Master gardener Shelaigh Garcon (left), TRU international student volunteer Alesy Sheray and horticulturist Brayden Stephenson prepare the fields for planting at Tranquille on the Lake. Dave Eagles/KTW
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DE K A M L O O P S
THURSDAY
Thursday, April 25, 2013 X Volume 26 No. 33
Kamloops, B.C., Canada X 30 cents at Newsstands
THIS WEEK
Debate devoid of Liberals By Andrea Klassen STAFF REPORTER andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
Don’t expect to find either of Kamloops’ B.C. Liberal candidates hiding amongst the produce at this weekend’s Kamloops Farmers’ Market. While all four B.C. NDP and B.C. Conservative candidates vying for office in the city’s two ridings will attend an allcandidates forum run by the Council of Canadians, Liberals Terry Lake and Todd Stone will be absent. Organizer Anita Strong said it’s disappointing to have no representation from one of the province’s major political players. “It always is because I think that if they’re not there to get their ideas across, then what do people have to base their choices on?” she said. Rather than attend the forum, the Stone campaign is heading to Chase, the Kamloops-South
ELECTION 2013 Thompson candidate’s campaign manager told KTW. “As a new candidate, we’re spending our time door knocking,” Hoberly Hove said. Hove said Stone is planning to participate in only three mediasponsored debates, two of which ran this week on Radio NL. “We’ve received a lot of requests for debates and all-candidates’ forums in high schools and all over the place and we’ve been working on this for months and we already had a tight schedule,” Hove said. “We just couldn’t accommodate anything but the major ones.” The Terry Lake campaign told KTW it hasn’t received an invi-
tation to this weekend’s forum — or, if an invite was extended, it was lost in the shuffle — but would not be attending because of scheduling conflicts. Strong said an invite did go out to the Kamloops-North Thompson Liberal candidate a month ago but, at the time, she was told the incumbent MLA wasn’t likely to attend. “I thought they were just going to boycott it,” Strong said, noting Premier Christy Clark chose to skip an all-candidates meeting in her Vancouver-Point Grey riding earlier this month. While Lake was in attendance when the Council of Canadians held its farmers’ market debate during the 2009 provincial election, Strong said he took issue with some of the questions and left early. “I think he thought we were giving him harder questions or something, but I’m not sure,” she said. X See MARKET DEBATE A2
Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Trees at Royal Inland Hospital are falling Page A6 Thompson River Publications Partnership Ltd.
By Dale Bass STAFF REPORTER dale@kamloopsthisweek.com
It’s such a simple question: What’s in a name? For the folks who run the North Shore Community Centre (NSCC), there’s a lot behind that moniker — and some of them aren’t happy a planned centre in the former John Tod elementary building is sharing that title with them. Brenda Giesbrecht, bookkeeper for the NSCC that calls 730 Cottonwood Ave. home, said the centre has more than 250 members, more than 7,500 visitors annually and more than 650 volunteer hours put in monthly to keep the place running. It’s been a registered non-profit community centre since 1997 with a focus to relieve loneliness and isolation of the aged or to improve their mobility and fitness through the many programs and activities offered. Giesbrecht said confusion has been created by announcements by municipal politicians and repeated by the media that call the entity being created in the empty school by the same name.
The Kamloops-Thompson school district, which closed John Tod elementary in 2010 due to declining enrolment, has leased the McGowan Avenue building to the city, which in turn will sublease space to the Kamloops YMCA-YWCA and the Boys and Girls Club of Kamloops.
A COMMUNITY CENTRE BY ANY OTHER NAME . . . As recently as April 8, a press release from Kamloops-ThompsonCariboo MP Cathy McLeod referred to the site as the North Shore Community Centre. “Our name defines who we are and gives us a sense of identity,” Giesbrecht said. “Individually, people do not like it when their name is misspelled, incorrectly pronounced or forgotten altogether.” X See JOHN TOD A10