Vancouver Courier April 17 2015

FRIDAY

April 17 2015 Vol. 106 No. 30

FEATURE STORY 17

Chinatown grows younger KUDOS & KVETCHES 28

Canucks playoff haiku SPORTS 33

Core workout There’s more online at

vancourier.com WEEKEND EDITION

THE VOICE of VANCOUVER NEIGHBOURHOODS since 1908

Mayors place playoff bets

Public asked to help food banks Mike Howell

mhowell@vancourier.com

Mayor Gregor Robertson and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi have agreed to a friendly wager that involves food, team jerseys and poetry as the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames battle in the NHL playoff series.

So far, it doesn’t look good for Robertson after the Canucks dropped a 2-1 decision Wednesday to the Flames. Game Two goes tonight (April 17) at Rogers Arena.

If the Canucks manage to win four games before the Flames do, Nenshi will have to wear a Canucks jersey at a Calgary council meeting, donate five pounds of food to the local food bank for every goal scored by the Canucks and recite a haiku poem written by Robertson.

If the Flames win the series, Robertson must do the same in Vancouver but he will likely be at a disadvantage in the poetry category since Nenshi is a published poet.

In fact, this month — which happens to be national poetry month — Nenshi has used his Twitter account to tweet out a poem every day from various poets.

Continued on page 9

SWEATER BET A bullish Mayor Gregor Robertson expects his Calgary counterpart Naheed Nenshi will soon have to mount a public reading of a victory haiku by Robertson as part of a bet between the two over the Canucks-Flames playoff battle. Nenshi has already written one about the Sedins.

PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

VSB considers cuts to adult ed Pleas for programs dominate public consultation

Cheryl Rossi

crossi@vancourier.com

Until February, Terry Hill had been out of school for 38 years. Nine weeks ago, the man who left school in Grade 8 and spent decades struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, enrolled at the Vancouver School Board’s Downtown Eastside Education Centre. He completed Grade 11 English and sees improving his education as key to his path out of poverty.

He doesn’t want the Downtown Eastside Education Centre to close.

“I live in that area. I live on a $900 a month income. I’m trying to get back into $

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society,” Hill told trustees at a public consultation meeting about the VSB’s preliminary budget for 2015-2016 Tuesday night.

“It sounds like a great option saying go off to Gladstone, go down to South Hill, but for us it’s not really an option because we feel out of place in those areas,” he continued.

To balance next year’s budget, the VSB is considering closing its Hastings and Downtown Eastside education centres, shrinking its youth programs from four to two locations, discontinuing the English language programs it offers at seven elementary schools and offering self-paced courses only at the Gathering Place.

Hill was one of more than a dozen speakers who asked the board to find savings elsewhere. More than one said they wouldn’t be able to study at another loca-

tion because they couldn’t afford bus fare.

Adult education was the most talked about item at the consultation.

The VSB faces a budget shortfall of $8.52 million for 2015-2015. The district estimates proposed changes to its adult education offerings could save the VSB $526,000 in 2015-2016, and $1.59 million per year thereafter.

Adult education falls outside the VSB’s core mandate of offering kindergarten to Grade 12 education, the preliminary budget report states. The VSB offers credit programs for adults upgrading academic courses, improving their English language skills or pursuing an adult graduation diploma.

The VSB operates five adult education centres and four youth programs for students aged 16 to 19. These locations offer termbased courses and self-paced learning. The

VSB also runs literacy outreach programs at seven elementary schools.

The adult education courses the province funds have dwindled since 2010 and the VSB reports a corresponding decline in enrolment.

Rob Schindel, VSB director of instruction, told the Courier that in 2010-2011, the district saw the equivalent of 2,400 full-time adult education students. This year, enrolment is 1,300 and the projection for 2015-2016 is 1,100.

Schindel said the board has moved to reduce program costs, but adult education continues to run a deficit, which was $2.92 million for 2013-2014.

VSB staff propose closing the Downtown Eastside and Hastings education centres. They operate, respectively, at 44 per cent and 67 per cent capacity.

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News

Mayor surprised by St. Paul’s move

12TH&CAMBIE Mike Howell

mhowell@vancourier.com

Attended a news conference Monday where Providence Health Care officials unveiled plans to build a new “state-of-theart” hospital on the False Creek Flats.

No surprise, there were many doctors there.

Also saw philanthropist Robert Lee and Police Chief Jim Chu in the crowd.

But I didn’t see any city politicians in the room.

Hmmm … you would think maybe Mayor Gregor Robertson might be on hand for an announcement about a $1 billion project that affects one of the last big pieces of vacant land in the city.

Maybe his absence had something to do with the fact the city had assumed St. Paul’s Hospital on Burrard Street was staying put.

After all, Premier Christy Clark did commit in June 2012 to redeveloping the century-old hospital. I

tracked down the news release from the premier’s announcement.

And I quote: “St. Paul’s Hospital delivers worldclass care to families in Vancouver and from across British Columbia.

Finalizing the concept plan is a critical milestone that will lay a strong foundation for a redeveloped hospital that ensures patients and families continue to receive that world-class health care for years to come.”

If you’re counting, yes, she did say “world-class” twice.

So with the premier on record in 2012 and the city going ahead with planning the future of the West End (which incorporated St. Paul’s) and the False Creek Flats (which is heavy on providing job space) then Robertson’s absence is understandable.

The mayor told reporters Tuesday that Health Minister Terry Lake informed him last week about the new project. While Robertson hopes to see a net increase in services for mental health

Crews removed B.C. government signs Monday from St. Paul’s Hospital that promised redevelopment of the hospital. The government and Providence Health Care now have plans to build a $1-billion hospital on the False Creek Flats. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

and addictions at a new facility, he is worried that West End seniors, HIV/ AIDS patients and others who rely on St. Paul’s won’t receive the primary and emergency care they need.

“It remains a concern to find out their final decisions late in the game,” he said

of the announcement by Providence, which is working with the province on the proposal. “We were deep in a planning process. There were certainly rumours about the province moving St. Paul’s facilities to False Creek Flats but nothing substantiated for years.”

Added Robertson: “There needs to be more cooperation. When we’re planning for the long term, it’s good to have more notice with the major moves from our government partners.”

At Monday’s news conference, the project’s lead

manager Neil MacConnell said Providence still has to have “significant conversations with the city” about the new hospital.

MacConnell and Lake also promised consultation with West End residents, who will be without an emergency department, MacConnell announced Monday.

As for Clark’s commitment in 2012 to redevelop the hospital, Providence’s president and CEO Dianne Doyle explained Monday that an analysis concluded redevelopment wouldn’t be good value for money spent.

Now it’s up to the St. Paul’s Foundation to raise at least $500 million towards the $500 million already promised by the province for the project.

Then, if the new hospital opens by 2022 as planned, the public and the mayor of the day — likely not Robertson, but who knows — will be able to say whether it’s worth the money.

Meanwhile, the old St. Paul’s remains open. twitter.com/Howellings

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Terry Hill just found success at the Downtown Eastside Education Centre and doesn’t want to see it closed. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Enrolment declines with budget cuts

Serving women in the community for over 25 years

Continued from page 1 Class size averages are less than 20 in the adult education program. The board recommends establishing a class size minimum of 26.

Schindel noted rooms at the Gathering Place can barely accommodate 18 students, so offering regular classes there isn’t cost effective. Instead, the board proposes only offering selfpaced learning, solely at the Gathering Place.

More than one speaker said easy access to selfpaced learning as well as term-based classes has been vital to their progress towards a higher-paying career while they work.

As with overall enrolment for adult education, enrolment in self-paced courses has declined over the past three years, and the ratio of staff to students is higher. In 20132014, the student/teacher ratio ranged from the equivalent of four full-time students to one teacher, to 17 students per teacher.

Eighteen-year-old Ryan Wiggs told the board Tuesday night that

mainstream education didn’t work for him. He can work to help support his family while studying at his own pace at Collingwood Neighbourhood House, spending more time on subjects he struggles with and less time on those that come quickly.

“I’ve gained the skills to really manage my time in a critical way,” Wiggs said.

He’s volunteered in the neighbourhood house’s kitchen and enjoys having a connection to his community.

Julie Linkletter, president of the board of the neighbourhood house, echoed Wiggs’s sentiments.

She noted the program has operated there since 2002 and the VSB covers the cost of the teacher and teaching assistant but doesn’t pay for use of classroom, art room, kitchen or other spaces.

The elementary literacy outreach program operates in seven schools. Parents typically drop children off and linger to improve their English language skills. Schindel said this

program accounts for the smallest proportion of the adult education program’s students. If this program is eliminated, students could learn at the remaining education centres.

Lora McElhinney, a case manager at newSTART Bridging VEEES, which provides services for women dealing with violence and abuse, spoke with a woman she’d worked with who now attends Hastings Education Centre, at her side.

“There is a continuum and a responsibility we have to not to pit children’s education against adult education,” McElhinney said. “When a woman in our program gets her GED or her adult diploma or graduates from college or university, or perhaps does all three, this has ripple effects for her children and community.”

Public consultation on a revised version of the budget is to happen at the Vancouver School Board building at 1580 West Broadway, April 27, starting at 7 p.m. twitter.com/Cheryl_Rossi

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News Band debate continues

Cheryl Rossi

crossi@vancourier.com

Last year’s school board budget process had parents, students and members of the public sounding violins on the possible elimination of the Vancouver School Board’s band and strings program that operates at some elementary schools.

This year’s preliminary budget proposes offering band and strings to fewer grades and to try providing the program during prep time at select schools in September 2015, thereby decreasing the number of teachers needed. The preliminary budget also proposes increasing the user fee for the optional program from $2.50 to $5 per month.

Instituting both measures would save nearly $420,000, the budget report states.

Stephanie Yada, chair of the Jamieson Parent Advisory Council, told trustees at a public consultation on the preliminary budget Tuesday night that optional band or strings classes constitute the music program at many schools.

“It means [students] all know that as soon as they reach Grade 4, that could be them, too, no matter what their family’s income or their English language skills,” she said of strings at Jamieson.

Kathy Findlay, chair of the Queen Mary Parent Advisory Council, said interested parties need more time to discuss what should be done with band and strings before any budget decision is made. Findlay noted a report on the program was only released in February and she said its recommendations inadequately reflected all that was discussed in consultations.

Findlay said parents didn’t support moving to a model that sees band and strings provided during prep time.

“We encourage a more substantial increase in user fees, an example of $20 a month, providing any child with financial hardship can still participate in a program through some type of bursary,” she said.

Colleen Maybin, vicepresident of the Coalition

for Music Education in B.C., said her society of parents, educators and arts organizations doesn’t want to see band and strings offered to fewer grades, but it does like the idea of a prep time model that would see a music education specialist teaching at every elementary school.

An updated report on band and strings went to a VSB committee meeting Wednesday night. It concluded the proposed changes would eliminate the equivalent of three full-time positions, not the 3.8 previously reported.

Instead of $420,000, proposed changes could save $341,000.

The report stated six elementary schools that already offer band or strings could try offering these sessions during prep time in September.

