With just days left before the provincial election, British Columbians remain “underwhelmed” and “unexcited” by their voting options, according to a new Angus Reid poll released Thursday.
The poll found that 29 per cent of respondents remained unsure who would be the best candidate for the job. Of those who gave a name, 28 per cent said Liberal Leader Christy Clark would be best for the job, while 25 per cent named NDP Leader John Horgan. Green Leader Andrew Weaver was named by 18 per cent of respondents as the right person to become B.C.’s next premier.
“That’s the cynical, more skeptical view of the leaders,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director for the Angus Reid Institute.
“Otherwise, the two main contenders for premier here — both of them have negative momentum scores. They’re not viewed that favourably.”
While Horgan’s NDP and Clark’s Liberals remain in close standing, the poll found that Weaver’s Green party continued to pressure the NDP, potentially opening the doors to another Liberal victory.
Still, 35 per cent of respondents felt the B.C. Liberals remained the best choice to run B.C., with the NDP coming in second with 28 per cent and the Greens at 12 per cent. A quarter of all respondents, however, said they were unsure which party would do the best job of governing B.C.
The poll was conducted as an online survey between April 28 to May 3, collecting responses from 1,007 adult participants who are a part of the Angus Reid Forum. The poll carries a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Another non-partisan study, led by University of B.C. professor Paul Kershaw and Generation Squeeze, broke down the spending promises made by each party.
According to the study, the Greens are estimated to have the most costly promises by a narrow margin, with $55.3 billion in spending required to implement their policies. The other parties weren’t far behind: the B.C. NDP came in second with $52.9 billion in promises, and the Liberals were right behind at $51.7 billion.
The promises varied when broken down by party and by age. The study said the Green party had promised the most amount of new social spending, with about $800 promised per person over the age of 65 and $1,200 promised per person under the age of 45 by 2019-20.
The NDP came in second with about $750 promised for those over 65 and $400 per person under the age of 45. The Liberal promises added up to $600 per person over the age of 65, and $100 per person under the age of 45.
Which political party will most appeal to B.C.’s large ethnic Chinese population, which tends to be well off, morally conservative and politically undecided?
A revealing Mainstreet poll for Postmedia suggests, on the surface, the centre-right B.C. Liberals are front runners for the almost 500,000 ethnic Chinese people in the province, nine out of 10 of whom live in Metro Vancouver.
But the centre-left NDP are also holding their own among B.C. voters with roots in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China.
The Greens, meanwhile, are virtually a non-starter for Chinese voters.
“Members of the Chinese community mostly came to Canada with either money or skills,” says Fenella Sung, a former host for Fairchild Chinese-language radio, explaining why the poll suggested 55 per cent of decided Chinese voters intend to vote Liberal.
“Not many of them need to draw support from public resources. Social justice and fairness are low priorities to them. And a change of government means unpredictability. So it is something they fear.”
While the Mainstreet poll showed ethnic Chinese are far more inclined than the general B.C. population to vote for the B.C. Liberals, a significant 33 per cent of Chinese declared they are ready to cast a ballot for the NDP.
The hottest battles to woo Chinese voters are arguably occurring in the four ridings of Richmond, where the population is almost half Chinese.
But the ethnic vote stakes are also high for politicians in Burnaby and the City of Vancouver, where three out of 10 of residents are Chinese.
Justin Fung, with Housing Action for Local Taxpayers (HALT), says many Chinese people in Metro Vancouver lean to the Liberals because “they’re mostly satisfied with the status quo.”
Well-off Chinese residents have seen their real estate “assets appreciate significantly under the current regime,” Fung said. “So they don’t want to rock the boat significantly.”
However, the Mainstreet poll suggests the NDP are capable of attracting a solid segment of the city’s Chinese voters.
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RICHMOND May 04 2017. A cyclist rises past the campaign office of BC Liberal Teresa Wat, Richmond, May 04 2017.
Former B.C. premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh said the NDP typically does better among long-term Chinese immigrants, who are more likely to be from Hong Kong and Taiwan than the People’s Republic of China.
“They realized a long time ago the NDP is not like the Communist party of China, whose control they wanted to escape,” said Dosanjh, who regularly won in heavily Chinese provincial and federal ridings in East Vancouver.
“With (former NDP premier) Mike Harcourt many Chinese began realizing the NDP is moderate, and that gave the party more of a chance.”
As for Chinese voters fundamental indifference to B.C.’s Green party, Sung and Fung chalk it up to the drive of many immigrants to achieve personal prosperity, which makes ecological sustainability a low priority.
But how many Chinese in Metro Vancouver will actually vote?
The April Mainstreet poll found 32 per cent of Chinese adults were “undecided,” the highest ambivalence rate of any B.C. ethnic group.
Many “pay more attention to politics in their place of origin” than to B.C. campaigns, said Sung, who notes many Chinese-Canadians also mostly follow Mandarin and Cantonese-language newspapers, radio and TV.
Another factor contributing to low turnout hinges on how tens of thousands of Chinese in Metro Vancouver are foreign students, working on temporary visas or permanent residents, which means they’re not eligible to vote.
“Many of them also come from regions and countries which do not even offer the basic right to vote,” Sung said. Unfamiliar with Canadian democracy, she said, many are not motivated to cast a ballot — and many “can be easily manipulated.”
Some of that manipulation comes through appeals to Chinese-Canadians’ generally conservative social values.
Ethically inflammatory attack ads in the Chinese-language media in early April targeted Richmond NDP candidate Chak Au, who tops the polls as Richmond’s most popular city councillor.
With Au running against incumbent Liberal MLA Linda Reid in Richmond South-Centre, the anonymously financed smear campaign claimed a vote for Au would “support gay marriage” and lead to addiction, poverty and “moral destruction.”
UBC-trained assistant professor Justin Tse, who has published academic articles about the province’s more than 100,000 Chinese evangelical Christians, says many ethnic Chinese often have difficulties with LGBQT rights, even while they defend their own ethnic minority rights.
Indeed, Tse discovered last year some Chinese in Metro Vancouver, many of whom were raised in conservative countries, are strong supporters of Republican President Donald Trump. They see Trump as a beacon of authoritarian stability, Tse said, in a world in which they believe prosperity and morality are under threat.
The B.C. Liberals and NDP are each fielding more than half a dozen ethnic Chinese candidates in Metro Vancouver. Tuesday’s election will reveal more about how these complex economic and moral factors play out among an increasingly influential population.
VICTORIA — Nearing the final week of a close and hard-fought election, the B.C. Liberals cleared a full day on the schedule for party leader Christy Clark to campaign in the southeastern corner of B.C.
Clark made three stops last Sunday on the swing through the constituency of Columbia River-Revelstoke, campaigning for B.C. Liberal challenger Doug Clovechok in a place that has gone solidly for the NDP through three elections over 12 years.
Clark finished up the day with a stop in Cranbrook in adjacent Kootenay East, held for the Liberals over the past 16 years by cabinet minister Bill Bennett.
He’s retiring. But considering Bennett won the seat with 63 per cent of the vote last time, he’s left his would-be successor, Tom Shypitka, well positioned to return the seat to the Liberal column on May 9.
So the main focus of Clark’s effort for the day was boosting the Liberal chances poaching Columbia River –Revelstoke away from the NDP. Her key pitch, delivered in Invermere at mid-day, was a call for British Columbians to rally behind her in the fight against the rising tide of protectionism in the U.S.
After a familiar recitation of the multiple threats to Canadian softwood and other exports by the administration of President Donald Trump, Clark took a shot at the local NDP candidate Gerry Taft for his flippant suggestion of a remedy: “Wait until Donald Trump is impeached.”
One factor giving hope to the Liberals in Columbia River-Revelstoke is the absence this time of a candidate for the Conservatives. Last election fielded a candidate who took almost 1,200 votes.
But Clovechok, who was Liberal candidate last time out, lost by 1,600 votes. That’s a huge margin for a governing party to overcome, but there was Clark on Sunday, campaigning to overcome it.
