Stretchers on Skytrain - a Safety Issue

Stretchers on Skytrain, a safety issue

An accident on Skytrain, due to a stretcher, is making me give some serious consideration to the safety of that means of travel. Skytrain is an efficient means of traveling to the many places along its various routes from Vancouver to Surrey and/or Richmond. In the past I have always considered it a relatively safe means of travel. I’ve had to adjust my thinking due to the accident I had on Saturday at the King George Station on the Skytrain.

I spent Saturday at the Pan Pacific Hotel attending a professional development session of the Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC). It was a good day. At five o’clock my two friends and I began our journey home from Vancouver’s Waterfront Station. As we walked through the Station, past the elevator, on our way towards the trains, I noticed that a stretcher was being loaded onto the elevator. Being a former nurse, I mentally wondered if someone had a medical emergency and was being transported to an ambulance. Continuing on our way, we went down to the skytrain platform and boarded one of the cars. The three of us sat near the end of the car, two on the first double seat and I sat behind them. We were no sooner in our seats than the stretcher was brought onto the car, occupying space between the opposing doors. Two people transferred the stretcher onto the car, a man and a slim lady. The man went to a seat further along in the car. The lady sat on the jump seat near the door. The person on the stretcher was a man, lying in a semi-prone position, with his head supported firmly to one side, apparently, so that a breathing apparatus could be secured to cover his nose. The apparatus was connected to a box located on the stretcher. Within a couple of stops I noticed that the man, who had assisted the stretcher transfer onto the train, departed. The train was fairly busy, as this was between five and six o’clock in the afternoon. My friends and I were traveling to the King George Station, the end of the line in Surrey. By the time we reached there, the stretcher occupant, his attendant, myself and my two friends were the only ones still on that end of the car. When the train pulled into the station, the attendant stood to maneuver the stretcher out of the door. It is not an easy task for a woman, a fact I can attest to, as I have moved many hospital stretchers around hospitals during my career days. It is okay to move them down the corridors, but maneuvering them into elevators and through doorways can become problematic. My friends and I waited patiently for the stretcher, which now blocked our exit, to be removed. As it left the train, my friends quickly stepped out of the car and I immediately attempted to follow. However, as I stepped between the doors they shot out hitting me hard. I attempted to stop them, however they caught me with enough force to propel me backwards into the train. I was slammed flat, hitting my head with a crack and my entire back, hip, elbow and even my hands. My friends had heard the thump as the doors hit me and turned to see me flat on my back inside the train. Thoroughly shaken up and hurting in a lot of places, I was conscious and knew the train would be taking off immediately. As I lay on the floor of the train, I had a quick vision of riding the "midnight train" to wherever, which prompted me into action! So I painfully got myself up and managed to hit the red emergency button. My friends struggled to open the doors from the outside. As the door opened they reached in to help me get out before the doors slammed shut again. I did not use the elevator as I could see it was being used for the stretcher patient at the time. We did not see anyone from TransLink on that level, so gingerly went down to the lower level. We found a TransLink attendant downstairs. I reported the accident to him. He offered to call an ambulance, however I did not feel I was in imminent need of medical attention. My head ached, I was sore and shaken up, but nothing seemed broken. I had assistance to get home and could see my local (Langley) medical people as needed, rather than spending the night in the Surrey hospital emergency!

When I had the opportunity to consider the events that had occurred, I knew that accident would not have happened if the stretcher had not blocked the exit. The time of the door-opening is preset and limited to quick exit by agile passengers. Nothing slows it down. Elevators have sensors that prevent the doors closing if the opening is occupied or in hospitals where stretchers are used, they can be locked open with a special key. On Skytrain, there are no sensors on the door to prevent them closing if someone or something is passing through. There should be sensors on all doors for safety reasons! Wheel chairs, strollers and bicycles all can be propelled by one person quite rapidly, therefore they may impede traffic only minimally. In this case, even if we had been able to evacuate the car first, the stretcher with it’s occupant, being a long, and somewhat cumbersome unit, would have been caught by the door with considerable force. Those units should have two attendants for transport of this sort and a TransLink attendant should be present to supervise the transfer, locking the doors until the car has been evacuated by all those who wish to leave.