Public consultation on a revised version of the budget is to happen at the Vancouver School Board building at 1580 West Broadway, April 27, starting at 7 p.m.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

News

Spill might be bigger than expectedA

Mayor steadfast in calling response slower than necessary

a s t a p P m s t q

Mike Howell

mhowell@vancourier.com

The amount of oil that spilled from a freighter into English Bay last week is more than the original estimate of 2,700 litres and could be as much as 5,000 litres, city manager Penny Ballem told city council Tuesday.

Though Transport Canada continues to investigate the spill from the Marathassa bulk grain carrier that occurred April 8, Ballem said her information from officials is “it’s probably going to be in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 litres.”

“We don’t know the exact number,” she said in providing an update to council on efforts to clean up the spill. “Hopefully, that will come out over the coming days but that’s in the hands of Transport Canada.”

Ballem made the comment after arriving from a base at the port where she met with Canadian Coast Guard and other officials involved in the cleanup of the spill of bunker C oil, which was used to fuel the ship.

The Marathassa, which is managed by Alassia NewShips Management Inc. in Athens, Greece, was on its maiden voyage from Busan, Korea when the spill was first reported by a recreational boater at 5 p.m. last Wednesday.

Ballem showed a map of the spill, which highlighted the path of the oil.

It washed up on several beaches on or near Stanley Park, over to the shoreline in North Vancouver and into Vancouver Harbour.

Globules of the highly toxic and viscose oil also

C t C c f r s w t b a m p a M b r h s s t t

A city map shows how fair the spill travelled in Vancouver waters.

reached the shore of New Brighton Park near the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, some 12 kilometres from the source of the spill.

At least seven ships in the waters off Stanley Park were also contaminated by the oil as the slick moved north across the ocean. The ships have since been cleaned.

Ballem said officials don’t know how much of the oil came to rest on the seabed.

Up to 20 seabirds were affected by the spill, with

one having to be euthanized. At least three birds are being treated by a wildlife rescue association in Burnaby.

Though Ballem said the city could have been notified sooner of the spill, she did not criticize the Canadian Coast Guard’s response time to the spill.

“We need to figure out was it adequate, and what is adequate and not only just adequate but what should we expect in this city,” she

told reporters after her presentation to council.

Ballem said she wants to compare the response to what the “international benchmark” is for similarsized spills in other port cities in the world.

A timeline of the response released by the city shows the Coast Guard received a report at 5:10 p.m. on April 8 about a slick around a bulk carrier. A boom was secured around the Marathassa at 5:53 a.m.,

April 9.

Mayor Gregor Robertson, however, said he had a lengthy meeting Saturday with Canadian Coast Guard and he came away concluding the response was “not good enough.”

“We have the largest port in Canada, the biggest port on the west coast of North America and should be able to deal with these types of spills very urgently,” he told reporters. “For a small spill, it was a slow response. For

a large spill, it’s unthinkable how much damage would be done in those initial hours. We clearly have to have more resources, more capacity to respond to a spill of any size.”

When reminded of Ballem’s position that she could not say whether the response was adequate or inadequate, the mayor agreed more information is needed on how other agencies working in ports around the world respond to spills.

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News Alarm sounded by private boater But, he said, “just looking at the basic information of a ship immediately off shore of the largest port in Canada, adjacent to the most precious park in the world in Stanley Park, and port infrastructure minutes away from that spill site, it’s hard to believe that we couldn’t have had a quicker response.”

Robertson and Vision Coun. Kerry Jang pointed to the closure of the Kitsilano Coast Guard base and other cuts to marine services as a factor in not having a quicker response to the spill.

Vision Coun. Geoff Meggs said there has to be a better way of detecting an oil spill than having a recreational boater report the slick to authorities.

“It’s never been clear to me what would have happened had he not been there and prepared to phone it in,” Meggs said. “It’s beyond belief to me that it was a recreational boater, but thank heaven he was there.”

Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas issued a statement April 12 describing the response, which involved the Western Canada Marine

Crews continue to clean up oil that leaked from a freighter in English Bay last week.

PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

Response Corporation, as “exceptional.”

Thomas said 80 per cent of the spill was contained and recovered in 36 hours.

She also noted the Kitsilano Coast Guard base “never provided these types of environmental response operations, and its presence would not have changed how we responded to this incident.”

Ballem noted near the end of her presentation that she and city officials planned last Thursday to conduct a mock “table-top” exercise on an oil spill. When deputy manager Sadhu Johnston called her in the morning to tell her about the spill in English Bay, she didn’t believe him.

“He said, ‘No, no it’s real,’” she said.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

News

Langara project back before public DEVELOPING STORY

street, so we are now engaging with the city to restart the process.”

Brian Jackson, the city’s head planner, said this is the first series of open houses and they are meant to gather community reaction before formulating options for the public’s consideration.

“The Langara Gardens project is different than the Pearson-Dogwood [site] because of the existing rental housing. Although it is strategically located near a future Canada Line station, we have no preconceived density targets, urban design, heights for this site,” he told the Courier.

The Langara Gardens site has 605 units of market rental housing on it — 335 of the units are located in four 18-storey towers, while the remaining units are garden apartments and townhouses.

In a 2013 interview, before Concert Properties became involved, Cheng told the Courier that the redevelopment would likely mostly be residential but they would likely update the corner to

Naoibh O’Connor

noconnor@vancourier.com

Planning for the 20.8-acre Langara Gardens site is underway again, almost two years after council said work to produce a policy statement to guide redevelopment of the property could begin.

Open houses to kick off the City of Vancouver-led process are set for April 19 and April 24.

One of the reasons for the delay came from negotiations over ownership.

Concert Properties recently bought a 50 per cent interest in the project from owner Peterson Group Ltd. “That’s probably one of the reasons why we’re starting again from scratch.

Because Concert Properties will be the managing partner on this process on behalf of Peterson,” explained James Cheng of James K.M. Cheng Architects Inc.

The Langara Gardens site is located between 54th and 57th Avenue west of Cambie Street on the southeast edge of the Oakridge neighbourhood. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Langara Gardens is located between 54th and 57th avenues west of Cambie Street on the southeast edge of the Oakridge neighbourhood.

Cheng said they were also waiting until plans for the Pearson-Dogwood lands were settled. Langara Gardens sits just north of that 25-acre site.

Council approved the

Pearson-Dogwood policy statement in February 2014 — it’s destined for a mixed-use development, including health care and related services, housing, community amenities and park space. Towers up to 28 storeys will be clustered along Cambie Street and the northeastern portion of the property. Vancouver Coastal

Health, which had owned the Pearson-Dogwood lands, announced in February 2015 that it had sold most of the property, except for a 3.2acre portion, to Onni Group.

“Now the Pearson site is done and they’ve sold some of their properties to a private developer,” Cheng said. “So now we know what’s happening across the

commercial. He also said the low-rise wood-frame rental buildings need to be replaced because they are 50 to 60 years old, but rental units would be replaced. Towers, he added, would be considered because it’s a more efficient use of the land.

On Wednesday, Cheng said those remarks remain true. But he said no concepts have been developed for the property yet. “[After the open houses] we will start analysing the site and formulating some general ideas and then we will go back to the public and have a second [set] of open houses and present those investigations to them and seek their input again.,” he said.

The April 19 open house is open to Langara Garden residents from 12 noon until 2 p.m. and to everyone from 2 until 4 p.m. It will takes place at Langara Gardens social lounge at 621 West 57th Ave. The April 21 open house, which is open to everyone, runs from 5 to 8 p.m. at Langara Golf Course Clubhouse at 6706 Alberta St. twitter.com/naoibh

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F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News Wagers a past tradition

Continued from page 1 He’s also challenged Canadian mayors to begin council meetings with a poem.

“The good news is haikus are generally about a change in seasons, about aging, about things being different,” Nenshi said Wednesday during a CBC radio broadcast to announce the wager. “And guess what?

The Sedin brothers, five syllables, a good way to start.”

Nenshi appeared on CBC Calgary’s Eyeopener program with host David Gray and was linked in with CBC Vancouver’s Early Edition with host Rick Cluff, who had Robertson on the phone.

Gray’s sense of Robertson’s mood on the program was that he wasn’t enthusiastic about the Canucks chances or expressing a love or passion for the team.

“It’s tough to predict how the Canucks will do against the Flames,” Robertson said. “We only see you guys in the playoffs about once every 10 years, when you actually make it.

It’ll be a nice surprise to see you on the ice again, and we’ll do the job of disposing of you in short order.”

Both mayors urged the public to make similar wagers regarding the food bank bet. Local food banks are expected to post details on their websites to encourage donations.

“It’s going to be good,” Robertson said. “We don’t have a lot of people that need food but we’ll be happy to accept mayor Nenshi’s cheque to help cover some food needs here on the West Coast.”

Nenshi, apparently, is already at work on his haikus. Shortly after making the wager, he tweeted this haiku: “The Brothers Sedin/Lululemon underwear/ no good for hockey.”

So far, no wordsmithing in return from Robertson, who had to attend to a council meeting after appearing on the CBC program.

This isn’t the first time Robertson has gambled on the Canucks.

In 2010, the mayor had to send a package of goods that included smoked salmon,

shortbread cookies and Thai yellow curry with chicken to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley after the Canucks lost to the Blackhawks.

Back in the 2011 playoff run, which saw the Canucks lose to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final, Robertson had to supply Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino with smoked salmon and beer.

Robertson also made a personal donation to a charity and raised the Bruins’ flag at city hall for a day.

The turning over of those goods was greatly overshadowed by the riot that ensued after the Canucks lost Game 7. Cars were torched and businesses looted, causing several millions of dollars in damage.

The Canucks missed the playoffs last season.

For the record, the Courier’s K&K department has been crafting playoff haikus since a guy named Luongo was still in town. To read some of these gems and watch a video series of the Basho-inspired poetry, go to vancourier.com twitter.com/Howellings

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Opinion

Yes side runs silent with long-term plan

Solar power will keep the lights on in future

Allen Garr Columnist

Geoff Olson Columnist

agarr@vancourier.com

You may have not noticed the recent silence following the frantic opening in the campaign around the transit plebiscite, but the paucity of noise was more than made up for by the angst and anger capturing headlines over the bunker fuel spill in English Bay. But with six weeks left to go in this marathon event, the Yes side is cooling its jets for now in their come-from-waybehind effort to win over an electorate exercise forced on them by Premier Christy Clark.

We are here thanks to a moment of whimsy (to be kind) during the last provincial election as Clark attempted to get herself off the hook on the issue of funding regional transportation infrastructure.

She insisted on a process foreign to Canadian political culture and more popular south of the border where results are not uncommonly perilous.

But the vast majority of regional political leaders decided to grin and bear it.

So here we are.

At this point the advertising campaign by the mayors’ council is coming to an end. The work of the Yes campaign, made up of over 130 community, labour, environmental and business groups, is avoiding, as one of their leading lips put it, “stirring the pot.” Why give the No side any reason to get ink?

There will be another more visible push near the end.

For now they are continuing to “work on their lists” making phone calls supporters to get out the vote. And on that point they are somewhat buoyed by the fact that so far the turnout is low. They believe the lack of a significant effort by the No side to get out their supporters due to lack of resources is the reason for that.