She’s done a lot of campaigning this year in ridings that were held by the Opposition when the house was dissolved for the election. As of Thursday, she’d hit a dozen and a half ridings on NDP turf, with particular focus on those in the North, the Interior and Vancouver Island.
Several were high on the list of seats that Clark would most like to add to the Liberal count.
At the top of the list is Skeena, where Ellis Ross, a leader of the Haisla First Nation and a strong supporter of development of a liquefied natural gas industry, is running for the Liberals. New Democrat Robin Austin took the seat by just over 500 votes last time and he has retired.
Clark has also turned out to boost another First Nations leader, Dallas Smith, in his fight against incumbent New Democrat Claire Trevena in North Island. Her margin of victory last time was 2,000 votes. But then there was no Green candidate; this time there is.
On Thursday, Clark campaigned in Cowichan Valley for candidate Steve Housser. He finished five points behind last time. But with a strong Green candidate and an NDP riding association damaged by a messy nomination battle, the Liberals figure they have a chance at coming out on top in a three way fight this time.
Local concerns notwithstanding, the real significance is that Clark has spared so much time campaigning in NDP territory.
The campaign is only 28 days long and significant time was set aside for the debates (including prep time) and religious festivals (Easter, Vaisakhi).
Although Clark was fighting for re-election against a strong, determined and scornful opponent, she was confident enough to spend multiple days taking the fight to the NDP.
Granted, the Liberals may simply be overconfident. Perhaps the opinion sampling organization that served them so well last time has missed the signals coming from the electorate this time.
But the campaign schedule of NDP leader John Horgan suggests that the New Democrats may be picking up on some of the same trends as the Liberals.
Horgan has spent little time in the Interior and none in the North, suggesting he doesn’t expect to make up much of the ground he needs there.
He has spent a significant amount of time on Vancouver Island in ridings his party took last time, suggesting the NDP is threatened by the challenge from the upstart Green Party.
But the bulk of his campaign has been concentrated in and around Metro Vancouver, where the New Democrats see the best chances of taking seats from the Liberals in Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, Maple Ridge and the much fought-over Delta North.
Horgan needs to wrench at least 10 seats away from the Liberals for a majority; more if the NDP loses any ground to the Greens or to the Liberals elsewhere in the province.
That’s why you see him making multiple visits to North Vancouver-Lonsdale, where cabinet minister Naomi Yamamoto won by 1,200 votes and five points last time. Thursday he stopped briefly in Richmond, solid for the Liberals through six elections and 25 years.
In short, based on where the New Democrats have concentrated their campaign, they don’t expect to gains in the north and the Interior and they fear losing seats on Vancouver Island.
Thus to win the seat count on May 9, they’ll pretty much have to run the table in and around Metro Vancouver, winning all of the swing seats and maybe a few that are not even all that close.
VICTORIA — With five days left in her campaign, B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark spent Thursday touting the Liberals’ Vancouver Island-specific platform in NDP-dominated ridings she hopes to swing next Tuesday.
Clark met with candidates and supporters at a local tech company, farmer’s market and craft brewery and distillery in southern Vancouver Island, where she is fighting a hard battle for her party.
The B.C. Liberals took just two of Vancouver Island’s 14 ridings in the 2013 election, leaving one to B.C. Green party leader Andrew Weaver and the rest to the NDP.
“It’s been far too long that the NDP have taken Vancouver Island for granted and we are going to end that,” Clark told a throng of supporters at the Victoria Caledonian Brewery and Distillery, where she capped off her day.
Clark went on to tout the party’s stand-alone Vancouver Island platform, which it introduced alongside its regular platform, a first for B.C.
“The reason we (have the platform) is because Vancouver Island is so vital to the province and this place is absolutely unique in British Columbia,” she explained. “Let’s honour that, let’s celebrate it.”
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B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark waves to the crowd as she arrives for a rally at a brewery in Victoria, B.C., Thursday, May 4, 2017.
After a Vancouver event Thursday morning where Clark accused the NDP of not telling voters about “sneaky” taxes that would come as a result of its platform promises, she flew to Nanaimo to visit Seamor Marine, an underwater-robots manufacturer.
Clark toured the facility and piloted one of the robots before stumping on her platform promise of creating and supporting tech jobs in B.C.
The riding has been an NDP stronghold since 2001. The Liberals have put forth Paris Gaudet, executive director of tech firm Innovation Island. Gaudet hopes to block the NDP’s Leonard Krog from a fourth term. Horgan is holding a town hall in the riding Friday afternoon.
At a quick stop in the Cowichan Valley riding, Clark bought a jar of local honey at the Old Farm Market in Duncan and met with candidate Steve Housser.
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B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark greets young supports during a campaign stop at a brewery in Victoria, B.C., Thursday, May 4, 2017.
Late last month, B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan visited the riding and pledged to build a new hospital made with B.C. wood products.
Thursday, five NDP supporters carrying orange banners and wearing pins crashed Clark’s visit to the market just as she was whisked away in a SUV.
The riding, established in 2008, has been held by the NDP’s Bill Routley since 2009. Housser, who lost to Routley by 1,400 votes in 2013, will this time challenge the NDP’s Lori Lynn Iannidinardo.
The B.C. NDP took seven of Greater Victoria’s eight ridings last election. In Saanich North and the Islands, the Liberal candidate came within 160 votes of the NDP’s, while the NDP took six other ridings by 10- to 30-point spreads.
Voters go to the polls May 9. Advanced voting is being held at certain locations Friday and Saturday.
A man accused of murdering a West Vancouver millionaire confessed to police that he shot the victim after a fight in which he objected to a suggestion by his business partner that he marry the accused’s daughter, calling him a “beast” for physically abusing his many girlfriends.
Li Zhao, 56, who has pleaded not guilty to the May 2015 second-degree murder of Gang Yuan, 42, provided details of the crime after cops arrived at the victim’s British Properties home and arrested him.
On Thursday, the Crown played a videotaped statement that Zhao made to police in an interview room at the Vancouver Police Department. Zhao’s lawyers are challenging the admissibility of the statement, arguing his rights were violated.
During the conversation, which involved the accused and a Mountie speaking in Mandarin, Zhao said that the shooting happened after he was discussing the invention of a gun stand that he wanted Yuan to invest in.
He said he got mad when Yuan suggested that Zhao, who lived in the West Vancouver home with his wife, let him marry the accused’s daughter and would provide him with 50 per cent of the shares.
“I thought he was joking,” Zhao told RCMP Const. Wilson Yung. “I said, ‘This is a bad joke’ … I said, ‘This is like a beast.’ Because he beat-up the girlfriends.”
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Gang Yuan, 42, was found slain at his home in West Vancouver.
Zhao had earlier told Yung that Yuan was “particularly bad-tempered” and had “tons of girlfriends” who he would often hit.
“Once he mentioned my daughter, so I was really upset,” said Zhao. “I used to be very upset about this aspect of him. Not only mistreat the females, they were beaten up, too. Beat-up so many of them.”
After he told Yuan that he was a “beast,” Yuan hit him and he fell backwards and grabbed a hammer, he said.
“I quickly grabbed the hammer. He said, ‘You picked up a hammer, I’ll kick you to death.’ He came over and kicked me right away. He kicked me, I struck him on his leg or foot, I didn’t see clearly.”
Zhao told the Mountie that when Yuan went back to grab a gun, he ran over to the larger man.
“Before he could reach the gun, I hit his head. At that time, he turned around and wanted to grab my hammer. We fought over the hammer for some time. You know, I can’t beat him, he’s strong.”
The accused, who has also pleaded not guilty to interfering with human remains after Yuan was found chopped-up into more than 100 pieces, said that after Yuan grabbed the hammer and came over, Zhao ducked and then Yuan fell to the ground.
“I was worried if I ran forward, the hammer would hit me if it swings. So I ran backwards, grabbed the gun and loaded the bullets. Then I pointed at him. I said, ‘Don’t move, Don’t move, I’m telling you.’ ”
Then Yuan flung the hammer at him, but missed, he told the cop.
