bacteria, “but it’s not really the same disease.”

Instead, the researchers used human stem cells to create white blood cells called macrophages that respond to the bacteria just like cells in the body.

“With gene-editing we can knock out genes and do gene replacements and all kinds of fancy tricks, which allows you to manipulate the cell in any way you want,” he said. “Once we know how chlamydia exploits the holes in a cell’s defences, we can look for ways to toughen their armour.”

Because so-called “host-directed therapies” don’t treat the bacteria itself, chlamydia will be unable to develop resistance to these new drugs, which is an increasingly common problem for doctors treating harmful bacteria.

“You are just making the host (cell) better at preventing the infection,” he said. “It’s really cool scientifically because we can use this method not just for chlamydia, but for any human pathogen, whether it’s a virus or another bacterium.”

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Jacqueline Tupper has a busy life and little time to cook healthy meals.

The challenge of eating well is made that much harder when her dietary requirements differ from those of her children, ages four and six, which differ again from those of husband Bryce. Oh, and she also owns and operates a South Granville boutique, Lord’s Shoes and Apparel.

“It’s a really busy time, which is why Eat Your Cake saves my bacon,” she says. 

Eat Your Cake is one of a dozen or more Vancouver startups that shop for food, prepare meals and deliver them, ready to eat, to your door. There are companies that just do your shopping, while others will send food and a chef or nutritionist to cook it for you in your own home.

“We get three totally different levels of food from them,” Tupper explains. “I get my lunches and snacks, all vegetarian. When we get dinner, half of it caters to my kids and their palate and the other half is for my husband and I, so part vegetarian for me and fish for him.”

Eat Your cake delivers to Tupper’s home twice a week, leaving prepared meals in her fridge while she is at work.

Bryce and Jacqueline Tupper put out the food prepared by Eat Your Cake as their young sons Sebastian (left) and Nolan get anxious for dinner. ‘It’s a really busy time, which is why Eat Your Cake saves my bacon,’ business owner/operator Jacqueline Tupper says of the Vancouver startup that shops for food, prepares meals and delivers them, ready to eat, to your door.

“Before I go to work I check the fridge, pick my lunch and there’s always a yummy treat to go with it and off I go to work,” she says. “It’s always something new, it’s always something fresh. If there’s anything I don’t like, I just say I didn’t enjoy it and it never shows up again.”

The Tuppers are typical of a growing market: families that are outsourcing shopping and cooking to experts who ensure that they are eating healthy, often organic, meals as often as possible. Depending on the service level, people pay from about $200 to $500 a week.

Eat Your Cake has nearly 500 subscribers in mainly Vancouver, on the North Shore, Richmond and Surrey, and their client base is growing “rapidly.”

“We specialize in pre-made meals,” says founder Joanna Wolski. “Our clients discuss their health goals with one of our nutritionists and then we come up with a meal plan geared to weight loss, athletic support or healthy eating.”

Most people opt for a weekdays package that provides lunches and dinners Monday to Friday, which allows them to cook or go out to eat on the weekend.

The rest break down into two groups: People who want three meals a day, seven days a week; and people who just need meals a couple of days a week, for a weekend meal or a difficult weeknight.

“Some people want to be taken care of all day every day, breakfast lunch, dinner and snacks,” says Wolski.

Buying prepared, healthy meals is a double win for Annie Wang, a project manager for an IT consulting firm who works 70 to 80 hours a week. It saves precious time and relieves her of the need to obsess over labels, macrodiets and micronutrients.

“I do not have time to cook. This gives me a lot of freedom with my time and helps control my weight,” she says. “I’m a bit of a label whore and I don’t want to be counting carbohydrates or weighing food on a scale. I’ve done that and it’s so hard on you mentally.”

Fresh in Your Fridge doesn’t just prepare meals, but will come to your home and cook them, too.

Wang buys prepared meals — some vegetarian and some with meat — to eat Monday through Thursday while her husband is travelling for work.

“It’s a pain to cook for one and this leaves me the flexibility to vary my diet on the weekends, see friends and be social,” she says. 

Fresh in Your Fridge takes the concept one step further, not just prepping meals, but coming to your home and cooking them, too.

Founder Erika Weissenborn has a stable of nutritionists with culinary training who do home visits to cook between 10 and 25 meals to be eaten throughout the week.

