The Asian Star March 19 2015

www.theasianstar.com Vol 15 Issue 7

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Tel: 604-591-5423

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Vol 15

Issue 7

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Tel: 604-591-5423

Volkswagen deleted documents as USprobe sought access

The untold story of Bikar Singh Parhar

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B.C. Liberals rehire Laura Miller despite Ontario criminal charges

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remier Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberal party has rehired its executive director, who is facing criminal charges in Ontario.

Laura Miller stepped down from the party job in December after being charged with breach of trust and mischief for an alleged role in the destruction of email records in Ontario’s gas plant scandal. She has yet to go to trial. Premier Clark, who defended Miller after she was charged, issued a statement Thursday in support of rehiring her. “It’s the fair and right approach — one that respects our court process, including the fundamental principle that every person is innocent unless proven otherwise,” Clark said in a statement. Miller was deputy chief of staff to Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty until 2013. Also charged is former

McGuinty chief of staff David Livingston. The decision to rehire Miller was one made unanimously by the Liberal party executive, said deputy premier Rich Coleman, who is also the party’s election readiness chairman.

Laura Miller Miller is entitled to work and be presumed innocent until the allegations are tested in court, said Coleman.

Unlike MLAs and cabinet ministers, who are generally expected to step down when facing criminal charges, Miller is a party employee.

“She’s not elected,” said Coleman. “She’s an employee of the party. She’s already gone and Continued on page 6

‘Shadow flipping’ loophole in real estate to be closed, promises Premier Christy Clark

“S

hady”, “greedy” real estate agents will no longer be able to profit from the practice of socalled “shadow flipping” in British Columbia, Premier Christy Clark announced Friday.

Clark said the government is closing a loophole around the practice of contract assignments that will demand sellers not only give consent to any assignment put in place, but must give informed consent. Once the final sale of the property eventually goes through, any profits accrued from the assignment must return to the original

seller, Clark said.

She said the “shady practice” of shadow flipping is motivated by “pure, naked greed, and the way to end the practice is to take the profit out of it.”

Legislation is not needed to close the loophole, as it is a regulatory change, making it easier for the government to move more quickly on this issue than on others still under review by the Real Estate Council (REC). Any penalties for breaking the new rules will be set by the REC. “Those who break the rules, I hope will lose their licence,” Clark said.

Continued on page 6

BC-India Business Network founded

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Members of the BC-India Business Networkat their innagural meeting with India High Commissioner Vishnu Prakash.

ndia’s High Commissioner to Canada, Vishnu Prakash formally inaugurated the BC-India Business Network in Vancouver last Monday.

A number of business leaders and politicians including MPs Sukh Dhaliwal and Randip Sarai, former ministers Stockwell Day and Kerry Lynn-

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Findlay and Consul General for Vancouver Rajiv Kumar Chander attended the breakfast meeting held at Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver.

Congratulating the BC-India Business Network, Prakash said that the time for India-Canada relations to be further

Continued on page 7

NDP bills aimed at calming hot real estate market

he provincial Opposition New Democrats have introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at alleviating Vancouver’s affordable housing crisis. One of the bills calls for a two per cent tax on people who treat homes solely as investments. The other bill would close a loophole allowing homeowners to avoid paying property transfer tax.

NDP leader John Horgan said B.C. residents are frustrated, and concerned that their neigbourhoods are growing unaffordable.

“They don’t want their neighbourhoods to

be safety deposit boxes for the rich,” Horgan said. “They want their neighbourhoods to be places where families can be, families can thrive. The NDP has tabled the legislation, but the government is concerned changes could hurt people who are counting on home values going up. “People’s houses, in many cases, have become the investment that helps them retire,” said Housing Minister Rich Coleman. “So you can’t drive value out of their house if it’s a family that wants to invest in children or grandchildren.”

The Liberals have promised to track foreign ownership in the province as part of a strate-

4 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

By Dermod Travis, Integrity BC

N

ews this month that the Interior Health Authority had reached a 20-year agreement to outsource laundry services to Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service is the latest in a long string of odd coincidences involving companies that donate to the B.C. Liberal party and companies that do well by the B.C. government.

Ecotex has donated more than $125,000 to the B.C. Liberals, since 2005. Its billings to the Fraser Health Authority – where it has a similar contract – have risen from $5.44 million in 2007 to $7.7 million in 2015, an increase of 41.6 per cent.

Truth be told similar coincidences have been happening between campaign contributors and political parties since time immemorial, but the B.C. government may have refined it to an art form. Maximum political benefit, minimal political blowback. Just thumb through the party’s 2009 donor list for a sense of how widespread the practice of awarding contracts to friends has become. Back then, someone must have woke up on New Year’s Day with one hell of a hangover – not from the night before – but from the bank balance in the B.C. Liberal party’s account.

According to the party’s audited financial statements, it had $826,594 in cash. It also had $1.26 million in accounts payable. A far cry from where it was in 2005, when the party boasted $2.9

OPINION

Favours owed, favours due million in cash and $487,470 in accounts payable.

Not the best of times to raise bucks either. B.C. was in the midst of the recession. The start of the 2009 campaign was weeks away, so the party hit up its close friends first and friends-to-be next.

In three months, it raised $5.2 million, more than they had pulled-in for all of 2006.

Who came to the rescue? On February 18, the party reported 240 donations totalling $827,178, including 36 cheques – each in the amount of $5,000 – from 30 companies and four individuals. At the time, Partnerships B.C. (PBC) was in the short-list phase on four public infrastructure projects valued at $4.45 billion, among them the South Fraser Perimeter Road and the Port Mann bridge Eleven of the 30 companies stood to benefit through the proponents short-listed on those projects. In a remarkable coincidence, all 11 won.

They included Kiewit, Flatiron, Ledcor, PCL Constructors and Plenary Group.

Of the 19 companies that walked away empty-handed from all four deals, only two made donations over a 10-year period, totalling $3,050.

Two of the 30 companies – French-based construction firm Bouygues and Kasian Architecture – were part of a partnership shortlisted to build the new RCMP “E” Division headquarters in Surrey. They won. PBC had been hired as a P3

advisor in the early stages of that project. Seven of the companies were on BC Hydro’s shortlist for independent energy purchase agreements.

Four won. Of the three that didn’t, one was in the midst of an environmental assessment. Their certificate came through ten months later. The other two stopped donating within months. SNC-Lavalin – another of the $5,000 donors – was finishing off the Canada Line and would go on to win the contract for the Evergreen Line. The 16 successful companies donated $343,188 to the Liberals in 2009. There were other contributors.

Between January 1 and March 31, the party received 2,173 donations, including 932 cheques for a $1,000 or more, totalling $4.7 million.

They didn’t come from 932 unique donors, however. And when all the cheques are assigned to the right donor, some were quite generous.

Seventeen companies gave a total of $1.7 million, more than a third of the $4.7 million haul.

Onni Contracting wrote out the largest cheque ($150,000), but it wasn’t the largest contributor.

That honour goes to Teck Resources ($231,139).

One vaulted from 57th place to third, when donations from 20 of his other companies are added in, for a grand total of $139,500.

There were MLAs on the list: Dr. Moira Stilwell gave $1,200 and John Yap $1,000, but much of it reads like a government procurement directory: KPMG ($8,500), Bombardier ($1,000), CN Rail ($3,500), Seaspan ($4,700) and Imperial Parking ($1,800). Other names read like a who’s who of those hoping for a friendly ear. Hassan Khosrowshahi of Burke Mountain fame donated $24,500, the B.C. Lions ($3,500), Northern Gateway Pipelines ($11,500) and lobbyist Patrick Kinsella ($4,900). Three provincial environment assessments were underway at the time. Naikun Wind Development ($5,700) had its assessment approved by December 2009. Certificates for Encana’s ($104,500) Cabin Gas Plant project and Belkorp’s ($3,000) Cache Creek landfill extension project came through a month later. Who’s missing from the list? Unhappy campers. The party wears the coincidences proudly, though.

In November 2013 Rich Coleman fundraising event, the banner summed it up: “We won. It’s Christmas every day.”

Dermod Travis is the executive director of IntegrityBC. www.integritybc.ca Unless noted all figures in parentheses are for the first quarter of 2009.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

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Local

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‘Shadow flipping’ loophole in real estate to be closed, promises Premier Christy Clark From page 1

lose their licence,” Clark said.

Tackling affordability and other issues “Double-ending” — where one real estate agent acts as both the seller and the buyer’s agent — is a more complex issue, Clark said, because in small communities the practice may be forced by necessity, rather than choice.

The premier said that ministers Mike de Jong and Rich Coleman would be sitting down with Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson to discuss ways to increase the supply of both affordable housing and rental units.

The government will also be looking at strategies to discourage “irresponsible speculation” in the market.

Clark said she was “disturbed” by news from a new investigation that shows real estate agents not following money tracking provisions.

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centres (FinTRAC) said it looked at more than 80 real estate firms in the Greater

Vancouver area to determine if they were adhering to federal laws requiring them to identify clients and track money. The agency found that in 55 cases practices were “significantly” below standards.

Clark also noted that, beginning this summer, everyone purchasing property in B.C. will have to disclose their citizenship.

Asked about whether she thought there should be a measure to claw back equity from homes that have risen significantly in value, Clark said that the government would benefit through the Property Transfer Tax, but that she didn’t believe homeowners should be penalized for making a good investment

B.C. Liberals rehire Laura Miller despite Ontario criminal charges

From page 1 party. She’s already gone and organized her charges, saying the Ontario Provincial Police defence and there’s been no conviction here was unfair in its investigation. She also took to and I don’t think we should judge the issue on the Internet to crowdsource her legal defence that basis.” fund, raising more than $73,151 as of ThursLiberals have touted Miller, 36, as the drivday afternoon. She could not be reached for ing force in revitalizing the parcomment. The B.C. Liberal ty, reorganizing its structure, Party now has two employimproving fundraising, sharpees facing court action. Mark ening its attacks against oppoRobertson, a field organizer, nents and kick-starting its social faces charges under the B.C. media presence. The governing Election Act for failing to party is believed to be outpacdisclose campaign contribuing its New Democratic rivals tions in the Port Moody-Coin fundraising as it prepares quitlam byelection in 2012. for the 2017 election. The par“They have this ethic that ty decided it might as well use they will do anything to win,” Miller’s skills because it would Laura Miller said B.C. NDP leader John face criticism no matter how it Horgan. “The public has a handled the situation, said Coleman. higher standard.” Horgan said he would not “The NDP have already said they were allow an NDP member charged criminally to going to attack Laura Miller whether she was return to work with the party while the matter back with us or not,” he said. is before the courts.

Miller has defended herself against the

B.C. NDP addresses ‘out of control’ Vancouver real estate at town hall A town hall hosted by the B.C. NDP to discuss Metro Vancouver's "out-of-control real estate market" attracted more than 700 people, Wednesday evening.

"These are serious issues, this is a major crisis, and we want the provincial government to take it seriously," said NDP MLA David Eby, who organized it.

The event started with Eby citing a long list of media stories highlighting questionable real estate practices and how housing practices have caused residents to leave the region.

Eby said the region's real estate is gov-

aman@ewfinancial.ca

erned by "runaway speculation" that is "unpoliced, unregulated and rampant."

B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan hosted the event alongside Eby. He said his party will present two bills at the legislature this week — one of them will close the loopholes around "shadow flipping."

He said the the other bill will be to keep a track record of who is buying homes in B.C., "So that we can ensure that if they're buying homes from offshore, they're paying a higher level tax than those people who are living here today."

LOCAL

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

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Overnight shooting in Surrey leaves one man injured

young man is injured after an early-morning shooting in Surrey.

Surrey Mounties received a report of shots fired in the Guildford area of 144th Street and 92nd Avenue at around 2 a.m. Officers attended and found shell casings in the area. A short time later, Surrey RCMP was alerted that a young man had arrived at a

local area hospital suffering from a gunshot wound. The victim, a 23-year-old Surrey man who is known to police, is in stable condition.

Surrey RCMP’s Serious Crime Unit is investigating, and at this point believe the shooting was targeted.

Getting 14 distracted-driving tickets doesn’t stop this Vancouver motorist from using her cellphone Police would like to get one distracted driver off the road. The woman has racked up 14 tickets for using a cellphone while driving and Sgt. Randy Fincham said police would like her driving record reviewed. “This woman is not getting the message,� Fincham said. “She has been educated 14 separate times and she chooses to ignore everybody else’s safety.� Earlier this month, Richmond RCMP tweeted that a driver had nearly collided with one of their officers while driving distracted and been ticketed for the 12th time. The Mounties also tweeted the woman’s record for the offence.

She got a 13th shortly thereafter, and a few days later, a VPD officer who ticketed a woman for texting and driving recognized that it was the same person. The officer wrote to the superintendent of motor vehicles asking that her driving history be reviewed for possible suspension, Fincham said. “Fourteen is too many — I’ve never heard of anyone who’s had that many tickets for the same offence,� he said. “The financial penalty is not having any effect on this driver.� The fine for distracted driving in B.C. is $167 plus three penalty points. According to ICBC stats from the past five years, an average of 81 people die in B.C. every year as a result of distracted driving.

BC-India Business Network founded From page 1

strengthened through trade has truly arrived. “I am extremely pleased to note that organizations such as BC-India Business Network are playing such a productive role in connecting businesses in India and Canada. India’s trade with Canada last year increased by 29 per cent and I am positive that this year we can better this number,� said Prakash.

Prakash indicated that India was keen to start negotiations once again on the Comprehensive

Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and Foreign Investment and Protection Act (FIPA).

He also praised the leadership shown by BC premier Christy Clark in taking a lead in promoting BC-India trade Relations.

MP Sukh Dhaliwal said that the federal government was committed to strengthening the existing relationship between Canada and India and he urged all his colleagues in Parliament to work together towards this goal.

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8 i Saturday, March 19, 2016 Chhavi Disawar

I

t all started from his home. His uncle was a very renowned bodybuilder of his time. Bikar Singh was 10 years old when his family moved from Pakistan in at the time of partition in 1947. Recalling that moment Bikar shared his difficult experiences that they faced during that time. Bikar was a very religious child who loved to visit the ‘dera’ at his native place. He liked meeting wrestelers and was always interested to be one of them.