As of Wednesday, according to Elections B.C., 15.1 percent of eligible voters have had their ballots pass through the painfully archaic first level of acceptance.

In an age when the whole world is conducting business by moving data electronically, Elections B.C. has a process where each ballot must be handled physically several times before it is counted.

Nonetheless, of the ballots making it past the first hurdle, 41 per cent of them

are from Vancouver where the Yes side sees their main support.

Meanwhile TransLink, the No side’s principle target, has managed to avoid any scandalous behaviour for weeks now. In fact, the interim CEO Doug Allen has been pushing back. He sent a letter to Delta mayor Lois Jackson, prompted by her recent ambivalence over the plebiscite. She originally voted for it and supported the transportation plan the tax increase is proposed to fund.

Allen writes: “TransLink has been incorrectly characterized as wasteful and unreliable. The real facts have been validated by numerous, respected third parties such as academics, Moody’s Investors Service (the leading provider of credit ratings), industry associations in Canada, the United States and Europe.”

It was all for naught. Jackson decided that before her council should take a position on the plebiscite she would ask Delta’s 68,922 registered voters for their opinion. Based on receiving 200 emails, 120 of which said they would vote “no,” Jackson decided to longer support the plan or the tax increase.

She will get her new bridge across the Fraser to replace the ancient George Massey Tunnel as promised by the premier no matter what the results of the plebiscite are.

And need I remind you of Surrey mayor Linda Hepner? She’s supporting the plebiscite but has told her constituents that even if it fails they will still get their light rail transit before her first term is out.

But all that aside, the issue that is troubling a frustrated chair of the regional district, Port Coquitlam mayor Greg Moore among others is this: “Where will this all end?” Meaning the demand by the province for municipalities to hold a plebiscite before launching new capital programs. “Where do you stop this? What if we want a new recreation centre in our community, or you want a new St. Paul’s Hospital?”

Given that the province can announce massive capital projects, including many that will be built in the Lower Mainland, without a plebiscite, he wonders why should you have to go to the electorate for each and every project?

“That is why you voted for me,” to make those decisions, he said.

Indeed. twitter.com/allengarr

The week in num6ers...

5

In thousands, the number of litres of oil that may have slipped from the Marathassa last week, up from the original estimate of 2,700, according to city manager Penny Ballem.

20

The known number of seabirds affected by last week’s oil spill in English Bay. One has been euthanized and three more are being treated by a wildlife rescue group in Burnaby.

0

The number of Vancouverbased marine communications offices monitoring sea traffic after May 6, when operations move to Victoria and will be conducted by radar.

mwiseguise@yahoo.com

There are two primary formulas connected with the name of Albert Einstein.

The first equation ruled the latter half of the 20th century. The second will rule the latter half of the 21st century.

E=mc2 describes the equivalence of mass and energy. It allowed physicists to break open the atomic nucleus like a tiny Pandora’s Box, and enabled military commanders to paint people’s shadows on the streets of Hiroshima.

The lesser known equation, E=hf, was formulated by physicist Max Planck in 1900. Einstein interpreted the emission of electrons from metals struck by radiation — the photoelectric effect — as evidence that light is composed of discrete packets with the energy hf.

It was his insight into Planck’s formula that won the frizzy-haired brainiac the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, and led to the science behind photovoltaic panels.

The Burning Answer: A User’s Guide to the Solar Revolution, makes the case for E=hf over E=mc2. Author Keith Barnham points out the irony that several of the defeated nations of the Second World War, including Germany and Italy, were prohibited from developing nuclear weapons and are now among the world’s leaders in solar technology. The victors in the Second World War — the U.K., U.S. and Canada — are laggards in this technical revolution.

That revolution is not far off in the future. It’s happening right now, with solar research and development benchmarks falling like dominoes. The price of solar cells has plunged to .80 a watt from $4 a watt in 2008, and last September the International Energy Agency released a report predicting that solar power will displace fossil fuels and become the world’s primary source of electricity by 2050.

The planet is currently awash in cheap carbon-based fuels, which is undermining the petrostates of Russia, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. But what happens when enough nations loosen their dependency on a substance behind most of the world’s currency markets and resource wars? That’s when all bets are off, geopolitically.

Even Arab nations have seen the writing on the wall. “The Saudis are themselves betting on solar, investing more

74

According to a city survey, the percentage of downtown business owners who say closing the 800-block of Robson Street in the summer is good for business.

than $100bn in 41 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, enough to cover 30 percent of their power needs by 2030 rather than burning fossil fuel needed for exports,” observes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph.

Resistance to abundant alternative energy, including geothermal and secondary solar technologies like wind power, is mostly from lobbyists and political proxies of King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nuclear, Gas). Yet when money talks, older technologies and their supply chains walk, even if it takes a few decades for these monsters to stagger toward the door.

That’s the history of technology in capsule form. (Remember whale oil?

Exactly.)

Nuclear energy is well over a half-century old; a capital-intensive technology with a dubious safety record and a waste disposal problem worthy of a Frank Herbert novel. Its return on investment is impressive, but only if you ignore the substantial environmental risks.

Chemical combustion is an even older technology, which brings me to the recent spill of bunker fuel in English Bay. “Bunker fuel degrades even less rapidly in the environment than standard fuel oil, and is difficult to remediate because of its thickness,” notes a report in The Natural Resources News Service.

The heavy grade oil is used to power the 90,000 cargo ships that ply the world’s oceans — many of which are used to push massive quantities of carbon-based fuel from one market to another.

As necessary as they are for today’s high-consumption lifestyles, there is nothing more steampunk than some of the bigger vessels you see in B.C. waters. Their technology dates back to the 19th century. So it’s not great surprise that global shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter on the planet. And while it’s unlikely we’ll ever see cargo ships powered by solar power alone, it’s a different story for automobiles, homes, office buildings, and their associated energy grids.

A vastly different world drawing on the energy of the sun isn’t a pipe dream.

What’s a literal and figurative pipe dream is a planet dominated by fossil fuels and the petrodollar, to say nothing of a nuclear genie with bipolar disorder.

E=mc2 is so last century. I’m placing my bets on E=hf. geoffolson.com

10

The number of albums made by reunited satirical punk rockers the Dead Milkmen, who play Fortune Sound Club tonight.

7

The number of playoff games in a row the Canucks have lost on home ice since Game 5 of 2011.

They play Game 2 of this year’s opening series tonight against the Calgary Flames.

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Inbox LETTERS TO THE EDITOR School board committee lacks Vision

Re: “Budget squeeze may lead to school closures,” April 10.

The Vancouver School Board does have to address capacity issues and, as part of the seismic mitigation agreements with the province, must complete a long range facilities plan by the end of June 2015. This plan will help inform the board’s decisions on what is best for our students district-wide, and provide a framework for considering whether any school would be closed to enrolment.

Allen Garr correctly points out that there are no Vision trustees on the VSB’s Management Coordinating Committee.

This committee’s members are the VSB chairperson and the chairpersons of the four standing committees. Vision trustees chose not to chair any committees, and so chose not to be on the Management Coordinating Committee.

Good public education is vital for the good future of any society and I am certain that selling VSB land is not a good choice for the long term success of Vancouver’s public education.

Janet Fraser, Green Party trustee

Spurring on the return of trains to Arbutus Line

CO U R I E R A R C H I V E S T H I S D A Y I N H I S T O R Y

First pitch thrown at Athletic Park

April 17, 1913: Thousands of people turn out to watch the Vancouver Beavers trounce the Tacoma Tigers 8-4 at the grand opening of Athletic Park, a new stadium built at the corner of West Fifth Avenue and Hemlock Street.

Bob “Mr. Baseball” Brown had bought the team in 1910 with his veteran’s pension from the SpanishAmerican War and led them to the Northwestern League championship the following year. The story goes he was so determined to build a waterfront baseball field that he kept sticks of dynamite in his pockets and would blast tree stumps from the site.

Athletic Park was built to replace Recreation Park at the corner of Smithe and Homer streets. The Bob Brown talks with umpire wooden stands burned to the ground twice, in 1926 Pearle Casey and Tigers manager and again 1945, but were rebuilt and the field also Joe McGinnity on opening day. hosted lacrosse and rugby games, as well as the PHOTO CITY OF VANCOUVER occasional political rally.

The sports facility was demolished after Capilano Stadium, later renamed Nat Bailey Stadium, was built in 1951.

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Re: Letter to the editor, “Put tracks on the trail,” April 10.

Far from being “an awful blemish on our landscape” as Mr. Finken suggests, the Arbutus Line has been a deliberately ignored opportunity for better north/ south public transport under the NPA and Vision for political reasons. An occasional train or two moving down the Arbutus corridor would add to Vancouver’s stayed personality and prepare us for the next needed step.

I was delighted last week to chat for a minute with two young railway workers operating the tie-replacement machine at the 41st Avenue intersection. It was great to see young men working at good jobs, the kind that could support a family. The bonus, Kerrisdale kids have something interesting to watch against the backdrop of endless BMWs, Range Rovers and Maseratis.

At long last this wonderful thoroughfare might have a chance at rebirth — a chance to add a measure of practicality to the community environment. The thought of a few boxcars and flatcars occasionally (very efficiently) delivering goods to the False Creek area is inspiring.

The city, in its wisdom, has been systematically making our streets more and more impassable for traffic, especially trucks, by wasting millions on stupid mid-intersection traffic circles and block-

Barry Link

ddhaliwal@vancourier.com

blink@vancourier.com

PUBLISHER

EDITOR

Tara Lalanne

DIRECTOR SALES & MARKETING

tlalanne@vancourier.com

TheVancouverCourierisadivisionofLMPPublicationLimitedPartnership.

Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40025215. All material in the Vancouver Courier is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without permission of the publisher. This newspaper reserves the right to reject any advertising which it considers to contain false or misleading information or involves unfair or unethical practices. The advertiser agrees the publisher shall not be liable for damages arising out of error in any advertisement beyond the amount paid for such advertisement. We collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Statement which is available at vancourier.com.

ONLINE COMMENTS CACs can contribute to unfair real estate prices

Re: “Planners unprepared for city hall contempt,” April 15.

Community Amenity Contribution (CAC) costs do not always, or even largely, get added to the cost of the home. This is because the owner of the land sold to the developer pays most of the CAC costs in the form of a reduced sale price, as much of the increase in land value due to a zoning change is captured by the city, with fees (or in the contorted parlance of this system, the “contributions”) set at 80 per cent of the increase in land value.

To simplify, a developer has to anticipate the CAC charges before paying for the land. He or she will thus offer a lower price knowing that the project will also have to yield funds necessary to pay the “contribution.”

However, my complaint is that the lack of transparency and predictability creates an unstable land market. Developers and landowners really can’t predict where the project will end up and how much it will be taxed. Millions can be spent, and then wasted, if the project does not get the density it projected, or if the CAC “taxes” end up higher than originally anticipated. In such a setting, negotiating a fair price for land is difficult.

A more intelligent process is a city wide plan with a consistent tax on development applied to all projects, large and small. Such a plan can anticipate the need for, and cost of, social goods like market rental units and subsidized housing, and tax accordingly. No secret deals, no anxiety about what a project will ultimately cost and yield.

