Black Out, Bill C 38

Drawing attention to the staggering changes proposed in Bill C 38


Black Out Speak Out

www.blackoutspeakout.ca 

More on the Mayor's Caucus

Mayors' Caucus Moves Forward

The Mayors' Caucus also decided to move forward as an annual event. Mayor Lori Ackerman of Fort St. John says, "these were very productive meetings, the conversations focused on creating community and we need to maintain the momentum."

Cranbrook Mayor Wayne Stetski added, "we are the front line of government and the backbone of this province. We want a seat at the table so we can ensure the needs of our residents are well represented."

Mayor Dianne Watts of Surrey summed up the event with closing remarks noting "by coming together as peers, we have, for the first time in BC history, established a single voice that is strong in our conviction that we need all orders of government to work together for the best interests of all of our residents."

The BC Mayors' Caucus is structured after successful models across North America and Europe including the Alberta Mayors' Caucus, the Big Cities Mayors' Caucus (Canada), Atlantic Mayors' Congress (Canada), Metropolitan Mayors' Caucus (United States) and the Summit of Mayors (EU).

Members of the BC Mayors' Steering Committee are:

• Mayor Dean Fortin of Victoria - Vancouver Island region
• Mayor Dan Ashton of Penticton - Thompson/Okanagan region
• Mayor Shari Green of Prince George - Cariboo region
• Mayor Jack Mussallem of Prince Rupert - North Coast region
• Mayor Wayne Stetski of Cranbrook - Kootenay region
• Mayor Lori Ackerman of Fort St. John - Northeast region
• Mayor Taylor Bachrach of Smithers - Nechako region
• Mayor Dianne Watts of Surrey - Fraser Valley region
• Mayor Greg Moore of Port Coquitlam - Lower Mainland region

The date of the next BC Mayors' Caucus will be in September in Victoria. For more information visit: 

www.BCMayorsCaucus.ca.

Trans Canada Trail Designation for the North Star Trail

Frank Fortie and Francis Allen

The sun shone warmly on an energetic and enthusiastic crowd that gathered on the Wycliffe, North Star Trail Bridge for the Trans Canada Trail Designation Ceremony and plaque unveiling on Saturday, June 2nd.

A number of dignitaries spoke to those cyclists, walkers and  local residents and who were present for the ceremony.

Frank Fortie who at one time owned much of the land which surrounded this part of the railway also worked for CP Rail for forty nine and one half years.  He still lives in the vicinity of the trail and has seen great changes in the area.

Joseph Cross who rides the trail regularly.

Terry Jeffers and her grandchildren, also regular trail users.

Bob Whetham and Al Skukas who originally walked the rail bed some 7 years ago and had this vision for the trail - a great day for them both.

John Mandryk, Trail Committee and Master of Ceremonies

Mayor Ron McRae from Kimberley

Mayor Wayne Stetski from Cranbrook with MP David Wilks in the background

Deborah Apps, Trans Canada Trail

The visionaries for the North Star Trail project, Al Skukas, Jim Ogilvie, past long-time Mayor of Kimberley, and Councillor Bob Whetham

More Goings On at Elizabeth Lake

Jenny Humphrey

While walking by Elizabeth Lake the other evening I spotted this pair of Ruddy Ducks engaged in a mating ritual which was quite dramatic with the male pumping his head up and down and slapping his chest as he pursued his less interested female around the lake.  Much better images from elsewhere can be seen at this site:

http://www.birding.bc.ca/community/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5125

Thanks Stewart Wilson for sending in this photo of a male Ruddy Duck - also taken at Elizabeth Lake and clearly showing  his beautiful blue bill.

Antelope Bush and Buffalo Berry/Currant

Both shrubs with sweet smelling flowers can be be found either very close to or within city boundaries.  Anyone who has walked the trails at Elizabeth Lake in the last week will have noticed the powerful clove scented Ribes odoratum or Buffalo Berry or Currant which is located not far from the tourist booth.  This shrub produces sweet black currants or berries in the fall.  The much more common Antelope Bush, Purshia tridendata, is blooming prolifically in the area this year and although not as perfumed, still has a mildly sweet scent.  Its seeds are a favourite for deer.

Antelope Bush, Purshia tridentata (three toothed leaf)

Antelope Bush

Buffalo Berry, Ribes odoratum (very aromatic)

Buffalo Berry

Buffalo Berry

Sunrise Rotary Ride to End Polio

Seven members of Sunrise Rotary pose before heading off on a road trip that will take them 600km to kennewick, Washington where the Rotary International Conference will be held.  The ride is a fund raiser for the 'End Polio Now Campaign' which Gerry Warner wrote about in his Friday post.  The riders left Friday afternoon from Elizabeth lake.  We wish them all safe riding and good luck.

 Brent Jossy's red racer and Councillor Warner's comfortable utilitarian model

of bike will both make the trip.

Love the luggage rack Councillor Warner .

A Stand Against the Budget

2:00pm Outside David Wilks office

MLA Bennett's Response to Agrologist

From the Tyee:


The chair of a legislative committee that reported on the cosmetic use of pesticides has dismissed people who support a ban as "politically motivated left wing conspiracy theorists."