“And then I was scared, I opened fire. After the shot, the first shot, he lifted his head and his hand high-up, I was scared and shot the second time. He laid there without moving. He stopped moving, so I was confused. I thought, ‘How did this happen? This is trouble.’ I thought I should quickly clean it up.”
The second of four former UN gang member testifying at the Cory Vallee murder trial took the stand Thursday.
He can only be identified as C due to the continuing publication ban. He says he was in the UN for 16 years and was even a leader at one point.
He matter-of-factly described ruthless violence – a bar room brawl where a bouncer ended up in a coma, another fight against the Independent Soldiers, a beating in Victoria after which he thought he might have killed the guy, smashing a man in Vernon in the face with a sledge hammer and then striking his body with a baseball bat, a murder plot that ended up with a North Vancouver man wounded by gunfire and even a successful plot to kill his close friend, who was sent to Argentina.
That friend, Adam Naname (Nam) Kataoka, was later shot in the head in Buenos Airies. I wrote about that death at the time.
Kataoka was convicted in B.C. in the 1990 kidnapping of Vancouver billionaire Jim Pattison’s daughter Cynthia Kilburn and served a three-year sentence.
Former UN gangster describes murder, shooting and assault
United Nations gang members were behind the murder of one of their own in Argentina, as well as the unsolved shooting of a North Vancouver realtor almost a decade ago, B.C. Supreme Court heard Thursday.
In startling testimony, a former UN gangster, who can only be identified as C, described brutal assaults over drug debts, as well as the 2008 shooting and the 2009 murder in Argentina.
It was the first day of C’s testimony at the murder trial of Cory Vallee.
Crown prosecutor Helen James told Justice Janice Dillon that C would provide “eyewitness” testimony to the May 9, 2008 murder of Jonathan Barber, an innocent stereo installer who was shot to death after being mistaken for a Bacon brother.
C is also expected to provide evidence related to the February 2009 murder of Bacon pal Kevin LeClair.
Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months during 2008 and 2009, as well as first-degree murder in the LeClair slaying.
So far in court, C has not gotten to the Bacon conspiracy or the LeClair murder.
But he testified about years of violence while he was in the UN and involved in the drug trade.
He said he knew there was a plot to kill his close friend and gang associate Adam Naname (Nam) Kataoka before Kataoka was sent to Argentina by another UN member to be a drug tester.
“And at one point, he actually asked you if you thought it was a good idea for him to do down?” James asked.
“That’s correct,” C responded.
He said he was okay with the plan to kill Kataoka because his friend had “a mental breakdown.”
“He was broke, he was looking to rob people that he knew, including James (Chan) and other members or associates of our gang, which is violating every big code,” C explained.
He said Chan decided to get the hit done in Argentina “so that the heat and the problems wouldn’t be affecting us in Vancouver.”
Kataoka was found in a Buenos Aires parking lot in October 2009 lying face down, wearing latex gloves, with bullet wounds in his head, stomach and leg.
C also testified that another former UN gang member took out a hit on a North Vancouver man named Kenn Buxton, who was shot in November 2008 and survived.
C said he supplied one of the guns used in the attempted execution.
He also described being in Victoria in 2008 and beating up a man who owed convicted UN killer Michael Newman $300,000.
The man was lured into the bathroom of a bar where C and a fellow UN gangster beat him severely.
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Cory Vallee in photos issued by police in 2011
“His eyes rolled back, blood was coming out of his nose, and he started convulsing in a seizure-like state. And it was at that point that we were concerned that we may have gone too far and actually killed him,” he testified. “We fled the bar.”
C also told Dillon that the years he spent in the drug trade “ruined” his life.
He testified about getting caught up in criminal activity as a high school student after members of the Lotus and Viet Ching gangs moved into his neighbourhood.
With his new gangster friends, he was involved in battles with teenaged rivals, including the Duhre brothers — three siblings who would go on to become notorious gangsters in their own right.
C testified that he stole cars and was involved in armed robberies, although he did some legitimate work after he graduated from high school. But he started selling cocaine on the side, eventually giving up his day job to work full-time in the drug trade.
“It ruined my life. I could have been way more successful, with no stress,” he testified. “I would have more money. I wouldn’t have regrets. I wouldn’t have the depression, stress and worry.”
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Gurmit Dhak was shot to death in 2010 at Metrotown in Burnaby
C testified that he was in the UN gang from about 2000 to 2016, and ended up in a leadership position.
He went through pages and pages of photographs, identifying men he said were either in the gang or were its associates. Asked how he knew each, in almost every case, he said that they “sell drugs.”
Many of the names have already been heard in Vallee’s trial and in other earlier related trials.
But C also identified slain gangster Gurmit Dhak as a UN associate and Dhak’s close friend Billy Tran as a UN member.
About 180,000 elementary and high school students across B.C. will have their say in a parallel election running at 1,220 schools until Monday.
Although the kids are under the voting age, they’ll vote for a candidate in their school’s riding and the results will be released after polls close on election day, said Dan Allan, content director for CIVIX, the non-partisan charity that runs the vote.
“The main purpose is to get young people under the voting age engaged and enthusiastic about politics and how voting works, so that when they do turn 18, they continue to vote,” he explained.
Teresa Nguyen is committed to voting in the next election. The Grade 10 student at David Thompson Secondary in Vancouver volunteered to be a voting clerk and scrutineer for her school’s student election, spending Friday’s ProD day tabulating votes.
When asked if her fellow students were interested in the election, she said many took the time during their lunch break or after school to cast a ballot.
“It’s our future, so it’s something we should care about,” she said.
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Kitchener Elementary students participate in the Student Vote campaign in Burnaby on Friday. The results of their parallel election will be released by CIVIX after the B.C. polls close on Tuesday.
Teacher Kari Hewett said CIVIX’s student vote program fits well with the B.C. social studies curriculum and staff ensure students are educated about the different parties and platforms. CIVIX provides free learning materials, including videos, as well as the election supplies. Student volunteers take on the roles of election workers.
“Some people think students don’t have enough critical-thinking skills, but I’m finding they’re interested in the issues and they know what matters to them,” said Hewett, adding she hoped the experience was “empowering” for kids.
Grade 11 student Simran Jeet said the vote was good practice for when she’s old enough to vote.
Voters under 35 usually have the lowest turnout in Canadian elections. In the 2013 provincial election, less than half of registered voters ages 18 to 24 cast a ballot, while less than 40 per cent of those ages 25 to 34 voted.
Allan said research shows that if a young person doesn’t vote the first time they’re eligible, they are less likely to vote in the future.
A survey of participating students administered at the beginning of the campaign showed that health care was their top election issue (20.1 per cent), followed by poverty (17.1 per cent), education (15.6 per cent), affordable housing (14.2 per cent) and the environment (13.5 per cent).
The results of the student vote will be released after the general election polls close on Tuesday night.
VICTORIA — When Premier Christy Clark pulled out a win in the 2013 provincial election against widespread expectations of her defeat, she silenced many a critic for a time.
B.C. Liberal dissidents who were plotting to replace her, New Democrats recruiting staff to take over from her, pundits like me who’d written her off — all learned the perils of underestimating Premier Hard Hat.
But the Liberal victory, unexpected by most observers, set up a counter-aura of invincibility about Clark the campaigner.
The concern that the Liberals couldn’t win with Clark at the helm was replaced by the notion that with her leading the charge, they couldn’t lose.
A more realistic assessment of Campaign 2013 would recognize that in a province where pretty much every election is close, the difference between being a master of all she surveys and a destined-for-the-scrap-heap loser is about four points in the popular vote and a dozen seats in the legislature.
In the current campaign, Clark’s abilities as communicator and partisan politician remain very much in evidence. But her weaknesses are on display as well.
The loose relationship with the facts. The blame-shifting on government failures. The reluctance to clarify, apologize and set the record straight.
From members of the public, I’ve heard how her charms are wearing thin. “There she goes again, making it up as she goes along.” That sort of thing.