Most of her clients have highly specialized diets or long lists of food sensitivities, but she also caters to people who want to eat vegan, paleo or gluten-free.

“We work with a lot of people that want something a little more high end, especially families that don’t want to eat out of four little plastic tubs,” she says. “It feels more natural and a little more homey to have someone cooking in your home.”

A brand new startup, Community Grocer, hopes to tap into demand for local, sustainable and organic groceries from people who are still keen to cook their own food. Their Kickstarter campaign is selling $50 memberships with the promise that ethical grocery choices will be offered at a 20- to 40-per-cent-below retail prices.

“If we sell 150 memberships we can buy about four months inventory of non-perishable foods,” says founder Michael Menashy, a serial entrepreneur. “This is going to allow us to buy in mass volumes.”

Clients can shop online and then either pick up their groceries at the Mount Pleasant depot or have them delivered. When membership hits 500, Menashy will add frozen meat to the product list and hopes to include Avalon Dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables within a year.

“We envision this as a one-stop shop for people,” he says. “There are a lot people who want to support these products but find them hard to get or unaffordable. When you do find these kinds of food all in one place, you realize you’ve met your moral goals but spent your whole paycheque.”

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Businesses in the prepared food space

Fresh Prep: You cook prepped meals

Chomp: Vegan prepared meals

Vancouver Muscle Meals: Ready-to-eat meals, delivered

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VICTORIA — A hefty American tariff on Canadian softwood could be devastating for British Columbia’s economy, but it may also be advantageous for political leaders on the campaign trail who are looking to cement or build their images with voters, says a former premier.

The imposition of tariffs as high as 24 per cent on Canadian softwood exports shot the issue to the top of B.C.’s election campaign, with Liberal Leader Christy Clark and John Horgan, leader of the New Democrats, quickly portraying themselves as towers of strength ready to shoulder tough times ahead.

Forestry is B.C.’s dominant resource industry, directly employing more than 60,000 people in more than 140 communities. The United States is B.C.’s largest market for softwood lumber, accounting for $4.6 billion in sales last year.

Clark seized upon the tariff issue as pivotal to her jobs-focused re-election campaign. She told B.C. workers she had their backs and suggested Horgan did not have the temperament or strength to handle such a comprehensive issue with provincial, national and international implications.

Clark demanded Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ban the shipment of thermal coal through B.C.’s ports in retaliation to the tariffs. She said Friday if Trudeau did not take retaliatory action she was prepared to go it alone and impose a heavy tax on U.S. coal shipments through B.C. ports.

Horgan said the threats ring hollow because Clark has been silent on softwood even though the trade deal between Canada and the U.S. expired more than two years ago. He said now that B.C. is in the final days of an election campaign, Clark is suggesting it’s her top-of-mind concern.

“She’s obviously trying to present herself as a calm, experienced leader,” said Ujjal Dosanjh, a former B.C. New Democrat premier and federal Liberal member of Parliament. “Whether she succeeds or not remains to be seen.”

He said the hard negotiations on the softwood file will be conducted by officials linked to the Canadian and U.S. governments, but Clark’s strategy to focus on her history as a determined politician, her experience and charisma are all factors weighing in her favour with voters.

“That may stand you in good stead,” said Dosanjh.

David Black, an associate professor at the Royal Roads University school of communication and culture in Victoria, said Clark is offering voters symbolic reassurance on an issue she has little control over.

“It’s fascinating to watch a provincial leader position herself as a peer of, and as a dialogue partner with, a national leader,” he said. “Things don’t usually work that way.”

Black said Clark’s suggestions about the threats B.C. faces from softwood tariffs and the possibility of further protectionist actions from the U.S. administration position her as “a resolute leader who is seasoned and tried and true. So, let’s stay the course because it’s a dangerous world.”

He said Horgan is campaigning as an economic populist ready to fight to make life better for people, while Green leader Andrew Weaver presents himself as a new face of politics that is neither right nor left.

Dosanjh said Clark has a record of success in elections and a political style that draws people to her, but Horgan can achieve success despite being relatively untested politically.

“You have to reach back into your life,” said Dosanjh. “Start talking about where you have been. What experience you have in dealing with people. You have to dig deep.”

He said it means taking risks, like the one former prime minister Jean Chretien took in March 2003 when he refused to send Canadian troops to Iraq.