PCondon, via Comments section

have your say online...

FLYER SALES

Dee Dhaliwal

end curb bulges. A functional rail spur could offset these absurd “traffic quieting” impediments which introduce new dangers for pedestrians and cyclists. Is it possible CP Rail’s move will actually trigger some logical changes along Arbutus?

Imagine a small fleet of electric trams, the most efficient way to transport people in a city like ours, running from Marpole to Chinatown — at least partly reminiscent of the wonderful line I rode as a young lad in the early ’50s — now that would be progressive.

Mr. Robertson and his visionaries should pay CP Rail its price and reinstate the tram link across this town asap. And also, there’s still room along the corridor for the TransCanada Trail and a bike lane.

What is city hall waiting for? In the meantime, while our leaders dither, I will enjoy seeing those little locomotives moving along the line.

Paul Baumann, Vancouver

604.738.1412

vancourier.com FACEBOOK TheVancouverCourierNewspaper TWITTER @vancouriernews WEB

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Letters may be edited by the Courier for reasons of legality, taste, brevity and clarity.

Send to: 303 West Fifth Ave., Vancouver V5Y-1J6 or email letters@vancourier.com

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

News

Harbour watch closure raises concerns Vancouver harbour ship traffic centre moving to Victoria

Timothy Renshaw

trenshaw@biv.com

In the wake of the English Bay crude oil spill, more concerns are being raised over compromised Port Metro Vancouver ship traffic control and safety as the closure of the Vancouver Marine Communications and Traffic Services Centre (MCTS) looms.

The Coal Harbour marine communications hub monitors the movements of all vessels over 20 metres in the port from the 23rd floor of 555 West Hastings St. On May 6, it’s scheduled to be moved to Victoria, where Vancouver harbour traffic will be monitored via radar, transponders and cameras.

B.C.’s other remaining marine traffic-monitoring centre will be in Prince Rupert.

The move is part of a federal government plan to consolidate the country’s 22 marine communications centres into 12. Ottawa has maintained that the budgetcutting initiative’s updated communications technol-

The recent oil spill in English Bay is highlighting concerns about maritime traffic in Vancouver waters.

PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

ogy will streamline MCTS operations.

But Allan Hughes, western regional director for Unifor Local 2182, said the loss of visual perspective from the Vancouver harbour centre will seriously impair the hub staff’s ability to monitor ship traffic in Canada’s busiest port. Without its harbourside visual reference, Hughes said the effective-

ness of the new system will be “a crapshoot.”

“The area is not covered well by radar. That’s why the centre is located where it is. They need to have that visual reference to prevent collisions and accidents.”

The federal government’s MCTS consolidation began in April 2013 to cut costs and modernize its marine communications and traffic services via a $64 million

program to outfit all the stations with the same communications technology. It will result in the closure of MCTS centres in Vancouver, Tofino and Comox.

According to Frank Stanek, manager of media relations for Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), the MCTS consolidation program will result in annual department savings of approximately $5.4 million.

But Hughes said the new technology has “failed miserably in the centres in which they rolled it out; the western Arctic in 2013 was without reliable communication for most of the navigation season because of it.”

He added that taller buildings in the city’s core have eroded radar coverage in Vancouver harbour.

“The area that the coast guard can see via radar is diminishing. Not all vessels, especially smaller vessels carry transponders [to allow us] to track them, and it’s usually the vessels [those under 20 metres] that are not participating with our traffic system that cause the problems.”

However, Stanek said the modernized MCTS centres will improve their operational effectiveness with more reliable equipment that will increase automation and allow the centres’ employees “to have a greater ability to focus on the safety services they provide to mariners.”

“Coverage will remain

exactly as it is today because the network of radio and radar towers across Canada will not change.”

He added that the Canadian Coast Guard has completed rigorous testing of the new communications technology “and has confirmed the systems are fully functional and ready for installation to modernize MCTS centres.”

Port Metro Vancouver spokesman John ParkerJervis said the port has been in ongoing discussions with the coast guard about the Vancouver MCTS centre’s closure and thus far has no concerns about compromised ship traffic safety.

“The Canadian Coast Guard has assured us there will be no reduction of services, and that core mandate vessel traffic services to mariners will not be affected.”

However, Hughes said that with more than half a million vessel movements annually along B.C.’s coast the consolidation of marine traffic oversight will be felt up and down the coast.

Logyn, awaiting kidney transplant

Taylor Ward.

Editor-in-chief of Executive Magazine. Director of marketing at Beedie FROSH. Member of Beedie JDC West competition team.

Documentary filmmaker.

95% say they do.

19% actually do.

On May 1st speak out and save my life.

BEEDIE ENGAGED. SFU Beedie’s BBA program delivers students with unmatched opportunities for meaningful engagement: world-class academics, global exchange, abundant student activities, and one of Canada’s most prolific business co-op education programs, which prepares our students for post-graduation success. Our students – like Taylor – tell our story best. Learn more: beedie.sfu.ca/bba/engaged.

95% of British Columbians say they support organ donation, but only 19% have actually registered on BC’s Organ Donor Registry. Should British Columbians automatically be considered organ donors when they die, or not? Should people be paid to be organ donors? Join us at the Kidney Transplant Summit on Friday May 1st for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the conversation.

The Kidney Foundation of Canada, BC & Yukon Branch 604-736-9775 or 1-800-567-8112

beedie.sfu.ca/bba

For more information and to register visit:

www.kidney.bc.ca

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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News Vote Yes in the Transportation and Transit Referendum

Development Permit Board Meeting: April 20 The Development Permit Board and Advisory Panel will meet: Monday, April 20, 2015 at 3 pm Vancouver City Hall 453 West 12th Avenue Ground Floor Town Hall Meeting Room

Farmers’ markets are a growing trend. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

Food shoppers seek local Deanna Cheng

dmwcheng7@gmail.com

As grocers gathered to talk food trends in downtown Vancouver this week, one trend was clear: shoppers want local, special and healthy.

“As the population is aging, in the sense that 60 is the new 40, people are going online and trying to find ways to reverse aging, slow down aging, prevent disease or soften the impact of a disease,” says marketing and consumer expert Tony Chapman.

“There’s just too much science. It’s not just about simply popping a lot of supplements. They’re actually trying to move towards what they digest.”

Chapman was among a panel of speakers at Grocery and Specialty Food West, held earlier this week at the Vancouver Convention Centre. It’s Canada’s largest specialty food trade show.

Food trends include the move in the marketplace from big box shops to smaller specialty stores, notably supporting local businesses and demanding healthier choices.

Chapman said consumers want to know where the food is coming from.

There’s an awareness and demand for “locally grown and locally sown.”

Canadians are willing to change their palate and habits such as eating root vegetables during winter, Chapman said. They also value what they see as the benefits and taste of organic food.

With a technologically driven society where it’s possible to buy groceries online, he said, farmers’ markets has made a big comeback as well. “We also covet and crave face-toface interaction. One of the beauties of farmers’ market is meandering through it.”

Smelling and squeezing fresh produce gives a feeling that one is “shopping for Canadian dinner.”

There’s a sense of pride and identity with the deci-

sion. “It’s a retro feeling where I’m not bringing in my groceries once a week, not out of the freezer. I’m making things fresher,” said Chapman.

Karen Ageson, director of the Vancouver Urban Farmer Society, sees the local and health-conscious trend increasing, but it requires a lot of work to get the word out. “It comes down to the price of produce and it can be hard because there’s so much else going on in the city,” she said.

Vancouverites have busy lives and busy schedules so they often feel they don’t have time to learn more about what food is available and when and how to prepare it.

Ageson said consumers’ curiosity is growing. “When people go to the store and see produce from far away, like apples from New Zealand, when they know it can grow here, they start to question things.”

That curiosity gets consumers going. “They begin to learn more about farmers’ markets and farming in the city. They see gardens popping up. People see things happening,” said Ageson.

Ageson said there are many different entry points into the local food scene such as wishing to support sustainability, have more face-to-face interactions or have a vision of what Vancouver should look like.

The 37-year-old urban farmer became interested in local food from an environmental standpoint. She studied sustainability at UBC. “I went on a journey to discover ways to grow food in local ecologies,” she said.

“You have to watch the seasons. Pay attention. [Organic farming] is more symbiotic with the environment.”

When she became a farmer, she didn’t expect to do a lot of marketing and educating the public about food choices. “Like any small business, there’s a lot to learn and there’s a lot of marketing involved.”

Ballots have begun arriving in mailboxes throughout the region.

Casting your vote is simple: • If you are a registered voter living in Metro Vancouver and haven’t received a voting package, request one by phoning 1-800-661-8683. You can ask for a voting package until midnight on Friday, May 15, 2015.

• Complete your ballot and drop it off at any Canada Post Office or in any Canada Post mail box. Elections BC must receive your ballot by 8 pm on Friday, May 29, 2015.

A “Yes” vote will help support our economy, protect our environment and enhance our region’s livability, even as it grows by a million more people over the next 30 years.

LEARN MORE: vancouver.ca/transitreferendum

Public Hearing: April 28 Vancouver City Council will hold a Public Hearing on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, at 6 pm Vancouver City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue Third Floor, Council Chamber to consider zoning amendments for these locations:

1. Miscellaneous Amendments to the Zoning and

Development By-law, Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP), Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District Official Development Plan (DEOD ODP) and the Southeast Granville Slopes Official Development Plan (SEGS ODP)

A. To amend the Zoning and Development By-law to: 1) amend Sections 2, 3, 6 and 7 to clarify and modernize the administrative provisions of the By-law; 2) amend Section 10.33 to update floor area exclusions for exterior wall thickness; 3) add a new Section 10.40 to provide a floor area exclusion for interior commercial kitchen exhaust shafts in mixed-use buildings; 4) amend Section 11.24.9(d) and 11.24.14(c) to clarify relaxations to setbacks for laneway houses; 5) delete the wording in Section 13.3 to reflect a 2013 amendment to the Vancouver Charter; 6) amend Section 4.17.3 in RS-1 to clarify regulations for side entrances; 7) amend the RT4, RT-4A, RT-4N and RT-4AN, RT-5, RT-5A, RT-5N and RT- 5AN, and RT-6 District Schedules to make sundecks on garages or carports a conditional use; 8) amend Section 4.7.5 of RM-1 and RM-1N, RM-4 and RM-4N, RM-7 and RM- 7N and Section 4.7.8 of RM-8 and RM-8N Districts Schedules to provide a floor area exclusion for in-suite residential storage; 9) amend various RS, RT, RM, C and M District Schedules to update the wording of the Horizontal Angle of Daylight (HAD) regulations; and 10) amend the BC Place/Expo District (BCPED) Schedule to permit cultural and recreational uses.

B. To amend the Downtown Official Development Plan (DODP), Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District Official Development Plan (DEOD ODP) and the Southeast Granville Slopes Official Development Plan (SEGS ODP) to update floor area exclusions for exterior wall thickness, provide floor area exclusions for interior commercial kitchen exhaust shafts and update the wording of the Horizontal Angle of Daylight (HAD) regulations.