Privately, some Liberals confess to being weary of her policy-making on the fly and misplaced cheeriness on matters needing sober second thought.
But overall I would say that the Liberals are in denial about the mounting evidence that Clark’s negatives are trumping (if you’ll pardon the verb) her positives with some voters who supported their party in the past.
While the Liberals gloss over their leader’s weaknesses, the New Democrats make much of them in a campaign as negative as any in modern times. Overcompensating for the decision to forgo attack ads last time, the New Democrats have blamed Clark personally for everything that happened on her watch, some deaths included.
Some of this is payback for the last campaign by the Liberals. Some of it may be crafted to distract attention from the shortcomings of the NDP election platform.
John Horgan himself identified what the party needed to do to put together a credible economic program after losing four elections in a row:
“We have lost our way to speak to people in resource-based communities; we have become dependent on particular points of view focused in the Lower Mainland. If we are going to win, we need to speak not just in a pandering way, but in a positive way to people in resource-based communities.”
Horgan said that in October 2013 when he announced that he would not be entering the race to replace departing leader Adrian Dix. He later changed his mind and was chosen leader by acclamation.
But he had mixed success in turning the NDP into the party of “yes” on economic growth and job creation, particularly in the resource development sector.
As evidence that the New Democrats themselves are aware of their platform weaknesses on that score, Horgan has spent relatively little campaigning in the North and Interior, still the mainstay of the resource economy.
For all of Horgan’s previously expressed scorn for the Lower Mainland viewpoint, he has spent much of his time campaigning in that region on standard-fare NDP promises to increase spending and taxes, some of it specified, some implied.
In Horgan’s defence, he’s had to mute earlier positions to retain support with the party’s green wing. Once elected, he might revert to form as the pro-resource development guy who once supported Site C (and still won’t say point blank that he’d kill it) and continues to support a liquefied natural gas industry, much as the notion horrifies some NDP supporters.
Matching Liberal denials about Clark’s weaknesses is the NDP reluctance to acknowledge lingering concerns about their record in the 1990s. But if things were as hunky dory back then on the economic and fiscal front as the New Democrats make out, the party would not have been dealt its worst ever showing (22 per cent of the vote and two seats) in the 2001 election.
In contrast to the New Democrats’ refusal to admit to why they were driven from office, I give you the one sentence verdict of cabinet minister Jack Weisgerber at the end of the Social Credit era: “We got what we deserved.”
Denials notwithstanding, Green leader Andrew Weaver is making a strong pitch to capitalize on voter fatigue with both major parties.
The New Democrats seem most worried about that prospect, given their strident attacks on the Greens and Weaver himself. But I expect he will also attract votes from disenchanted Liberals, never mind that his tax and spend intentions ($4 billion in both instances) greatly exceed those announced by the NDP.
As to how all this will play out Tuesday, I would start by noting that if I’d been right about where things were headed four years ago, the premier running for re-election would be Adrian Dix.
Having said that, I believe the most likely outcome this time is a reduced Liberal majority with a smaller chance of no party winning a majority for the first time since 1952. And having said that, I propose to leave the matter in the hands of the voters, where it belongs.
A United Nations gang boss on the run from a B.C. murder charge arranged for shootings and a firebombing at Metro Vancouver homes of people linked to the Justice Institute, B.C. Supreme Court heard Friday.
Conor D’Monte used encrypted BlackBerry messages to tell a former underling in the UN to target several houses for attack, according to testimony by an ex-gangster who can only be identified as C due to a sweeping publication ban.
The witness is in his second day of testimony at the murder trial of Cory Vallee.
Both Vallee and D’Monte are charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, and with the first-degree murder of Bacon associate Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
Both accused fled B.C. several years ago, but Vallee was later arrested in Mexico and brought back to face the charges.
D’Monte has never been located.
Despite being on the lam, D’Monte still got involved in the violence back home, C told Justice Janice Dillon.
C said he received an encrypted message from D’Monte sometime in 2011.
“He asked me if I had anyone who was willing to shoot up some houses,” C testified.
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Conor Vincent D’Monte.
C said D’Monte explained that his drug dealer friend “Vinnie” was concerned about some “jackers” ripping him off, so wanted to send them a message.
C found someone willing to do the attacks and they agreed they would split the payments.
He said D’Monte maintained a “driver” in Metro Vancouver, who delivered guns for each shooting.
The addresses of the homes to be targeted were sent one by one on the BlackBerry, C said.
The first was in Surrey.
“We initially drove up, scoped out the house,” C said.
He sent his associate back to fire the shots in the middle of the night to lessen the chance of witnesses or casualties, he testified.
“It was just pure intimidation,” he said of the purported motive for the shootings.
C said his associate shot houses in Surrey, Richmond and near the Burnaby-Coquitlam border. They also firebombed a camper at one of the Surrey homes.
He said “Vinnie” didn’t believe the attacks were happening because there were no news reports at the time.
But C and his associate continued to get paid because D’Monte trusted they were completing the jobs.
They received $12,000 to $15,000 for each shooting and $6,000 to $8,000 for the arson, C testified.
He said he started having a bad feeling about the arrangement when he noticed the houses they were scouting appeared “normal” and not like homes of people in the drug trade.
“The alarm bells were ringing off in my head,” he said. “And then it not being in the news, the story didn’t seem quite right.”
So he told D’Monte he didn’t want to do any more of the jobs.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Jamie Bacon (left) and Kevin LeClair, who was shot to death in 2009.
C said he was “pissed” when about six months later there were news stories about the attacks and he learned they were against people linked to the Justice Institute.
“I realized that we made a huge mistake getting involved in this thing, that they were targeting the Justice Institute, potentially cops, which is a huge no-no,” C testified. “You don’t go kicking the bee’s nest and shooting at cops’ house.”
D’Monte’s friend Vincent Eric Gia-Hwa Cheung was eventually charged and pleaded guilty to 18 counts for the attacks that continued from April 2011 and January 2012.
Last year, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail.
C said he had met Cheung, who was a personal friend of D’Monte’s and not a UN gang member.
C also said that while he kept in touch with D’Monte after he fled Canada, he has never known where the fugitive is hiding.
D’Monte was appointed head of the UN after the gang’s original leader Clay Roueche was arrested in the U.S. in May 2008, C testified.
But after D’Monte left Canada in 2011, there was a meeting held in Vietnam attended by C and others from B.C.
At the meeting, C was voted in as the new leader, he testified.
People in attendance also imposed a new strict edict.
“There was a rule that basically if you rat, you die, and if you run, then your parents or family dies,” C said.
Crown Helen James asked him if ratting meant testifying “much like you are doing today.”
Liberal party Leader Christy Clark pushed back Friday against a First Nation-led campaign calling for people to vote ABC — “anyone but Clark” — come election day.
Clark flew across the province for brief appearances in five communities, including Campbell River, Terrace and Smithers, a trio of ridings that feature First Nations candidates running for her party.
The ABC campaign, backed by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, claims Clark and the Liberals “have demonstrated injurious arrogance and destructive ambivalence for our pristine ecosystems, for climate change, (and for) the rights of indigenous peoples,” among other things.
Asked by a reporter what she’d say to those who felt her government had not listened to the concerns of Aboriginal Peoples, Clark turned to economic agreements her government had signed with local First Nations and to liquid natural gas, which she described as “a generational opportunity to change the economies of communities that have lived in poverty” for too long.
She said the province needed to make sure that First Nations members received training to get jobs and that their communities received a share of the revenue from resource extraction projects.
“It is time that kids who live in First Nations communities had an equal shot at success as all the other kids in our province — an equal shot at education, an equal shot at life, an equal shot at making the kind of living that lots of people who work here can look forward to,” Clark said, referring to employees of a water-treatment company in Richmond, where she made her remarks.
Clark said First Nations candidates in Campbell River (North Island riding), Terrace (Skeena) and Smithers (Stikine) are running for the Liberal party so they can be “in the room with us, helping us make the decisions about how we shape the future of British Columbia.”