I was lucky to have only sustained soft tissue injuries and a concussion, none of them are life-threatening. However, I am in considerable pain from the injuries I did sustain, and am presently having physiotherapy treatments and taking medication for them. My doctor says it will take some time for me to get over the effects of this accident.

Under similar circumstances that might not have been the case and the outcome could have been quite different.

Think of these scenarios:

Had there been a mother and baby or small child caught by the door. The small child or baby could have been seriously injured or death might have occurred.

Many others have limited mobility and many Seniors have brittle bones, a fall like mine would more than likely have left them with broken bones, especially a broken hip at the very least.

Had there been a fire and our rapid exit had been cut off by the stretcher, the occupants of 1/3 of that car could have been trapped until the stretcher could be removed.

Had there been an accident and the car needed to be evacuated promptly, again exit would have been impeded.

In our province we have done much to advance the ability of handicapped people to get around. Street corners have long since been sloped for wheelchairs. Buildings have wheelchair access. Rick Hansen made our province aware that consideration had to be given to the needs of the handicapped. That is all well and good. However, I do believe that this is a situation where the safety of the general public must take priority over the desires of a few individuals. There are other alternatives. We do have handi-dart cabs and transfer ambulances to help the bedridden get to their destinations. If more bedridden people decided to use gurneys, with the assistance of one lone care giver, to use the Skytrain for transport, we would have a dangerous situation for regular Skytrain commuters. We are all being encouraged to use Skytrain, however we all must consider our own safety too.

A Dog Lover Takes a Rational Look at the Sled Dog Slaughter Controversy

Some animal lovers are speaking out quite forcefully about the sled dogs being put down at Whistler. I am an animal lover and I come from a whole family of animal lovers. I don't condone what happened, but I do understand why it happened. Someone saw the Olympics as a good opportunity to start a dog-sledding business. It takes quite a few dogs and they are usually special breeds – ones that love to run. The business crashed after the Olympics was over. The cost and work involved in maintaining a large pack of dogs was prohibitive for a business swimming in red ink. I haven't heard anyone come up with an option they could have used. It may have been more humane to put the dogs down - as the SPCA does with our blessing - than to allow them to starve to death. 

We had an Alaskan Malamute some years ago. My husband brought him home when we lived in Surrey. Lobo was a BEAUTIFUL dog – black and white with a heavy coat and a huge mane, like a lion. He was a very placid dog who really didn’t bond with anyone in particular – not even my husband or “Doctor Doolittle” as I sometimes refer to him. Lobo also didn’t bark, which was nice for us but with his bulky appearance and not very friendly attitude toward strangers, he did intimidate some surprising people. He just occupied the fenced back yard. We had no real understanding of these dogs. However, one trait soon became apparent – he loved to run! If the gate was opened and unattended, even for moments, he would take off for freedom and a good run. If Lobo noticed that our back door opened simultaneously with the opening of the front door, he would bolt into the house, up the stairs and out the front door and on his way. We could call him back to no avail. The only option was to take the car and follow his trail or search the streets. When we caught up with him, it was usually because he had run out of enthusiasm. I would just open the car door and he would come over, jump in and sit proudly on the passenger seat and ride home in style.

We went to Yuma for a short holiday. We had a friend, who worked for the company, come to house (and animal) sit for us. Wouldn’t you know while Al was there, Lobo got an opportunity to go for a run. It seem he ran all the way to a shopping centre about a mile from our place. One large complex in the place had been turned into a flea market. Lobo didn’t stop to buy a ticket when he went in to look things over. He walked around until he found someone selling rabbits. He thought it was lunch time so settled in for a fresh rabbit meal. Much later, our daughter located him at the pound. We got a phone call while in Yuma telling us that we would have to pay for bailing him out of the pound and also for the cost of his lunch – an expensive one as we had to pay for the emotional trauma of that event too!