He would go with his master to visit the renowned wrestlers of that time. Till date

he is a very grounded person who, for his achievements gives the whole credit to the almighty. For Bikar, the inspiration started from his home. Both his parents respected and encouraged him to pursue body building. Bikar respects his dad Sr. Rakha Singh Lambardar for his initiatives taken

at the time when India faced British slavery. Quoting his father, Bikar told us how his father would twist the wrist of other wrestlers to showcase his strength. Also, his father was a freedom fighter who stood up for the betterment of the society in year 1918. His father was a National Kabbadi player whose fame was discussed throughout the nation. He was also awarded by the government of India for his achieve-

PERSON OF THE WEEK

The untold story of Bikar Singh Parhar ments in the field of Agriculture. As of his professional entry in the field of natural body building, it all started when he moved to Vancouver, Canada with his wife. “One day, the ceiling of our basement started leaking.

Someone told me about Nick Mohammad, the guy who lived around the street and fixed such problems. I immidiately went to his home, and as soon as I entered, my whole world stopped there”, told Bikar. “The sparkle of those shields, the pictures depicting his victory, that was what I always urged for. As soon as Nick stepped out of his room, I asked if I could do the same thing too? The guy took my tests and agreed to train me”, said Bikar.

Ta l k i n g about Nick Moh am m a d, Bikar’s eyes sparkled and proudly he told that Nick was 4 times World Champion in Wrestling, 4 times champion in Body Building, 4 times Weight lifting Champion and also represented field Hockey from India. The list of Bikar’s achievements is too long. Starting his journey from winning Winter Canadian Championship in Kelowna where Natural body Builders from Alberta and BC come together to compete, Bikar went to U.S and Canadian Championship that was also won by him.

After this incredible start, Bikar never looked back and has won nine golds and 18 silvers in International Natural Body Building Competitions till date. Also, he has won the Hollywood body building Championship, Fame Body Building competition and the names go on. Wherever you turn the neck in Bikar’s house, the trophies will speak of his victorious nature.

Apart from competing in Canada, Bikar has competed in many parts of England and India.

Bikar always introduces himself as natural body builder. Upon asking why, he answered,” I believe in building up the body

in the most natural way and keeping away from drugs or any artificial steroids.”

Also Bikar believes in inspiring the young-

Also he mentioned about Purewal Brothers, J. Minhas, Manjit Aulakh of Rotary Club and local Gurudwaras for their support.

sters for the same. He likes to see the glass filled rather than empty.

Apart from this, Bikar introduced us with a bitter reality of this field. It is highly expensive to participate in these kind of tournaments.

Sometimes the registration fees alone could cost one $5000/- other than accomodation and travel. On the top, to maintain the body, it takes a lot of expenses and nobody grants them any monetory support. He appreciated the grant provided by Gurudwara Singh Sabha at the time of his Hollywood To u r n a m e n t and cherishes it till now.

Bikar’s passion for his field is amazing. Till date he competes with the spirit to win. He is truly an inspiration for those who look for excuses rather than working hard.

His achievements are not only his but belong to our whole community. Its our responsibility as a society to spread word about this legend. If you want to sponsor Bikar for his upcoming tournament, For more information or to help Bikar Singh, please call 604-575-0560

Bikar Singh

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CREATION DATE: 02/02/16 MODIFICATION DATE: March 11, 2016 10:34 AM OUTPUT DATE: 03/14/16

PROOF #

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AD #: APPROVALS

Pub: The Asian Star

LOCAL

Indian High Commissioner Vishnu Prakash being honored at a “Friends Club� meeting in Vancouver last Saturday.

Vancouver city councillors vote themselves a 12.6 % pay raise after increasing property taxes earlier

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ancouver city council has voted itself a 12.6 per cent pay hike, raising the annual wage of a council member by $8,900 to just over $80,000 per year. The raise is just one part of a motion brought forward by Green Party councillor Adriane Carr that passed in an evening council session Feb 24, and that will be voted in as a bylaw in April. A $3,048 annual supplement for extended health coverage for the mayor and each of the 10 councillors. A $3,048 one-time payment for the mayor and each of the councillors. A $8,968 additional one-time payment for each councillor. A one-time payment of approximately $16,500 to acting mayor Raymond Louie for Jan 2015

to April 2016 An increase to acting mayor’s monthly supplement of approximately $1,050. A $6,000/per year discretionary fund for research support and constituency management functions for each councillor.

A doubling of the park board chair annual remuneration to $20,000. A doubling of the annual remunerations for the six park board commissioners to $16,000 each. A one-time payment of $8,326 to each of the park board commissioners. A one-time payment of $10,407 to the chair of the park board. Th ​ ree councillors — George Affleck, Andrea Reimer and Melissa De Genova — opposed the salary increase and lump sum payment of $8,968.

This is a PROOF of your ad in the forthcoming edition Indian High Commissioner Vishnu Prakash being honored at a Contract# of the Indo-Canadian Business Pagesin‘2014 “Friends Club� meeting Vancouver last Saturday.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

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10 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

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B.C. NDP slams provincial government for Patricia Evoy’s death

he B.C. NDP says the death of a 19-year-old girl Patricia Evoy (pictured) could have been prevented if the province had implemented all the recommendations from a recent report. Patricia “Indigo” Evoy was found dead in a Burnaby, B.C., apartment March 10. She is the third aboriginal youth to die while receiving help from the B.C. Ministry of Children and Family Development in as many years.

Dead teen Patricia Lee ‘Indigo’ Evoy lacked support, say friends Alex Gervais’s tragic life defined by missed opportunities Paige’s story: Death of troubled teen prompts action from B.C. government NDP MLA Doug Donaldson says Evoy met a similar end to a young wom-

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an known only as “Paige,” whose death led to an investigation and six recommendations.

Patricia Lee ‘Indigo’ Evoy Paige, a 19-yearold aboriginal woman who was legally blind, died after a childhood spent on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, exposed to constant violence and neglect. Donaldson says the B.C. government has been too slow to put in place all the recommendations from the Paige Report issued by the province’s Representative for Children and Youth. ‘Programs do exist’: minister Children and Family Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux says she can’t speak to the specifics of Evoy’s case, but supports are in

Kelowna fentanyl operations have Calgary connection, police believe

s many as 100,000 fentanyl pills may have been shipped from Kelowna to Calgary each month, police believe.

Following a joint investigation with Kelowna RCMP, Calgary police say they’ve been able to make “direct ties” between two large operations in the B.C. city and the source of

fentanyl pills in Calgary. Earlier this month, RCMP in Kelowna finished a “significant” investigation into what they believed was a suspected fentanyl trafficking operation.

Here’s what they recovered using two search warrants: About 500 fake Percocet and OxyContin pills.

Abbotsford seeks to banish marijuana magnate Donald Briere

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he City of Abbotsford is stepping up its battle with the so-called Tim Hortons of pot. Two months after obtaining its first injunction against one of Don Briere’s marijuana dispensaries, Abbotsford has now filed a petition seeking to keep the pot-trepreneur out of the community entirely. According to documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court

Tuesday, Abbotsford wants an order to close Mary Jane’s Glass and Gifts Ltd. on South Fraser Way. But the city is also seeking an order “prohibiting Donald Joseph Briere from operating an unlawful marijuana dispensary in the City of Abbotsford either personally or through any corporation or society of which he is a director, officer, shareholder or member.”

Saturday, March 19, 2016

place even when people age out when they turn 19. “A lot of programs do exist, but it’s about making sure the youth involved access the programs,” she said. One of the recommendations that was put in place was a rapid response team, which became operational

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last October. But Donaldson questioned whether the team was deployed to help Evoy.

“Where was the rapid response team in this situation? Were they involved? Those are the type of questions the minister can answer without breaching privacy,” Donaldson said.

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University of Victoria silencing sexual assault victims, students say

student says the University of Victoria failed her in its investigation of a sexual assault complaint and warned her to stay quiet about its findings.

The student said she had to request the investigator’s report. When she received a redacted version several weeks later, an attached letter warned her not to discuss the findings with anyone other than her lawyer, family, counsellor or police.

The report determined she had not been sexually assaulted because she hadn’t verbally said “No,” even though the investigator found her to be a credible complainant, she said.

B.C. private member’s bill seeks to cut sexual assaults on campuses Canadian universities slow on implementing sexual assault policies, students say

“I felt completely invalidated and silenced,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “I was really frustrated.”

The woman and two students who work in residences have come forward with complaints that the university is failing sexual assault victims and fostering a culture of silence.

The allegations emerge as universities across Canada face criticism of their handling of campus attacks.

Joel Lynn, executive director of student services, said the University of Victoria encourages the campus community to have an open dialogue about sexual violence.

Woman skier dies at Whistler mountain

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histler RCMP say a woman has died after she became trapped in a tree well while skiing in the Seventh Heaven area of Blackcomb Mountain.

The woman and her husband were skiing together Tuesday morning when they became separated in a wooded area. She was reported missing and a search ensued, and she was found by a member of the public shortly after. The woman was in a tree well and was unresponsive.

Blackcomb ski patrol, a mountain doctor, and a nurse practitioner tried to resuscitate her, but weren’t successful. She was pronounced dead on the mountain. Few details are available at this time.

Deaths caused by tree wells Tree wells form when snow falls around a tree and creates a deep well around the trunk that skiers and snowboarders can fall

and become trapped in. Such formations are responsible for nearly a quarter of all downhill skiing and snowboarding deaths in North America. When the trapped individual attempts to move or even free themselves by climbing out of the well, more snow falls around them and into the well.

It reduces their ability to move even further and constricts their ability to breath properly.

Deaths are most common when an individual falls into a tree well head first and is not able to take off their ski or snowboard equipment. In this scenario, skiers and snowboarders can suffocate from being buried in snow head first, especially if they are knocked unconscious after crashing into a tree trunk.

Report gives diagnosis of poor health in Canadian prisons

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t least half of Canada’s 40,000 prison inmates report enduring abuse as children – just one of a catalogue of maladies affecting inmates detailed in a new study that assembles the country’s first comprehensive portrait of prisoner health. The paper draws on dozens of research projects to depict a population of Canadians that is grappling with mental-health issues, substance abuse and communicable diseases at rates far higher than the general population.

Solitary confinement at federal prisons in decline: Correctional Service Canada The author, Fiona Kouyoumdjian, a postdoctoral fellow with the Centre for Research on

Inner City Health of St. Michael’s Hospital, views the document as a wide-ranging diagnosis that points to several prescriptive measures governments could undertake to improve inmate health and, by extension, public health and public safety.

“I’m always trying to reframe incarceration as an opportunity to improve health,” said Dr. Kouyoumdjian, who works part-time as a prison doctor between her research duties.

Health and prison officials have long known that inmate populations are disproportionately unhealthy compared to the rest of the population.

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Delta’s mayor renews calls for regional tolling

preading the toll pain across every bridge would ensure more natural traffic flows, claims Delta’s mayor, as she renews calls for regional tolling.

Mayor Lois Jackson claims if all bridges were tolled at $1, we wouldn’t see congestion at untolled crossings like the Alex Fraser.

Looking at 2011 numbers showing how many people are driving over regional bridges, Jackson suggests her plan would bring in as much as $300 million, which she says could be used to fund regional transportation projects.

“It would put everybody on the same fare footing that crosses a very expensive bridge, whichever one it might be,” says Jackson. “As we know, in the long run, they’re all going to have to either be replaced or major upgrades.”

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Metro Vancouver Chair Greg Moore says $1 per crossing would likely be too low.

“From my recollection, when we did this work a couple of years ago, the $1 figure is low,” says Moore. “It wouldn’t even cover the cost of the two existing [tolled] bridges and the repayment of that debt, nevermind pay for new tolling structures.

“So I think we need to look at it as a system-wide approach, not looking it as individual bridges or individual points, but how are we overall using the transportation system?”

While Moore believes that $1 figure is too low, he says it’s a good time to have a conversation about road pricing and way to finance needed transportation changes in the years ahead.

Nanaimo mayor refuses to resign over bullying allegations

anaimo mayor Bill McKay says he won’t step down over allegations he has been a bully, despite a letter signed by seven city councillors asking him to do just that. The issue was brought up at a heated council meeting Monday, where both councillors and members of the public spoke about what they claim is the mayor’s bad behaviour. It’s unclear exactly what bullying comments the mayor may have made, but councillor Wendy Pratt told CBC on Wednesday the mayor has not been supportive of the city’s chief administrative officer or his colleagues. “There have been quite a

few challenges with the mayor’s actions over the last few months ... He’s making a lot of derogatory remarks about councillors and the CAO in public,” Pratt said. Pratt said councillors are also calling for the mayor to resign because he’s difficult to work with.

She alleges the mayor has stopped communicating, and doesn’t attend meetings.

“To me the letter asking for his resignation was a wake-up call.”

Mayor Bill McKay said Wednesday he doesn’t deny he’s had a strained relationship with the city’s chief administrative officer and his colleagues, but he says he doesn’t understand the level of their anger.

B.C. group to ask for environmental review of Massey bridge

Metro Vancouver committee of mayors and other municipal leaders is expected to call on the federal government to launch an environmental assessment of controversial provincial plans for a 10-lane toll bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel.

On Thursday, the Intergovernmental and Finance Committee of Metro Vancouver is to vote on a recommendation suggesting the board send a letter to the federal Environment Minister, urging her to order the assessment.

Members of the 10-person committee include the mayors of Port Coquitlam, Richmond, Port Moody, Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Vancouver.

Committee chair Raymond Louie, a Vancouver city councillor and vice-chair of Metro Vancouver, said he was confident the recommendation would pass.

“The federal minister should be taking the opportunity to review this,” Louie said on Wednesday.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

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“They should have a look at it and determine whether or not there are adverse environmental effects, address any public concerns of those effects and determine how to best deal with them.”

Mr. Louie said the province has not given Metro Vancouver enough time to consider and offer its feedback on the proposed $3.5-billion bridge, about 20 kilometres south of downtown Vancouver.

The bridge would replace a 57-year-old tunnel that runs under the Fraser River estuary between Richmond and the municipality of Delta. The province is proposing a 10-lane bridge that would open in 2022.

Louie noted the province released a project report in mid-December and sought Metro’s response by Jan. 28 and simultaneously, through the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, imposed a Feb. 10 deadline for a response from Metro to their pursuit of an assessment certificate.

