November 4, 2015 Wednesday
News updates: westerlynews.ca
Serving Tofino and Ucluelet
$1.25 [including tax]
Clark says Hospital needs new helipad
INSIDE THIS WEEK:
ANDREW BAILEY
Westerly news
Bc’s provincial government seems ready to help tofino secure a new landing pad for emergency helicopters. tofino general Hospital has been without a helipad since transport canada regulations forced the former helipad to close in 2011. at a press conference in tofino last week in the wake of the tragic leviathan ii disaster, Bc Premier christy clark said a new helipad is needed. “this is the only (Vancouver) island hospital that doesn’t have a helipad so we’ve got to do some work there as well. that’s part of the reason i’m here. i want to speak to the emergency responders and members of the community; where they’ve seen gaps, where they need help, because, heaven forbid, if there’s another disaster people want to be ready and we want to make sure that we’ve learned everything that we can from what happened on Sunday night here.” andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
Remembrance Day ceremonies divided ANDREW BAILEY
Westerly news a scheduling shakeup is about to nix one of the West coast’s longest standing traditions. tofino and ucluelet have traditionally come together on Remembrance day with each town hosting a shared ceremony every other year but this tradition will end next week as both will be hosting their own ceremonies and both ceremonies will start at 10 a.m. a scouring of this newspaper office’s archives discovered a nov. 2, 1977 edition of the Westcoaster—a Westerly news predecessor—that notes it was ucluelet’s turn to host that year, meaning the two towns have honoured Remembrance day together for at least 37 years. this year is also ucluelet’s turn to host but the tofino legion’s executive board has
decided to split from tradition and plan their own event. legion secretary cam Macdonald said the executive made its decision at a special meeting held last week. He said the legion’s executive was wary of ucluelet’s army navy airforce Veterans club (anaF) being potentially shut down by Bc anaF head command and the legion could not wait for the anaF’s status to clear up. “it just got down to the point where we had to start making some preparations and we still hadn’t had any word from ucluelet,” Macdonald said. “We called a special executive meeting to review the situation and it was finally decided by the executive that we’d go it alone.” Minutes after the decision was made, Macdonald got a call from ucluelet’s anaF co-interim manager Bronwyn
Kelleher who relayed the good news that head command had decided to keep the anaF open. “We were still sitting in the meeting when we had a phone call from one of the people in ukee to say that they were going to do it and i said, ‘i’m afraid that we have just made the decision that we have to get on with it,’” Macdonald said. “We’re going to help them in any way we can and we’ll no doubt be reviewing the situation again next year… as far as i’m concerned there’s no animosity, i just wish there had been a little more communication and we might have been able to work something out.” He acknowledged the legion’s decision could have been reversed at the time of Kelleher’s call but said preparations needed to be made and
suggested tofino and ucluelet are both well equipped to handle their own ceremonies. “this business of alternating started when both communities were 500-800 people and you really couldn’t do a notable ceremony in the two places separately,” he said. “i think each community is big enough to put on a good show on their own.” tofino’s decision to break the tradition and split up the towns blindsided Kelleher and her fellow anaF co-interim manager Kasia Kromka. “We’re disappointed that tofino has decided to not support our Remembrance day ceremony, when we all went out to their’s last year, but it is what it is and we’re going forward and we’re going to have a really beautiful ceremony,” Kromka said.
See Tradition lost, pg. 5
FaSt SuRFing: Fiber optic internet is coming to the coast. PAgE 3
tRicK OR tREat: the West coast rocked Halloween night. PAgE 6
PaRK aBuSE: locals want tofino’s council to protect tonquin Park from abuse. PAgE 14
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