Up front: Routley says B.C.’s forest strategy has no future Spotlight: Brentwood College gears up for Miserables show
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Friday, February 24, 2012
Sorry is not good enough Cowichan Lodge: Acocuntability demanded in wake of damning report Peter W. Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
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Andrew Leong
A herd of elk makes its way down to Cowichan Lake Road from the back Äeld of Tansor Elementary School on the morning of Thursday Feb. 16. Conservation ofÄcers, with the assistance from local RCMP, hoped to guide the animals to cross Cowichan Lake Road to safety, but the effort was unsuccessful as the elk detoured back into the woods.
New B.C. budget means different things to different people Krista Siefken
News Leader Pictorial
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¿rm foundation for the future. Evidence of the Liberal government’s deceit. A standard hold-the-line approach. They’re very different statements, yet all have been made about the B.C. budget tabled on Tuesday. The province’s ¿scal document includes a $969-million de¿cit and a three-year plan that predicts a $154-million surplus in 20132014, and a $250-million surplus in 2014-15. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon’s budget aims to hold government spending growth down to two per cent for three years, with most of it going to health and education. That leaves most other ministries
with little or no increase for inÀation, a restriction that is expected to reduce overall B.C. government staff from about 27,000 this year to 25,000 by 2014-15. “Basically, it’s a hold-the-line budget,” said noted chartered accountant Woody Hayes of Duncan’s Hayes Stewart Little & Company. “I think it’s good that in the long-term they’re going to be getting rid of the de¿cit — I’m not particularly concerned about ongoing shortfalls, but at the end of the day we can’t plan on continuing shortfalls. We have to come to terms with that de¿cit at some point, and it’s encouraging they’re doing that.” Hayes was also pleased to see the voter-rejected HST addressed in the budget, too. “I think people have been waiting to get some certainty around what’s
going on with the w HST,” he said. “Now we know w when the w HST will bbe adjusted, so now we Woody Hayes: uunderstand hold-the-line what’s going w on and we can get on with things.” Another positive is a “shot in the arm” for the real estate sector, Hayes said. “That matters to us in the local context because a big chunk of our economy is residential development and that’s been pretty Àat,” he explained. “We’ll start seeing some activity there.” But Hayes also noted some negatives. “There is money for health care,
but not as much as people would like. We’re going to see some stress within advanced education, and the court system, and that affects us all, even locally, because there’ll be no new money for Malaspina — now Vancouver Island University — so thank God we’ve got that new campus here, because we’d have dif¿culty getting that now. “We may see less opportunity to get new things for our area, and I think that’s going to be the status quo for the next year or two.” Not enough attention to seniors care, the justice system, advanced education and more were issues for Cowichan’s two MLAs. “Obviously this budget shows that we really can’t trust the Liberals when it comes to numbers,” Cowichan Valley MLA Bill Routley said. more on A4
orry just doesn’t cut it for many local folks affected by what B.C.’s Ombudsperson basically described as the sloppy, uncaring way Cowichan Lodge was closed in June 2008. “This case is far from closure,” Gerry Masuda, said in a letter to the News Leader Pictorial about “regrets” voiced by Howard Waldner, Vancouver Island Health Authority’s CEO, about about the process that suddenly shut the 94-bed lodge, and pink-slipped its workers, without consultation. Masuda demanded an independent community committee to debate if further action is warranted against VIHA chiefs who closed the lodge. Howard Waldner: That committee would also ensure apology not accepted the ombudsperson’s string of recommendations for VIHA closing facilities and more (www.bcombudsperson.ca) are followed. “An injustice was done, and lives were lost, as predicted,” Masuda said. “Those who were responsible for the decision to approve the ‘proposed residential care capacity plan that included the decision to close Cowichan Lodge’ without public consultation need to be held responsible and accountable.” Local health-care watchdog Joanna Neilson called Ombudsperson Kim Carter’s report a road-map for better care under VIHA. “Health Minister Mike de Jong and Howard Waldner, now it is up to you,” Neilson said. “In these reports, you have been offered invaluable gifts. Let us all hope you have the will, the integrity, the good sense and the wisdom to accept them wholeheartedly, and you will now move quickly to implement all of their recommendations.” But Carter’s suggestions, and Waldner’s letter of apology, were “too little, too late” for Norah Murphy, whose mother-in-law died in the lodge after most residents were moved elsewhere, including Duncan’s Sunridge Place. “That is why I feel the (Waldner closure) statement “not managed in an ideal manner” doesn’t come close to the apology these families deserve.” VIHA said there are no plans to hold a community meeting about the report at this time. more on A4
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