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Victoria police chief calls to halt review into reports of his affair with officer’s wife

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ictoria’s police chief wants to block efforts to launch an external review into allegations he was having an affair with the wife of an officer under his command.

In documents filed this week in B.C. Supreme Court, Frank Elsner claims the province’s police complaint commissioner doesn’t have the authority to order a second, external review following the completion of a confidential internal probe. “I never imagined that the police complaint commissioner could commence another investigation when I had already accepted discipline for my conduct,” Chief Elsner wrote in a court affidavit dated March 14. “I strongly believe my reputation has been irreparably tarnished and my career in policing is over, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.”

Allegations surfaced in the media in December that Chief Elsner had sent inappropriate Twitter messages to a colleague’s wife, who was herself an officer in a neighbouring jurisdiction. At the time, Chief Elsner said he was “truly sorry and humiliated” by his conduct.

This week’s court documents say Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins, who co-chair the municipalities’ shared police board, were aware of the allegations as early as mid-August. The pair confronted Chief Elsner the following month, according to the petition.

In his affidavit, Chief Elsner said he received assurances from Ms. Desjardins that by consenting to the appointment of an independent investigator the matter would stay entirely in-house.

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Judge cites charter, tosses breath-test evidence in Ontario bridge crash

reath tests showing that an Ontario man had more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream five hours after he crashed his dump truck into the Skyway bridge have been ruled inadmissible as evidence.

On Monday at the Ontario court of justice in Hamilton, Judge Fred Campling ruled the tests and their analysis inadmissible because they were collected more than three hours after the collision. That delay amounts to a violation of an accused’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Campling ruled. ‘They did not follow the law. They made a mistake.’ Judge Campling said. Sukhvinder Rai faces numerous charges including impaired driving, driving over 80 mgs, dangerous driving and four counts of mischief endangering life in connection with a collision on the Burlington Skyway on July 31, 2014. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Campling said excluding the breath samples will result in an acquittal on the over-80 mgs charge and likely an acquittal on the impaired driving charge. It could also have some impact on the dangerous

driving charge and the mischief charge.

Campling wasn’t convinced by Crown arguments that the evidence should be allowed because of the unique circumstances of the crash and the chaotic “mess” officers encountered on the bridge.

Since the trial began March 2, the court has heard testimony from several OPP officers who interacted with Rai. Two of those officers, Const. Andrew Halliday and Const. Hermano Clerigo, testified they forgot about the threehour window in which they were legally allowed to demand a breath sample from Rai. The crash happened at 3:35 p.m. and the demand for a breath sample didn’t come until after 7 p.m.

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BC NDP calls glitches with online camping system unacceptable

he BC Government is looking into what went wrong today when a lot of camping hopefuls were unable to reserve spots through the online system Discover Camping.

Environment Minister Mary Polak says three times the number of people tried to reserve online this year than last.

“Last year there were a few minor issues with the website and they were able to repair those. None of those occurred this time, so they’ve been a very good contractor with us. This is the first time we’ve experienced anything this dramatic,” she says. “The contractor had added an additional server after last year’s increase. We’ve seen this just

overwhelm the system so we’ll have to review what it’s going to take to meet the demand.” BC NDP Environment Critic George Heyman calls it all unacceptable.

“People spent weeks, in some cases months planning for an affordable family vacation.

They looked forward to today, they got up, made some accommodation about when they would get to work in order to get online and they found the system wasn’t working,” says Heyman. Heyman does like the idea of some sort of lottery system so that it’s fair for all campers.

Ayanle Hassan Ali accused of stabbing facing 9 charges of stabbing 2 soldiers

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man accused of stabbing two members of Canada’s military at a recruiting centre in Toronto Monday is facing nine charges in connection with the attack. Ayanle Hassan Ali, a 27-yearold Canadian citizen, appeared in court at 1000 Finch Avenue West Tuesday. Ali faces: Three charges of attempted murder. Two charges of aggravated assault. Three charges of assault with a weapon. One count of carrying a weapon dangerous to the public.

On Monday, Toronto police laid five charges, including one of attempted murder, against Ali. According to Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders, Ali said,”Allah told me to do this, Allah told me to come here and kill people,” during the attack. Two Canadian Armed Forces members stabbed at recruiting centre Outside court, David Burke, Ali’s lawyer, told Ayanie Hassan Ali, 27 reporters, “This is a very, very serious incident and no one is going to pretend it’s not.

“It’s a very, very difficult situation he finds himself in,” Burke added. “He seems very scared.”

Burke said he was “not getting into whether (Ali’s) remorseful” about Monday`s attack.

“It will take some time to have a complete picture,” Saunders told reporters Tuesday from police headquarters. Ayanie Hassan Ali, 27, is the Montreal-born suspect charged in yesterday’s double stabbing at a Canadian Armed Forces recruiting centre in north Toronto.

When asked if it was a terror attack, the police chief said, “We’re certainly looking into it,” but cautioned against jumping to any conclusions.

He noted it is too early to say if the accused was radicalized and urged the public against any anti-Islam sentiment in the wake of the attack.

“I don’t want this categorizing a large group of people; that will be very unfair and very inaccurate,” he said, adding he doesn’t want to see any of this “Islamophobia nonsense.”

Saunders said the man was carrying a “very large knife” and was unresponsive after the incident. The chief appealed to the public for tips or information, saying the accused is not co-operating with police.

The suspect has no previous criminal record and there was nothing to indicate he is affiliated with any terrorist organizations, according to Saunders.

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Delhitites from India celebrating Holi ‘festival of colors’ in Vancouver last week. Photo: Chandra Bodalia

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Inderjit Singh Reyat denied political associations

British Columbia man convicted in the Air India bombing deaths of 331 people has been denied his request to participate in political matters. “Your associations with others of a similar mindset were directly risk-related and led to the murders of many innocent people,” the Parole Board of Canada said in a ruling against Inderjit Singh Reyat.

The board said in its decision released Thursday that it considered comments by Reyat’s lawyer about his client’s rights under the charter to participate in political issues.

Reyat became eligible for statutory release in January after serving twothirds of his nine-year sentence for perjury for lying at the trial of two other men charged in Canada’s worst mass murder 30 years ago.

The board also imposed a second condition for Reyat not to associate with anyone involved in political or criminal activity or extremist views.

Patrick Storey, regional spokesman for the parole board, said Reyat could consider the condition for him not to get politically involved as being too broad. “That could be construed, I suppose, as not to associate with anyone involved in political activity, which means he couldn’t talk to his municipal councillor or an MP or a (member of the legislature) as any Canadian citizen would be able to do.” Storey said the conditions will be in place for the duration of Reyat’s statutory release and that he could appeal the decision or take his case to the Federal Court if a new review is not ordered. The Crown said the terrorist attack against state-owned Air India was prompted by British Columbia-based Sikh extremists’ revenge against the Indian government for ordering the army to raid Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar in June 1984. Two baggage handlers were killed at Tokyo’s Narita airport on June 23, 1985, when a suitcase exploded before it was loaded onto an Air India plane. That was the same day another suitcase bomb aboard an Air India plane exploded off the coast of Ireland, killing 329 people.

The Crown maintained the bomb-laden suitcases were loaded onto flights at Vancouver International Airport before one suitcase was transferred to an Air India plane in Toronto then headed to Montreal to pick up more

passengers on its way to Delhi via London.

Reyat had previously pleaded guilty to reduced charges of helping to make the bombs at his home in Duncan, B.C., and spent five years in prison.

Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajiab Singh Bagri were both acquitted of mass murder and conspiracy in March 2005.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

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Former Quebec deputy premier, 7 others arrested in corruption probe

athalie Normandeau, former sec- news conference that the charges relate to ond-in-command in the Quebec Liberal the Boisbriand water contract, but sources government of Jean Charest, was among seven indicated to Radio-Canada that was the case. people arrested Thursday as part of a sweep by According to public documents, Normandeau, the province’s anti-corruption unit, UPAC. The who was municipal affairs minister at the time, multiple arrests targeted memoverruled senior bureaucrats to bers of the Quebec Liberal Party award the $11-million contract to and the Parti Québécois and are engineering firm Roche. Roche related to illegal campaign financalso did fundraising for Normaning. “These offences are serious deau during her time as an MNA not only because they’re against and Liberal candidate. Normanthe law, but because they threaten deau’s name came up frequently the principles of democracy and at the Charbonneau Commisthe sound management of public sion, the province’s corruption funds,” Robert Lafrenière, the head inquiry. Her lawyer, Maxime Roy, of UPAC, said at a news conference. said investigators arrived at her “It is unjust and unfair to use pub- Nathalie Normandeau home early Thursday morning lic contracts as a political tool.” with an arrest warrant. “We were surprised by The arrests came just hours before Quebec’s the charges,” Roy said. “She has done nothing Liberal government released its 2016 budget. wrong and we intend to show that.” He added Normandeau, who was Quebec’s deputy pre- that Normandeau intends to plead not guilty mier under Jean Charest from 2007 to 2011, to the charges. Marc-Yvan Côté, a former faces charges that include conspiracy, cor- Liberal cabinet minister under premier Robert ruption, breach of trust and bribery in rela- Bourassa and vice-president of the engineering tion to the awarding of a contract to build a firm Roche, water-treatment plant in Boisbriand, Que. and Bruno Lortie, Normandeau’s former The charges come with a maximum sentence chief of staff, were also arrested this morning. of 12 years. UPAC wouldn’t confirm at the

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16 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

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Ibrahim Ali charged in Burnaby hit-and-run death

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brahim Ali, 25, has been charged in connection with a recent hit-and-run death in Burnaby, B.C. A 25-yearold woman died after the car she was driving was rammed at high speed late at night on March 9 near the BCIT campus The young woman believed to have been driving in Burnaby. RCMP this car died in a late night hit-and-run said a “fraudulentin Burnaby last week. ly-obtained” Range both covered in mud, and the man was also Rover ran a red light before hitting the car. covered in blood, according to the inn owner.

Two suspects, a man and a woman, were latThe couple tried to flee in a taxi after ofer found at a motel in Creston, after RCMP ficers questioned them the next mornreceived a call about two suspicious people ing, but police tracked them down. who had booked into a motel in the Kootenay Ali has been charged with dangertown. The owner of the Skimmerhorn Inn ous driving causing death and failing to said the pair arrived late at night and admitted stop at an accident causing bodily harm. to having been in a car accident. They were

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Pedestrian killed in hit-and-run at King George Boulevard in Surrey

urrey RCMP officers are investigating a fatal hit-and-run last Monday morning on King George Boulevard. A 57-year-old woman was crossing the busy highway in an unmarked crosswalk in the 8300-block when she was struck around 6:45 a.m. Monday. She later died in hospital.

Cpl. Scotty Schumann King George Boulevard was closed in both directions said the woman was between 80th Ave and 84th Ave after the incident. struck by a car that fled the scene — and then immediately after was vard in both directions between 80 Avenue and struck by a second driver, who stayed to help.

84 Avenue while they investigated the incident.

“It doesn’t appear that the second driver was Police are asking anyone with inable to avoid the collision or was even aware that formation to contact Surrey RCMP person was there on the road,” said Schumann. at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers.

RCMP officers closed King George Boule-

Abbotsford double-shooting now a murder

Stephanie Ashton says the family of the man who is not expected to survive has a message for the community: the violence must stop

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he Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has taken over the probe into a double-shooting Thursday night.

Sergeant Stephanie Ashton said Monday that one of the men who was shot is not expected to survive his wounds.

A second man remains in hospital with serious injuries.

When police arrived in the 33300 block of Hawthorne Avenue in Abbotsford, two men, aged 21 and 22, were suffering from gunshot wounds.

Ashton said relatives of the dying man have a message for the public: “The family are urging those individuals wrapped up in this conflict to stop as they do not want to see anymore violence and death as a result of it.

Police said the incident appears to be the result of ongoing conflict in the Townline area.

Last fall police said they believed the gang feud may have been sparked nearly two years ago as the result of a dispute over a date.

The feud started out with acts of vandalism and property crime, according to police, but has escalated to stabbings, gun violence and deadly shootings.

Ashton said police are also asking another motorist to come forward who they believe may have more information.

She said a sedan was spotted driving erratically at 9:20 p.m PT on Thursday March 10. The driver of the sedan cut off another driver who then honked at the car.

Ashton said police have yet to identify the driver who was cut off and are hoping that motorist will contact them.

Police are also asking any members of the public who may have information that might help in the investigation to come forward.

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Glen Hansman elected B.C. Teachers’ Federation president

and the next B.C. election in May. he B.C. Teachers Fed“No matter who is in government eration has elected a after May [2017] we’re going to Vancouver elementary have to keep the pressure on,” said school teacher, Glen HansHansman to a cheering crowd at the man, as its new president BCTF’s annual general meeting. in an uncontested election.

Hansman said a lot hangs on the Hansman was previously a Supreme Court of Canada device president with the BCTF, cision which the teachers hope which is a full-time position, will restore language about class and has also been president size, composition, and specialist of the Vancouver Elementary teachers’ ratios to their contract.

School Teachers’ Association.

The dispute dates back to Glen Hansman addressing He’ll take over from 2002, when current Premier the BC Teachers’ Federation current president Jim Christy Clark was education Iker on July 1, after the annual meeting after being minister, and the B.C. govelected president end of Iker’s third term. ernment stripped those barThe teachers have a contract in place until gaining rights from the union contract.

2019, but the coming year still promises to be Teachers fought and won a legal battle over a busy one for the union, with a long-running the 2002 changes, but the government incourt case against the B.C. government going troduced similar legislation in 2012’s Bill 22, to the Supreme Court of Canada in November which is the subject of the Supreme Court case.

Woman wins $64 million jackpot in Ontario

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Mississauga, Ont., woman has won what is being called “the largest jackpot ever in the history of Canadian lottery.”

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. says Zhe Wang held the single winning ticket for its $64 million jackpot. © Provided by thecanadianpress.com The OLG says the ticket was from the Oct. 17 Lotto 649 draw and was bought at a Petro Canada in Mississauga.

The gaming agency says Wang’s win puts her on top of the list of Canada’s largest lottery prize winners who won with a single ticket.

Previously, the largest Lotto 649 jackpot ever offered was $63.4 million for the April 13, 2013 draw.

That jackpot was shared between four winning tickets — three sold in British Columbia and one sold in Western Canada.