“Jean Chretien, when he turned down participating in the Iraq war, I thought that was gutsy,” said Dosanjh. “It was brilliant and it was the right thing to do. You ran the risk of angering the president next door. But he was proven to be right.”

Scores of working parents with children in daycare will be on their own at the end of June after the Coquitlam school district ended leases for classrooms used by six private daycares. 

Michael Gerson is one of the parents who will be put in a bind if their two-year-old daughter and five-year-old son can no longer go to Junior Citizens Care Centre at Mountain Meadows Elementary School in Port Moody. At Junior Citizens, the move by the district means 36 children will have to find new a daycare within a few months.

Neither he nor his wife have relatives or anyone else able to care for their children while they’re at work. Gerson doesn’t see any solution other than either he or his wife quit their job to stay home and provide daycare.

“My wife and I work full time,” Gerson said. “It means one of us will have to leave the job. We cannot pay the mortgage obviously. Basically, we lose our job, we lose our townhouse, we lose everything.”

Gerson said his kids won’t be able to go to Junior Citizens because the district is taking one of the classrooms to accommodate last fall’s Supreme Court of Canada decision upholding reduced class sizes in B.C., and hence need more classroom space. 

The Gersons pay about $1,600 a month for care for their two children.

Gerson said it’s virtually impossible for him or any other parents to find replacement daycare given the long waiting lists in Metro Vancouver. In Vancouver, there are an estimated 3,000 children waiting for licensed daycare according to the Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre. It can take a parent three years or longer to find daycare.

Gerson and his wife are desperate to find a replacement.

“They just have to allocate rooms somewhere in a community centre or a rental,” he said. “Everybody is willing to put money to rent some other facility.”

Gerson described the district’s decision not to negotiate or try to find a solution as “harsh”. 

“They don’t care,” he said. “The district doesn’t provide information, doesn’t discuss anything with parents. They email to the daycare manager. When parents email to the district, they don’t properly respond.”

Four year old Jack Gunn jumps in front of a group pf parents who are concerned with the closure of part of Junior Citizens daycare at Mountain Meadows elementary in Port Moody.

Shalimar Abbas, director of Junior Citizens, said 81 children are registered in the care centre’s various programs.

“We are now in the impossible situation of having to choose which families to keep, and which to ask to find alternate care,” she said in an statement.

“Many of our families include siblings, so our choice affects not only one child in the family, but two and even three children. Our one and only priority is to find a workable solution that continues to allow all children … ongoing access to their child care programs.”

In a prepared statement, the Coquitlam school district said six daycares operating in eight classrooms “will not have their leases renewed for the coming year to meet our educational space requirements.” The district would not reveal in which schools those classes are. 

Teresa Rezansoff, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association, said school districts are in the process of determining how many additional classrooms will be needed for September.

She said she didn’t know if there are other districts in a similar situation to Coquitlam’s.

“The most I can say is that it is a local decision,” she said.

“The needs of one local school board could be completely different from another.”

Both the Vancouver and Surrey school districts said in separate statements that neither expected any closures of daycares or preschool programs this year due to the Supreme Court ruling.

In the provincial election, daycare has become a campaign  issue that crosses political boundaries.

A poll in March found that 46 per cent of people supported the NDP’s $10-a-day daycare pledge compared to 29 per cent opposed.

By 2020, the NDP vows to add 22,500 new spaces. Its election platform includes $7 a day for part time care, no parent fee for families with annual incomes under $40,000 and increasing wages to an average of $25 an hour for daycare workers.

In its platform, the Liberals have committed to add 13,000 new daycare spaces by 2020. In the next year, the party promises to create 4,100 new licensed child care spaces and 1,000 after school spaces.

The B.C. Green Party says it will provide free preschool for three and four year olds, free daycare for children up to three with working parents and up to $500 a month for families with a stay-at-home parent and a child up to age two.

Daycare has become such a mainstream issue in B.C. that the business-oriented Greater Vancouver Board of Trade has come out strongly in support of investing in daycare.

“The high cost of child care hampers our province’s affordability, makes it difficult for businesses to attract labour, and prevents many from entering the workforce,” said the board’s 2017 election platform.

“When productive adults are not able to participate in the workforce businesses and the economy suffer.”

kevingriffin@postmedia.com

CRANBROOK — For four decades, Kootenay East voters have gone with the provincial majority. When the province went NDP, so did they. When it switched to the B.C. Liberals, they did, too.