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B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark speaks to supporters as she makes a campaign stop in Smithers, B.C., Friday, May 5, 2017.
In each of those communities and throughout the day, Clark tried to hammer home a key message: that the B.C. NDP can no longer claim they’re the party of the working people.
“I promise you, every morning when I wake-up, I am thinking about how we can preserve, protect and create jobs,” Clark said. It was the first line of a set-up that she tirelessly trotted out at least four times Friday.
“Now, when John Horgan gets up every morning, he is thinking about how much more of your money he can sneak away in new taxes,” the set-up concluded.
Another recurring message Friday was a warning from Clark that U.S. President Donald Trump was determined to steal jobs from B.C. In what she positioned as a retaliatory move, Clark said she had asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ban the export of “mostly American thermal coal” from B.C. ports.
“Because if the Americans are going to say that our lumber isn’t good enough for them, we aren’t going to sit back without a fight,” Clark said.
Clark said Trudeau responded in a letter Friday to say he would consider the idea carefully.
The former UN gangster known as C testified that he stayed in touch with gang leader Conor D’Monte even after D’Monte fled Canada fearing he would be arrested for murder.
C said he never knew where D’Monte was, but that D’Monte would send him encrypted BlackBerry messages when he needed something done in B.C.
Back in 2011, D’Monte asked C for help getting some houses shot up and C obliged, asking an associate to shoot four houses and firebomb a camper at one of the properties.
C thought the jobs were to scare off “jackers” in the drug trade who had been following D’Monte’s friend “Vinnie.”
He learned months later that the victims were people linked to the Justice Institute and was “pissed off.”
Former UN gangster says he aided Justice Institute attacks throughout Metro Vancouver
A United Nations gang boss on the run from a B.C. murder charge arranged for shootings and a firebombing at Metro Vancouver homes of people linked to the Justice Institute, B.C. Supreme Court heard Friday.
Conor D’Monte used encrypted BlackBerry messages to tell a former underling in the UN to target several houses for attack, according to testimony by an ex-gangster who can only be identified as C due to a sweeping publication ban.
The witness is in his second day of testimony at the murder trial of Cory Vallee.
Both Vallee and D’Monte are charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, and with the first-degree murder of Bacon associate Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
Both accused fled B.C. several years ago, but Vallee was later arrested in Mexico and brought back to face the charges.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Conor Vincent D’Monte
D’Monte has never been located.
Despite being on the lam, D’Monte still got involved in the violence back home, C told Justice Janice Dillon.
C said he received an encrypted message from D’Monte sometime in 2011.
“He asked me if I had anyone who was willing to shoot up some houses,” C testified.
C said D’Monte explained that his drug dealer friend “Vinnie” was concerned about some “jackers” ripping him off, so wanted to send them a message.
C found someone willing to do the attacks and they agreed they would split the payments.
He said D’Monte maintained a “driver” in Metro Vancouver, who delivered guns for each shooting.
The addresses of the homes to be targeted were sent one by one, C said.
The first was in Surrey.
“We initially drove up, scoped out the house,” C said.
He sent his associate back to fire the shots in the middle of the night to lessen the chance of witnesses or casualties, he testified.
“It was just pure intimidation,” he said of the purported motive for the shootings.
C said his associate shot houses in Surrey, Richmond and near the Burnaby-Coquitlam border. They also firebombed a camper at one of the Surrey homes.
He said “Vinnie” didn’t believe the attacks were happening because there were no news reports at the time.
But C and his associate continued to get paid because D’Monte trusted they were completing the jobs.
They received $12,000 to $15,000 for each shooting and $6,000 to $8,000 for the arson, C testified.
He said he started having a bad feeling about the arrangement when he noticed the houses they were scouting appeared “normal” and not like homes of people in the drug trade.
“The alarm bells were ringing off in my head,” he said. “And then it not being in the news, the story didn’t seem quite right.”
So he told D’Monte he didn’t want to do any more of the jobs.
C said he was “pissed” when about six months later there were news stories about the attacks and he learned they were against people linked to the Justice Institute.
“I realized that we made a huge mistake getting involved in this thing, that they were targeting the Justice Institute, potentially cops, which is a huge no-no,” C testified. “You don’t go kicking the bee’s nest and shooting at cops’ house.”
D’Monte’s friend Vincent Eric Gia-Hwa Cheung was eventually charged and pleaded guilty to 18 counts for the attacks that continued from April 2011 and January 2012.
Last year, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail.
C said he had met Cheung, who was a personal friend of D’Monte’s and not a UN gang member.
C also said that while he kept in touch with D’Monte after he fled Canada, he has never known where the fugitive is hiding.
D’Monte was appointed head of the UN after the gang’s original leader Clay Roueche was arrested in the U.S. in May 2008, C testified.
But after D’Monte left Canada in 2011, there was a meeting held in Vietnam attended by C and others from B.C., including Billy Tran and Khamla Wong.
At the meeting, C was voted in as the new leader, he testified.
People in attendance also imposed a new strict edict.
“There was a rule that basically if you rat, you die and if you run, then your parents or family dies,” C said.
Crown Helen James asked him if ratting meant testifying “much like you are doing today.”
Louis Lapprend says there’s a “mystery” in the century-old brick home next-door.
He noticed something was awry last month, on what seems like one of the only days this year when it wasn’t raining in Vancouver.
Despite that day’s dry, sunny weather, the empty house immediately west of Lapprend’s Strathcona home, he said, was wet, dripping water through the exterior walls. The house has been vacant since it sold last May, Lapprend said.
“Here we have an abandoned house, literally rotting away. As for where the water is coming from, it’s a mystery,” he said.
Lapprend made a number of calls to 311, the number for reporting issues to the city, and watched as fire crews and property inspectors made a series of visits to the Keefer Street home over the last five weeks to deal with the leak.
It turns out the city has seen an increase in complaints about vacant houses, and recently created a new reporting protocol. This year also marks the first time Vancouver’s Empty Homes Tax will be applied. The measure, the first in Canada and controversial in some circles, aims to increase the housing supply and relieve pressure on Vancouver’s rental housing market, which has an unfortunate combination of the country’s highest rental costs and a rental vacancy rate below one per cent.
Lapprend, a 34-year-old web developer, understands the leaky, empty house next-door might not be the top priority for city hall. But, as someone worried about both potential damage to his own home as well as the broader situation of housing in the city, he felt it was worth reporting.
Kaye Krishna, the city’s general manager of development, buildings, and licensing, agreed it’s worth reporting.
“It is the owner’s responsibility to secure the home and to make sure that it’s safe, and it’s not a nuisance. And they’re not doing that,” said Krishna. “They haven’t been taking care of their property, clearly, for some time now. So it’s a problem.”
Krishna said the city “started seeing an increase (last year) in vacant homes, and there wasn’t a clear pathway for people to get focused attention on it,” so in response, they created a dedicated 311 category last fall for empty “nuisance homes,” and took extra measures to secure them.
However, this particular Keefer home’s continually reoccurring leaking, Krishna said, was unusual.
The city has received a number of 311 calls about the 518 Keefer property, sent crews a few times to visit starting April 2, and contacted the owner, who, Krishna said, “has not, to my knowledge, been all that responsive.”
“What I’ve suggested to the team, because we’ve received so many complaints about this, is we see if we can expedite that,” Krishna said.
On Friday, a legal notice from the City of Vancouver was posted on the front door of the residence, advising that the city’s property use inspector had found the house’s front window was open to the public “and is therefore deemed to be in an unsafe condition and a hazard to public safety.” The notice orders the recipient to board up all exterior openings “IMMEDIATELY and thereafter maintain the building in a secure condition.”
On Friday morning, while it was (for once) not raining, the sound of falling water inside was audible from out front of the house.
The Keefer Street house is listed in Vancouver’s Heritage Register as a level “B” heritage building, meaning it has “significant” heritage value and “may have some documented historical or cultural significance in a neighbourhood.”