Shortly after that we dog-sat with a small terrier named Pepper. Pepper and Lobo became good friends, so Pepper became a permanent companion for Lobo. When we moved to the farm, my husband fenced a large area for a dog run for those two dogs. They had a nice big dog house out there too. Even Doctor Doolittle couldn’t take Lobo out unless he was on a leash. Pepper just stuck with Lobo wherever he was.



One summer my husband came home from a trip to the USA, on crutches, with a broken foot. We had a thunder and lightning storm that night. I woke up to hear a strange noise in the yard and looked out the bedroom window. There appeared to be a dark shadow at the corner of the dog fence. Putting on my kimono I went out and see what was happening. Turned out the big dog had gotten frightened and taken a run at the fence, getting his head through the small mesh opening and there he was stuck! I pulled and tugged from both ends, but couldn’t budge him. I had to go back into the house and wake my husband to come out (on crutches) to see what the two of us could do. Doctor Doolittle pushed on Lobo’s head and I pulled on the other end and between us we got the dog unstuck. So we both went back to bed. A while later I again heard the strange noise and sure enough the dog had tried to run through the fence of the other side of his yard!

Out in the country Lobo’s runs were looked on quite differently, as people who raise sheep and chickens don’t take roaming dogs lightly, as they can do big damage to their animals. Lobo and Pepper only got loose occasionally. That changed though when we got Buddy, our shepherd/wolf cross. Bud was a well behaved pup who became a constant companion for Doctor Doolittle. However, when he got big enough he learned how to unlock the gate to the other dog’s pen. Lobo and Pepper’s “dog runs” became frequent and expensive. We would have to bail the two of them out of the pound. Eventually the two of them didn’t come back from a run. By that time we were relieved as our searches had become quite frequent and widespread. We do not know that Lobo had ever been used as a sled dog, however the breed is definitely used that way in the snowy north and he was certainly born with the urge to run!

Some years later I had the opportunity to go dog sledding near Quebec City. We were taken out into the country to Adventure Nor-bec, where Denis Montminy kept a pack of 160 well-bred and well-trained dogs. About 70 of them were the beautiful and powerful Alaskan Malamutes and the others were the slightly smaller Siberian Huskies. In a large field, each dog was tethered in his own area, with a dog house. They were socialized to their keepers and visitors. We were allowed to pet them. However, when the handlers began to get the sleds out and ready the dogs began pulling at their chains and howling, first one or two, then they all joined in. It was quite a chorus! The dogs were so eager to run that once they were unleashed from their doghouses, the handlers had to lift the dogs off their front feet to get them to the sleds. The dogs were strong enough on four feet to have taken off with the handlers in tow! As sled dogs, those animals were wonderful animals. I am sure none of them could have been rehabilitated into household pets. And as our experience proved, they were not the kind of animal that could be turned into a farm dog either. The daily upkeep on a huge pack of dogs has got to be very expensive, not an expense the SPCA would be happy to take on. The government would certainly not step up to take the responsibility for any part of the fallout created by the two week Olympic spectacle. If people hadn’t gotten so enthused over the two week wonder, they might not have been bedazzled into believing that we were going to have this wonderful tourist bonanza capable of supporting Olympic businesses forever after!  The choice made may have appeared to be the only one available.  Why do we need to carry this discussion on further?  Let the animals rest in peace.

H1N1 Flu Immunization: What are the alternatives? Make an informed choice.

One of my earliest memories is of seeing an iron-lung in a storage room behind the kitchen in a small prairie hospital, when I was a very small child. I was told how a person was put into this cylindrical metal tube, with only their head sticking out, because they had polio and could not breathe on their own. The memory is still very vivid and very clear. The H1N1 Flu virus can move swiftly into the lungs of its victims, leaving medical personnel no alternative but to put them onto respirators to try to save their lives, has brought this to my mind.

