INSIDE: Salmon protesters at it again Pg. 3 T U E S D A Y
August 6, 2013
receiver 11From to quarterback N E W S ,
SPORTS,
WEATHER
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E N T E R T A I N M E N T chilliwacktimes.com
Costly court case $42,000 spent to prosecute Sto:lo woman for fishing
BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
T
ent herself, and she has learned first hand what it’s like to have strangers help her undress and shower. “There was a while where I didn’t shower,” she said, “and I’m sure the worker could have given me one . . . but you just don’t feel right because when you’re in the shower and totally naked, especially with me because I don’t have arms and
he federal government paid a lawyer more than $40,000 over nine years to prosecute a local First Nations woman for a Fisheries Act violation, the Times has learned. Hope lawyer Finn Jensen was hired by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC) to act as Crown counsel in the case of Patricia Kelly, a Sto:lo woman charged in 2004 with “purchasing, selling and possession of fish against the Fisheries Act.” She pleaded not guilty but after a four-year fight she was convicted on July 3, 2008. She then made an aboriginal rights defence, which slowly proceeded through Supreme Court in Chilliwack, ending May 9 with an absolute discharge and an order that Kelly be paid $2,482 for the confiscated fish. The case enraged local First Nations leaders who lament that Kelly was treated like a criminal for exercising her constitutional right to fish. “There is no fairness about it,” Sto:lo Tribal Council Grand Chief Doug Kelly (no relation to Patricia) told the Times last week.
See HOME SUPPORT, Page 6
See KELLY, Page 3
Cornelia Naylor/TIMES
Since becoming a Chilliwack Home Support client, Cindy Thomsen has learned how important continuity of care is for people getting support in their homes.
The strain of relying on others This is part one in a two-part series about Chilliwack Home Support and clients who say the service is dropping the ball when it comes to continuity of care.
CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
W
hen Cindy Thomsen was a community health care worker seven years ago, she didn’t get why it was such a big deal to some clients to have multiple workers come into their homes and help them shower. Helping clients (the elderly and people with disabilities) undress
An endless stream of strangers coming into the home can be stressful for Home Support clients and shower was all in a day’s work for her, and just one part of her job with Chilliwack Home Support. But the subject kept coming up. “I’d go into clients’ places, especially the elderly, and they’d tell me the same thing, that they didn’t like undressing for 30 different girls,” Thomsen said. “They only wanted one girl to give them a shower, and I’d sort of wonder why.” Her learning curve has been
steep since then. In 2006, a sudden and vicious blood infection devastated her body. It almost killed her and destroyed tissue on her face, arms and legs. The threat of gangrene forced the amputation of her legs mid-calf and her arms just below the elbow. Parts of her face—her nose, mouth and lips—fell off. Now she is a Home Support cli-
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