2. 2610 Victoria Drive (Immigrant

Services Society of British Columbia) To amend CD-1 (Comprehensive Development) District (568) By-law No. 10933 for 2610 Victoria Drive to add “financial institution, limited to automated banking machine” as a permitted use and to limit this use to a maximum floor area of 10 square metres (107 square feet).

to consider these development permit applications:

1289 Hornby Street: To develop this site with a 54-storey, mixed-use building containing retail, a vehicle dealer and a total of 479 residential units over eight levels of underground parking with vehicle access from the lane.

1529 Comox Street: To add and relocate the existing multiple dwelling building towards the front property line and to construct a new four-storey, multipledwelling infill building consisting of 17 rental units addressed from the lane to the rear of the existing site.

Please contact City Hall Security (ground floor) if your vehicle may be parked at City Hall for more than two hours.

TO SPEAK ON THIS ITEM: 604-873-7469 or lorna.harvey@vancouver.ca

3. 1836 West 12th Avenue – Fox House – Heritage Designation and Heritage Revitalization Agreement To designate the existing building as a protected heritage property and approve a Heritage Revitalization Agreement (HRA) for the site. The applicant proposes variances to the Zoning and Development By-law, as set forth in the Development Permit Application Number DE417986, to permit the construction of a new infill building.

4. 2546 West 3rd Avenue – Harrington House – Heritage Designation and Heritage Revitalization Agreement To add the existing building to the Vancouver Heritage Register in the ‘C’ evaluation category, designate it as protected heritage property, and approve a Heritage Revitalization Agreement (HRA) for the site. The application proposes variances to the Zoning and Development By-law, as set forth in Development Permit Application Number DE417990, to permit the construction of a new infill building.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THESE APPLICATIONS: vancouver.ca/rezapps or 604-873-7038 Anyone who considers themselves affected by the proposed by-law amendments may speak at the Public Hearing. Please register individually by 5 pm on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 by emailing publichearing@vancouver.ca or by phoning 604-829-4238. You may also register in person at the door between 5:30 and 6 pm on the day of the Public Hearing. You may submit your comments by email to mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca, or by mail to: City of Vancouver, City Clerk’s Office, 453 West 12th Avenue, Third Floor, Vancouver, BC, V5Y 1V4. All submitted comments will be distributed to Council and posted on the City’s website. Please visit vancouver.ca/publichearings for important details.

Copies of the draft by-laws are available for viewing at the City Clerk’s Office in City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue, Third Floor, Monday to Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. All meetings of Council are webcast live at vancouver.ca/councilvideo, and minutes of Public Hearings are available at vancouver.ca/councilmeetings (posted approximately two business days after a meeting). For real time information on the progress of City Council meetings, visit vancouver.ca/speaker-wait-times or @VanCityClerk on Twitter.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PUBLIC HEARINGS, INCLUDING REGISTERING TO SPEAK: vancouver.ca/publichearings

Various Locations

Visit: vancouver.ca Phone: 3-1-1 TTY: 7-1-1

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Community

Many Iraqi refugees fled to Syria only to be additionally displaced by the subsequent war there. Thousands of Iraqi Christians have resettled in Vancouver in the past decade, finally finding stability and religious acceptance.

A safe haven for Christian refugees Iraqi Chaldean Catholics flee wars in Iraq and Syria PACIFIC SPIRIT Pat Johnson

pacificspiritpj@gmail.com

Because Canada is a multicultural immigrant magnet, happenings halfway around the world can have direct impacts right here. Events in the Middle East are driving a unique group of newcomers to our shores, fleeing years of repression, violence and fear.

Several thousand Chaldean Catholics from Iraq have arrived in the Vancouver area in the past few years. Their path here has been chaotic, buffeted by the tragedies of life first in their country of origin, then in Syria, where they originally took refuge.

Father Sarmad Biloues is the spiritual leader of Chaldean Catholics in B.C., about 85 per cent of

whom have arrived in the last decade. A few arrived earlier, resettled by the UN in the 1990s, after the first Gulf War. Like the refugees themselves, the priest fled Iraq, then pastored to those in refugee camps in Syria.

“I had 17,000 people [and] I was the only priest there responsible for them in the refugee camp,” he says.

Not all of these refugees were Christians, he says.

“When you help refugees, you don’t ask who you are, what you’re doing, where are you from?” he explains. “Same as a doctor. When you take somebody who’s injured to the doctor, you’re not going to ask them where are you from?”

The upheaval that has spread across the region in recent decades had a particularly brutal effect on the Chaldean Christians.

As recently as 2003, there were an estimated 1.4 million Christians in Iraq.

Now there are around 200,000. Many died in the ongoing civil strife that followed the Iraq War, while hundreds of thousands fled to neighbouring countries, including Syria.

With the Islamist extremist group ISIL now in control of regions of Iraq and Syria, and a civil war engulfing Syria, the Christian refugees — like many others — were forced to flee a second time.

“We left Iraq because of the war,” says Father Sarmad. “Syria was good.

It was a good place if you compare it with Iraq.

That’s the very tragic thing that we never expected: that the refugees in Syria would have to leave.”

Ten years ago, the priest came to Vancouver, where he both settles new arrivals

and works with the Catholic archdiocese to ensure the safe migration of more refugees.

Pastoring to the Iraqi Christians at Saints Peter and Paul Chaldean Mission in Surrey, Father Sarmad oversees a growing community. How many precisely? He can only guess at around 15,000.

“We don’t know exactly,” he says. “They keep coming. The number just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

The term Chaldean is a bit of a misnomer, a result of a misinterpretation hundreds of years ago, and these adherents are also known by other names. There are other Iraqi Christian groups as well, but the Chaldeans have traditionally been the largest. Regardless of terminology and denomination, Iraqi Christians

hold a special place in the history of Christianity.

“We are the oldest church in all the world,” says the priest. Christianity was brought to the region in the first century and has sustained itself through millennia as a minority religion. The liturgical language, he says, is Aramaic, the same tongue spoken by Jesus.

“We keep the language of our Lord Jesus Christ,” says the Baghdad-born priest.

Current events, though, threaten the continuation of this unbroken ancient tradition. As Iraq’s Christians flee, diaspora communities emerge in places like blessedly peaceful Canada. But Father Sarmad remains fearful for those still not resettled.

“They need a lot of prayer and a lot of help,” he says, and he gratefully acknowledges the

role Canada is taking in fighting ISIL as well as accepting refugees from the war-torn region.

Though Vancouver’s nascent Chaldean community continues to grow, Toronto is home to a still larger number and more have found homes in the United States. Once safe in North America, they are welcomed into the arms of those who have come before.

“We take care of refugees and we give them a new opportunity in life,” says the priest. As for his own future, he says it is not up to him.

“As priests, we don’t believe we choose something,” he says. “Nothing happens but by God. So we feel that God needs us here, we are here. If there is another sign to go another place, we’ll go.” twitter.com/Pat604Johnson

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

News

Jen St. Denis

jstdenis@biv.com

Downtown businesses say they can no longer support the summer closure of the 800-block of Robson Street because it is too disruptive for customers and deliveries.

“We’ve always said this is an issue for us,” Charles Gauthier, president and CEO of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.

“It seems to be inconveniencing bus riders to make the connections they need to, and it also disconnects them from the prime shopping district.”

The City of Vancouver began closing the 800-block of Robson to cars and buses during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in an attempt to create more pedestrian-friendly spaces in the downtown core. Summer closures of the block, located between the Vancouver Art Gallery and Robson Square, began in 2011.

Past closures have featured whimsical beanbag seating and wooden benches. This year’s winning design, called Porch Parade, is a series of colourful house facades complete with porches.

The DVBIA supports weekend summer closures of Granville Street for Viva Vancouver programming, which includes markets and musical performances. That closure doesn’t affect bus service as much, said Gauthier, because buses can detour along the parallel streets of Howe and Seymour.

The block of Robson Street between Howe and Granville has become increasingly sought after by

Charles Gauthier, president and CEO of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, says the summer closure of the 800-block Robson Street is bad for business. PHOTO JEN ST. DENIS

large retailers such as Old Navy and Nordstrom; rents on Robson Street are the second-highest in Canada.

Gauthier is concerned that shoppers travelling to downtown on the No. 5 Robson Street bus will be diverted from that shopping area.

“We can support [something like] a two-day closure for a special event, like the jazz festival, and that’s something that our members see a huge benefit from — it attracts lots of people,” Gauthier said. “[The Robson Street closure] may be popular … but it really doesn’t drive a lot of extra business for our members.”

That’s not what City of Vancouver staff have been hearing from businesses, said Scott Edwards, manager of street activities. In the city’s survey of 50 business owners, managers and staff around the 800-block of Robson, 73 per cent said there has been

no effect on their business, while 23 per cent said the closure has been positive for their business.

The survey showed 74 per cent of businesses supported the closure, while 16 per cent were indifferent, and 66 per cent said the summer closure improved Robson Street as a destination.

The city and TransLink have improved the detoured No. 5 bus route so that it is no longer so circuitous, and have added more overhead electric trolley lines to “minimize delays.”

The DVBIA is also concerned that the 800-block could be closed permanently.

“No decision has been made regarding future seasonal closures or a more permanent closure,” Edwards wrote in a followup email. “Staff continue to gather relevant information and engage stakeholders.” twitter.com/jenstden

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Feature

Young adults

‘A place that’s important for Canada’ Christopher Cheung

chrischcheung@hotmail.com

Megan Lau and Kevin Huang are members of the young adult group that hope to find a balance between the old and the new for Chinatown’s future. PHOTO CHRIS CHEUNG

When she was young, Claudia Li’s grandmother would bring her to Chinatown on her trips to buy groceries. She was amazed by the number of people her grandmother knew, calling out to passersby and shop owners by name.

Today, Li helps organize a team of young ChineseCanadians determined to protect Chinatown’s unique and intimate community.

Individually, they have led Cantonese workshops for non-Chinese, organized sporting events from street hockey to kung fu, assisted seniors with computer work and have helped determine what constitutes as Chinatown character at city planning workshops “[Chinatown] is a place that’s important for Canada,” said Li. “I feel there’s

a common yearning among youth to learn and be proud of this neighbourhood.”

Connecting the old and the new is one of Li’s passions. She co-founded Hua Foundation, a non-profit which launched its first project last summer to create bilingual and seasonal veggie guides for Chinatown grocers, blending knowledge of traditional veggies with a modern interest in eating local.

The youth group has the same goal: reinvent the neighbourhood, while respecting its heritage, and bridge cultural and generational gaps. They hope everyone will feel welcome, not just the ethnically Chinese.

“Many people who grew up in Vancouver have fond memories of coming to Chinatown,” said Carol Lee. Lee is chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee, a group of neighbourhood leaders who tackle issues regarding the area’s future, from alerting key needs to the city to advocating Chinatown’s unique qualities to developers.

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Feature

fuel Chinatown’s future

The youth group was organized by members of the revitalization committee.

While some youth have been involved in Chinatown for a few years, the group only started meeting in November to share ideas, collaborate on projects and support one another. Some members work with benevolent associations, seniors, student projects at UBC, Ricepaper magazine and contemporary Asian art gallery Centre A. Many have gotten involved out of a concern for the future of the historic neighbourhood.