Man who shot Kamloops Mountie gets 16+ years in prison after guilty plea A 38-year-old man who admitted to unloading six shots at an RCMP member who pulled him over in December 2014 was sentenced Thursday to more than 16 years in prison. After the charge of attempted murder was read out to him, Kenneth Knutson replied “guilty.” He has been in custody since his arrest in the afternoon of Dec. 3 that year, about 12 hours after the shooting and a police manhunt. Austin Cullen, the associate chief judge for B.C. Supreme Court, agreed with a joint submission from the Crown and defence that Knutson be given a sentence of 16-1/2 years. With credit for time spent in custody, his effective sentence is 14-1/2 years. His prior record includes convictions for assaulting police and manslaughter.

He was given credit for pleading guilty and avoiding a trial at which Michaud would have testified. Seriously injured in the shooting was Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jean-Rene Michaud, who was struck by several bullets.

He underwent a number of surgeries and has not returned to full duty.

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Fraser Health threatens to fire 28 striking anesthesiologists at Surrey Hospital

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raser Health is threatening to fire all 28 of its anesthesiologists unless they provide dedicated, 24-hour care for the maternity ward at the Surrey Memorial Hospital. The vice president of medicine for Fraser Health, Dr. Roy Morton, says Surrey Memorial has the health authority’s busiest birthing unit — with 4,300 births a year. But he says only half of women who request an epidural there receive one. “We have been trying to put in place greater anesthesia services in the family birthing unit, allowing women a more timely access to pain management during labour,” Morton said. The hospital gets at least one complaint a day about epidural services, he says, with many mothers waiting too long to get one. Morton says on evenings and weekends there is only one anesthesiologist on call at the hospital, and that person has to service the emergency surgery ward as well as the fam-

ily birthing unit — which leads to delays.

He says the hospital has been trying to reach an agreement with the group of anesthesiologists for the past five years to no avail. “We felt we had no other alternatives of taking this step basically revoking privileges,” Morton said. The letter issued to the hospital’s anesthesiologists says the termination would be effective March 1, 2017. “I’m fully confident that we will be able to replace the group,” he said. But B.C. Anesthesiologist Society CEO Dr. Roland Orfaly says anesthesiologists are in high demand everywhere in B.C., and the issue needs to be resolved beyond just one hospital. “We’re trying to look for positive solutions on a provincial level,” he said.

Orfaly says epidural rates are considered to be a marker of the availability of anesthesiologists, and B.C. has the lowest epidural rate in the country — half the national average.

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Saturday - March 19, 2016

KJo throws b’day party for Alia Bhat

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couple of days ago, SpotboyE told you about Alia Bhatt turning 23 (Check out Alia’s bday cake, Mar 15) Last night, the actress’ mentor Karan Johar threw a belated birthday bash for her. The party, held at KJo’s Bandra home, was attended by many B-Town celebrities and went on till the wee hours.

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Akhtar asked if societies that think “anything against their religion or faith is punishable by hanging” be an example to us, or the ones in that have “every kind of freedom, where even the (a movie like) The Last Temptation of Christ can be made”.

At the same time, he took on All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi over his recent refusal to say

Hrithik Roshan, Kangana Ranaut’s fight gets ugly, slap each other with rithik Roshan legal notices

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sent a notice to Kangana last month, demanding an ‘unconditional apology’ for a ‘defaming’ remark in an interview where she allegedly referred to him as ‘silly ex’.

The spat between Hrithik Roshan and Kangana Ranaut has taken a fresh turn, with both of them sending legal notices to each other. Hrithik Roshan sent a notice to Kangana last month, demanding an ‘unconditional apology’ for a ‘defaming’ remark in an interview where she allegedly referred to him as ‘silly ex’.

Mallika reveals ‘extraordinary love’ for French tycoon

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In Parliament farewell speech, Javed Akhtar delivers message with ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ emocracy and secularism, constitution and youth power, these are the advantages India enjoys and they should not be frittered away, noted poet and writer Javed Akhtar has said in a farewell speech to Parliament that drew huge applause cutting across political boundaries.

In a nuanced response to the ongoing debate on intolerance, Mr

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allika Sherawat, who is dating a French businessman Cyrille Auxenfans, feels that falling in love with a person who loves you back is an extraordinary thing. The Hiss actress recently shared a picture of herself with Cyrille, captioning it as, “Falling in love is an extraordinary thing when the person you love , loves you back.”

Few days back, she had shared another picture, writing, “To be in love is the best feeling in the world:).”

Kapil statue at Madame Tussauds

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adame Tussauds (London) is the place where statues of famous people from all over the world are placed under one roof and it is the dream of every politician, cricketer, film star and almost every celebrity of the world to have his/her statue in this wax museum. Those who have made it there from Bollywood are Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan and Madhuri Dixit.

The work on Kapil’s statue has begun. The statue will be ready in about six months and then unveiled.

Sonu Nigam to undergo knee surgery

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onu Nigam, we hear, will soon undergo knee surgery. He has been nursing an injured knee since November last year.

In fact, while promoting his single Aa Bhi Jaa Tu Kahin Se, the singer was seen limping and in severe pain. Now, his knee is in such bad shape that it has to be operated upon.

According to a source, Sonu will fly out of the country for the surgery and will return only in August.

He was reluctant to divulge much. “There is some treatment happening. I am resting out my knee for some time,” he said.

We wish Sonu a speedy recovery.

Star & Style

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Rishi-Neetu to move out of Krishna Raj in the next 8 days

Horoscope Libra

Aries

Sept. 24 - Oct 22

March 21 - April 20 You may need to convince yourself that you have what it takes to succeed this week.

Indeed, this is going to be the hardest part of the process. And even if you don’t really think you can do it, you might be better off pretending that you can. The reason is that a splendid alignment of energies midweek could see you just getting on with it. You may teeter on the edge of your comfort zone for a while, but then you’ll just go for it.

Taurus

Although time may be of the essence, you could find many reasons to waste it. A major focus on your zone of work and lifestyle could see you inventing all kinds of reasons not to get on with deadlines or other important activities. However, you’ll have no problem watching a movie or reading a fantasy novel. Even so, a major midweek alignment could encourage a little self-inquiry and motivate you to overcome your lassitude in order to smash through your to-do list.

Scorpio

April 21 - May 20

Oct 23 - Nov 22

What your friends say may count for a lot this week, which is why you shouldn’t pay too much attention. If you listen closely, you’ll notice that their opinions change like the weather. For instance, if they label you an opportunist for spotting a great deal and wanting to take advantage of it, you should go ahead anyway. By the weekend there’s a good chance they’ll wish they had followed your advice. Stick to your guns no matter what anyone says.

Gemini

Money, or the lack of it, could be the reason that you need to cut back on leisure activities or social events. A tight blend of energies, with Saturn at the apex, could see you reining in your spending and making the most of the money you have. But you don’t have to give up having fun or socializing altogether. If you look at your expenses, you may find that with a little bit of tweaking you can continue to enjoy life without bankrupting yourself.

Sagitarius

May 20 - June 21 The reason you get to shine this week may not be because of someone but in spite of them. Indeed, a positive blend of energies at the top of your chart could see you making a special effort to realize a goal or dream. And even if others object, you’ll have the faith to keep going. On another note, a positive midweek alignment could see you investing in property or benefiting from your family’s generosity or sharing in a stroke of good fortune.

Cancer

June 22 - July 23

There’s so much to explore that you could be occupied for hours on end with all the information and opportunities you uncover.

Even so, it’s just as well that you have responsibilities to attend to, as they help keep your feet on the ground. Over the days ahead there could be many reasons why you’re tempted to drop the mundane in pursuit of the mysterious and alluring. However, keep your eyes peeled, as another more practical and perhaps lucrative option could show up.

Leo

June 24 - August 23

Nov 23 - Dec 22

It might seem like you’re in the hot spot and that the buck stops with you in the week ahead. However, a particularly uncomfortable blend of energies might also mean that you feel pressured into taking certain actions. Before you proceed, be sure to assess the state of play. Your plan may not be practical, and you might need further work to refine your strategy. If in doubt, get feedback from someone you trust. This could be crucial to your success.

Capricorn Dec 23 - Jan 20

You’ll need to keep your wits about you this week, as someone could appear charming yet try to pull the wool over your eyes. However, you’ll manage fine if you employ your ability to detect a dubious deal. One opportunity might excite you, especially as it could offer you the chance to broaden your horizons. However, you’ll need to be patient if you’re to see results. Once the Sun eases into your home zone, it will be time to nurture yourself.

Aquarius

You could be a big spender this week. You may not be satisfied with small luxuries and feel the urge to splurge on something big and expensive. This might be the case if you’ve been hard at work lately and want to reward yourself. Even so, you could be in trouble if your outflow exceeds your income. New adventures could beckon once the Sun dances into Aries on Saturday. If you’re eager for some fun in the Sun, you might want to make travel plans.

Virgo

Jan 21 - Feb 19 While it’s great to be generous, you may find that others are starting to take advantage of your kindly nature, which might leave you wondering how to respond. Don’t feel guilty about nipping this in the bud. You’ll feel so much better if you do. Inside, you may be burning to take advantage of an opportunity that could be good for you, but the time may not be right just yet. This chance should be around for a while, so there’s no need to worry.

Pisces

August 24 - Sept 24

Feb 20 - March 20

You may find other people to be quite distracting this week, particularly if you’re very excited about a project or new business idea.

With that in mind, you’ll need to find a way to manage your time so that you can continue to make progress while still fulfilling your responsibilities to family and friends. You might have to be firm regarding one person, especially if he or she can’t (or won’t) acknowledge the fact that you occasionally need your own space.

All eyes are on you, as you seem to be the flavor of the week! However, while others might enjoy your company, you could have conflicting ideas about whether to invest in a plan that might see you making big gains on the career front. Indeed, you could feel pulled in a number of directions that might be due to others’ expectations of you, including your own. If you were to collaborate with a person or group, you might achieve more than you could alone.

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ishi Kapoor’s iconic bungalow Krishna Raj getting razed soon The renovation work didn’t start then for various reasons, but now, everything is set. SpotboyE has it that the structure

T O I F A awards

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anjay Leela Bhansali’s “Bajirao Mastani” today picked up maximum technical honours including best costume design at the Times of India Film Awards as the curtains were raised on the second edition of the ceremony here. While ace designer Anju Modi won for her elaborate, lavish costumes in the period drama, the Ranveer-Deepika starrer also took home awards for best art direction and cinematography.

“Bajrangi Bhaijaan” won the best story award, which was collected by its lead actress Kareena Kapoor Khan.

True to its theme, Remo D’Souza’a “ABCD 2” bagged the best choreography award.

Shoojit Sircar’s slice-of-life father-daughter drama “Piku” picked the award for best screenplay for Juhi Chaturvedi. Irrfan Khanstarrer “Talvar”, based on the Noida double murder case, received the best editing honour.

“Tanu Weds Manu Returns” took home the trophy for best dialogue.

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will be demolished over the next few days.

Rishi and Neetu, we hear, will vacate their home and shift to a flat in Hill Road (Bandra) by the end of this week.

The awards ceremony, held last evening, was hosted by Manish Paul and Huma Qureshi, who displayed a comfortable camaraderie and spontaneity.

Shah Rukh Khan lent the much needed star power to the otherwise lacklustre awards night. He presented the best story trophy.

Ranveer, known for his impromptu stage jigs, made a surprise entry on the stage and did a small recreation of Priyanka and Deepika’s signature moves from song “Pinga” from “Bajirao Mastani”.

Huma and Manish joined in much to the audience’s delight.

A small, informal fashion show followed the awards function. Mumbai-based designers Riyaz and Reshma Gangji of Libas showcased their elegant designs as the actors Sooraj Pancholi and Zarine Khan dazzled as showstoppers. Sooraj was seen in an electric blue long narrow Indian bandh gala outfit

Farhan and Kalki Koechlin?

arhan Akhtar and Kalki Koechlin are dating each other. In fact, speculations are rife that the two plan to move in together soon. Looks like the duo is looking for second chance in love. Farhan recently separated from his wife of 16 years, Adhuna Bhabani and Kalki’s divorce from director Anurag Kashyap also

Farhan Akhtar (left) and Kalki Koechlin (right) photographed in Mumbai.

Bollywood personalities’ birthdays this week AAMIR KHAN 14 MARCH

KANGNA RANAUT 20 MARCH

RANI MUKHERJI 21 MARCH

EMRAAN HASHMI 24 MARCH

SHASHI KAPOOR 18 MARCH

Star & Style

Saturday, March 19, 2016

New released Bollywood films March 11, 2016

When Dilip Kumar and Madhubala dragged each other to court

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Kumar in the lead. Chopra wanted to shoot a schedule in Madhya Pradesh. Madhubala’s father was unwilling to let her go on an outdoor schedule as he was worried that her romance with Dilip Kumar will only get more intense.

Madhubala’s sister later refuted this theory saying that her father didn’t want Madhubala to go on the outdoor scheduled as he feared for her safety in Gwalior. Chopra was forced to replace Madhubala with another actress, Vyjayanthimala in the film.

Upset at this, Khan is said to have threatened to sue the production company.

Chopra sued Madhubala before Khan could take any action for breach of contract. Dilip Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ Kumar testified against Madhubala in the court, even to get married to Madhubala. But her father though he did mention that he loved her.

Ataullah Khan was said to be against the match Madhubala lost the case.

Later, B R Choas Madhubala was the only earning member of pra dropped the case when he realised that the Khan family and he didn’t want to lose her.

Madhubala might have to go behind bars.

Dilip Kumar and MadAfter that, it is said that when Dilip hubala in ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ Kumar still wanted to marry her, MadIt was at this time that she was shooting for hubala insisted that he apologise to BR Chopra’s ‘Naya Daur’ with her and Dilip her father and he refused to do that.

n the wake of the Kangana-Hrithik controversy, we go back to the only time that Bollywood witnessed a couple in love dragging each other to court and that was Dilip Kumar and Madhubala six decades ago Dilip Kumar and Madhubala apart from being a successful pair on-screen, were also madly in love with each other off it. After seven years of courtship, Dilip Kumar was said to be keen

Kapoor and Sons Sidharth Malhotra, Alia Bhatt, Fawad Khan, Rishi Kapoor

Cute Kameena

Mumbai Central

Ok Mein Dhoke

Dare You

Bipasha is not my bahu: Karan’s mom

K

aran Singh Grover’s mom has reportedly disapproved of Bipasha Basu as her son’s confidante.

