THURSDAY, march 29, 2018 Vol. 75, No. 13
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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new gun bill poorly aimed
trackers score bronze
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City looks to redevelop old fire hall
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matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
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The Fort St. John Huskies won the Senators Cup Wednesday, March 21, 2018, after beating the North Peace Navigators 5-2 in game four in Peace River. The Huskies took the NJWHL final series three games to one. Turn to B1 for the story.
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NDP offers up LNG tax breaks as final investment decision looms matt preprost & NELSON BENNETT editor@ahnfsj.ca
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The province of B.C. will exempt LNG Canada from provincial sales taxes and eliminate the LNG income tax to help facilitate a final investment decision on the estimated $40-billion project. The measures were announced March 22 as part of a new fiscal and environmental framework on natural gas development in the province. A final investment decision on LNG Canada is coming fast, Premier John Horgan said. “The potential opportunity is extraordinary, the potential risks are significant,” Horgan said. The government will also give LNG Canada and other large emitters a break on carbon taxes, if they can meet strict new benchmarks for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and will
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Premier John Horgan announces a string of new tax and other measures on liquefied natural gas development in British Columbia on March 22, 2018..
aggressively pursue electrification of natural gas fields. The measures are meant to give the project a competitive advantage as LNG market conditions rebound, at the same the province works to drop emission levels by 40 per cent from
2007 levels by 2030, Horgan said. “If we increase our greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector, that means more aggressive reductions in other sectors of our economy,” Horgan said. See LNG on A10
Demand grows for seniors home support matt preprost
editor@ahnfsj.ca
The Fort St. John and Area Seniors Foundation has secured a $10,000 grant to help continue its meals and housekeeping programs, but demand for those services is growing. The foundation has been approved for a grant by the BC Hydro GO Fund for its Meals on Wheels and Better at Home programs. Combined, the two programs support nearly 100 seniors, with more than 160
also looking for help, according to Roxanne Chemlyk. “You don’t realize there are that many seniors,” Chemlyk said. “They can’t get good care. They need that help to be able to just live until they get into a long-term care facility.” Such is the dilemma of a fastgrowing seniors population and a severe shortage of facility care beds in the North Peace. But the foundation’s goal isn’t necessarily to see more seniors end up in a care home. Its Meals on Wheels pro-
gram provides regular meals for about 14 seniors, while the Better at Home program provides housekeeping services to around 80. Many of the seniors are referred to the foundation by the hospital, according to Chemlyk. “In the comfort of your home, you have a better chance of healing,” she said.“It’s someone to have contact with, to know someone is coming. It’s a support system. It puts your mind at ease.” See SENIORS on A3
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The City of Fort St. John is looking for developers with a creative mind to turn its old fire hall on 100 Avenue into a vibrant new commercial hub that could include housing. The city is moving to hire Ron Rogers of NorthEast BC Realty to broker the sale of the surplus building and land, according to a report before city council on Monday. Moira Green, the city’s director of strategic services, said the city is treating the redevelopment of the fire hall as part of its downtown revitalization plan. It will be the first property sold under the city’s new sale of strategic lands policy. “It’s right there on the gateway to the downtown,” Green said. “It’s the unofficial place where the form and character of 100 Avenue changes.” The city is looking for a mixed-used retail and commercial development that could include housing, Green said. The city is hiring a realtor to sell the property on its behalf, who will be tasked to find the right buyer who sees the fire hall as an opportunity to do something “fun and out of the box,” Green said — and that may mean keeping the fire hall structure itself. “We’re visualizing someone who can throw open the bay doors and have a three-season patio space in the old bays, something like that. Something creative,” Green said. The city’s strategic lands policy was adopted last summer to sell surplus municipal lands under specific planning guidelines based on what the city has identified is the best use of the property. In the case of the fire hall, a developer wanting to put in a gin distillery with a tasting room and open mic stage would be given preference over a buyer wanting to use the land as a laydown yard, or to sit on it for their own resale, Green said. “The reason we’re hanging on (to these lands) is for something specific we want from each piece of property,” Green said. “Handing the control of the outcome to someone else is not something we do.” See FIRE HALL on A4
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