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5 things to know about B.C.’s lucrative salvage logging industry

thenarwhal.ca

A relatively new industry is taking off in British Columbia, as forestry companies set their sights on logging burn zones after wildfires. It’s called salvage logging — and it may disrupt forests’ abilities to naturally recover from fires. B.C. rules allow companies to remove the last remaining living trees from burn zones. Those trees can offer critical support for healing ecosystems. Now some experts and affected communities, including First Nations, are raising the alarm and calling for more selective logging practices.

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Why Was Premier Smith’s Husband in a Secret Megaproject Meeting?

The governments of former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and now Premier Danielle Smith have been vigorously lobbied to support a private company’s high-stakes gamble on a rail line from Calgary to Banff. With potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of public money at stake, internal government documents obtained by The Tyee raise a question. Why did Smith personally arrange for her husband to be granted extraordinary access to confidential internal government discussions about the proposed project? The internal documents, obtained through freedom of information, show Smith’s husband, David Moretta, attended an hour-long confidential government meeting at McDougall Centre, the provincial government’s Calgary office, on Sept. 26, 2023. The government redacted any information that would show who else attended the meeting and what was discussed.

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Mathios Arkangelo killing: Community leaders dismayed after officer who shot man returns to active duty

edmontonjournal.com

Leaders in Edmonton’s Black and African communities say they’re frustrated after learning the police officer who shot Mathios Arkangelo has resumed work. Edmonton police confirmed Wednesday that the unidentified officer has completed a “reintegration” program following the deadly shooting “and has returned to active duty.” EPS spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard acknowledged the “tragedy of this incident” but urged family and community members to trust the independent investigation process.

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B.C. landslide river surge reaches Lower Mainland

Max Paulhus says he could hear wood breaking and a roaring sound before an approaching surge of water raced down the Fraser River after breaking free from a landslide upstream. Paulhus lives in Lillooet, B.C., and is one of several Fraser River community residents and business operators who described watching the power of water and debris churning from the Chilcotin River landslide towards British Columbia's Lower Mainland. "You could hear an abnormal sound coming from the river," said Paulhus, the Lillooet and District Rescue Society chief. "You could hear that noise. You could hear branches breaking. It was almost like a roar." Others downstream at Lytton and at the Hell's Gate Airtram said they could also hear the river's flow as the water and debris passed through Tuesday afternoon and evening.

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Riders and Drivers Urge TransLink to Bring HandyDart In-House

Thousands of people with disabilities could end up stranded in the coming weeks across Metro Vancouver as strike action by ATU Local 1724 ramps up. The union represents HandyDart drivers, maintenance workers, road supervisors, trainers and office workers in Metro Vancouver and has been on strike since July 3 when an overwhelming majority of members voted in favour of taking action, said union president Joe McCann. This does not impact HandyDart services outside of Metro Vancouver. HandyDart offers a “paratransit” service for people who can’t take conventional public transit without assistance due to physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities. Drivers offers passengers door-to-door service and are trained to work with people with a range of disabilities and mobility aides, McCann said. Passengers can book a ride up to a week in advance and pay the same fare as conventional public transit users. They will often ride the bus with several other passengers. Leo Yu, a HandyDart bus operator and member of Local 1724, says working conditions have been deteriorating over the past decade. More recently, “completely chaotic” workdays have been negatively impacting drivers, dispatchers, passengers and their caregivers, he says.

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When a wildfire came to my remote B.C. community, residents headed to the frontlines

thenarwhal.ca

On the night of July 17, a massive lightning storm rolled across the Kootenay region of B.C.’s southeast Interior, lighting up the darkness and setting dry hillsides ablaze. In my small, end-of-the-road community of Argenta, home to approximately 150 people, we awoke to at least four fires burning on the mountain directly above our homes. It’s something many of us have been waiting for, recognizing it as an inevitable reality of living so intimately with the forests we love so dearly. It’s also something we prepared for. With over 200 strikes reported and little rain to accompany them, mountain sides were set on fire near villages and cities that included Nelson, Silverton, Meadow Creek and New Denver.