Families often play villains in love stories, be it on screen or off it.

Seems, Bipasha Basu and Karan Singh Grover are facing similar troubles in their relationship.

Karan’s mother, we hear, cannot accept Bipasha and her past relations with Dino Morea, John Abraham and Harman Baweja.

Sources even say that Mother India has threatened to cut off all ties if Karan Grover and Bipasha Karan still goes ahead with his decision of marrying Ms Basu. Now that KSG has even gifted a promise ring to Bipasha on his birthday earlier this year, we wonder who will win in the end and who will be left alone!

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Sonakshi Sinha and Arjun break up

f common friends are to be believed, Sonakshi Sinha and Arjun Kapoor have called it quits! The two had a really hush-hush relationship during the making of Tevar and even the days leading up to its release. Sonakshi was even spotted cheering for Arjun during the AIB Roast, and those who were present said it was evident that they were into each other.

However, for some reason, the two have decided to part ways – but it seems that the split is amicable and there are no hard feelings as such.

Earlier, Sonakshi had tried to make things work with Shahid Kapoor, but I hear that, when it came to committing, Shahid developed cold feet. Thus, they split – but unlike Arjun and Sonakshi, this wasn’t a very amicable parting.

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4 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

Vancouverites sound off about real estate prices at town hall

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undreds of people attended a town hall on Wednesday evening to address concerns about Metro Vancouver’s real estate market.

The standing-room-only event, organized by NDP MLA David Eby, was packed with people worried about the skyrocketing cost of housing in the region.

Here are a few of their stories.

Anne Delgiglio, 48, and her husband recently sold their house in North Vancouver.

She says they were trying to be responsible by downsizing. They didn’t want to still have a mortgage when her husband, who works as a longshoreman, retires in a few years.

“We were trying to downsize, but there was nothing really to downsize to,” she said.

“We didn’t know the market was going to go crazy.”

She says prices have increased by 30 to 40 per cent since they sold their home.

One house they looked at — a “shack” that needed major repairs but listed at $1.4 million — sold at $200,000 over asking.

“I don’t know how local people are paying for it,” she said. “I just don’t understand.”

At the moment they’re renting — a solution that comes with its own problems, Delgiglio says, noting rents keep increasing and there are few options available.

Barb Sutherland, 68, knows she’s one of the lucky ones.

The retired teacher has lived in Vancouver her entire life and owns a house in Dunbar, which she bought with her husband at a reasonable price decades ago.

However, it’s her children she’s worried about.

“My two children cannot afford to live in Vancouver, and I think it’s really important we be able to live in our own communities and work in the same communities,” she said.

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E-mail: ads@theasianstar.com of B.C. ? “Among other things, these changes to the home inspector licensing regulation will require important consumer information be written into the contract so that potential home buyers can be more confident, informed and protected when they make an investment in a home. “ Helene Barton, executive director, Canadian Association of Home & Property Inspectors BC ?

Stronger home inspector licensing rules will protect consumers

ew requirements for home inspectors will give consumers increased confidence when they purchase a home. The rules take effect on Sept. 1, 2016, and will enhance home inspector licensing qualifications, strengthen home inspection reports, contracts and insurance requirements, and improve enforcement, by requiring the following: * Home inspection contracts must describe in advance what will be covered in an inspection. * Contractual terms that limit home inspectors’ liability will be prohibited. * New business record-keeping requirements will be put in place for home inspectorHome inspectors will be required to have valid professional and general liability insurance.

In 2013, the provincial government invited public input on an improved regulatory model for home inspectors. The resulting changes are based on public input, as well as research and consultation with home inspector associations and home inspectors, Consumer Protection BC and other stakeholders.

The Province will also undertake a comprehensive review of the qualifications required to perform home inspections and develop new, more rigorous training and examination requirements for those wishing to become home inspectors. This review will help develop a single occupational standard for all B.C. home inspectors. Results are expected to be in place in 2017.

Quotes: Rich Coleman, Minister of Natural Gas Development and Minister Responsible for Housing ?

“We asked the public for input in developing new requirements for home inspectors in British Columbia. Taking that feedback into account, we have developed a new approach that will make home inspectors more accountable and ensure consumers know what to expect from a home inspector.” Mike Morris, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General ? “The purchase of a family home is one of the most important investments British Columbians make. This decision is informed by a home inspection. It not only informs potential buyers about a home, but it also alerts them to what may cost them financially down the road - like needed repairs, mould or other hazards. The people of B.C. can rest assured that no matter where in this province they choose to buy, the home inspection process will be fair and transparent.”

Tayt Winnitoy, executive vice-president, Consumer Protection BC ?

“Today’s announcement by government ensures that British Columbia remains a leader in terms of li-

censing and regulating the home inspection industry.

Consistent disclosures in home inspection contracts and inspection reports will increase protections for homebuyers and the changes provide clarity for the industry when it comes to licence qualifications.

4 i Saturday, July 25, 2015

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We will deliver on our expanded responsibilities using the expertise we have developed since first taking on responsibility for this sector in 2009. In doing so, we are committed to a smooth implementation for all of our stakeholders.”

Tony Gioventu, executive director, Condominium Home Owners’ Association

6 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

B.C. real estate advisory group releases terms of ‘shadow flipping’ review

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n advisory group convened by the Real Estate Council of B.C. says it will examine the current rules governing real estate practices that have led to allegations of so-called “shadow flipping.”

The group released its terms of reference Tuesday with a pledge to look into misleading advertising, coercive or predatory sales practices and the assignment of contracts.

“The Advisory Group understands that this is fundamentally about strengthening protection for consumers,” said Carolyn Rogers, the group’s chair and the superintendent of real estate, in a written release.

“We’re committed to maintaining a tight focus on the public interest as it relates to licensee conduct and the regulation of that conduct.”

Rogers said the eight-person group will look into the current rules that have caused concern among potential buyers and sellers, including misleading advertising, coercive or predatory sales practices, and the assignment of contracts.

Real Estate Council of B.C. to investigate shadow flipping of Vancouver homes Buyer beware: ‘Shadow flipping’

exposes weakness in real estate regulation MLA David Eby demands inquiry into shadow flipping of Vancouver homes The group will also look at how the rules are administered, and what the requirements and professional standards are for licensed realtors throughout the province.

The group was convened after a Globe and Mail investigation uncovered the practice under which sales contracts are reassigned, in some instances multiple times, before the sale of a home is closed.

The investigation revealed that those involved in the shadow flipping can avoid paying the property transfer tax by reassigning the sales contract before the final sale.

The advisory group is scheduled to provide an interim report to the Real Estate Council of B.C. by April 8, and a full report with recommendations is expected by the end of May.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

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City of Vancouver breaks ground on affordable housing project

building with 135 units of afford- income ranging from $36,500 to $56,000. able housing — more than half of “That basically provides for lower-midwhich are for families — is one dle income families to pay about 30 per step closer to reality after the City of Vancou- cent of their income in rent,” Meggs said. ver broke ground on the project this week.

The 15-storey building, located at the “Because the site will be owned by the northwest corner of Quebec Street and 1st city, as mortgages and financing are paid off Avenue in the False Creek neighbourhood, we’ll be able to deepen the affordability — will have 44 two-bedroom and 29 three- especially though if we got more help from bedroom suites, senior levels of as well as two government.” in-home dayThe remaincare units. ing 60 per cent “I don’t claim of the units will this is a panacea, be at rented out but I do think at “similar rents it’s a big step foror lower than ward,” Vision city what you would councillor Geoff get in the area,” Meggs told On Meggs said. the Coast host When asked Stephen Quinn. if market housThe building is just 15-storey apartment building at Quebec Street and ing, which will market hous1st Avenue be operated ing, and the by a nonprofit, rent of these is part of a larger community being de- units would be whatever one was willveloped by Concert Properties which ing to pay for them, Meggs responded: will include four market-housing build“We’re going to try and keep the rents lowings and a 2.7-acre waterfront park. er, and that’s done by the deal with the nonThe building will be one of five erected profit operator, and because our costs going at a 6.4-acres site on the northwest cor- in are different — we have the land and we ner of Quebec Street and 1st Avenue. have the contribution community ameForty per cent of the 135 units in the af- nity charges — we can reduce the costs.” fordable housing building will be below the The total development costs for the “housing income limits,” to ensure that these building are $38.75 million. The project homes are targeted to people with an annual is expected to be completed by mid-2018.

Indian Parliament nod to Real Estate Bill

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ew Delhi: It will now be difficult for promoters and builders to delay projects, with Parliament today giving nod to a Bill which gives relief to home-buyers and proposes imprisonment of up to three years, besides monetary penalties, for any violation of rules.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Devel-

opment) Bill, 2013, approved by Lok Sabha today, five days after its passage

by Rajya Sabha, is designed to protect consumer interest, ensure efficiency in all property-related transactions, improve accountability of developers, boost transparency and attract more investments to the sector, the government said.

Central Association of Punjabi Writers of North America

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entral Association of Punjabi Writers of North America is holding a “meet and dine” with poetry and singing on Sunday, March

20, at 6pm at the Bombay Banquet Hall in Surrey from 6pm onwards. For more information, contact Charan Singh at 604-564-0331, Surjit Madhopuri at 604377-4171 or Pritpal Gill at 604-726-8410.

8 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

AUTO

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600,000 diesel-powered cars in the U.S. to turn on pollution controls during EPA treadmill tests and turn them off when the cars were on the road. The agency alleges that the cars emit as much as 40 times the allowable amount of nitrogen oxide, which can cause respiratory problems.

The Justice Department is investigating potential criminal charges against VW, and the company has been negotiating with the EPA and California regulators to come up with repairs. VW faces a March 24 deadline from a federal judge to reach agreement on the fixes.

Allegations of obstructing justice Donovan worked as a technology employee with VW’s general counsel office who was responsible for electronic information management in injury and product liability cases.

Volkswagen sued for $4.8B by institutional investors

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nstitutional investors are suing Volkswagen for 3.25 billion euros ($4.8 billion Cdn) in damages over the company’s handling of its emissions scandal, which has so far seen the share price fall by about a third.

Attorney Andreas Tilp said Tuesday that the suit in the German regional court in Braunschweig was joined by investors from 14 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.K. Among the plaintiffs is CalPERS, the giant pension fund for government employees in California.

Volkswagen had no immediate comment on the suit, but has said that shareholder lawsuits in Germany are without merit.

Tilp has already filed a suit on behalf of individual investors, claiming Volkswagen didn’t inform investors in a timely way about the troubles with diesel cars.

Did not inform investors Marc Schiefer, an attorney with Tilp’s firm, said Volkswagen did not live up to legal requirements that it inform investors of troubles with diesel engines between 2008 and 2015. “They should have told the markets that something was not working with their diesel technology,” Schiefer said.

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et a chance in a Manhattan court this week to argue that the automaker should be held accountable for injuries, deaths and lost vehicle value.

Jury selection starts today in the second trial involving a car accident allegedly caused by the switch.

The trial could set the legal boundaries for dozens of lawsuits against GM. The proceedings could affect claims worth potentially billions of dollars over the defective switch, which can slip out of place, causing engine stalls and cutting power to airbags, brakes and steering systems.

The defect, which some GM employees knew about for years, prompted the recall of 2.6 million vehicles in 2014 and has been linked to nearly 400 serious injuries and deaths.

A first trial involving ignition switch injuries ended abruptly in January following allegations that the plaintiff gave misleading testimony.

As the first trial never reached a verdict, the one starting today may be the first time a jury weighs in on whether GM is liable for its yearslong failure to conduct a recall.

GM has already paid $2 billion in settlements and penalties over the defect, but this trial may set the tone for others claiming death or injury related to the switch who did not settle.

Ruling over pre-bankruptcy claims A second legal ruling this week will determine how courts re-

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gard GM’s liability for the period before its bankruptcy.

On Tuesday, in the same courthouse, plaintiffs suing over lost vehicle value and accidents that occurred before GM’s 2009 bankruptcy will ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse unfavourable decisions from a bankruptcy court last year.

They say the rulings could impact many of their claims under a sale agreement that largely freed “New GM” from burdensome liabilities that predate the bankruptcy.

Plaintiffs will argue that GM should face their claims because the company’s deception deprived them of a chance to participate in the bankruptcy proceedings.

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Chevrolet drops the ‘Hammer’ with 2017 Camaro ZL1

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e’re only 95 kilometres west of Las Vegas, but might as well be on the moon. It’s nothing but 360 degrees of rocks and sand within a bleak mountainous frame. It’s hard to believe that artesian wells were once so plentiful here, that the town’s name was derived from the Shoshone Indian word for “Water Rocks.”

Aside from the infamous Chicken Ranch, the only thing of note in Pahrump is the 3.5-kilometre ring of candy-striped pavement that lay before us. Owned by the Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch, the private track is home to the racing school of Canada’s own Ron Fellows – and its hairpin turn is an exact replica of the one at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

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GM faces bellwether trial over ignition switch injuries

Volkswagen deleted documents as USprobe sought access, says whisteblower olkswagen deleted documents and obstructed justice after the U.S. Environmental Protection accused the company of cheating on emissions tests, a former employee alleged in a lawsuit.

Daniel Donovan says in a whistleblower case that he was wrongfully fired Dec. 6, 2015 after refusing to participate in the deletions and reporting them to a supervisor. The lawsuit says that the evidence deletion continued for three days after the Sept. 18 allegations from the EPA and despite a hold order from the Justice Department.

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NATIONAL Deportations to Jamaica, Honduras could Federal budget 2016: end up hurting Canada so lets just keep How deep in deficit should Ottawa go? foreign criminals here: federal studies will produce deficits of $15.3 billion and $12.2

20 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

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t’s become the multibillion-dollar question — how big, exactly, will the federal deficit be? Analysts have made predictions leading up to next Tuesday’s spring budget on the magnitude of Ottawa’s shortfall, which is already poised to reach tens of billions. The Liberal government has acknowledged the deficit could rise above $20 billion as it fulfills election vows and introduces economy-boosting measures, such as infrastructure spending.