Years later, I again saw an iron-lung in a small prairie museum. As an RN myself, I asked my cousin, (also an RN, who was eleven years older and had lived in Saskatchewan all her life,) “Why would the small town of Cereal have had an iron-lung?” She told me that there had been a particularly bad polio epidemic that had spread throughout the prairies in the thirties. The few hospitals available had not been able to hold all the cases. Sometimes the overload of sick had been cared for in the churches or schools. Polio was still a summer scourge in the late forties and early fifties. People were told to stay away from crowds, especially on beaches and in movie theatres, when a polio epidemic was rampant. Polio was a disease that attacked varying muscles and caused paralysis, usually limbs were affected, but in about 10% of cases the respiratory muscles were affected, frequently causing death. People who survived polio were often paralyzed or disabled by their wasted muscles for the rest of their lives. In the USA there were 300,000 cases of polio with 58,000 deaths in 1952. We all knew people who had polio. My closest friend was a polio victim as a baby and was left with a limp then developed post-polio syndrome in her later years; my grade eight teacher was a beautiful young lady with a wasted arm; a teenage friend’s arms were left weakened; a friend of my mother’s had heavy steel braces on her legs, as did my friend’s sister. These were people I personally knew. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was struck down with the disease as a young man. Although he went on to become president of the United States, he never walked again. Then Jonas Salk invented an immunization for this dreaded disease. In 1955 it became generally available to a welcoming public. People did not question whether there might be some problems for a few of the people who were immunized. I gratefully took my year old daughter to be immunized along with my husband and myself. Each person counted in the battle to eradicate the disease. We knew what the alternatives were.

While we grew up red measles, German measles or Rubella, mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, whooping cough or pertussis passed through communities regularly. We heard tales of diphtheria that attacked the throat, tetanus that caused lock jaw and small pox that if it didn’t kill you left you terribly scarred. When I first had children of my own, communicable diseases were still regular threats, usually brought home by the first child who went to school. The diseases were usually mild, we all knew how to recognize and treat them. My friends remember being kept in a dark room when they had measles. The Asian flu and the Hong Kong flu went through the world in the mid-fifties. I remember being sicker that I ever have been in my life in the fall of 1957, with the Asian flu.

When one person in a household came down with a contagious disease, we all knew that if we had not already had the disease, we could be the next victim. Quarantines were the only thing we could do to stop the spread of the diseases. We knew about the incubation periods, so would remain watchful while the days counted off. I remember the summer of 1963 I was looking after two young nephews while their mother was in the hospital having another baby. My son and his cousin both woke up sick one morning. One had chicken pox and the other had measles. For the next few weeks the diseases were passed back and forth amongst the children. The second nephew spent a few weeks with us waiting his turn to get the last of the diseases. It was a joyful day for his parents when he could finally return home to meet his new brother.

But then again there were those who were very ill and had serious side-effects from the contagious diseases. Because most of today’s baby boomers and younger adults have not had personal experiences with the serious illnesses that occurred in the pre-immunization days, they fail to comprehend the alternative to immunization. Most of those diseases still exist in the third world, although the World Health Organization works hard to immunize as many people as possible throughout the world, with the hope that one day those diseases be globally eradicated, as has Small Pox.

The Diptheria Tetanus and Pertussis (DTP) combination immunization protects against three very serious diseases. What were the alternatives?

Diphtheria is an infection of the nose, throat, and lungs that produces a thick coating over the air passages, seriously interfering with breathing. The condition can spread to the heart and nervous system, causing permanent heart and brain damage. Between 10 and 15% of those who contract diphtheria die.

Tetanus, or "lock jaw" causes severe muscle spasms that interfere with breathing. The infection is usually contracted from a puncture wound and can cause convulsions and paralysis that are fatal in 50% of cases.