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Questions Are Piling Up about Hockey Freebies for UCP Insiders

There’s another shoe that needs to drop before the United Conservative Party’s embarrassing skybox scandal goes quiet and Alberta can go back to sleep as Premier Danielle Smith and her political advisors doubtless profoundly wish we would. To wit: Did UCP ministers or political staffers avail themselves of corporate flights to NHL playoff games in Vancouver and perhaps in Sunrise, Florida? And if so, who paid? Thanks to the reporting of the Globe and Mail’s Carrie Tait, we already know who bought skybox tickets — at least some of them — for well-connected members and employees of Smith’s government. Tait’s July 18 report confirmed some of the rumours heard on social media and in political circles about cabinet members and senior staffers accepting corporate skybox tickets during the playoffs. But if the Calgary Stampede rumour mill, at least, had it right, the skies over B.C.’s Lower Mainland and perhaps around Miami International Airport too were a free-flight zone during the Stanley Cup finals. So inquiring minds want to know: Who was on those corporate jets? What did they pay, if anything? And if passengers didn’t pay, who did? Smith, it would seem, is just as determined that it’s none of our business. Which, naturally, raises suspicions that some well-connected folk didn’t take WestJet and pay for their flight themselves, as Smith told reporters she did.

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A ‘Terror Tour’ Found Safe Spaces in Small Communities Across Canada

The Township of Langley will investigate how an extreme-right group was able to book a community hall jointly managed by the township and a local Lions Club. “We’ll have to be reviewing that in the future, especially with this particular hall,” Langley Mayor Eric Woodward told The Tyee. “And seeing if there’s any assistance the township can provide and any policy updates to help these groups ensure that they don’t mistakenly book something like this in the future.” Diagolon is led by several livestreamers who spend hours online spouting racism against Jewish and South Asian people and other minorities, dwelling on violent fantasies of fighting against invading immigrants. The RCMP has described Diagolon as a “militia-like network with supporters who subscribe to accelerationist ideologies — the idea that a civil war or collapse of western governments is inevitable and ought to be sped up.” This June, the group started advertising for an in-person “Terror Tour” across Canada during the summer, promising stops in major Canadian cities from Halifax to Vancouver. In reality, the meetings have been held in small venues in smaller communities. The Ottawa gathering happened in an agricultural hall in the village of Carp. For the Kamloops stop, the group apparently met at a skating rink owned by the Falkland and District Community Association. The small community is about 70 kilometres east of Kamloops. When Diagolon members showed up at the community centre venue they had rented in Sudbury, they found the doors locked. In Kelowna, Diagolon held an informal gathering in a park rather than booking an event venue. A warning about the event was posted on a Kelowna Reddit group.

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What you need to know about the latest plastics ban in B.C.

British Columbians will no longer get plastic and Styrofoam takeout containers and will be charged fees for new shopping bags, as part of single-use plastic regulations rolling out Monday. It's the latest part of the province's regulations on plastics, which started rolling out last December to align with federal regulations that are going into effect across the country. B.C., however, had delayed some aspects of the federal single-use plastics regulations, saying that producers and businesses needed more time to adapt. The province says the bans will help divert plastic waste from landfills, where an estimated 340,000 tonnes of plastic items and packaging were disposed of in the province in 2019.

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Lesbian couple brutally beaten by men who were harassing them on one woman’s birthday

www.lgbtqnation.com

A lesbian couple in Halifax, Canada was assaulted by a group of men who were shouting homophobic slurs at them. Emma MacLean and her girlfriend, Tori, were walking down the street celebrating one of their birthdays when a group of men made a rude comment at MacLean, CTV News reports. “A group of men walking in the other direction and they made a comment to me,” said Emma MacLean. “My girlfriend, Tori, said, ‘Hey that’s my girlfriend.’” This response led to the men making explicitly homophobic remarks at the two, taunting them both. “They continued walking and then Tori followed them to basically verbally be like, ‘That is not okay,’” MacLean said. That’s when the men started attacking Tori. “I see Tori being pushed on the stairs right in front of the BMO Centre and they are cement stairs and she’s on her back, that’s when all the men started punching and kicking her,” she continued. MacLean said that she yelled for them to stop before she got involved in the fight to protect her girlfriend. “The fight or flight came in. Basically jumped on one of their backs and put them in a chokehold, trying to restrain them.” A bystander alerted police shortly after the fight ended. They spoke with one of the men involved in the incident, and he told them that it was the two women who had initiated the fight. The rest of the men refused to cooperate and give IDs, however. There are currently no charges as police are investigating the situation. Both MacLean and Tori suffered injuries. Tori had bruises covering her body, while MacLean had a chipped tooth, a broken nose, and many bruises as well. MacLean said, “I felt punches and kicks and then I felt it on my nose and there was blood. I just thought this needs to stop now. I went to emerge the night of and they basically said it was too swollen for surgery.” “I’m terrified to go downtown again in Halifax. I just feel like it’s so out of your control on what could happen. It’s overwhelming. I didn’t expect something like this to happen, especially with it happening during Pride Month as well.”

