Health Care We are what we eat, Canada. p6
‘There’s risk in doing everything’. p3
THE NEWS
RE Review Introducing the grafted tomato. p23
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MLA calls for Liberal name change Marc Dalton thinks voters confused about centre-right by Ad r i a n M a c N a i r Black Press
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
In control Luiza Yuk, a member of the Coastal City Ballet, shows children at the Maple Ridge Public Library ballet exercises that are used to improve a ballerina’s balance and control. Coastal City Ballet will be performing Hansel and Gretel at The ACT on May 5.
In the wake of two by-election wins for the B.C. NDP in ridings east of Mission, one B.C. Liberal incumbent is calling on his party to change its name. Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Marc Dalton says the party name is confusing people from understanding the B.C. Liberals are a coalition party of centre-right voters, especially now that the B.C. Conservatives have surged to solid third party contenders. “There is still a lot of confusion with name brand. People who are federal Conservatives, such as myself, they just have a hard time voting Liberal,” he said, adding his party needs to get out the message that a vote for the B.C. Conservatives is not a vote for the federal Conservative party. See MLA, p11
Safety review for mills ‘Can’t compare mills here with those in Interior’ by Phil M elnyc h u k staff reporter Maple Ridge sawmills are awaiting orders from WorkSafeBC for a hazard investigation and safety review focusing on combustible dust and potential ignition sources following a deadly fire in Prince George this week. It was the second deadly mill explo-
sion in B.C. this year. However, two local mill managers say the conditions that may have caused the two fatal blasts at Interior mills aren’t present here. You can’t compare an Interior sawmill that cuts pine-beetle-killed wood with a West Coast cedar operation, says Tom Lang, manager at Interfor’s Hammond Cedar Division in Maple Ridge. Trees that have been killed by the beetle have lost their moisture because sap has stopped flowing. That presents a “significantly higher risk” than cutting green logs.
Lang added the Hammond mill has a centralized dust collection system and that Interfor also did a safety audit immediately following the explosion at the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake Jan. 20 that killed two workers. Two more died in the Lakeland Mill explosion in Prince George on Monday. Interfor is concerned and welcomes “any new guidelines or requirements that are appropriate,” to ensure they don’t happen at Hammond cedar, Lang said. See Mills, p13
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Robert Read operates the No. 1 edger at the cedar mill in Hammond, which will have to undergo a WorkSafeBC review following another deadly explosion at an Interior mill.
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