Paramedics protest in Vancouver over underfunding of ambulance service
"We are now working in trailers for stations. The crappiest stations
are literally crumbling beneath our feet. We've been evacuated many
times because of safety hazards such as mould and leaking," Chute said.
"The B.C. Ambulance Service and the B.C. government don't seem to
want to properly fund the stations the way that paramedics deserve and
the patients of our province deserve."
The B.C. Ambulance Service, staffed by more than 3,000 members of
the paramedics union, provides public ambulance service under the
authority of the Emergency and Health Services Commission of the
provincial Ministry of Health.
Wounded B.C. robbery suspect dies after being Tasered
A man is dead after he crashed through a second-storey window, naked
and bleeding from a chest wound, and was hit with an RCMP Taser.
RCMP say they converged on a home in suburban Langley, B.C.,
Tuesday, following an armed robbery earlier in the day. A witness who
saw a vehicle leaving the scene of the hold-up alerted police and
followed the car to the home.
Cpl. Peter Thiessen said police heard a man and woman arguing inside
the home, and then witnessed the man come through an upper-floor window
and hit the ground.
With the gun used in the robbery nowhere in sight and the suspect
trying to run inside the home despite a serious chest wound, police
decided to use the Taser, Thiessen said.
He said the man was still alive when he was arrested but died en route to hospital.
Thiessen said a woman who was inside the home was arrested.
BC truckers protest high gas prices
Truck operators in B.C. protested the high cost of fuel on Labour
Day Monday by slowly driving their rigs from the suburban community of
Surrey to downtown Vancouver.
Trucks with flags roamed down Highway 91 across the Alex Fraser
Bridge, which connects Richmond and New Westminster, and then drove
along Knight Street into the downtown core.
RCMP using Texas troopers to stop canadian drivers. WTF?
The RCMP contravened its own policy by allowing direct policing in
British Columbia by Texas state troopers, the body that investigates
complaints against the force says in a new report.
During an
investigation involving the troopers, the force also had one of its own
members conduct an impaired driving probe without proper grounds,
detain the motorist unlawfully and search his vehicle unlawfully.
Those are the findings in a report released by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP.
The report sparked by a complaint from B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
RCMP
commissioner William Elliott accepted the findings and almost all the
commission's recommendations involving the program called Operation
Pipeline Convoy.
Family learns of man's hospital death five days after
An investigation underway in Kelowna, B.C., is aimed at finding out
why hospital officials waited five days after a patient had died to
tell his family.
Barry Bordeniuk, 53, died in Kelowna General Hospital on June 8
after being admitted for treatment for cirrhosis of the liver, his
mother Blanche Bordeniuk told CBC News on Tuesday.
She and the rest of the family didn't know he had died until five
days later when hospital staff called to ask what to do with his
belongings.
"It is a shock and it's very sad he had to die alone," Blanche
Bordeniuk, 74, said. "He's probably wondering, 'Where is my family?
Don't they care?'"
Groups set July 28 deadline for Clayoquot Sound
Environmental groups have set a July 28 deadline -- next Monday --
to obtain an agreement with logging companies for a two-year moratorium
on logging in pristine valleys of the remote region on the west coast
of Vancouver Island.
The groups, which include Greenpeace, Forest
Ethics, the Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club and Friends of Clayoquot
Sound, have promised a return to the blockades and protests that halted
logging in Clayoquot in 1993 as well as an attack on B.C.'s markets
overseas.
New logging conflict in Clayoquot imminent
B.C. could soon see more protests and blockades in Clayoquot
Sound as a forestry company prepares to log an old-growth forest
in the Hesquiat Point Creek watershed -- the first time a company has
begun logging in such a "pristine" valley in nearly 20 years.
This time however, First Nations and environmentalists -- united in the 1993 protests -- find themselves on opposite sides of the issue.
Residents use cars to block Tsawwassen power line work
There has been much criticism from local residents about the
disruption and safety of the Vancouver Island Transmission
Reinforcement project, which is replacing existing lines in the
Tsawwassen neighbourhood to provide power to Vancouver Island and the
Southern Gulf Islands.
The Transmission Corporation maintains the project is safe and necessary.
Last
month, the Transmission Corporation obtained a B.C. Supreme Court
injunction Wednesday to stop owners of four properties, including
Ryan's, from interfering with construction on the power lines.
"I
haven't not allowed access," Ryan said. "I'm in support of people
parking legally on a roadway, so I don't really think I'm breaking the
injunction."
Ryan said police were called to the scene but would
not move the cars since they are parked legally, adding that there are
no "no parking" signs on the road.
Lodge won’t close without fight
“You need to light a fire under Premier Gordon Campbell’s ass,” HEU
regional vice-president Sandra Giesbrecht said, angry about lodge
closures in Cowichan and elsewhere.
Arnold said the
HEU, family members, and citizens may erect blockades to keep residents
in the lodge “but we hope it doesn’t have to get to that.”
“VIHA’s
not listening or answering. Sometimes you have to take on a bully,” she
said, noting HEU would not put residents at risk.
B.C.'s Other Unsolved Mystery: Vancouver's Missing Lads
As the news of a sixth human foot
appearing in the waters around Vancouver, B.C. percolates through the
Interweb, we're reminded of another troubling and--we can only
hope--wholly unrelated story we caught on CBC the other night.
Apparently, for the last year, athletically built young men have been
mysteriously disappearing around Vancouver, B.C. While the police have
yet to suggest any relationship--or even foul play--between the
disappearances, family members increasing see links. They've created a
Facebook page (here)
amongst other efforts to promote the cause of tracking these men down.
But with the constant influx of feet found in coastal waters, it was
inevitable that people would start trying to link the two.