The government has kept mum on the final figure, but many experts anticipate Ottawa will be $30 billion in the hole in 2016-17 — at least. Some have even recommended how large — or small — the government should allow the deficit to grow in its budgetary blueprint. The C.D. Howe Institute is the latest to weigh in with the release today of its annual “shadow” budget, a document that urges the Liberals to show some spending restraint.

The think-tank suggests a fiscal approach that

billion over the next two fiscal years — levels significantly lower than other observers.

On the other end of the spectrum, a couple of big banks and the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have recommended the government inject even more fiscal stimulus, which will create a deficit as high as $40 billion in 2016-17.

TD Bank, meanwhile, has said the federal government is on track to run $150 billion in budget deficits over the next five years. The projections come as the government prepares its maiden budget at a time when the economy is struggling with the negative consequences of low commodity prices, particularly oil. The country’s economic situation darkened in the months that followed the October election, which prompted Finance Minister Bill Morneau to take the rare step last month of releasing a fiscal update only weeks before the budget.

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eporting convicts to Jamaica and Honduras poses a boomerang-style threat because returnees may become involved in international crime that hurts Canada, federally commissioned research says.

While removing people who have committed serious crimes may be an important element of Canadian public security strategy, it places strains on law-enforcement and social services in the two destination countries and could have “unintended consequences” for Canada, say a pair of studies released under the Access to Information Act. The Security Governance Group of Kitchener, Ont., delivered the findings to Public Safety Canada in January.

The studies suggest the Canadian government could do more to support programs in Jamaica and Honduras to prevent such deportees from returning to crime.

Scott Bardsley, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, did not commit to more assistance but said the Liberal government believes in evidence-based policy.

“We continually monitor global events, on-

going issues and research related to crime and enforcement to guide policy development.”

Faster removal of foreign criminals The previous Conservative government ushered in the Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act three years ago, broadening the scope of those affected and limiting their appeals.

About a quarter of a million people in Canada have Jamaican ancestry, most of whom live in the Toronto area. Between 2000 and 2013, Canada deported almost 2,800 people to Jamaica.

Experts in Canada and Jamaica told the researchers that the ability of deportees to obtain jobs, housing, education and health care heavily influenced their ability to reintegrate and whether criminals would continue to take part in illicit activity upon their return.

“The great difficulty with properly reintegrating criminal deportees has ultimately contributed to deportee-related problems with unemployment, homelessness, inadequate housing, property crime, mental health and addiction,” one study says.

Feds allow seasonal exemption to temporary foreign worker rules

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he Liberal government has quietly approved changes aimed at helping Atlantic Canadian seafood processors that will allow them to bring in unlimited numbers of low-skilled temporary foreign workers to fill seasonal jobs this year. Ottawa approved the foreign-worker exemption in response to lobbying from Atlantic seafood processors and Liberal MPs, who warned that recent restrictions to the temporary foreign worker program were hampering business. New Brunswick Fisheries Minister Rick Doucet recently said the labour shortage in his province is so bad that some lobster processing plants have had to throw lobsters in the trash. The Liberals – who swept all 32 ridings in Atlantic Canada in last year’s federal election – are justifying the exemption as a short-term measure to buy time until a full review of the foreign worker program can be conducted later this year.

Other industry groups – such as Restaurants Canada – are questioning why exemptions are being allowed for some sectors and not others, and why they were never told of the change.

Federal Cabinet to decide on BC LNG terminal

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fter a lengthy regulatory process, a final decision on Pacific NorthWest LNG’s proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal on British Columbia’s coast looks set to be referred to the federal cabinet because of its impact on Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. A February draft report from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) found that the project – led by Malaysia’s stateowned oil-and-gas giant Petronas – is “likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects” to harbour porpoises in the area and to greenhouse gas emissions. If the final report came to a similar conclusion, federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna would have to refer the matter to cabinet – which has made climate change a central focus of the government. Late on Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported Ms. McKenna was preparing to make that cabinet referral – a move that comes ahead of a March 22 deadline for the government review, and would cause another delay in a lengthy and contentious approval process for the high-profile $11.4-billion terminal, which is proposed for Lelu Island near Prince Rupert.

On Wednesday, however, a spokesperson said the minister “has not yet made her determination of whether the project would likely cause significant adverse environmental effects.”

POLITICS

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Alberta NDP cleared in ethics report on fundraisers

lberta Premier Rachel Notley (pictured) has been cleared of two ethics complaints relating to NDP fundraisers in Edmonton and Ontario.

While the opposition had questioned whether the fundraisers met ethics laws, ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler says in a report released Monday that the existing Conflicts of Interest Act only prohibits an MLA or family member from deriving personal financial benefit from a political activity. Trussler found that Notley did not derive personal financial benefit from either event.

Funds raised in Toronto went to the Ontario NDP. “The act does not deal with moral integrity or public perception of what is right or wrong,” she wrote in her report. The commissioner says it is time for an all-party committee of MLAs to set new rules for political fundraising that would apply to all parties.

Trussler looked into a by-invitation-only,

$1,000-a-ticket fundraiser in February that allowed donors admission to a private dinner with Notley and her MLAs. The event was cancelled after the Wildrose party questioned whether it met ethics rules under Alberta`s Conflicts of Interest Act. But the main part of the fundraising event, a widely advertised reception at the Art Gallery of Alberta that cost participants $250, went ahead. Trussler also reviewed Notley’s involvement in a fundraiser a week earlier in Toronto with Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwarth. The fundraiser, which cost nearly $10,000 a ticket, offered corporations access to the two leaders. Deputy premier Sarah Hoffman said she was pleased the commissioner exonerated Notley, and took aim at the Wildrose party for registering complaints.

Man was appointed to UBC board even though BC gov’t knew he was caught up in tax avoidance case

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he provincial government appointed Greg Peet to the University of B.C.’s board of governors, despite knowing he was trying to avoid paying more than $1 million in provincial and federal taxes owed by his firm. When information about the case surfaced, Peet stepped aside, pending the outcome of the court case. The case involves taxes assessed for 2003 for Veracity Capital, of which company Peet is a director and controlling shareholder.Kathy Corrigan, NDP advanced education critic, said Peet was right to step aside Thursday, but noted he has become the latest in a long line of nega-

tive distractions at UBC “People who are (on) boards of governors of our colleges and universities should be an example to the students that are there,” Corrigan said. She also questioned why Peet, who has been fighting the tax issue for years, would suddenly step down when the issue became public. “If it was wrong, it was wrong several years ago,” she said. Elections B.C.

shows that Peet donated $10,000 to the B.C. Liberals in 2005 and $2,500 in 2009. Veracity Capital also donated $2,500 to the B.C. Liberals in 2009. Peet has also donated to UBC.

Ottawa spent $2.2M to fight Canadians denied benefits while on mat leave

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he legal bill to fight a group of mothers who say they were wrongfully denied sickness benefits continues to rise as the woman at the centre of the battle waits for the Liberals to follow through on a campaign pledge to end the fight.

Newly released figures show the federal government has spent more than $2.2 million in legal fees fighting Calgary mother Jennifer McCrea and thousands of other Canadians who are involved in a class-action lawsuit over being denied sickness benefits while they were on maternity leave. Most of that —

$2.06 million — has been through the federal Justice Department with a further $176,377 estimated to have been spent at Employment and Social Development Canada. The figures are contained in documents tabled in Parliament last week in response to a request from New Democrat MP Niki Ashton and show the government added about $1 million to the overall legal bill for the case in the last year. “It’s very upsetting that this legal bill is at $2.2 million and that could have been...used to help out me as well as the other many, many women that could use that benefit that we are entitled to.

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RCMP drops investigations against 24 senators flagged in forensic audit

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rime Minister Justin Trudeau has lauded various police investigations and audits of questionable spending by dozens of Senators as necessary steps to bring about “greater accountability” in the unelected Senate. Mr. Trudeau, who was in New York to meet United Nations Secretary General Ban ki Moon, was asked Wednesday whether RCMP criminal probes of 30 current and past senators were worth the cost and effort, given a report in The Globe and Mail that all of them are expected to be cleared of wrongdoing. The Globe reported Wednesday

the RCMP has already exonerated 24 of 30 Senators who expenses were flagged by the Auditor General and is expected to clear the remaining six. “I think the travails of the Senate and what senators went through over the past years highlighted the need for greater transparency, greater openness and greater accountability and indeed a distancing from partisanship and patronage that has defined the Senate,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters. The Red Chamber has taken a series of steps to tighten its spending rules and to post the expenses of all 104 senators online.

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Canada’s inflation rate cools to 1.4% in February

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Business / Finance

Saturday, March 19, 2016

he cost of living in Canada increased at an annual rate of 1.4 per cent in February, a major slowdown from January’s two-per-cent level.

Statistics Canada reported Friday that the Consumer Price Index fell from the previous month because of a big decline of 13.1 per cent in gasoline prices compared to where they were last year. If gasoline prices are stripped out of the calculation,

the inflation rate would be 1.9 per cent. Food prices, however, were one of the biggest factors keeping the inflation rate up. Consumers paid 3.9 per cent more for food last month compared with February 2015, the data agency said. Regionally, the inflation rate slowed down in every province. New Brunswick posted the highest annual rate, at 2.4 per cent.

Jobless Canadians wait more than a month to find out EI eligibility

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ewly released figures show thousands of jobless Canadians are waiting more than a month to find out if they will receive benefits. Figures tabled in Parliament last week show 297,586 employment insurance applicants waited more than 28 days for a decision on their files. Of those who waited longer than 28 days, the average wait time was 39 days nationwide and in western Canada, which has been hard hit by the slumping price of oil.

The numbers also show that Canadians dialling into a federal call centre with employment insurance questions heard an automated high-volume message almost 7.4 million times between April 2015 and January of this year. Consequently, processing times and client services topped the categories for complaints lodged with the government. The figures were tabled in response to a written question from NDP employment critic Niki Ashton. The figures are part of an ongoing trend of long wait times to speak with an agent at federal call centres, some of it attributed to an antiquated call centre system that Shared Services Canada, the government’s central information-technology

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department, is working to upgrade. Better service coming? The government’s goal is to answer 80 per cent of calls within 10 minutes. Between April of last year and January of this year, the call centres met that service standard from a high of 64.3 per cent of time in June, to a low of 19.6 per cent in January.

Employment and Social Development Canada, which oversees the employment insurance program, is planning to spend $19.5 million on telephone services this year, and spend $18.9 million to expand services and answers available online. Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk said the government knows it has work to do on the employment insurance system and will have more to say on its plan soon.

IEA hails ‘decoupling’ of global growth from CO2 growth

here has been a “decoupling” of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from economic growth over the last two years, according to the International Energy Agency. The Paris-based group that monitors global energy needs says the amount of carbon dioxide emitted over the past two years has flattened, coming in at 32.1 billion tonnes in 2015, about the same as 2013 and 2014. Meanwhile global GDP grew by 3.4 per cent in 2014 and 3.1 per cent in 2015. After Paris climate talks comes the hard part: a global carbon diet National climate strategy to be painful and expensive, says Trevor McLeod Investment in renewables fell by half last year, Clean Energy Canada says “The new figures confirm last year’s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a news release. The change is because of the rapid adoption of renewable energy, especially for electrical generation, the IEA said.

Electricity generated by renewables accounted for around 90 per cent of new elec-

tricity generation in 2015, with wind alone producing more than half of new electricity generation. The IEA’s conclusion that economic growth can continue without needing increased amounts of fossil fuels is preliminary, like its data, which will be explored in a more complete report in June. Two of the world’s largest emitters have been making the transition from coal generation to renewables. In China, CO2 emissions declined by 1.5 per cent and in the U.S., emissions declined by 2 per cent. China’s official growth figure is 6.9 per cent for 2015 while the U.S. latest estimate is 2.4 per cent. The declines in China and the U.S. were offset by increased emissions in other Asian developing countries, the Middle East and a moderate increase in Europe. There has been concern among the economists about a slowing of global growth in the past two years and fears that the agreement to curb carbon emissions reached in Paris last fall might weigh heavily on GDP around the world. The IEA points out that in other periods when emissions flattened or fell – such as the early 1980s, 1992 and 2009 – there was global economic weakness.

Business / Finance

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Trudeau says OAS eligibility age to return to 65 in first Liberal budget

ext week’s budget will lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth by investing in “unsexy” but much-needed infrastructure projects, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today. During a town hall with Bloomberg TV in New York, Trudeau also confirmed that Tuesday’s federal spending plan will reverse the eligibility for Old Age Security to 65 from 67. Trudeau wins public approval on economy Trudeau called former prime minister Stephen Harper’s move to phase in a twoyear increase in the retirement age a “simplistic solution to a complex problem that won’t work.” Responding to a demographic shift to an aging population will require a broad strategy that includes promoting healthy lifestyles and activity to creating links between older, more experienced mentors and younger Canadians, he said. “There’s a bundle of things to look at, but the place that we are returning to, because it was a mistake to bounce it up to 67, is we’re starting from 65,” the prime minister told Bloomberg’s John Micklethwait.

The Conservative plan to raise the age to 67 was not set to kick in until 2023.

The party’s employment, workforce and labour critic, Gérard Deltell, slammed the decision he says was made for “bad political reasons.” He said it will cost future generations of Canadians. “It’s the wrong call for the economy and the wrong call for the people because at 65 years old people are still in good shape and many of them would like to continue to work,” he said. “Putting the retirement age at 67 was the most responsible way.” Trudeau said the Liberal plan to grow the economy rejects the “austerity” trend and is based on the premise that government has

an effective role to play in stirring the economy. That plan is much different than the Conservative government’s massive stimulus plan that responded to the 2008-2009 recession. “What we’re looking at is not so much trying to jolt the economy into life, as trying to lay the groundwork, the foundation for better productivity over the long term, and not just an influx of cash,” he said. Municipal projects like maintenance and upgrades “don’t get the flash” but are desperately needed to create jobs and build for the future, he said. Trudeau said he believes his promise to run deficits won him the fall federal election.

“We had made that announcement, and the left-wing New Democratic Party had announced they were going to balance the budget at all costs, just like the Conservative government,” he said. “The day we said, ‘No, it’s time to invest in the future of our country’ and they confirmed they weren’t, I got home to my wife and I said: ‘I’m pretty sure we just won the election.’” During the campaign on Aug. 27, 2015, Trudeau said a Liberal government would not balance the books for three years straight, but would double spending on infrastructure to stir economic growth. At that time, he promised a “modest short-term deficit” of less than $10 billion for each of the first three years, though that figure is now expected to be much higher in next week’s budget.