Pertussis or "whooping cough" is an infection of the throat and lungs. It is easily identified by a characteristic noisy "whooping" cough. Pneumonia is a common occurrence with this disease, which may also be complicated by convulsions, brain damage, and death. This illness is particularly deadly in infants less than one year old.

Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR). The MMR vaccine is a combination vaccination that simultaneously produces antibodies against measles, mumps and rubella (German measles).

Mumps, caused by an infection of the salivary glands, produces swollen glands, primarily in the neck, that can lead to deafness, pancreatitis, seizures, and brain disorders. In males the swelling can also occur in the testicles producing sterility and impotence.

Measles (Red) is still a killer outside the United States and is the most serious of the common childhood diseases. One in every 1,000 cases can result in deafness, blindness, brain damage, and seizures. 10% of people who develop brain damage or seizures will die.

Rubella or German Measles is a mild viral disease in the children who catch it, but if it occurs in a pregnant woman, especially in the first trimester, the developing fetus may be affected producing severe birth defects in her infant. Thousands of infants were born with heart disease, deafness, and mental retardation as a result of their mother’s contracting German measles during her pregnancy.

If Canadians and Americans had not stepped up to the plate and gone for polio immunization in the big way, the disease might have continued unabated until this day. Instead it has been virtually eradicated from North America. When the other immunizations became available, we again gladly had our children immunized. We knew what the alternatives were. Because we willingly had our children immunized, there are generations of North Americans who do not have a memory of the tragedies that occurred due to the scourges that blazed a trail throughout this land every year.

Some people became complacent and forgot about the benefits of the immunizations. Many found excuses for not seeking immunizations for their children. As they said, “There might be side effects.” Let me tell you the side effects were nothing compared to the havoc and tragedy that could be created by those diseases. People no longer realized how many serious illnesses, disabilities and deaths were avoided by the immunizations. Many people had not heard about their grandparent’s siblings - the ones who did not reach adulthood, because they died of one disease or another. Efforts are made to try to immunize as much of the global population as possible. As a result, Small Pox has been eradicated. Still many third world countries have pockets of communicable diseases. We have relaxed our vigilance. With speedy travel throughout the world, diseases can reach North American ports of entry within 24 hours. Many of those diseases are rarely seen on this continent – and then some like TB were thought to be controlled in North America. However, there has been a resurgence of a treatment- resistant TB here, believed to have arrived from third world countries. We must be vigilant and work with our public health agencies to keep diseases at bay. It is a battle that we all must fight.

Now those responsible for public health are advising the public to go for H1N1 Flu immunization to stop the spread of a disease that can strike our young people with amazing swiftness and deadliness. This is a new virus that has mutated to move to human hosts. H1N1 was formerly only seen in animals. Children, as young as six month old, students, young adults, especially pregnant women and baby boomers are all at high risk. Some people born before 1957 are thought to have some immunity, gained by exposure to one of the global flu’s that passed through the world in the mid-fifties because that was a similar type of virus. That doesn’t go to say everyone 52 years of age and older is immune to the H1N1 virus. The ball is now in your court. It is up to you to step up to the plate and strike down this new scourge that is threatening people throughout the world.

Make and informed decision. Think about the alternatives!

Rafe Mair sends a powerful message. At least take the time to read this and understand what this old sage is telling you. It is important!

Rafe here, I thought I might send you my last thoughts on the rivers issue.In order to get the message out, would you please send it to your address book and ask them to do the same?Best,Rafe