Since 2001, that’s meant sending ‘Kootenay Bill’ Bennett to the legislature, where he made quite an impression there trading on his outsider status as the guy from the rugged, resource heartland at the far edge of the province.

It never mattered that Bennett has a law degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. He’s been a vociferous defender of coal-miners, loggers, railroaders and hunters. As energy minister, Bennett has enthusiastically promoted Site C, LNG and the grizzly hunt.

Outspoken to a fault, he described the NDP as “turds” in 2013. In 2010, Bennett said cabinet colleagues (other than himself) had “battered-wife syndrome” as a result of former premier Gordon Campbell’s abuse.

But Kootenay Bill isn’t running this time and the riding is no longer a sure thing for the Liberals or their candidate, Tom Shypitka, a Cranbrook city councillor.

Like so many of B.C.’s once rough-and-tumble rural ridings, this one is in transition. Its economy and demographics are changing.

You can see it on Cranbrook’s Baker Street. There’s a craft brewery, a coffee roasting company, an organic food store and a sushi restaurant. You’ll see the occasional Prius amid the trucks and all-wheel drives that seem more practical choices at the edge of the Rockies.

The population is growing. Most of the newcomers are urban refugees. Some are young professionals unable to afford life in the big city and looking for homes to raise their children. Others are baby boomers who cashed in on the housing boom in Calgary, Edmonton or at “The Coast.” They come for many recreational opportunities at the foot of the Rockies. But some are following their kids and grandkids and filling the gap as babysitters where there is no daycare.

But change in Cranbrook is slow compared with the resort community of Fernie. Its population grew 16.7 per cent between 2011 and the census in 2016. In the past four years there have been labour shortages, exacerbated by a lack of affordable housing for the hospitality/tourism workers.

Nearly 700 homes were sitting empty or being used as vacation rentals at the last census. So it’s not surprising that issues of affordable housing and taxing empty houses resonate as much there as they do in Metro Vancouver.

After nine years as a Fernie councillor and six years as mayor, housing issues are familiar to NDP candidate Randal Macnair. 

Macnair fell in love and followed his now-wife from Vancouver Island to the Kootenays. He worked first in museums, before starting Oolichan Books. Macnair publishes poetry, fiction and literary non-fiction. Among its authors are several Governor General’s Award winners and, more recently, Yvonne Prest, the riding’s Green candidate.

Prest is also a transplant. She moved to Cranbrook in 2011 to teach high school English after graduating with distinction from the University of Victoria.

A few decades ago, the idea of being represented by poets and publishers would have been inconceivable to voters here. But, not any more, although it’s fair to say there are still some who snicker when it’s mentioned.

Shypitka boasts of his family’s five generations of working in the region’s traditional resource industries. But like the others, Shypitka doesn’t work in the mines or the forests. He’s a financial adviser and former restaurant owner, and world-class curler.

It’s Libertarian Keith Komar, a single father and bricklayer, who best fits the ‘Kootenay Bill’ mould. At a recent all-candidates’ debate, he railed against taxes and against regulations on everything from hunting to pot-growers.

But that debate? It was little different than one in Metro, starting with the candidates’ acknowledging that they were on First Nations land. Then, came the issues. Affordable housing. Sustainable jobs. Education. Daycare. Election financing. Environment. And, even the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Macnair and Prest tiptoed around resource-related issues. Their parties’ platforms aren’t particularly friendly to mining corporations like Teck and Elk Valley Coal, even though their employees are mostly well-paid and unionized. 

Prest said while most of her students are from mining families, mining isn’t what they see in their future. It’s why both she and Macnair emphasized the need for education and training.

Macnair noted that 30,000 forestry jobs in B.C. have been lost in the last 15 years. But with raw-log exports having increased by 500 per cent, he’s advocating more investment in manufacturing and processing of wood products.  

Despite the fact that Teck operates five metallurgical (steelmaking) coal mines in the riding and is the B.C. Liberal party’s top donor, even Shypitka spent more time that evening talking about attracting new industries than he did about the value of the old ones. 

Transition is clearly on everyone’s mind. So, bearing in mind Kootenay East’s bellwether tradition, plus the fact that the region is an hour ahead of the rest of B.C. on mountain time, the early results from here may be a good predictor of how things will unfold election night.

dbramham@postmedia.com

twitter: @daphnebramham

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