Property records show 518 Keefer was sold in May 2016 for $1,200,000, and the buyer was a company called 518 Holdings Ltd. Corporate records show 518 Holdings Ltd. was incorporated on March of 2016 and the sole director is listed as Yani C. Jin.
Jin, a realtor with RE/MAX, said she bought the house with plans to develop it and turn it into a three-unit rental property, and said she’s submitted a building permit application to city hall.
After Postmedia News tried to contact Jin by phone and email, she replied late Friday afternoon to say the leak had been fixed that afternoon.
“We are not sure what is happening with the leaking,” Jin said, but added the problem may have been caused by squatters.
The house’s previous residents were the Liu family, who run Kam Wai Dim Sum in nearby Chinatown. William Liu, 28, who lived in the house his whole life until recently, said his family had been saddened to learn their beloved home had turned into a rotting nuisance for both neighbours and city workers.
“It’s extremely sad for us,” Liu said Friday in his dim sum shop. “The new owner told us she was going to start renovations right away and start renting it out.”
Liu worried aloud that if the water damage was bad enough, the house might need to be torn down.
Our trusted food writer Mia Stainsby has this to say about our new cookbook:
Randy Shore’s Proustian moment wasn’t via a madeleine. It happened with a bowl of Korean noodles, the name of which he never knew, and never will.
“I recall the moment my palate and my life changed forever,” he writes in his just-out cookbook, Home And Away: Simple, Delicious Recipes Inspired by The World’s Cafes, Bistros and Diners (Arsenal Pulp Press).
Now I’m of the thought that any hungry young backpacker, travelling in below zero temperatures would be similarly moved by any number of hot, rustic Korean dishes, but those noodles seared into his limbic system while he and a friend were backpacking in Korea and India. And from then on, he has sought out humble hole in the walls whether he was in India, Europe, Morocco or Turkey.
A teen has died following a multi-car crash Wednesday in Cloverdale.
Around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Surrey RCMP responded to 64th Avenue, just west of Highway 15, for a report of a collision. Early indications were that a black Cadillac had been involved in an accident on 64th Avenue and 168th Street, before allegedly fleeing the scene eastbound on 64th. The Cadillac then struck the rear of a grey Honda Prelude.
Both the driver and the passenger of the Honda Prelude were taken to hospital, with the driver in critical condition and the passenger in serious condition.
The driver of the Cadillac, a 22-year-old Surrey woman, was found at the site of the second crash and arrested.
On Friday, Surrey RCMP announced one of the occupants in the Honda Prelude, a 17-year-old boy, had died of his injuries.
Alcohol, drugs and speed haven’t yet been ruled out as reasons for the crash. Police and collision investigators continue to probe the accident.
Anyone with information about the incident who hasn’t already been in touch with police are asked to contact Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502.
Postmedia journalists won four National Newspaper Awards Friday, in categories recognizing their achievements in covering breaking news, local reporting and photography, while The Vancouver Sun and Province’s Lori Culbert was a finalist in the category of short feature.
The newsrooms of the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun and Fort McMurray Today were honoured in the breaking news category for their combined coverage of last May’s Alberta wildfire and the unprecedented evacuation of nearly 90,000 people from Fort McMurray and the surrounding area.
Fort McMurray Today’s staff were among those ordered to leave, continuing to report on the disaster even as they fled to safety.
Leah Hennel of the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun won in the feature photo category for her shot of a horseback rider on the range. It was Hennel’s second win in the category, having also been recognized in 2013.
The Toronto Sun’s Stan Behal won his third NNA, this time in the news photo category for his picture of a grieving father after his daughter was killed in an automobile accident. Behal had twice won the NNA for best sports photo, in 1988 and 2014.
Paul Schliesmann of the Kingston Whig-Standard won in the local reporting category, which recognizes exceptional reporting of significant local issues. Schliesmann was recognized for his work reporting on the living standards of marginalized people in his community.
“The wildfires coverage was a courageous display of reporting by an exceptional team of journalists working under very challenging circumstances,” said Gerry Nott, Postmedia’s vice-president for content.
“The photo and local reporting wins, as well as the many citations awarded our journalists highlight the depth and talent in our newsrooms.”
The Vancouver Sun and Province’s Culbert did not win but was a finalist in the category of short feature for her story about an avid hiking family from Lions Bay who lost their seven-year-old daughter in a rock slide in 2014.
The article highlighted how the couple was trying to balance both the grief for their lost daughter Erin and their excitement for the new twins, Sebastian and Madeleine.
The twins were born 16 months after Erin’s death.
The NNAs are open to daily newspapers, news agencies, as well as online news sites approved for entry by the NNA board of governors. There were 70 nominees in 21 categories, selected from nearly 1,000 entries published in 2016. Winning journalists received a prize of $1,000.
The Globe and Mail, which hosted this year’s gala in their Toronto event space, led all outlets with 11 wins.
For some children, reading is an adventure, a way to break out of reality’s confines. For others, it’s comfort and consolation, a way to withdraw into a magical world.
For Canadian author Kit Pearson, reading was the latter and the result of a challenging childhood where she had trouble making friends.
“I was a timid child, shy at school and birthday parties, and afraid of things under the bed,” she writes in her biography. “Reading became my greatest comfort.”
It makes sense, then, that Pearson would go on to become one of Canada’s most revered authors, sharing works such as The Daring Game and The Sky Is Falling.
Pearson was born in Edmonton in 1947 and often spent time reading. When she was eight, her family moved to Vancouver, where she said she found close friends for the first time in her young life.
In her early teens, however, Pearson’s family moved back to Alberta and she was “devastated,” turning to books once more for comfort and solace.
“Once again, books saved me: I devoured them, literally,” she shares. “I was so involved in the story that I didn’t notice that I was nibbling at the corners of the pages. One book I consumed was L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon.
“When I finished reading it I decided that, like Emily, I would also become a writer,” said Pearson.
Pearson began keeping a journal, but didn’t begin to write devotedly until much later. As a teenager, she returned to Vancouver to attend Crofton House School and again was able to find friends and explore her passion for English literature.
Following a brief time at the University of B.C., Pearson returned again to Edmonton to complete her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta. She then moved back to Vancouver in order to complete a library degree as well, before taking up her first library job in St. Catharines, Ont.
After working for a few years, Pearson became serious about pursuing a career in creative writing and completed a master’s degree in Boston and shortly after, wrote The Daring Game, a novel about a young girl’s friendships at boarding school.
“There is nothing as thrilling as finishing one’s first book,” she writes in her bio. “Then the honeymoon was over, for I had to find a publisher. The first two I sent it to turned it down, but the third, Penguin Books Canada, accepted it.”
Since then, Pearson has gone on to write a dozen books, several collections of short stories and a picture book titled The Singing Basket. Today, Pearson lives in Victoria with her partner Katherine and their red poodle.
A Saanich husband and father who runs a local foundation dedicated to ending sexual exploitation and gender-based violence is facing charges of sex assault and break-and-enter.
Saanich police received a complaint on March 31 alleging Joel James Conway, 31, broke into a home in the 4300 block of West Saanich Road and sexually assaulted a female occupant.
Conway was arrested on April 20 by Saanich police after charges were approved by Crown counsel. He was released from custody on a promise to appear in court on June 7.
Staff Sgt. Chris Horsley said police do not believe the public is at risk.
“We can’t disclose the nature of the relationship except to say they were not involved in an intimate relationship,” he said. “But the parties were known to each other.”
Conway and his wife Nicole, 29, a former sexual-health worker, operate Fortress Foundation, which aims to bring “awareness, refuge, strength and implement prevention of sexually exploitative behaviours and perspectives,” according to its mission statement.
In an interview with the Times Colonist last year, he described himself as a reformed pornography addict, devoted to equipping men to end the demand for sexual exploitation.
Birinderjeet Justin Bhangu was sitting in his Acura in front of the Comfort Inn Hotel in Surrey in the middle of a March afternoon.
A gunman dressed all in black calmly crossed the parking lot and opened fire, killing the well-known gangster.
And even though the suspect was captured on surveillance camera, no one has been charged two months later.