Chinatown was established in the late 1800s as an enclave for immigrants, mostly from southern China. It was a thriving hub for the Chinese community, but struggled after the ‘70s due to competition with satellite “Chinatowns” elsewhere in Greater Vancouver. Three condo developments are under construction on Main Street and there are fears of gentrification and loss of the neighbourhood’s identity.

“We’re at a turning point where it can go either way,” said Lee.

Activist history

It’s more than Chinatown’s identity that’s stirring youth interest today.

Youth are exploring their own identity as ChineseCanadians through their work in the neighbourhood. However, they’re not the first ones to do so.

Fred Mah, a Chinatown advocate with over half a century of volunteering in the neighbourhood, remembers the ‘60s and ‘70s when youth involvement was the strongest.

Sports like badminton, basketball, table tennis and volleyball were the gateway to more interest in Chinatown.

“With the sports and so on, you got the volunteers,” said Mah. “Without the youth movement, activism wasn’t going to happen.”

Community-building events established the strong base of youth volunteers that was crucial to activism in the area, such as the fight against the freeway the city wanted to build through Chinatown and the city’s efforts to close barbecue shops due to strict health regulations.

Youth interest in the neighbourhood slowly declined after the ‘70s as

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New condo projects will bring 700 new housing units to Chinatown. Many community members fear it’s a step towards gentrification for a neighbourhood with a high number of low-income residents.

PHOTO CHRIS CHEUNG

the Chinese community grew elsewhere in Greater Vancouver. A group called Chinatown Next in the 2000s tried to modernize activities for younger crowd with outdoor movies, talent contests and even DJs and break dancing at the annual night markets, but they struggled with recruiting new leaders.

Most of the new youth group are in their 20s, but the term “youth” is used loosely to refer to anyone who has grown up in Canada.

“In Chinatown, youth means anyone under 50,” said Edmund Ma, one of the group’s organizers.

They don’t have an official name yet, but are casually referring to themselves as “Chinatown Awesome Together.”

The youth group meets at the Hua Foundation office, which opened September in Chinatown.

The office space is above the headquarters of the Mah Benevolent Society of Vancouver. The staff hope it will serve as a clubhouse to mobilize young people and a space for community events. It’s a clubhouse for the new generation, not unlike the clubhouses of clan associations in Chinatown that have existed for decades.

“When the opportunity

came up it seemed perfect,” said Megan Lau of the Hua Foundation. “We had all these memories and fond connections with Chinatown.”

Collaborations

Condo developments and changing demographics aside, there are many challenges within Chinatown itself that this younger generation will have to work with. One is the sheer number of associations and organizations who have managed themselves independently for decades, making planning, let alone communication, difficult.

In addition, many Chinatown groups are also not ready to welcome involvement from a younger generation. Some have done things their way for over a hundred years.

“Most of the senior people pay lip service,” said Fred Mah with his decades of volunteering. “They say they want younger people in there, but at the same time they still want to control everything.”

Mah believes stirring up youth interest in Chinatown is another challenge, something Edmund Ma has seen firsthand.

Like Fred did in his day, Edmund helps out everywhere he can: the

night market, kung fu lessons, joining groups like the heritage buildings association and his family’s benevolent society.

It can be tiring work, which is why numbers and having key, dedicated individuals are important.

“There’s so much stuff to be done with so few people,” said Edmund.

“Chinatown just needs people… Everyone minds their own business now. It used to be a community.

A real community does exist here but it exists behind closed doors.”

It’s not easy making those intergenerational connections, especially when language is a challenge for some, but today’s group of youth are determined to maintain a spirit of collaboration.

Fred commends the younger generation for being patient with the process. He said, “If you work alongside [the other associations] and accept some of their ideas, then they will gradually accept you.”

“We’re progressive and forward thinking,” said Edmund, “but we also respect tradition and how things used to be.”

This article began as a project for the UBC Graduate School of Journalism and a version of it appeared in the South China Morning Post on April 12, 2015.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Living

How to create a garden of blue Turn to spring bulbs for blue flowers GARDEN Anne Marrison

amarrison@shaw.ca

For many gardeners, true blue is one of the most treasured colours in flowers but can be a fickle one to acquire unless you actually buy the plant in bloom in a garden centre.

Even then, hydrangeas, for example, may not remain their original heavenly blue when they sample conditions in your home garden. Those beautiful blues of the mophead Endless Summer and its companions need acidic soil and if they don’t get it, next year’s petals will have turned purplish. Adding aluminum sulphate to their soil every spring is the usual way of maintaining blue in hydrangeas.

There are other pitfalls too: many blues contain a hint of purple but are often described as blue perhaps because it mirrors catalogue

Rural gardeners who want a spring carpet of blue shouldn’t forget about forget-me-nots.

and on-line descriptions.

Also, photos of blue flowers are not necessarily accurate.

Nor are names. English Bluebells for instance are among those that are almost blue but not quite.

For an easy way of gaining lakes of blue you can to turn to spring bulbs. Scilla siberica is a deep true blue

dwarf long-flowering bulb which spreads fast under trees where grass is thin. It’s inexpensive and virtually all garden centres routinely offer it in fall.

Chionodoxa forbesii is blue and white (comes in other colours too), but its cousin Chionodoxa sardensis is a deep, star-

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tling blue and a very dwarf eager spreader with large globe-shaped seedheads so convenient to plant in other places too. Not widely offered but Garden Import lists it some years.

Rural gardeners who want a spring carpet of gentle sky-blue still turn sometimes to forget-me-

nots. Once the blue deluge is over, they wait for the heads to set seed, then yard the old plants out secure in knowing forget-me-nots will reappear again next year.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that successive generations develop smaller flowers and get weedier because they gradually revert to the wild form.

When summer comes, one of the easiest-going blue explosions comes from Anchusa azurea (Alkanet).

It produces a one-metre (three-foot) long-flowering pyramid of intense blue which is said to bloom from June to September if you deadhead it.

It’s ideal for gardeners with dry sandy/gravelly/ rocky soil where it will perennialize and reportedly be almost impossible to remove. Unfortunately, it hates soggy clay and tends to die over winter if you don’t give it good drainage.

It’s easy from seed which you may have to get online. Anchusa capensis

is a cousin and the one where you can find seed in garden centres. It has paler but nice, blue flowers, is an annual and dwarfer at 1 ½” (45cm).

Better known for intensely blue flowers are some of the gentians. One standout is Gentiana acaulis, a very dwarf trumpet gentian available most springs in garden centres. It’s a temperamental one, and soil recipes abound, but generally a sun/ shade mix of gently acidic soil with humus and grit is at least a place to start.

Gentians are a huge tribe which come in a range of blues and a few which aren’t blue at all.

Some beautiful blues may be found in seedgrown annuals. Much of the seed though is often sold in mixes of colours these days. Varieties include larkspur, lobelia, delphiniums and nigella.

Anne Marrison is happy to answer gardening questions.

Please add the name of your city or region.

BOOST YOUR CHILD’S SKILLS THIS SUMMER

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Session 1: July 6-17 Session 2: July 20-31 Students entering grades 4-8 welcome.

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F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Community

ITALIAN CONNECTION: Vetrina Moda’s Rachel Kapsalis hosted her annual spring fashion show. The purveyor of fine Italian-made women’s clothing once again welcomed a capacity crowd of fashionistas and loyal customers to her West Georgia Street storefront for the designer-do — a cocktail mixer and runway romp detailing her latest fashion finds from Milan buying trips. Kapsalis’ foray into Vancouver’s retail scene came accidentally. The fashion enthusiast’s opportunity came when good friend Franco Nigro, who owns Quorum, moved his menswear shop from Yaletown to Georgia Street. Under Nigro’s mentorship, Kapsalis leased a nearby storefront and, before the ink was dry, was on her way to her first buying trip in Italy to stock store shelves. Labels such as Versace and Gianfranco Ferré commonly hung from her racks. That was 17 years ago. Today, the official dresser to society darlings and the city’s best dressed continues to build the store’s clientele, providing customers with personalized service — a trademark of her boutique salon — and added collections

by John Richmond, Maria Grazia Severi and Tomaso Stefanelli to her luxury line-up. Her partner Nigro will commemorate his store’s 25th anniversary later this year.

IN THE SWIM: Under the guidance of coach Tom Johnson, UBC’s swim teams from 1998 to 2007, aptly named the Decade of Dominance, won 10 consecutive men’s and women’s CIS championships and produced 42 international competitors, including Olympians Brian Johns and Kelly Stefanyshyn. The trio, along with 125 members of UBC’s men’s and women’s swim teams of that era were inducted into UBC’s Sports Hall of Fame. More than 800 student athletes, faculty and alumni attended the 2015 UBC Big Block Awards and Sports Hall of Fame Dinner, which featured the largest-ever class of inductees.

Every swimmer of that golden period entered the Hall of Fame under the team category. Johns and Stefanyshyn were welcomed in the athlete category, while Johnson was the inducted in the Builder category.

email yvrflee@hotmail.com twitter @FredAboutTown

Luxury clothing retailers Rachel Kapsalis and Franco Nigro’s family business on West Georgia have been dressing Vancouver’s well-heeled and well-to-do since 1990.

Olympic swimmers Brian Johns and Kelly Stefanyshyn were inducted into the UBC Sports Hall of Fame.

Honorary chair Bobby Singh, left, and Jon Cornish flanked Olympian and KidSport director Alexa Loo at the fundraising dinner. The trio hopes to raise $50,000 to help families pay for registration fees and sports equipment so kids can play.

Creating Community Champions gala chair Kathy Nakhleh welcomed former B.C. Lion Lui Passaglia to the KidSport dinner. Some of B.C.’s top athletes hosted tables to help under-privileged kids participate and experience the benefits of sport.

Coach Tom Johnson, the architect of UBC’s winning swim program, , escorted his wife, Marian, to UBC’s Big Block and Sports Hall of Fame Dinner.

Both coaches were inducted into the hall at a ceremony staged at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Tiago Buse and Leah Peacock volunteered at the KidSport fundraising dinner in Richmond.

In celebration of Earth Day, MARKET by JeanGeorges chef de cuisine Montgomery Lau will launch his Rooted in Nature tasting menu, honouring local farmers and producers, at the Shangri-la Hotel.

Justin Tisdall and Kelly Doody — members of UBC’s swim teams that earned ten consecutive men’s and women’s CIS championships between 1998 and 2007 — entered the UBC Sports Hall of Fame under the team category.

A20

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Community

Finding help for the helpers

Innovative program hopes to make PTSD therapy easily accessible to first responders

Martha Perkins

mperkins@glaciermedia.ca

Flashbacks that keep looping in an endless parade of memories best forgotten. Paralyzing anxiety. The black cloud of depression that leads to suicidal thoughts, selfmedicating behaviour, family strife, feelings of helplessness and isolation.

Death, at the extreme.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a devastating affliction that, left untreated, can have tragic results.