Rafe's Summary: I've been fighting injustice my entire life. I have long looked with considerable skepticism at those in charge feeling strongly that they must have the closest possible scrutiny. I've been in government and know how the spin is administered to issues so that evils in government policies are disguised. I've long been guided by what I call Mair's Axiom I, namely, "one makes a serious mistake in assuming that people in charge know what the hell they're doing". During my time practicing law I took many cases "pro bono" because I sensed an injustice.As Consumer Minister I battled hard for consumers passing 33 pieces of legislation in two sittings, a record before or since. In the Ministry of Environment I stopped government killing wolves, stopped exploration for and mining of uranium and negotiated the saving of the Skagit River from being made into a lake by Seattle raising the Ross Dam.In radio I fought against two disastrous constitutional exercises, Meech Lake and Charlottetown, the Kemano Completion Project, a gravel pit on the Pitt River, the fish farm issue and recently the private river swindle.I'm now in my 78th year and though I'm pretty fit, the time comes when you have to consider that your place in the front line trenches should be taken by younger people. I've greatly enjoyed speaking all around the province and meeting so many of you on the "rivers" issue but being away from home on the road for many days at a time takes a toll While I have no intention to stop speaking out and writing on environmental concerns perhaps it's time I started supporting causes but not being its torch bearer.In short, I have to face reality.The "rivers" issue I'm now fighting is one of the most important I've ever been involved in and in this fight I include the government's appalling record on the fish farm issue. What's at stake here is the essence, or you might say the very soul, of British Columbia. The return of Gordon Campbell will mean the sale, for money we'll never even see, the British Columbia we love so dearly. Indeed the money will be paid by us through BC Hydro to the very people who will destroy our province!We do not need power - the National Energy Board is authority for that. When we do require more we have four viable ways to get it.1. Conservation2. Upgrading our present generators.3. Putting generators on flood control dams and new ones on existing dams4. Taking back the power we're entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty.It's critical that we all understand that private power depends upon the spring runoff for the water it needs, meaning it mainly produces power for a few short months at best and at the same time BC Hydro's reservoirs are full to brimming. Because this power is of limited duration and at a time Hydro can't use it, it's exported bringing us within the purview of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)A re-election of Mr. Campbell will mean the not so slow strangulation of BC Hydro, our power company that is the envy the world and it will happen this way. Hydro has lost 1/3 of its employees to Accenture, the bastard nephew of the infamous Enron, and its transmission lines to a new crown corporation, BCTC. Meanwhile, what's left of our public power utility, BC Hydro, is banned from developing new sources of renewable energy and is forced instead to buy large quantities of expensive private river power that we don't need and can't use at more than twice the market price. Buy high and sell low! With just a few private projects now up and running already Hydro owes $30 BILLION on long term indexed prices and every private project adds to the total and tightens that strangling noose. Barred from producing new sources of power and still carrying its $7 BILLION Capital debt, Hydro is on its death bed only waiting for Mr. Campbell to administer the Last Rites.As he did with BC Rail, Premier Campbell promises to keep BC Hydro publicly owned - that, if nothing else, must tell us what he intends to do.Of huge concern is that BC Hydro, always able to pay of hundreds of millions a year dividends to the BC treasury, which go towards our schools, hospitals and social programs, now cannot do so. In essence then, the public is paying, through BC Hydro, for the capital costs of private companies like Ledcor and General Electric, while no longer receiving the bounty of BC Hydro's much envied ability to create clean, cheap and constant energy.It doesn't end there, of course. Each plant desecrates the rivers it diverts or dams (the industry prefers we call them weirs) for all time. We must remember that while economic missteps by government can be fixed by a later government, once we've lost our rivers and BC Hydro we can never get them back.This is indeed a "watershed" election (pun intended) where we'll decide if we keep "supernatural BC" or turn it over to large international companies such as General Electric.The Liberal government, in the words of Oscar Wilde knows "the price of everything and the value of nothing"If we re-elect the Campbell government we will, quite rightly, be condemned by our children, our grandchildren and generations as yet unborn.Sincerely,Rafe Mair

What is happening to B.C. Hydro and our cheap power.

B.C. Hydro shares a piece of my history. My Dad worked for B.C. Electric which was the original name of B.C.Hydro. This little video is a bit of fun but gives you something to think about. I actually found it in the ads on this blog. Please take a few minutes to look at it. It is called:
Boardroom Breakthrough: Hydro Heist and can be found at:
http://www.moveforwardbc.ca/ Keep informed!