Bhangu’s is now one of B.C.’s many unsolved gang murders. So far this year, 33 people across the province have been slain, according to data compiled by Postmedia.
And even in cases where charges are laid, some of those prosecutions are now under threat because of court delays.
Next week, lawyers for three men charged in the 2011 murder of gangster Jonathan Bacon will argue in a Kelowna courtroom that their clients should be freed because the case has taken too long to get to trial.
Whoever is elected next week will have to contend with an increasing number of applications to throw out charges due to unreasonable delays in B.C. courts.
And they will have to tackle a gang problem that is now entrenched across the province — from Prince George, to Kelowna, to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
Public Safety Minister Mike Morris, who is running for reelection in Prince George, thinks his Liberal government has supported the right programs to fight gang violence.
Funding has been increased to B.C.’s anti-gang agency, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, he said.
“I was really impressed with the CFSEU model and the ability of those guys to travel throughout the province without any worry about jurisdiction,” Morris said in an interview. “I think they are responsible for a lot of the successes we see out there and keeping things quieter than they were.”
And he praised CFSEU’s End Gang Life program offering school and community workshops to steer youth away from gangs.
He also praised the Surrey WRAP program, which offers “wraparound” support to vulnerable students in the school system.
Asked why his government hasn’t expanded the WRAP model across the province, Morris said a similar program is now running in Williams Lake.
“A lot of this has to be community led. People always default to government for just about everything that happens in the community. But the community has to stand up and take ownership. Once they do that, the province is on board,” he said. “Communities need to step up to the plate. How safe do they want their communities to be? We will be there with them.”
NDP public safety critic Mike Farnworth, who is on the ballot again in Port Coquitlam, says the government has not done enough to deal with gang violence.
He said there are a “patchwork of programs” around B.C.
“We are looking at making these programs more province-wide than they are at the current time,” he said. “If you have got a successful program in one community, you should be able to ensure that other communities can take advantage of it as well.”
And he is particularly concerned about the growing number of criminal prosecutions now threatened because of court delays.
There have now been almost 90 applications to throw out criminal charges in B.C. based on new time limits imposed by the Supreme Court of Canada last summer.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada, which handles drug cases in B.C., says they have now had 37 stay applications under the new rules.
Six of those applications have already been granted due to “unreasonable delay,” spokesman Nathalie Houle told Postmedia.
“As well, there have been eight applications refused by the courts, 10 applications are pending and the (prosecution service) has entered 13 stays in files affected by delays.”
Provincial prosecutors have been busy with delay applications too, with about 50 delay applications filed since last summer’s ruling, criminal justice branch spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.
“Some of the cases have been heard, some dismissed, some granted, and some have been abandoned,” he said.
“There are approximately two dozen applications still before the court. Since (the Supreme Court case) there have been seven provincial prosecutions judicially stayed for unreasonable delay.”
More applications are expected, including one from the lawyer for accused killer Jamie Bacon, who has been awaiting trial since his April 2009 arrest in the Surrey Six murders.
Farnworth said that the NDP, if elected, would “be making sure there are enough resources in the courtroom in terms of sheriffs and clerks and getting judges’ vacancies filled more expeditiously.”
“When any one of those components isn’t working, then that allows really serious cases to end up getting thrown out. And the Supreme Court has made it clear … government has got to make this a priority,” Farnworth said.
Both the NDP and the Green Party say a greater use of restorative justice would keep less-serious cases out of the courts, helping the logjam.
Jonina Campbell, Green candidate in New Westminster, said when cases are thrown out due to delays “that just undermines our justice system. It undermines people’s faith that justice will be served. And we need to make sure we immediately address that.
“There obviously has to be some immediate measures taken to ensure that there is increased access to the justice system so that these cases where there’s charges and very serious charges against individuals are not thrown out of court because of such delays.”
More anti-gang educational programs for younger students are also essential, said Campbell, a teacher.
“As a teacher in Richmond, where I first started my teaching career, we dealt at the grade six and seven level where our students were already looking to be interested in and connected with the gang life,” she said.
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Warm temperatures prompting spring run-off combined with heavy rainfall in some areas caused devastating floods and mudslides in several parts of B.C.
“I could see it coming because snowpacks were quite high in the Interior. And then we had warm weather, with temperatures, such as (mid-20) degrees in Kelowna last week. Now, you have rain on snow and this triggers debris flow,” said Brent Ward, a Simon Fraser University earth sciences professor. “It’s not that surprising what you are seeing. It’s not good.”
Ward spent Saturday keeping tabs on local reports and being in touch with contacts in various affected areas: “It seems widespread. There are a lot of closed roads and some tragedies.”
On Saturday, search crews, some with helicopters and drones, continued rescue operations following reports of missing people swept away by fast-moving water or trapped by a slide.
In Cache Creek, efforts resumed Saturday and were expanded to include more searchers scouring waters, as well as from the air, to try to find missing Fire Chief Clayton Cassidy, feared swept away while he was checking on some rising creeks near a campground early Friday.
Cassidy had been previously honoured for his bravery when flash-flooding hit Cache Creek in 2015. B.C. Liberal Leader Christy Clark rerouted her campaign to stop in Cache Creek on Saturday morning to survey the damage. B.C. NDP leader John Horgan and Green party Leader Andrew Weaver both earlier also issued statements of support for Cassidy’s family.
“We will be here to support this community and all of the communities that have been affected … We have their backs. We will be there for them,” Clark said.
In Salmon Arm, the RCMP said a 76-year-old man was missing after a mudslide enveloped a home. Local fire officials responded to the slide in the nearby community of Tappen on Saturday. Family members said the man was “last known to be inside the home that was buried in the slide and he has yet to be located.” Shuswap Search and Rescue crews worked to enter the home to search for the man. The slide blocked road access to some 100 homes in the area.
Elsewhere, the City of West Kelowna declared a local state of emergency to address flooding. Residents whose safety was at risk were evacuated. Central Okanagan Emergency officials put 90 properties in the Fintry Delta area north of Kelowna under evacuation due to rising waters and prepped neighbouring residents to leave on short notice if conditions worsened. Motorists and pedestrians were advised that several roads, walkways and parks in the region are at risk of flooding and to be cautious near watercourses.
Sections of the Trans-Canada Highway near Salmon Arm and Glacier National Park were closed due to mudslides, according to Drive B.C., which keeps tabs on provincial highway conditions. In the Interior, Highway 97A near Sicamous was closed after a mudslide and an avalanche closed Highway 99 at Duffey Lake east of Pemberton.
Graduation from university is a major milestone in anyone’s life. For those who represent the first generation in their families to go to university, the achievement can be even more significant. Some of these first-generation university students overcame language barriers earlier in life. Financial barriers can also loom large: According to StatsCan about twice the number of teens from middle- and upper-income families go on to university than do children of lower-income parents. They must also adapt to campus culture without the advice of a parent who has experienced life at university.
Enoch Weng remembers being six or seven years old at West Langley elementary school, and opening the bag of dumplings his Taiwanese mom had packed for his lunch.
The kids in the classroom were horrified.
“Instantly the class was like, ‘We don’t like that smell, something smells rotten,’ ” said Weng, now 24, who came to Canada with his family at age three.
Weng fled the other kids’ taunts that day to eat outside.
Weng, “the kid with the accent,” went on to master English and notch a win at the Grade 4 spelling bee.
This year, he will become the first in his family to graduate from university, leaving Simon Fraser University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a resume that includes a year as SFU student president.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Simon Fraser University graduate Enoch Weng studied piano while growing up, and still plays with various bands despite once fracturing the fingers on one hand while playing football.
Weng’s father, Teng-Ko Weng, an established artist in his native Taiwan, had to re-establish himself in Canada, where he teaches and paints at his home studio. Enoch still has to help his father with his English, partly due to Teng-Ko’s near-fatal bout with meningitis as a youth, which left him with severe hearing loss. His mother, Fang-Chih, worked in a medical office until opting to stay home with her children.