PTSD is much on the minds of firefighters throughout the Lower Mainland. On March 30, a funeral was held for a Surrey firefighter who had suffered from PTSD. It is estimated that more than 30 per cent of firefighters — as opposed

to eight per cent of the general public — have PTSD, something that, until recently, they have not liked to talk about.

“In the fire service, we’re ‘manly men’ and ‘tough women’ and we largely keep our feelings inside,” says Vancouver firefighter Nils Gorseth, the executive director of the Vancouver Firefighters’ Charitable Society. “We have thought we’re not the ones who need help; we’re the ones who help other people.”

Helping people exposes all first responders — firefighters, police and paramedics — to horrific experiences. While others can look away, they’re the ones who retrieve the bodies from burned-out buildings, extricate people from mangled cars and respond to suicides, murders and domestic abuse calls. Sometimes it’s not the actual event they have trouble coping with; it’s the cumulative after-effect of dealing with so much tragedy.

One of the tragedies of PTSD is that there are ways to cure it. Dr. Christine Korol is working on a cognitive behaviour therapy program that will be easily accessible online. PHOTO ROB NEWELL

But, as overwhelming as the symptoms feel, there is a cure.

“The real tragedy is that we are not reaching every-

one who would benefit from the treatments that work,” says Dr. Christine Korol, a Vancouver psychologist who’s spearheading

an innovative project that will make a proven PTSD therapy program easily accessible online.

“Not everyone [who

has suffered a trauma] goes on to have PTSD,” says Dr. Korol. “Many recover from a single event spontaneously. However, the more events you have in your life — and first responders see trauma after trauma — the risk of getting PTSD increases.

Eventually, anyone is vulnerable.”

Gorseth’s organization is supporting Dr. Korol’s efforts to make PTSD therapy available to first responders across the province.

The Kelty Online Therapy Service at Vancouver Coastal Health is named in honour of the project’s founding donor, the Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation, which has raised $7 million for mental health projects since the Vancouver teenager took his own life in 2001.

It will use video, animation, and interactive tools that anyone can access at any time, choosing from topics such as depression, anxiety, pain, grief, panic,

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F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Community Retired firefighter raising money

Life, Health and Spirituality Explore the connections, experience the freedom!

International speaker, Michelle Nanouche is a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship.

“Unending life within your reach” Sunday, April 19th, at 1:30 PM West Vancouver Seniors’ Centre Marine Drive and 21st Street Questions: Call 604.603.1130 www.christianscience.bc.ca

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Retired Vancouver firefighter Colin Thompson is riding his bike to a memorial for fallen firefighters in Colorado Springs to raise money for an online therapy program for people with PTSD.

ule. (In the first 24 hours, it garnered more than $1,600 in donations.)

“Fortunately, at this point in my life I seem to have dealt [with stress] OK but I’ve worked with others who were not so lucky,” he says.

“Where do we go when we need help? Who do we reach for and what services are available for us?”

That’s the $70,000 question. While peer-based critical incident stress management programs exist to attempt to defuse critical incident stressors before they lead to PTSD, this amounts to necessary “first-aid” for

mental trauma, says Gorseth. “Surgery,” analogous to professional ongoing care provided by mental health professionals, is elusive.

There is a solution in the Kelty PTSD Program.

Gorseth thinks first responders will respond to Dr. Korol’s approach for five reasons: it can be customized to address first responders’ unique experiences; initially, it can be done remotely from home or work; it’s private, which may help to drive participation from the stoic first responder community, and; first responders, who often

work five days on, three days off, can fit it around their timetables.

The VFCS is committing itself to supporting the Kelty program to help all first responders in B.C., not just firefighters. “We are all in this together. Police, fire, ambulance — it makes no difference; we are a unique family, bound by our shared experiences,” says Gorseth.

Tax-deductible donations to Thompson’s FundAid campaign will flow directly to the VFCS’s commitment to supporting PTSD treatment.

Donations can be made at FundAid.ca/PTSDfireride.

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insomnia and addiction.

When there’s a referral from a doctor, psychologist or therapist, they also get the support of a certified psychotherapist.

“Self-help is like trying to learn judo from a book,” Dr. Korol says of the program’s prime effectiveness when a therapist is involved.

“The therapist guides you through it.”

The Kelty service is based on a cognitive behaviour treatment program that has an 87 per cent success rate in helping people recover from PTSD. It will cost $70,000 to get the program up and running; additional funding will be necessary to ensure that there are enough therapists available for everyone who is referred to higher care through the program. Currently, no funding is in place for a first responder-specific PTSD module with focused content, which is important because of the intensity of their experiences.

Colin Thompson is a retired Vancouver firefighter.

Last September, while attending the Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Colorado Springs as part of the Vancouver firefighter union’s honour guard, he vowed to do something to make sure that every first responder can get the counselling he or she needs. This August, he’s going to ride his bike the 2,000 kilometres from Vancouver to the Colorado memorial in hopes of raising at least $10,000 for the Kelty project’s PTSD mod-

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Travel

Seeing Seattle through fresh eyes

1

Lucas Aykroyd

lucasaykroyd@yahoo.com

2

1. From 73 floors up, you can see Seattle perfectly from the Sky View Observatory, which is taller than the Space Needle. PHOTO LUCAS AYKROYD 2. Relive the lost glory of Pompeii at the Pacific Science Center exhibition that runs to May 25. PHOTO POMPEII: THE EXHIBITION

Notice of Development Permit Application - DP 15011

Public Open House

Brock Commons Student Residence You are invited to attend an Open House on Wednesday, April 29 to view and comment on a proposed new 18-storey student residence on Walter Gage Road, to house upper year and graduate students.

Date: Wednesday,April29, 2015 Time: 4:00 - 6:00 PM Place: SUB - Concourse, 6138 Student Union Boulevard Plans will be displayed for a new 14,040m2 , 18-storey student residence with 408 beds. The building will comprise 17-storeys of dormitory rooms over student amenity areas at ground level.

Representatives from the project team and Campus + Community Planning will be available to provide information and respond to inquiries about this project.

For further information: Please direct questions to Karen Russell, Manager Development Services karen.russell@ubc.ca 604-822-1586 For more information or to comment on this project, please visit: planning.ubc.ca/vancouver/projects-consultations This event is wheelchair accessible.

Do you find yourself doing the same old things every time you visit Seattle?

Is your vision of the Emerald City still dominated by Nirvana, Starbucks, and Frasier? Then it’s time to delve into some dynamic attractions that (mostly) debuted in this decade.

One great way to get a fresh perspective on the Elliott Bay waterfront is to board the Seattle Great Wheel. Opened in 2012, this 175-foot-high Ferris wheel is the city’s answer to the London Eye. Normally, a ride ($13/adult) in one of the 42 climate-controlled gondolas lasts about 15 minutes, but you sometimes get bonus rotations if you go in the evening when the crowds thin out.

Envision Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” playing from the loudspeakers as you enjoy a crescent moon above the bay, seagulls

swooping over the waves, and superb photo ops of Qwest Field (home of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks) and the Space Needle.

Afterwards, hop into a waiting pedicab and head to the nearby Pike Brewing Company. It’s a joyously eclectic celebration of beer culture, decorated liberally with beer labels, vintage posters and miniature horses pulling beer carts.

The in-house Microbrewery Museum traces some 9,000 years of beer history.

Relax with a flight of housebrewed draft (six fourounce samples for $12).

Want to get even higher?

We’re not talking about Washington State’s recent legalization of marijuana.

Visit the Sky View Observatory, a 73rd-storey, public viewing platform revamped in 2013 and located in the Columbia Center skyscraper.

It’s taller and cheaper ($12.50/adult) than the Space Needle.

In addition to the 360-degree view of the city, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker and other landmarks, you can feast on fresh, local cuisine at the Sky View Cafe, which opened in December. Try the scrumptious Ballard Banh Mi sandwich with pork tenderloin and pickled cucumbers, or the inventive kale salad.

Then check out arguably the world’s greatest living glass artist’s creativity at Chihuly Garden and Glass. This permanent exhibition of Tacoma native Dale Chihuly’s stunningly large, psychedelic pieces opened in 2012 at the foot of the Space Needle.

Gape at the 15-foottall Sealife Tower, made of blue and green glass, adorned with starfish and sea anemones. Or let Italian opera music sweep over you as you admire Mille Fiori, a Garden of Eden run wild in the spirit of Fantasia.

Continued on page 26

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Travel

Curl up with George Lucas at artsy hotel

Continued from page 24 The gift shop offers Chihuly-themed wine, T-shirts, and coffee table books, as well as original art priced upwards of $5,000.

For a reminder that life is very short and worth making the most of, Pompeii: the Exhibition awaits next door at the Pacific Science Center. Not only does it vividly commemorate one of history’s most famous volcano eruptions, but the exhibition is making its final stop in the U.S. (through May 25).

Pompeii relics on loan from the Naples National Archeological Museum include 17 pieces of silver found next to someone fleeing the catastrophe on Aug. 24, 79 AD; a poignant marble carving of four little dogs curled up together from the House of the Faun; and a bronze gladiator helmet engraved with scenes from the Trojan War. Immersive, multi-media features make this experience even more compelling. A CGI-laden video recreates the eruption, with 6special 4-D effects, such as

gusts of wind and a shaking floor.

Souvenirs for sale are rather quirky, including Pompeii snow globes, sugar sticks dyed red to resemble lava, and cartoon DVDs with a character named “Pompeii Pete.”

Ready to recharge your batteries somewhere new?

Check into the Palladian Hotel, a 97-room Kimpton property that officially opened in February. This beautifully renovated heritage site in Belltown has a fun celebrity focus.

Portraits of Bill Gates and Jimi Hendrix — in 19th-century military uniforms — adorn the lobby.

Rooms include vintage and contemporary touches such as clawfoot bathtubs and macramé fixtures, and also have pillows with celebrity faces on them.

(By the way, the silverbearded gentleman is George Lucas, not Kenny Rogers or Michael McDonald. Just in case you were wondering.)

You can raid the mini-bar with a $10 coupon, or get something more substan-

tial downstairs at Shaker + Spear. This 65-seat restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows specializes in fresh, sustainable seafood, like the excellent mussel chowder and grilled tombo tuna. The Ultimate Ninja (tequila, agave, lemon, blackberries, sage) highlights a creative cocktail list. Wrap up dinner in delectable style with vanilla panna cotta or housemade cookies.

For a fresh selection of beverages and a completely gluten-free menu, Capitol Cider is a scintillating alternative. Launched in Capitol Hill in 2013, it’s Seattle’s first dedicated cider restaurant, laden with dark wood booths. With 20 different ciders on tap, you can savour western flavours, including Tieton Apple Cider, Finnriver Black Currant and BeeHaven Peach Mead. Tuck into potato croquettes, fried acorn squash and beef short ribs. There’s live acoustic music on Wednesday night and jazz on Sundays.

Seeing Seattle through fresh eyes — now there’s something to sing about.

