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News Advertiser
JUNE 17, 2020
www.NewsAdvertiser.com
from the pages of the vegreville observer
Compiled by Dan Beaudette
90 Years Ago – June 18, 1930
The culmination of a year’s school work, or lack of it, has again arrived and the high school students commenced writing on the departmental examinations on Monday. They will be at it until the end of the month. Next Sunday will be the last service to be conducted in Ryley by our pastor, Rev. W.J. Lobb, after a three years sojourn in our midst. Rev. and Mrs. Lobb, are taking up their work in Strome. They will be succeeded by Rev. and Mrs. R.M. Gordon. The Bon Ton department store are improving the appearance of their show windows this week. Plasterboard backs have been erected in all the windows, and while this would appear to darken the store greatly, when all the alterations have been made, which are planned, the store will be one which will be a credit, both to the owners and to the town. The Industrial committee, headed by A.W. Fraser, reported some correspondence on the subject of the cheese factory. Various industrial firms are being communicated with in this regard.
75 Years Ago – June 20, 1945
Congratulations are in order for the Vegreville General Hospital School of Nursing. This School has won a Scholarship covering the entire expenses of a Student Nurse’s trip to Montreal to take a two week’s Refresher Course. The Student Nurse to benefit by this Scholarship is Miss Doreen Brinton. Tpr. N. M. Sokolosky of Vegreville is among the recent arrivals at Calgary and is expected to arrive home this week. For the first time in five years Londoners are being issued new telephone directories, containing names starting with the letters L to Z. The A to K directories will not be delivered until November. The old tattered telephone books which each private subscriber has had to use since 1940 has gone into the paper salvage bin. A new commercial electric vehicle which, without wires, picks up electricity for its motors from under the ground is reported from Russia; the power is from high frequency current in an electric magnetic field formed around conductors placed at intervals underground. Through warfare in the past 50 years, Japan has grabbed land, totalling 2.796,600 square miles in area, with a population of 368,212,000 that belonged to eight countries; China, Britain, France, Thailand, Russia, Portugal, the Netherlands and the United States, the territory being Guam, Wake and the Philippines. Including its own people, Japan therefore controlled, one year ago, 21% of the population of the world.
50 Years Ago – June 18, 1970
A sign placed in the Post Office door on Wednesday indicated that the staff had been called out on strike in connection with the current wage dispute. Mr. Lawrence Berk, President of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., announces that Mr. Gordon G. Nicholson, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.R. Nicholson of Vegreville graduated Magna Cum Laude, obtaining his Bachelor of Music Degree with Major in Composition during the Annual Commencement of the College. Richard M. Craddock of Vegreville graduated Bachelor of Law at the University of Alberta. Richard and his wife (former Nora Merkel) of Vegreville are leaving for a visit to Europe for seven weeks. Mr. Craddock will article with an Edmonton firm commencing in September.
25 Years Ago – June 20, 1995
Local farmers are praying for rain. In the Vegreville area, no significant precipitation has fallen since the middle of May and the lack of moisture is reaching critical levels. “It’s bad … it’s reaching the critical point,” said Kent MacDonald, a crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture. Four people face charges in connection with a drug bust in Mundare last week. A 41 year old man and 39 year old women, both of Mundare, a 20 year old Edmonton man and a young offender have each been charged with two counts of possession for the purpose of trafficking, one count of cultivating a narcotic and one count of manufacturing cannabis resin. The Two Hills and District Agricultural Society’s annual cattle show and steer classic was held Sunday June 11. There were 80 entries. Grand Champion at the local level was won by E-Cam Oilfield Services. Kevin Wirsta showed the animal, Kimberley Tomlinson presented the banner. The owner received $500. The Jaws of Life fund received a cheque for $200 from Michael Tarkowski of the Two Hills Liquor Store on June 15. This money was left over from the company’s golf tournament. The Lakeland Breakers have raised $5000 to go towards the Jaw of Life. The liquor store also donated $200 to the swimming pool, with money left over from the tournament.
Letters Welcomed
One role of the Vegreville News Advertiser is to promote dialogue on various issues of concern to area residents. We accomplish this by welcoming Letters to the Editor and allowing various issues to be debated through our pages. All letters must contain the writer’s name, address and phone number. Anonymous letters will not be printed, however the writer’s name may be withheld from publication in special circumstances deemed appropriate by the Publisher. The Vegreville News Advertiser reserves the right to edit letters for length, clarity, spelling and grammar, taste or for reasons of potential libel. The Vegreville News Advertiser reserves the right to withhold letters from publication.
Vegreville Singled out for Second-rate Continuing Care Mike Dempsey Submitted
The people of Vegreville have a right to ask why the residents of continuing-care facilities in their community are being put at greater risk than other Albertans. Vegreville is the only community where Alberta Health Services (AHS) has applied for an exemption to the public health order that limits workers to employment at a single site during the COVID-19 pandemic. The order was issued by the Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw on April 1. It had been determined that it was necessary to “further restrict the movement of staff between health-care facilities.” Much like other jurisdictions in Canada and around the world, it was recognized that seniors in continuing-care facilities were at the greatest risk from COVID-19. Once the virus got into a facility, it could sweep through residents leaving a trail of death in its wake. Having staff work at more than one site increased the risk of the virus being transported between facilities. About 75 percent of the 149 pandemic deaths in Alberta have been in continuingcare facilities. One long-term-care home in Calgary has seen more than 20 COVID-19 deaths. There have been COVID-19 outbreaks at 39 facilities. So, here we are many weeks after the order was due to be implemented and something that was “necessary” to save lives is no longer going
to happen in Vegreville. Why? AHS said it needed the exemption because it was proving impossible to recruit enough workers for the four facilities in Vegreville. However, AHS did not explain why it was proving so difficult. Well, here are some reasons. Last year, Optima Living laid off more than 50 workers at its Century Living facility when it contracted out their work. Those workers could apply for their old jobs, but at wages up to $8 per hour less. It did this so it could give “greater return to [the company’s] shareholders.” Pardon the health-care analogy, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see that slashing wages and firing workers is going to make it harder to recruit, especially when these workers are being asked to risk their lives by coming to work. The situation in Vegreville is the perfect example of why our continuing-care system is broken. The patchwork of public and private facilities leads to inconsistent standards of care. The profit motive means the bottom line becomes more important than care. The people of Vegreville and all Albertans deserve better. They deserve a continuing-care system that treats all residents with fairness, consistency and respect. The only way to achieve that is to bring all care facilities into a publicly funded and publicly delivered system. (Mike Dempsey is vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents about 95,000 workers, including about 58,000 in health care.)