Weng went through a period of dark depression in his mid-teens. “My parents tried to help but I pushed them away … half of it was just pretending everything was OK, putting up a front. I kept up a good facade with everyone.”
That depression abated when he discovered his religious faith after a summer at a Bible camp, he said.
While Weng was at SFU, he faced a family crisis when his brother fell ill with brain cancer. Distracted, Weng failed two semesters before realizing he needed time away from school to spend with his family. He took a year off.
Weng’s resume since returning to university includes last year’s stint as student president. In that post he steered to success a campaign to finance a new student union building and stadium, a vote that had twice previously failed to pass.
But he also had fun along the way, playing with a Japanese-themed metal band (“half of us were Japanese, and half of us wished we were Japanese”) and serving as president of the SFU anime club.
His family’s difficulties have given his parents a more relaxed view of success.
“When my brother went through his illness, that was when my parents slowed down,” Weng said. “My dad values our health as more important than our studies. I’d be studying, it would be two in the morning. My dad would come in the room and say, ‘Shut off the computer.’ ”
Now he is interning at Vancouver tech accelerator Wavefront.
“I’m exploring the intersection between business, music and tech,” Weng said. “I’m seeing what other companies are doing. One day I’ll open my own. I’ll see where I get that spark for an idea.”
FIRST FAMILY GRADUATE INSPIRED BY FIRST NATIONS HERITAGE
Kyla Shields will be the first in her family to graduate from university when she receives her BA with a double major in anthropology and First Nations studies from UBC in May.
The 22-year-old Shields grew up “on the reserve” of Westbank First Nations in Kelowna. Neither of her parents were able to get a college or university degree, and her grandparents had only a middle-school education.
Shields said that when her father was a young man, getting work and earning money was a priority. Her mother was told she would have to move to Vancouver if she wanted to earn a degree, something that was beyond her reach.
Both parents urged her to focus on school as a way to a better future.
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Kyla Shields at the long house at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, where she will graduate in May with a BA in anthropology and First Nations studies. Shields’ ambition is to become a teacher.
“I remember a lot of pressure,” said Shields. “My dad used his body to work, he did physical labour. My father worked shift work in the bush, and he would be gone for a week or two at a time. My mom worked in Vancouver, and she would come home on weekends.”
The gruelling schedule and exhausting physical work took a toll on the close-knit family.
“My parents told me they hoped I would go to school so I wouldn’t have to work as hard as they did,” said Shields.
But there was little in elementary school that inspired Shields.
“There was a large gap in my knowledge about my own people. Schools taught us things about First Nations people that were outdated, that we lived in teepees and had totem poles,” she said. “It made our people sound like we were living in the past and were not thriving and out in the world.”
A First Nations studies elective in Grade 10 changed everything for Shields.
“It made me challenge everything I had learned in the regular curriculum,” she recalled. “I felt like I had the power to instil my knowledge of indigenous ways and knowing into all my studies.”
After doing a class project on residential schools, Shields was invited to speak at a conference. “I was only 16 and the work I was doing became something that could educate others in ways that were really important,” she said.
Shields felt a sense of mission: “I felt it was almost like my duty to get educated.”
She applied to UBC Okanagan and was accepted. She then transferred in her third year to the anthropology department at UBC in Vancouver.
The First Nations studies program is “amazing, life-changing, mind-blowing,” said Shields.
There were challenges along the way: Since no one in her family had ever been in a university program, there was no one to turn to for advice. “No one knew what the process was. It felt like a shot in the dark, but it worked out.”
Now she is helping her younger brother prepare to apply to university.
Shields said the traditional grad ceremony isn’t as important to her as the UBC First Nations longhouse ceremony, where First Nations program students celebrate together. Her family, parents and grandparents will all be coming to see Shields commemorate her achievement at the longhouse.
“I’m really excited,” said Shields. She hopes to go on to teacher’s college. “Becoming a teacher, I hope I can help change the way people see things.”
Her mom and dad were forced to flee war-torn Eritrea, fighting for its independence from Ethiopia, in the early 1970s — she to Egypt, he to Sweden.
By 1982, Yusra Said’s mom had made it to Canada. Six years later, her dad arrived in Vancouver.
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Yusra Said at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey
“He came in 1988 — that’s when they got married,” Said (pronounced Sah-Eed) says.
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s convocation in early June, the 23-year-old will be the first generation in her family to earn a post-secondary degree.
“It’s very exciting and also nerve-wracking,” she says. “Being the first in the family, I felt it was all on me to graduate. And now there are expectations. I get asked a lot, ‘What’s next after graduation?’ ”
Said faced more than family pressure and more than the usual pressure felt by first-year university students.
When she was in Grade 10, her mother’s mental health began to alarm the family (she was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder), which is why Said decided to pursue a degree in social work or psychology.
Said, meanwhile, was faced with her own issues while attending Kwantlen — anxiety attacks.
“It was the night before my first paper was due … I couldn’t think about what to write for a second and was fighting fatigue and finally broke down,” she says. “I started crying and struggled to breathe, I couldn’t stop for what felt like hours. I clutched my chest as I felt it tighten.”
Her dad checked in on her and she pretended she was OK. The family had enough to worry about with her mom.
“In that moment, I felt truly alone,” she says. “I felt there weren’t people to talk to. My high school friends were at different stages of life, and I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone — that was my biggest concern.
“Bottom line, I felt hopeless and questioned whether university was worth this anxiety.”
Now, having struggled herself, Said offers support to younger students.
Among her volunteer contributions are orientation leader and peer support, which includes meeting one-on-one with students to talk about stress and other issues they face.
Down the road, Said would like to get her master’s degree in social work. That will mean a ton of work with children and youth, both paid and unpaid, beforehand.
But first, Said hopes, some travel.
She’s been to Sweden, Egypt and Eritrea — home, so to speak — and next would like to visit Australia.
“Every time I travel, it reminds me that anybody coming here has a different outlook, a different perspective,” she says. “It can be very intimidating.”
Speaking to Ming-yang Cheng, one would never guess that the gregarious, expressive young man with a broad smile once had problems communicating.
But Cheng, 27, who moved to Maple Ridge from Taiwan when he was 10 years old, admits he wasn’t always the confident, talkative person he is today — especially in English, which he had to learn from scratch after moving to Canada.
“When we went to McDonald’s here for the first time, my mom tried to force me to use English to order, and I panicked and cried,” Cheng said. “I was sitting on the ground, and finally my brother had to save me.”
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Ming-yang Cheng, who moved to Maple Ridge from Taiwan at the age of 10, in the hallways of the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford.
The passage of Cheng from shy immigrant to eager young Canadian will hit a major milestone this summer when he graduates from the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV).
That is a major feat for Cheng, who was the first in his family to receive a post-secondary diploma when he finished his studies at the B.C. Institute of Technology in 2011.
His university degree is a validation of his academic achievement that neither of his parents — who run an import/export business in Taiwan — achieved.
“My mom was my biggest influence,” recalls Cheng. “She’s never really had education beyond high school, and all she wants is for her kids to get an education because she has been working in labour jobs her entire life. She didn’t want us to do that, so she wanted us to go to school and be successful in the future.”
Cheng will graduate with a computer-information systems degree and a minor in business communication in August. But what really inspired him was a public-speaking course during his third year at UFV.
“I had to start thinking about what exactly I wanted to do after graduation,” he recalled. “So I took a lot of communications courses, including public speaking. And I’m an introvert. I was shy and didn’t want to make mistakes. But after that course, I realized communication is essential. If I can’t communicate, I can’t actually do my work. And the more I got into it, the more I love it.”
Cheng holds a student position at UFV’s international office and is looking for ways to combine his knowledge of computer systems with his desire to help others master English.
“I’m still thinking about how to do it, but I think it’s very important to take part in global citizenship,” Cheng said, noting he plans to develop a software platform that helps Chinese-speakers learn English without having to relocate to an Anglophone country.
“Language is a big part of global citizenship, and I want to help people from my cultural background to learn the language … students elsewhere need to realize English is the future for global communication.”
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