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Nelson Soccer says players were racially abused at Idaho tournament

www.nelsonstar.com

Youth players on a Nelson soccer team were allegedly threatened with racial slurs during a May tournament in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Nelson Soccer Association (NSA) says a person in a truck shouted racist threats at a team with players of colour during a game May 12. Multiple Nelson teams were visiting Coeur d'Alene at the time for an annual tournament. A detective with Coeur d'Alene Police Department told the Nelson Star that it had opened an investigation and has since sent the case to a local prosecutor for review, but did not offer any further details. It's the second time this year athletes have faced racial abuse in Coeur d'Alene. In March, a Utah women's NCAA basketball team said its players were twice threatened by people in a vehicle who shouted racial epithets. NSA board chair Goran Denkovski said NSA was not previously aware of the March incident involving the basketball team. The organization hasn't made a decision on its future participation in Idaho tournaments, but Denkovski said NSA will begin assessing regional safety prior to making tournament commitments. “We do all recognize that Idaho specifically, that state is a state of concern that we should acknowledge.”

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The VSO’s Symphony at Sunset is returning to Sunset Beach

www.straight.com

What could be more idyllic than watching the sunset at the beach while being serenaded by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra? On July 6, grab your blankets and head to the beach for a performance that only comes once a year in Vancouver. The VSO is taking to the shoreline at Sunset Beach for a special 90-minute sunset concert. Led by Maestro Otto Tausk, the Symphony at Sunset program will feature both classical and contemporary music. The complete set list is: - Coast Salish Anthem - Star Wars: Suite for Orchestra I. Main Title - Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, No. 1 - Élan: Sesquie for Canada’s 150th - Concerto, Piccolo, C Major, RV443 III. Allegro molto - Samson and Delila: Danse Bacchanle - Lawerence of Arabia Overture - Godfather: Love Theme - Hook: The Flight to Neverland - Star Trek - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - E.T.: Adventures on Earth - Superman March

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The Massive Harm of LNG Fracking, Tallied

thetyee.ca

Hurried pursuit of a liquefied natural gas windfall in B.C. and Alberta will squander a key component of Canada’s long-term energy security while causing environmental devastation, according to a new report. Scaling up LNG exports from fracking in the Montney basin that straddles the two provinces almost certainly will jeopardize local water resources, species habitat and the country’s struggling effort to meet climate targets. And there could be another cost down the road: “The current policy of exploiting the Montney as fast as possible for LNG exports may create risks that gas will be unavailable for other uses in the future.” This, according to energy analyst David Hughes, author of a comprehensive report called “Drilling into the Montney,” released June 24 by the David Suzuki Foundation. “The Montney represents Canada’s largest remaining accessible gas resource and is forecast to provide a significant portion of future gas production with or without LNG,” Hughes told The Tyee. “Conventional production from mature gas fields in Canada has declined sharply over the past couple of decades.” “Production has been made up by unconventional plays like the Montney which can only be accessed with the technology of hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling. And those technologies come with significant environmental impacts in terms of climate change, water consumption, biodiversity loss and land disturbance.” The Montney basin is an oval-shaped, 96,000-square-kilometre geological formation that stretches on a southeast diagonal from Fort Nelson, B.C., at its top and includes the territories of Treaty 8 First Nations. The Montney currently produces 10 billion cubic feet of methane per day or roughly half of Canada’s total.

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A mine proposed in B.C. would supply the fracking industry — by way of 55,000 truck trips per year

thenarwhal.ca

When you think of B.C.’s central interior forests, you probably picture swaths of trees stretching over hills and up mountains, punctuated by rivers and the occasional lake. You probably don’t think of sand. But if a proposal working its way through the B.C. environmental assessment process is approved, a special type of sand used in hydraulic fracturing for gas — commonly known as fracking — will be extracted from a forest near Bear Lake, north of Prince George. The sand would be trucked to B.C.’s northeast, where a fracking boom is poised to begin to supply the province’s new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry. Vitreo Minerals, a sand and gravel supplier based in Golden, B.C., proposes to build an open-pit mine and two processing facilities that could produce two million tonnes of frac sand per year for up to 20 years. The Angus mine, which has the potential to supply up to 400 fracking wells per year, would be B.C.’s only operating frac sand mine. The project will involve building new access roads through the forest, clearing land for the mine and its crushing and drying facilities and constructing a new transmission line and natural gas pipeline to power the operation, according to a project description submitted to the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office. “We propose to essentially mine — by drilling and blasting in a very conventional-looking quarry — a rock known as quartz arenite, a very high-purity silica-rich rock,” Vitreo Minerals CEO Scott Broughton explained during a recent project information session hosted by the assessment office. “It actually has the perfect-size sand grains that we’re looking for to produce proppant [frac sand] for the oil and gas industry.” But environmental groups say the mine, which would be located in the Fraser River watershed, poses risks to nearby communities, water, local wildlife and the environment. Sven Biggs, the Canadian oil and gas programs director for Stand.Earth, said the non-profit group will be keeping tabs on any long-term expansion plans for the frac sand industry in B.C. “If the plan really is to produce enough silica in British Columbia to support the LNG industry here in B.C. and Alberta, those would be very large operations and could have a much larger footprint than this initial project,” he told The Narwhal.