Protect our wild salmon. Let the government know how we feel on the subject. The Wilderness Committee delivers petition.

This e-mail came in this morning. I would like to help this lady get her message out. It is a good one and follows my creed "Keep informed!" I'm sure any of you who wish to join this group at Canada Place on the 6th of May would be welcome.

Alexanda Morton writes: "To those of you in Vancouver.
The Wilderness Committee will be carrying our letter with its’ 13,000 signatures to Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. They have built a salmon mascot, Tum Tum who will join them and will be also delivering their own petition with 33,000 signatures on it urging government to protect wild salmon from fish “farms.” I am hoping to be there as well.When: Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 12 noon. Where: In front of BC government cabinet offices at World Trade Centre at Canada Place, downtown VancouverIt is remarkable to me that there has been no answer to our letter simply asking for the laws of Canada to be applied and I appreciate the Wilderness Committee delivering this in person. Many of you have received the same email from different Liberal MLA candidates saying that the Province is not allowed to interfere with the BC Supreme Court decision, but this is not accurate. In filing an Appearance they have given themselves the option to send lawyers to the appeal filed by the fish farmers. They may indeed have decided not to fight the decision, but why then has Gordon Campbell not answered our letter?I am hoping that we don’t get to find out. We need someone in government who can answer a question asked by 13,000 people.I learned this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Agency has a ban on importation of food products that have been exposed to the chemical Emamectin benzoate (Slice) that Canadian fish farms use to suppress their sea lice. Fish farmers use this chemical in many places where people collect sea food to eat and despite requests never post notices to the public so we could avoid the drug. There is an article on page 12 in Pacific Fishing on this: http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280 <http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280> In a remote, wilderness so beautiful it captures your soul, I have raised my children on seafood exposed to a drug banned in the U.S. Alexandra Morton"

Political Subterfuge regarding salmon farms and the water policy relating to the independent power projects

This morning's e-mail brought in a couple of messages that I found both interesting and informative. The first is an article that is in the Times Colonist about Salmon Farming.
The author, Terry Anderson, founder of the Wild Salmon Alliance, states that the government's present position towards Salmon Farming makes no sense for B.C. citizens and our wild salmon stocks. It is worth taking a few minutes to read this at:
http://www.timescolonist.com/story_print.html?id=1559216&sponsor=


The second is a copy of a letter written by the Glen Valley Watershed's Society and sent to the politicians running for election in this area, Rick Coleman, Gail Chaddock-Costello and Travis Erbacher. It is about water quality and gives some issues that we should be bringing to the attention of our political representatives. We and they must remember that is the position they are vying for! I've been told since reading this one that the government will respond that they already have a water policy. The thing they won't mention though is that it will not be implemented until 2012. "Why" you might ask? The reason might just be that by then the Independent Power Projects will all be at the stage where they can be grandfathered in, even through they will not meet the standards in the new water policy. Seems there are a lot of things that we just don't understand.

The Commericalization of Our B.C.Water

We must all be informed about what is happening in our province. Please take a few minutes of your time to watch this video. It is very interesting and informative.

http://ashlu.info/video/bcrivers.html

Hopington Aquifer lies under a large area of Langley Municipality

Hopington Aquifer is the main water source for many people in Langley Municipality. An information Forum is being held in the Murrayville Hall, Saturday April 18 between 9a.m and noon. We must take steps to maintain the quality and quantity of the Township's water.

Pirates vs. Shipping: A Historical Perspective

We are all hearing about the increasingly active pirates that are taking over ships off the east coast of Africa. I am wondering why the big ships that have to use the pirate’s corridor don’t take a page out of history.

Read the remainder of this article at: www.magiccarpetjournals.com/Pirates_convoys.htm

The above picture is of one of Canada’s Park boats, the SS Mewata Park, unloading cargo at Canada Docks, in Manchester England during WWII.