Trudeau said the transforming economy — with a collapse in oil prices and a global response to climate change — should be viewed not just as a challenge, but an opportunity.

CRTC flooded with complaints about new $25 skinny basic TV package

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undreds of consumer complaints are pouring in about the new $25 skinny basic TV packages now on the market. As well, industry insiders tell CBC News that many cable customers are turning up their noses at the latest TV deal.

“Not really a storm of people flocking to the new packages,” a Rogers employee said.

So perhaps it comes as no surprise that Canada’s broadcast regulator — which mandated the skinny packages — has already received 587 complaints about them from Canadians. The complaints began streaming in on March 1 — the deadline for cable companies to unveil their new offerings.

Complaints range from overly high costs once extra fees are factored in, to “lack of choice,” says Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission spokeswoman, Patricia Valladao. The $25 plan only has to include mandatory Canadian channels. TV providers can add a handful of U.S. stations but not everyone is offering them.

Customers can pay extra to add more channels to the package. $25 ‘skinny’ TV packages called a ‘ripoff ’ as industry ‘stares down’ CRTC When asked whether nearly 600 complaints is concerning, Valladao responded that big changes always require an adjustment period. She added that the new deals aren’t going to appeal to everyone, and that customers can always stick with their current packages. “It’s not like they’re under the gun to change,” the CRTC spokeswoman said.

The Consumers’ Association of Canada has also been inundated with complaints about the skinny packages — more than 300 at last

count. President Bruce Cran is less sanguine about the flood of unhappy comments. “We weren’t expecting this,” he said. “The sort of common theme is that nobody thinks the skinny package is of any great value.”

Cran says many customers are complaining that once they add additional fees and a few extra channels, the cost of the $25 package can become more expensive than their current TV deal. “They’re finding it doesn’t add up,” he said. When the CRTC announced the upcoming deals last year, the broadcast regulator billed them as game-changing, a way “to maximize choice and affordability for Canadian TV viewers.” The commission had mandated that by March 1, service providers must offer a “skinny” basic TV package for $25 or less. They also had to let customers top up the plan with individual pick-and-pay or small channel bundles. ‘Skinny’ cable and pick-and-pay TV: What you need to know But it appears many cable providers are going out of their way to make the mandated offerings as unattractive as possible. The $25 packages often exclude routine discounts, but include extra fees for necessities such as a digital TV box rental. Plus some of the added individual or bundled channels come at a high price. “Consumers feel let down by a process they thought would give them cost reductions and value,” Cran said. The consumer advocate says his group will address the problem with the CRTC and push to get Canadians a better deal.

“It seems that maybe the CRTC is giving much more protection to the industry than to consumers,” he said.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

PUNJAB

Amid fears of renewed quota stir, Haryana government invites Jats for talks

The Haryana government has invited jat leaders for talk on Friday as a last ditch attempt to avert a renewed quota agitation. The government has promised getting the bill on reservation passed during the ongoing Budget session that ends on March 31. The jats, who had issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the government to address their demands by Thursday, said they will take a decision on the future course of action after meeting with

Haryana chief secretary and director general of police on Friday afternoon. Bracing for the stir, the state government deployed paramilitary forces and police in sensitive districts and they carried out flag marches in various places to instill confidence among the people in the state which witnessed widespread violence during the first phase of the agitation last month that left 30 people dead and caused extensive loss.

Sops flow over from Punjab’s dry coffers

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iscal prudence took a backseat today as the Akali-BJP government presented a Rs 86,387-crore tax-free budget for 2016-17. In his fifth and final budget before the state goes to the polls next year, Punjab Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa chose to please all sections — women, farmers, youth and Dalits — by doling out sops.

The Budget, hailed by the government as growth-oriented and criticised by the Opposition as being directionless, seems high on welfare schemes and

sops and low on fiscal consolidation. Dhindsa’s please-all budget proposals come at a time when the government stares at empty coffers, with a negative balance touching Rs 610 crore, and the outstanding debt likely to climb to Rs 1.38 lakh crore. The sops will cost the state exchequer Rs 1,200 crore.

For women, Dhindsa announced among other sops three working women hotels with daycare facilities for children and free utensils for mahila mandals and NGOs for community use.

37-year-old NRI found murdered A 37-year-old NRI, a native of Swara village near Thunderzone, was found murdered here today. The body of the victim, identified as Jaskaran Singh, was found lying in a field located at the rear side of a government school at Swara village with multiple stab marks on his private parts, chest, waist and arms. The mobile phone and Swift Dzire car of the victim were found missing. The phone has been found switched off. Jaskaran be-

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longed to a family of landlords and owned Ekam Shopping Complex in the village. He was also running his real estate office from the complex. According to the police, the victim’s family, including his wife and two children, are settled in Canada. “He came here around a year ago and started living with his parents in the village,” said the police. Inspector Manjit Singh, SHO of the Kharar (Sadar) police station, said a woman saw

Punjab’s economy hangs by a thread

he budget presented by Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa has unmistakably indicated that the state’s economy is hanging by a thread. On the growth rate trajectory, the state lags behind almost all other major states.

Its growth rate for the current fiscal has been pegged at 5.96 per cent, up from last fiscal’s 4.92 per cent. Dhindsa expects that in the next fiscal, the growth rate would touch 7 per cent. The growth rate of the state’s manufacturing sector has been on the decline for the past three

fiscals. It was recorded at just 3.14 per cent for the current financial year, down from 3.59 per cent and 3.67 per cent, respectively, in the previous two fiscals. The slowing down of the manufacturing sector means a drop in jobs and employment opportunities. The state has been downwardly mobile over the years in terms of its growth rate. During the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17), Punjab’s growth rate of the state domestic product (SDP) has been pegged at 6.4 per cent, virtually the lowest compared to states such as Haryana, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. In stark contrast, Haryana’s economy has been growing at a much faster rate for the past about two decades.

Farmers start reclaiming SYL canal land, destroying trees

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gged on by local leaders, farmers in Patiala and Ropar districts have started taking possession of their land acquired for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal. The leaders also provided equipment to the farmers to enable them to level the land. Thousands of trees along the 25-km embankment in the Bassi Pathana block of Fatehgarh Sahib were uprooted by 150 JCB machines deployed to fill the land.

There were no irrigation officials at the site.

Joyed at the unexpected bounty, local residents were only too pleased to carry away the wood on their tractor-trailers. “The government says the land belongs to those from whom it was acquired, therefore we are not stealing the wood,” said an unrepentant Harjit Singh. In Thuha village near Rajpura, residents were seen killing snakes, rabbits and partridges. When contacted, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Kuldeep Kumar said, “It is a serious issue. We will write to the Police Department to register cases against those who entered the restricted forest area.” A disappointed Baljinder Singh of Chunni village said had the water flown in the canal, he could have irrigated his fields.

He said that excited over the government’s decision to return their land, the farmers had hired JCB machines to fill up the canal and arranged langar for Akali workers and JCB drivers.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016 628 ii Saturday - April 4, 2015

INDIA fOOD MLA suspended for not saying ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’

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heroes when the state was in he Maharashtra Asthe middle of a drought. At this, sembly today susBJPMLAs reportedly heckled pended All India Jaleel and asked whether the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s AIMIM respected national (AIMIM) Waris Pathan from heroes and would say “Bharat the House for the remainder of Mata Ki Jai”. At this, Pathan, Budget session for refusing to a prominent criminal lawyer chant “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. The representing Byculla in South Assembly’s decision to suspend Central Mumbai, got up to say Pathan came in the middle of Waris Pathan that chanting the slogan was a a discussion where another matter of choice.

“The Constitution does not AIMIM legislator, Imtiaz Jaleel, questioned the Maharashtra Government’s decision to make it mandatory. We will say Jai Hind. We spend crores on erecting statues of national won’t say Bharatmata ki jai,” Pathan said.

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chicken (no butter) Masala Your favourite butter chicken but without the butter and added calories!

We are more loved in India than in Pakistan: Shahid Afridi

he eternal tug-ofwar that always accompanies a Pakistan cricket team’s arrival in India may have led to Shahid Afridi and Co landing for the World T20 three days behind schedule, but their senior pros were far from complaining. Instead Afridi and Shoaib Malik did well to quickly win hearts by deflecting the focus from the sticky political issues during Pakistan’s first media interaction here on Sunday. “Let me

say that we are more loved here than in Pakistan. Crick Ingredients et brings the two countries • 250g boneless closer,chicken so there’s nothing • 2tbsp rapeseed oil cricket with Inlike playing • 1 medium red onion Afridi led from dia. ” Skipper • 3 large tomatoes the front, when he typically • ½ cup cashew spokenuts his mind. “We are not • 100g tomato puree ” he said, when politicians, • 1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves asked if the team disagreed • 100ml low fat cream with the Pakistan govern• 1tsp masala ment’s gravegaram concern about security of the • 1tsp red chilli players in India, “We powder are cricketers and will 1tbsp ginger-ofgarlic paste go by• the decision the state, ” Afridi said.

• 2tbsp thick low fat yoghurt • salt to taste

Revoke citizenship of those not chanting ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’: Sena

Procedure: tra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis how Marinate the chicken with the ginger garlic paste and the yoghurt for 20 min. soak the cashew inaunching warm water for 15 attack minutes.chop a scathing on AIM- the onions and tomatoes. Heat 1 tbsp Owaisi was allowed to leave the state after he oil to a pan. sear the chicken pieces in the hot oil for 1 minute on each side to a golden colour. remove the chicken pieces. in the same IM leader Asaduddin Owaisi for pan, add 1tbsp oil and the chopped refusedare to chant pro-India onions. saute till a translucent pink. Add the tomatoes, red chili powder, garam masala powder and cook on medium flame till the tomatoes tenderthe (approx.

4-5slogan. his refusal to chant “Bharat Mata Ki Notably, against the backdrop RSS chief minutes). remove from flame and run in a blender with the soaked cashews to make a smooth paste. return to the pan and add the tomato puree.

Bring to a boil and of add Jai”, the Shiv Sena on Thursday sought reMohan Bhagwat’s suggestion that the new the chicken pieces. simmer for 4-5 minutes till the chicken is cooked. Add the low fat cream and simmer for 2 minutes.

Broil the fenugreek leaves on a pan. crush the vocation of citizenship and voting rights of generation needs to be taught to chant slofenugreek leaves over the curry and remove from fire. serve hot. those who refuse to chant the slogan. The gans hailing mother India, Owaisi had, at a Sena also sought to know from Maharashpublic rally in Udgir tehsil of Latur district,

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INDIA

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Mallya met Arun Jaitley in the House day before leaving India: Congress

ooking to target the government, Congress on Monday alleged that liquor baron Vijay Mallya had met finance minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament on March 1 before leaving the country a day later.

The politics over Mallya heated up with AICC spokesman Randeep Surjewala asking the government to clarify the nature of the meeting between the minister and Mallya,

and if the PM was informed about the discussion. He also asked if details would be shared with Parliament. As Mallya continues to make news with his comment that he would not be returning soon, Surjewala wondered if the government would bring back the MP - who’s business ventures owe a consortium of banks Rs 9,000 crore - or bury the case like that of former cricket czar Lalit Modi.

Mother Teresa to be made a saint in September

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ope Francis set the canonization date Tuesday, paving the way for the nun who cared for the poorest of the poor to become the centerpiece of his yearlong focus on the Catholic Church’s merciful side. The announcement was expected after Francis in December approved a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa’s intercession — the final hurdle to make her a saint.

The actual date falls on the eve of the 19th anniversary of her death.

Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997 , will be made a saint

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Cricket power houses India & Pakistan clash

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ICC International T-20 Cricket

he build-up to the India-Pakistan clash today actually to began once Dharamsala was named as the venue on December 11 last year. Political tensions and security concerns in the weeks preceding the World Twenty20, however, left the administrators and fans in a limbo: ‘Will they, won’t they?’ On March 9, a day after the start of the tournament, the impasse was finally over and the match was moved over from Dharamsala to Kolkata. On the eve of the game in Kolkata, R Ashwin told a horde of reporters that the India-Pakistan rivalry was “probably bigger than the Ashes”. India and Pakistan had provided a precursor during the Asia Cup last month when Mohammad Amir’s fire was countered by Virat Kohli’s ice.

India grooved to the Asia Cup title; Pakistan suffered a pre-mature exit and were in chaos, with some barbs even directed at captain Shahid Afridi. Both sides have played just a match in the World T20 so far, but have had vastly different results. The pressure is

now on India who had custard pie smashed on their faces by the largely unheralded spin trio of Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, and Nathan McCullum. Things seem to be falling in place for Pakistan at the right moment: the top order delivered on Wednesday against Bangladesh, as did Afridi. Once-upon-a time finisher, Shoaib Malik is back to slip in to a similar role, and can also bind the innings if there is a (familiar) implosion. The Kolkata pitch has been on the sluggish side, but Pakistan’s penchant for pace is their way of life.

India’s middle order, which has been shielded by Kohli’s imperious form, was brutally exposed by New Zealand, and Dhoni conceded the batsmen lacked adaptability. Can the middle order produce a better riposte if Kohli’s bubble is burst again? Yuvraj Singh had spent 144 minutes in the middle with the bat on considerably green pitches in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh. Three Saturdays earlier, he had to deal with the high-speed bustle of Amir and Mohammad Irfan.

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

INDIA

CBI to probe Vijay Mallya’s use of loan money

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6 lakh transactions, Rs 7,000 crore

xpanding its probe, the CBI is looking into about six lakh banking transactions, over 60% of them made to foreign countries, related to over Rs 7,000 crore banks loan default case involving liquor baron Vijay Mallya. The CBI is following substantive leads of money trail to four nations in the case, official sources said, refusing to divulge the name of the countries as it might affect the probe. Officials of 17 banks which gave loan to Kingfisher Airlines (now defunct) and UB Group, promoted by Mallya, are also under the agency’s scanner for their alleged involvement in the case, they said. Interestingly, none of the banks has so far

reported “fraud” to the CBI in this case despite being approached by the agency.