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B.C. trans teacher files human rights complaint over online hate campaign

www.nelsonstar.com

A transgender teacher who taught at Pitt Meadows Secondary School has filed a human rights complaint against a woman whom they believe launched an online campaign of hatred against them. Wilson Wilson filed the complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal on Friday, June 22, with support from Lawyers Against Transphobia. "I'm standing up because as much as this has robbed me of my privacy and like my dignity as a person, I haven't been robbed of my power or responsibility," Wilson told Black Press Media. Wilson is currently on leave from the school because of the incident and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The incident started in December of last year when Wilson became the target of online threats after a far-right social media account, called Libs of TikTok, shared photos of Wilson, an artist who identifies as trans non-binary, that were from an art portfolio. One image showed Wilson topless and in the other in a netted shirt – both appearing to show a double mastectomy. A person claiming to be a parent of at least one student at the school, who goes by the name Blonde Bigot on X, made allegations of student abuse and accused the school district as having child grooming and “pedophilic” activities and accused the teacher of glorifying their self-mutilation. The mother has since been identified as Joanna Evenson. Thousands of people commented on X, a majority of them harassing Wilson and calling them names. At the time Martin Dmitrieff, head of the Maple Ridge Teachers’ Association, said the images were in the public sphere because it was important for the teacher to interact as an artist through community art programs, where their work is being showcased. "This could be anybody," said Wilson about the online harassment. "This could be any trans teacher. So, what I can do is stand up. And, if I don't stand up now the right has a successful strategy to silence trans teachers."

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BC Family Benefit boost needed now 'more than ever,' says Eby

www.nelsonstar.com

B.C. Premier David Eby chose Jinkerson Park in the growing community of Chilliwack on Monday (June 24), to announce a sizable increase to the BC Family Benefit starting next month. "With global inflation and high interest rates driving up daily costs, we know families are being hit hard right now," said Eby. The boosted BC Family Benefit will be going to more low- and middle-income families, and on average they'll receive $445 more than last year. Eby also used the press conference to announce he'll be stepping away for a few weeks from his duties as premier for family reasons. "Getting a little extra money to families for the basics is one of the ways we're helping people who are feeling squeezed right now," Eby said. Chilliwack parent Katie Bartel was on-hand with her niece Maggie, to attest to the struggle local families are facing with skyrocketing costs of food, clothes, gas, childcare and housing. "Life is expensive, especially for those of us raising a child with a disability, and raising any family right now comes with unique challenges," Bartel said. The extra money will help her family pay for a support worker for her daughter, as an example, and she said families like hers are increasingly looking to their communities and their government for help. "We can't do this alone," Bartel said.

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Stepping into the Big, Weird ‘Anti-woke’ Tent

The word “woke” — which has now lost any real or useful meaning since its origins in African American vernacular English — has become commonplace in right-wing campaigns and is being applied (seemingly quite effectively) to target anything and everything. In B.C., the leader of the insurgent Conservative Party of BC, John Rustad, has raged against “woke ideology,” targeting trans people and sexuality and gender orientation education resources in schools (also known as SOGI 123). When Rustad made comparisons between SOGI and residential schools last year, he was criticized and asked to apologize by politicians across the spectrum. MLA Ravi Parmar, from the governing BC NDP, called Rustad’s comparisons “disgraceful” in a now-deleted tweet. On a CBC Early Edition panel, Green MLA Adam Olsen denounced Rustad’s comments as “astonishing” and “inappropriate.” And Elenore Sturko, then MLA for the Opposition party BC United who recently joined the B.C. Conservatives, called Rustad’s comments “incredibly insulting” at the time. And then Bruce Banman, the B.C. Conservative MLA for Abbotsford South, summed up the criticism of Rustad’s comments as symptoms of a “hypersensitive, woke, far-left cancel culture” that he and his colleagues are trying to correct. On a separate occasion, it appears that Paul Ratchford, a Conservative Party of BC candidate for Vancouver-Point Grey, referred to his now party member colleague Sturko as a “woke lesbian, social justice warrior.”