It's an email outburst that has critics questioning whether Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett's biases made him a poor choice for Premier Christy Clark to pick as chair for the Special Committee on Cosmetic Pesticides.  In a May 30 message to Bill Wells, a retired agrologist in the Kootenay town of Kaslo, Bennett wrote, "I'll take the 350 scientists at Health Canada over the politically motivated left wing conspiracy theorists any day."  


Wells had written to Bennett calling the committee's recommendation against a ban "disgraceful" and expressing "disappointment that a committee of the BC Legislature would be so prejudiced in reaching their 'decision' that they ignore and humiliate those who would come to them to provide them with actual facts and knowledgeable guidance."


Bennett's first response to Wells said, "I am pleased to hear that you can read and encourage you to put your skill to work reading the Special Committee's Report. Perhaps even an old dog can learn a new trick!"


When Wells wrote back saying the chemical industry has undue influence on Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Bennett responded: "And a commie under every rock and the grassy hill in Dallas and all corporations and all that jazz. Sorry, I'm not a conspiracy theorist." 


During its hearings, the Special Committee on Cosmetic Pesticides heard from a wide range of stakeholders and the public. "Of the 7,300 e-questionnaires submitted, almost 5,000 supported a ban on the sale and use of pesticides for cosmetic purposes," the committee's report said.


Complete article:http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/05/31/BillBennettComments/
For the actual email threads and conversations:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2012/05/31/BennettPest/

Suzuki Lecture SOLD OUT but Webcast Available

David Suzuki Live Webcast Tonight

Starts 7:30pm Mountain

The live webcast from Invermere starts tonight (Friday June 1st) at 7:30pm MST.
To view the webcast, just head on over to - http://wildsight.ca/david-suzuki around 7:30 and tune in.  
Not able to be around your computer?  Check out details for how to view the livecast using your iPhone, iPad and Android Device here.  Search for "wildsight" to find the live stream.

Local Rotarians Pedaling 500km to Eradicate Polio

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

By the time you read this, I should be on my old mountain bike somewhere between here and Spokane and feeling my age a bit. But I’ll have company, namely half a dozen members of the Cranbrook Sunrise Rotary Club, who are “Pedaling for Polio” in an attempt to raise $8,000 to vaccinate 25,000 children against the dread disease.

You read that right. Polio is still a dread disease in some isolated parts of the world even though it was eradicated almost 30 years ago in North America and Europe by the Salk vaccine. At its peak in the late 1950’s, polio killed more than 500,000 people-a-year world-wide and no one, including Bill Gates, wants to see polio make a comeback.

That’s why Gates offered several years ago to match any funds Rotary could raise to eradicate polio once and for all from the face of the earth. Since then, Rotary International and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have combined to raise more than $550 million in one of the largest humanitarian fund-raising campaigns in history. And that’s why the six of us are pedaling 550 km over the next six days to attend the Rotary International District 5080 Conference in Kennewick, Washington in the Tri-Cities area. Our motorized support team will also be pulling  a restored iron lung to Kennewick as part of the fund-raising effort and as a grim reminder of the bad old days when polio was ravaging this part of the world.

The iron lung was found a few years ago in a farmer’s field outside of Cranbrook  and painstakingly restored by Sunrise Rotary members to be used as a fund-raising prop during parades and Rotary functions. People can climb inside the creepy device and get a first-hand feel of the horrific times when polio victims were consigned to a life-time sentence in the metal cell in order to breathe and stay alive during their convalescence. I’m old enough to remember the last of those sad days and the fear people used to have of being forced into an iron lung which happened to one of my high school mates.

Those were frightening days.

But they began to come to an end in 1955 when Dr. Jonas Salk, an American medical researcher and virologist discovered an injectable vaccine that could safely immunize people against poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis as it was then known. In those dark days, mothers were fearful every spring of their children getting polio, which was a virulent flu-like disease spread in an oral/fecal manner by people contacting the virus in unsanitary conditions. This could happen almost anywhere and made polio at the time the next most feared thing to the atomic bomb in the nervous 1950’s.

Salk’s vaccine later came out in an oral form and millions began to be vaccinated around the world and Salk became one of the most famous people on earth. Despite his fame and the wealth it could have brought him, the good doctor refused to have his vaccine patented. Asked during a TV interview who owned the patent, he replied: “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" At the time of his death in 1995, Salk was working on a HIV vaccine and had received numerous awards.

No doubt on this long bike trip, there will be time when our muscles will ache, our resolve may falter – and if the current five-day weather forecast holds up – we may be damp and miserable. But thinking of a great doctor, scientist and humanitarian like Jonas Salk will hopefully spur us on to complete the fund-raising  journey he made possible for us.

And wearing our blinding, phosphorescent, Rotary jerseys, people on the road will certainly know who’s carrying out the “End Polio Now” campaign. If you’d like to make a donation yourself to the cause, cheques made out to the Cranbrook Sunrise Rotary Club can be dropped off care of yours truly at Cranbrook City Hall. Any donation $20 or over will receive a charitable tax receipt.