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Indian students become Donald’s Trump card

onald Trump’s erratic pronouncements on everything under the sun included a sudden endorsement of the brand of the smart Indian student, whose success is largely premised on guest worker visa program that the renegade Republican frontrunner has pledged to scrub. “I think somebody that goes through years of college in this country we shouldn’t kick them out the day they graduate, which we do,” Trump said in a Fox New interview, specifically citing the example of students from India to moderate his stand on immigration. “They go to Harvard, they are first in their class and they’re from India they go back to India and they set up companies and they make a fortune and they employ lots of people and all of that.” Florida and Ohio may decide whether it is Trump or rump “Whether we like that or not, they pay, et cetera, et cetera but we educate a lot of

people, very smart people. We need those people in the country,” the billionaire plutocratic Presidential aspirant and demagogue explained hazily, without providing a specific roadmap on how he planned to keep the graduating students in the US. The remarks went against Trump’s broad stand on immigration that includes opposition to the H1-B guest worker visa program that thousands of students from India typically use to mainstream themselves into the American

Former Maharashtra deputy chief minister, arrested in money laundering case

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enior NCP leader and former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal was on Monday night arrested by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) here after 10 hours of questioning in con-

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nection with its probe in a money laundering case registered against him and others.

According to an ED official, the arrest of the former PWD minister was effected under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after he allegedly refused to cooperate during questioning. The agency also recorded his statement in the case.

The official said Bhujbal was questioned for 10 hours before he was arrested and he will be produced before a court on Tuesday.

Could have gone to a better place, it would have cost me much less: Sri Sri

t was amazing. I was very surprised by the response... by the way people stood, even in the rain, and danced the first day. The rain could not dampen their enthusiasm. I’m more surprised by the pace at which it’s been cleaned the very next day. I thought it would take three-four days. Couldn’t the mounds of garbage on the Yamuna floodplains have been avoided by having better waste management systems in place? Lakhs of people had food, water and other things.

They can’t take the garbage with them. All that has been cleaned.

Considering it is an ecologically sensitive area, couldn’t this adding of garbage have been avoided? First of all, had you seen the place, it was a dumping ground. Not a park, not a sanctuary. It was not a place with birds, it was not beautiful. It was stinking. Nobody would say it was an ecologically pure place. Today, it has become clean. The place was toxic. Our being there has not created damage, it has cleansed the place.

Bomb scare on Air India flight to Bangkok; passengers evacuated

A

bomb scare on a Delhi-Bangkok Air India flight has seen the plane grounded at the airport in the Thai capital. All passengers on the flight have been evacuated. Air India flight AI 332 from Delhi landed at Suvarnabhumi airport at the scheduled time of 7:13pm (8:43pm IST) and was asked by air traffic controllers to be parked at an area away from other planes, sources said.

Authorities activated an emergency plan and safely evacuated all 231 passengers, including a child, and 10 crew members from the aircraft to begin checking for a bomb.

All passengers were evacuated via slides.

Police from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit are checking all pieces of luggage including those loaded on the aircraft, Chadanisa Chumnanvej, deputy general manager of Suvarnabhumi airport in charge of operations, was quoted as saying by The Bangkok Post.

The result of the check remains unknown, the report said.

Air India uses a Boeing 787 dreamliner for the flight, according to the flightaware. com. The plane left the Indian capital at 2:05pm IST.

FIJI

Saturday, March 19, 2016

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Opposition leader blasts cronyism in the Fijian government

By Munna Prasad

O

Fiji’s Minister for Tourism and Trade, Faiyaz Koya (second from right), received a $100,000 cheque from the BC Government for Cyclone Relief in Fiji. The cheque was presented by BC Minister Amrik Virk (third from right) during the Vancouver 7s’ Rugby tournament at BC Place last Saturday. Fiji team lost in quarter finals to South Africa.

Fiji’s Minister for Tourism and Trade, Faiyaz Koya (standing, third from left) helping members of the Fiji Canada Association raise funds for Cyclone vicitms at Spice Radio 1200AM in Burnaby last Friday. About $20,000 was raised.

Fiji’s Minister for Tourism and Trade, Faiyaz Koya (second from right) with Spice Radio owner Sushma Datt (third from right), annoucer Shavilla Devi Singh (right) and Umendra Singh (left) at Spice Radio 1200AM in Burnaby last Friday. About $20,000 was raised.

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Religious leaders charged with sexual offences

iji Council of Churches has expressed its dismay at the revelation that three religious leaders are charged with alleged sexual-related offences.

The council made the comment in light of statistics released by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions that noted the charges against three religious leaders.

Council general secretary Simione Tugi said: “We were dismayed to hear of the alleged involvement of these leaders.

“The alleged crimes were a betrayal of the standards expected of a church leader and we offer our sympathy to the victims of the crimes and their families.”

fficial Opposition Leader Ro Teimumu Kepa said this week that the Constitutional Office chaired by Prime Minister Bainimarama are jobs on for PM’s boys. The Chair, PM Bainimara has given these important State positions to the known members of his inner circle, all of whom are military men.

One of them, Francis Kean, is Prime Minister’s brother-in-law, so the practice of nepotism goes unabated, she said. Kean was appointed as the new Commissioner of the Fiji Corrections. He was previously in jail himself for punching a man in thehead and killing him. Rear Admiral Viliame Naupoto is the new Commander of the Fiji Military Forces, making him the most politically powerful person in Fiji.

Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho is the new Commissioner of Police.

She further stated that the independence of Police Force in any democracy is critical.

Furthermore she stated that, she considers the appointment as a further consolidation of the military group in Fiji. “We are a Militarised State. The government in a democracy is by the people and for and (accountable) to the people being pushed back to be replaced by the new form of dictatorship,” she said.

There are also talk amongst the Fijians of Indian ethnicity regarding the appointments to key positions in Fiji is mostly given to one religious group, the Muslims. It appears that on one hand the top and management goes mostly to the military and to Muslims.

NRI

32 i Saturday, March 19, 2016

C

London mayoral poll candidate uses Modi flyers to woo British Indians

onservative party candidate for the high-profile London mayoral polls is using leaflets with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image to woo Indian-origin voters against his veteran Labour party rival who is the son of Pakistani immigrants. Zac Goldsmith, an Oxford-educated millionaire, is the Conservative party candidate for the race for the polls on May 5 to replace Boris Johnson when his term comes to end.

He is up against Labour’s Sadiq Khan, a politician who proudly proclaims his working class roots as the son of a Pakistani bus driver. In an effort to grab an edge over Khan, Goldsmith’s team has been using a leaflet with an image of him shaking hands with the Indian prime minister alongside British counterpart David Cameron during Modi’s visit to the UK last November. The message reads: “Standing up for the British Indian community.” However, the 41-year-old’s tactic

seems to have backfired as he was accused of a Hindu bias by only mentioning festivals of “Diwali, Navratri and Janamashtami” in reference to his “strong engagement with the Indian community.” The Goldsmith team also issued tailored letters for London’s Tamil-origin population which tend to have expensive jewellery in their homes, warning that Khan is planning a “wealth tax on family jewellery.”

The letter reads: “The first job of the Mayor of London is to protect Londoners. I recognise that far too often, Tamil households are targeted for burglary due to families owning gold and valuable family heirlooms. “As mayor I will stand up to focus the Metropolitan Police on this issue and will fight to keep you, your family and your homes secure.” Tulip Siddiq, Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, branded his techniques as “scaremongering” to win votes.

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US President Obama nominates Merrick Garland to US Supreme Court

resident Obama on Wednesday nominated fellow Chicagoan and Harvard alumnus Merrick Garland to the US Supreme Court bench, disappointing all the Indian-Americans and Asian-Americans who expected Sri Srinivasan to make the cut.

But the politics of confirmation to a vacancy caused by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia clearly weighed on the President’s mind as he chose 63-year-old Garland, a moderate judge who heads the DC Appeals Court where Srinivasan, 49, is his junior colleague.

In an impassioned 20-minute introduction of the nominee in the White House Rose Garden, the President spoke of Garland’s stellar career, his stirring record of public service, and cited striking examples of Americana to press for a

I

confirmation hearing that Republicans have refused to entertain. “He put himself through Harvard Law School by working as a tutor, by stocking shoes in a shoe store, and in what is always a painful moment for any young man, by selling his comic book collection,” Obama chuckled to laughter, as he pressed every possible nativist button in an effort to stir Republicans from their obduracy. With a clear eye on persuading the party of Lincoln, Obama referred to Garland being “born and raised in the Land of Lincoln, in my home town of Chicago, my home state of Illinois” and his service as a prosecutor in the George Bush administration, citations he would not have been able to make for Srinivasan, who grew up in Kansas.

Indian-Americans disappointed with Obama’s Supreme Court nominee

ndian-Americans expressed their disappointment over Barack Obama’s decision not to nominate “trailblazer” Sri Srinivasan to fill the vacancy on the Supreme

Court bench but appreciated the US President for “strongly considering” the Indian-origin judge.. Srinivasan, 48, was among the few judges interviewed by Obama for the top judicial post, but in the end he opted to nominate judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.. Encouraged by the fact that Obama during his presidency nominated a record number of Indian-Americans to senior judiciary positions, community leaders from across the country were hoping that Srinivasan would be the pick.. “The expectations were high and Sri was eminently qualified. The community was disappointed to say the least. This SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) process could take a while during this political season so let’s wait and see what happens,” M R Rangaswami, a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, told PTI..

Indian-origin journo heckled at Trump rally cleared of charges

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ll charges have been dropped against an Indian-American journalist, who was arrested last week while covering Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s election rally in Chicago which was called off due to unprecedented protests, his news network said.. Chicago Police Department and Illinois State Police in a statement said they have dropped all charges against CBS News reporter Sopan Deb, who is assigned to cover Trump’s presidential campaign.. “While this incident was very dynamic and troopers and officers were forced to make split-second decisions in the interest of public safety of demonstrators and police officers, we have collectively decided to drop the administrative charges in this case.. “This decision was made after a methodical review of the physical evidence including video and interviewing both troopers and police officers involved in the incident,” CBS News reported, citing the statement.. Last week while covering an election rally of Trump in Chicago, which was marred by violence, Deb was handcuffed and briefly detained by the Chicago Police. The White House had condemned the incident.. .

SOUTH ASIA

Suu Kyi’s close aide Htin Kyaw elected Myanmar’s next president

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yanmar’s lawmakers on Tuesday elected a close aide and longtime friend of Aung San Suu Kyi to become the country’s first civilian president in decades, in a historic moment for the formerly junta-run nation. Htin Kyaw, 69, won 360 of 652 votes cast by Myanmar’s two legislative chambers, paving the way for him to serve as a proxy for the Nobel laureate who is constitutionally barred from becoming president. MPs burst into applause when the re-

sults were announced after a lengthy counting procedure in the capital Naypyidaw. Suu Kyi is barred from taking the top post under the country’s junta-era constitution because she married and had children with a foreigner.

But she has pledged to pull the strings of power from “above” her appointee backed by a thumping mandate from her party’s landslide election win in November. The son of a revered poet who has helped run Suu Kyi’s charitable foundation in recent years, Htin Kyaw has long been a trusted member of her inner circle.

Bus blast kills 16 gov’t employees in Peshawar

Authorities say explosives appear to have been planted on bus

S

ixteen people have been killed and dozens wounded when a bomb ripped through a bus carrying Pakistan government workers through one of the main commercial markets of Peshawar. Police said explosives hidden inside a toolbox in the vehicle had apparently been detonated remotely.

The privately hired bus brings government employees each day from the neighbouring city of Mardan to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Television pictures showed a badly mangled bus with debris scattered by the explosion. Although windows of nearby buildings were smashed, no bystanders were reported hurt. Police superintendent Kashif Zulfiqar said the fact the strike was in the early morning ensured casualties were lower than they might have been. “About 50 government employees were

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

Bangladesh central bank governor quits over $81m heist

angladesh’s central bank chief resigned on Tuesday, the finance minister said, after hackers stole $81 million from the nation’s foreign reserves in an audacious cyber-heist that has hugely em-

I

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barrassed the government. “He called me yesterday and I’ve asked him to resign. And he has resigned today,” minister AMA Muhith told AFP, referring to the Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman.

SAARC needs to unleash ‘collective strength’: Sushma Swaraj

ndia on Thursday pitched for unleashing the “collective strength” of SAARC as external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj underlined the need for a South Asian economic union with greater connectivity and forward movement on pending agreements on rail and motor vehicles. Swaraj stated that while the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries are doing well individually, they have not been able to unleash their collective strength effectively.

“We have taken some important decisions to integrate our economies through SAFTA and South Asian Trade in Services Agreement.

These need to be developed and consolidated further if we are to achieve a South Asian Economic Union,” she said in her address at

the 37th SAARC council of ministers meeting here. Underlining that the South Asian region is hailed today as having the potential to be the front-runner of growth and prosperity and is one of the fastest growing regions of the world, she pointed out that regional integration is lacking. “The statistics are telling: our region accounts for merely 2 per cent of world trade and 1.7 per cent of world FDI. Our intra-regional trade is less than 6 per cent of our global trade and intra-regional FDI accounts for only 3 per cent of total FDI inflows,” she said.

Swaraj said that despite strong growth and huge advances in education, healthcare and rural development, the SAARC region still has the world’s largest number of people living below the poverty line.

Nepal to have first woman chief justice

present inside the bus that was hired to pick them up and carry them to their office in Peshawar,” Zulfiqar said. Of the 30 people injured, eight were in critical condition, a rescue official said. More on this topicThe Peshawar women fighting the Taliban: ‘We cannot trust anyone’ No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Peshawar and the surrounding tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have numerous militant Islamist groups and have taken the brunt of much of the terrorism that has plagued the country in the last decade.

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fter its first woman president and speaker, Nepal is set to have its first woman chief justice.

A meeting of the Judicial Council on Monday recommended Sushila Karki, the seniormost judge in Nepal’s Supreme Court, as the next chief justice of the country.

The Judicial Council decided to forward her name to the Constitutional Council headed by the prime minister which is responsible for approving the head of the judiciary. Karki will take charge once President

Bidhya Devi Bhandari clears her nomination. She will take charge after April 13 when incumbent Chief Justice Kalyan Shrestha retires, Judicial Council Secretary Krishna Giri said after the meeting.

Karki’s recommendation was hailed by the social media. Karki is known to be a fearless judge with zero tolerance for corruption.

She holds a post-graduate degree in political science from Banaras Hindu University in India.

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