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B.C.’s ‘war in the woods’ battlegrounds to be permanently protected

Old-growth forests that were environmental and Indigenous rights battlegrounds over clearcut logging in the 1980s and 1990s during British Columbia’s “war in the woods” are set to receive permanent protections in a land and forest management agreement. The B.C. government says an agreement Tuesday with two Vancouver Island First Nations will protect about 760 square kilometres of Crown land in Clayoquot Sound by establishing 10 new conservancies in areas that include old-growth forests and unique ecosystems. The partnership involves reconfiguring the tree farm licence in the Clayoquot Sound area to protect the old-growth zones while supporting other forest industry tenures held by area First Nations, said Forests Minister Bruce Ralston in a statement. Statements from the Clayoquot Sound’s Ahoushat and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations say the conservancies will preserve old-growth forests on Meares Island and the Kennedy Lake area, sites of protests that led to hundreds of arrests. “We have successfully reached a first phase implementation of the land-use vision,” Tyson Atleo, Ahousaht First Nation hereditary representative, said in an interview. “We will see (Tree Farm Licence 54) on Meares Island actively become real legislated protected areas for the first time in history.” Plans for clearcut logging on Meares Island, about one kilometre northeast of Tofino and the site of some of the world’s largest western red cedars, touched off environmental and Indigenous protests in the 1980s. They eventually resulted in a court injunction that halted logging, saying Indigenous land claim issues should be resolved. About a decade later, more than 800 people were arrested in the Clayoquot Sound area of Kennedy Lake near Ucluelet as protesters descended to demonstrate against more logging activities. The forest company eventually left the area after losing an estimated $200 million in contracts related to timber sales.

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Fact Checked: Four Claims on Drug Deaths

thetyee.ca

It was a heated day in Canada’s House of Commons when elected Speaker Greg Fergus ejected Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre from the chamber on April 30. Fergus removed Poilievre after he repeatedly refused to withdraw his remark that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was pushing “wacko” drug policies. That day Conservative MP Rachael Thomas posted on the social media site X in support of her boss. “Drug use in parks, hospitals and public spaces is whacko. Drug deaths are up by 380 per cent in B.C. Pierre Poilievre called out Trudeau for his dangerous drug policies today in the House of Commons,” Thomas wrote. “How did partisan hack Greg Fergus respond?! He kicked Pierre Poilievre out of the chamber.” THE CLAIM: Drug deaths are up by 380 per cent in B.C. The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in Canada Thomas’s 380 per cent increase compares the number of B.C. drug deaths in 2015 with the 2023 total. FACT CHECK: Over a similar period, drug deaths are up by 198 per cent in Alberta.* **What Thomas neglected to mention is that overdose deaths have risen by 588 per cent in her home riding of Lethbridge, Alberta, over a similar period (2016 compared with 2023).**

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Canadian acting icon Donald Sutherland dead at 88

www.nelsonstar.com

Donald Sutherland, the prolific film and television actor whose long career stretched from “M.A.S.H.” to “The Hunger Games,” has died. He was 88. Kiefer Sutherland, the actor’s son, confirmed his father’s death Thursday. No further details were immediately available. “I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film,” Kiefer Sutherland said on X. “Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that.” The tall and gaunt Canadian actor with a grin that could be sweet or diabolical was known for offbeat characters like Hawkeye Piece in Robert Altman’s “M.A.S.H.,” the hippie tank commander in “Kelly’s Heroes” and the stoned professor in “Animal House.” Before transitioning into a long career as a respected character actor, Sutherland epitomized the unpredictable, antiestablishment cinema of the 1970s . Over the decades, Sutherland showed his range in more buttoned-down — but still eccentric — parts in Robert Redford’s “Ordinary People” and Oliver Stone’s “JFK.” More, recently, he starred in the “Hunger Games” films and the HBO limited series “The Undoing.” He never retired and worked regularly up until his death. “I love to work. I passionately love to work,” Sutherland told Charlie Rose in 1998. “I love to feel my hand fit into the glove of some other character. I feel a huge freedom — time stops for me. I’m not as crazy as I used to be, but I’m still a little crazy.”