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If you go:

1

Capitol Cider: capitolcider.com Chihuly Garden and Glass: chihulygardenandglass.com Palladian Hotel: palladianhotel.com Pike Brewing Company: pikebrewing.com Pompeii: The Exhibition: pacificsciencecenter.org/ exhibits/pompeii Seattle Great Wheel: seattlegreatwheel.com Sky View Observatory: skyviewobservatory.com

2

1. Celebrity-themed pillows, like this one featuring George Lucas, grace the beds at the new Palladian Hotel in Seattle. 2. The Pike Brewing Company is a craft beer lover’s dream, steps away from the Seattle Great Wheel. PHOTOS LUCAS AYKROYD

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F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

Arts&Entertainment

A27

GOT ARTS? 604.738.1411 or events@vancourier.com

1

April 17 to 21, 2015 1. Photographer, world traveler and friend of the Courier William Jans is back from another series of exotic adventures abroad.

His latest action-packed, interactive, multimedia show A Man, a Plan, Japan! includes food, fashion, sumo wrestling, rockabilly dancing, abandoned amusement parks and climbing through Buddha’s nostril. See for yourself when Jans hosts the most entertaining slideshow around, April 17, 7:30 p.m. at John Oliver School Theatre (530 East 41st Ave.). Tickets and details at wrjphoto.com.

2

3

2. Glee meets The Office in Stationary: A Recession Era Musical. Billed as an indie-rock musical about the moment when big dreams meet reality checks, the paperpushing Delinquent Theatre production runs April 21 to May 2 at the Cultch.

Tickets at thecultch.com.

3. Philadelphia’s indie rock goofballs the Dead Milkmen have joined the growing ranks of cult favourites from the 1980s and ’90s who’ve reunited to great fanfare. Their latest album, Pretty Music for Pretty People, finds the band in fine, satirical form with such songs as “All You Need is Nothing,” “Hipster Beard” and “Ronald Reagan Killed the Black Dahlia.” They play a soldout show at Fortune Sound Club April 17.

Details at fortunesoundclub.com.

4. The Rio Theatre hosts the Vancouver premiere of Teach Grant’s new film Down Here. The contemporary crime thriller and social drama set in the Downtown Eastside stars Dean Wray and Tantoo Cardinal and screens April 17, 6:30 p.m. with a Q&A following the film. Details at riotheatre.ca.

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Arts&Entertainment Morna Edmundson, Artistic Director

Tapestry International Celebration of Women’s Choirs

Elektra Women's Choir (Vancouver), Cantus (Norway), Canzona Women’s Ensemble (California), and Esprit de Choeur (Manitoba)

Choral Threads | Friday, May 1, 2015 7:30pm |Ryerson United Church | FREE ADMISSION

Gala Concert | Saturday, May 2, 2015 7:30pm |St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church | TICKETED CONCERT Tickets: $28 Regular | $22 Senior | $15 Student (with valid ID)

1-877-840-0457 ticketstonight.ca elektra.ca / 604-739-1255 Generously sponsored by

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Few things are as complex and powerful as hockey-themed haikus and the red-tailed hawk.

KUDOS & KVETCHES Haiku Night in Canada, part 2

In honour of the arrival of spring, cherry blossoms and the Canucks post-season, K&K continues its series

of Basho-inspired playoff haikus. You’re welcome.

••• Losses are common — Virginity, self-respect Keys, pants — no big deal.

••• Lack’s puppet face smile, Man-child in the wilderness Bring on the stork dance.

••• Ginger lichen clogs Hank’s locker room shower drain A bouquet of pubes.

••• Nine dollar Molsons Stinky arena nachos Stain my jogging pants.

Red-tailed hawk down

Last year, after ending homelessness, the city wisely focused its attention on the pressing matter of birds — namely, holding a City Bird election so citizens could vote for their favourite feathered friend from a shortlist of six.

But as is common in Vancouver elections, there was controversy. First off, there were rumours that last year’s winner, the BlackCapped Chickadee, was heavily backed by developers. And do we really want an official city bird beholden to the very people who benefit most from rising nest prices? Also, who in their right mind could ever think a lowly chickadee represents Vancouver’s interests better than the Pileated Woodpecker? Then of course, there’s the sad fact that the Black-Capped Chickadee received 278,000 votes, which is nearly three times the number of votes Mayor Gregor Robertson received in November’s human election. In fact, nearly five times the number of ballots were cast for birds than were cast in the previous municipal election, if you really want to get depressed.

Regardless, the city has decided to hold another bird vote. This year’s ballot includes four candidates: the Barn Owl, Barn Swal-

low, Peregrine Falcon and the Western Grebe. Besides the unwanted presence of Big Barn in this election, we have another gripe: the absence of the Red-Tailed Hawk. If there is a more majestic, stealth, bird of prey, let us know. While bald eagles and falcons enjoy all the glory, jingoism and movie roles, the red-tailed hawk flies under the radar, getting the job done. The red-tailed hawk is a complex beast. According to Wikipedia, it’s one of three species colloquially known in the U.S. as a “chickenhawk,” even though it rarely preys on standard sized chickens.

The red-tailed hawk is also the only bird that Courier civic affairs truth warrior Mike Howell says he identifies with. After all, they both sport reddishbrown plumage and occupy a wide range of habitats and altitudes, including deserts, grasslands and urban areas; during courtship they fly in wide circles while uttering shrill cries; and they are both carnivorous, opportunistic feeders that dine on small mammals, birds and reptiles, though 85 per cent of their diet consists of rodents.

Needless to say, with the absence of the red-tailed hawk, this election is not only a joke, it flies in the face of democracy. And we for one are not having any of it. Eat it, Western Grebe.

And Barn Owl, you can wipe that smug smile off your flat face any time now.

If you want to take part in this bastardization of democracy and vote for your favourite bird, go to vancouver.ca. twitter.com/KudosKvetches

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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Arts&Entertainment

05 Rare Tea Bar’s owner Pedro Villalon travels around the world in search of high quality, interesting teas. His soothing temple of tea also boasts kombucha on tap. PHOTOS DAN TOULGOET

Kitsilano’s 05 raises the rare tea bar SWEET SPOT Eagranie Yuh

thewelltemperedchocolatier.com

It’s another world inside O5 Rare Tea Bar (2208 West Fourth Ave.).

Outside, Kitsilano buzzes with the unfettered energy that comes with spring days in Vancouver. Inside, it’s cool, calm and quiet.

People are peppered at the dark wooden bar, softly lit by bulbous white paper lanterns and basking in the slight steam from the kettles that are never far from the boil.

I watch as one of the shop’s tea bartenders pours hot water from a stainless steel kettle into a miniature teapot. He lets the water overflow and burble — out of the spout and over the brim — then does the same with a cup that will just fit in the palm of my hand.

Emptying both, he tips a small handful of tea leaves into the pot and pours hot water over them. Immediately, he tips out the water. He looks at me and smiles.

“You need to awaken the tea leaves,” he explains.

Finally, he pours fresh water back into the pot, waits, then pours my first cup of tea. It’s the first of eight I will have that afternoon. The first infu-

sion is pale in colour with soft, earthy flavours. The second infusion is more woody with a salty undertone and a tannic pucker.

By the fourth infusion, the tea is a golden amber colour with round body, and by the eighth I’m tasting floral notes with serious astringency.

My tea bartender compares it to a good hike.

“Like a mountain, there is always different terrain.

Grass here, flowers there,” he says.

Open since August 2014, O5 is a temple for all things tea. White, green and black.

Matcha, oolong, pu-erh.

And yes, even tea that you can put milk and sugar in.

The selections are curated and sourced by owner Pedro Villalon, who travels the world in search of high quality, interesting teas.

Recent trips have included China, Korea, Japan and Chile.

“My friend Brian and I, we usually rent a car and go drive around the mountains,” he says. When they find a plantation that looks promising, they trade a shot of mescal for a taste of tea.

“Then we look at the land, whether there are snakes and insects. We prefer land that’s alive and hasn’t been sprayed.”

That means teas that most people haven’t heard of, from places they haven’t

dreamed of. It could be intimidating, but the folks at O5 are eager to make sense of what could be an esoteric subject. For starters, there’s kombucha on tap — because hey, this is Kitsilano.

There are stunning tea pots that double as art pieces, and all manner of tea accoutrements.

And of course, you can select a tea from the menu and sip it over time as you chat with the bartenders and the other patrons.

Dig in some more and you might try one of the tasting flights of three teas.

For example, you might taste one tea grown at different altitudes, different teas from one growing region or even three teas made with different parts of the Camellia sinensis plant.

The gongfu service, which I tried, is an in-depth exploration of one tea and how it changes with time.

Best shared with two to five people, it takes about 45 minutes. (Note: you’ll need to make a reservation 48 hours in advance for the gongfu service.)

At O5, time moves more slowly. After all, this is tea with a story. Says Villalon, “We hope our customers can have a certain connection, not just with the drink but with the land that produced the tea.” twitter.com/eagranieyuh

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A30

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Arts&Entertainment

Few thrills found in True Story... honest

Miscast Hill and Franco get serious in uneven, cliche-ridden drama MOVIE REVIEW Julie Crawford

jcrawfordfilm@gmail.com

Newspapers are meant to be black and white, both in print and in content, but True Story deals in all sorts of smudging shades of grey.

Ambivalence may be at the crux of the story, but it’s also what sinks the film, which ultimately can’t illuminate plot points or character motivation beyond a frustrating middle mark.

Mike Finkel (played by Jonah Hill), journalist for the New York Times, fudges some of the facts in his magazine cover story in order

to create a more powerful piece. Questions are raised, but Mike doesn’t really see a problem. “I said write it up, not make it up,” scolds his editor (Auden Thornton).

And so after his 10th cover for the prestigious magazine Mike finds himself ejected from Manhattan and landing in Montana, where his wife Jill (Felicity Jones) has been keeping the home fires burning. He’s so busy licking his wounds and hustling for freelance assignments that he misses the news that a convicted killer has been picked up in Mexico. The alias he’s been using: Mike Finkel.

Mike is curious and a little flattered, but he’s most

interested in a chance to get his disgraced name back in print, so he meets with Christian Longo (James Franco) in an Oregon penitentiary. Christian is awaiting charges for murdering his wife and three young children. Two of the children were thrown off a bridge while still alive; his wife and his three-yearold — who was also still breathing — were stuffed into separate suitcases and chucked in the sound.

“Did you do it?”

Interestingly, the question comes from Christian first, referring to Mike’s plagiarism, not from Mike, who might’ve asked

Christian about his horrific crimes. The convict offers Mike exclusive access to his story in exchange for writing lessons, a deal too good for the writer to pass up.

The cast is saddled with lines like “everybody deserves to have their story heard,” “the truth always matters” and “it’s OK, tell him I’m from the New York Times” (the latter eliciting unintended giggles from the audience). Scenes go on too long, adding emphasis where there should be none. For example, Mike’s meeting with a detective (Robert John Burke) is so stilted it’s as if the film were shot by a foreign director

new to the English language.

(For the record, director Rupert Goold, before now a director of English theatre, speaks perfect English.)

Cliched language is the film’s first strike, but poor acting is the second.

Hill’s big blue eyes stare blankly; he is not in the least convincing as a hard-nosed journalist, despite the serious glasses and perpetually untucked shirttail. Franco’s tone never changes, and neither does his stare, whether it’s meant to convey pain, guilt or deceit. The two actors have collaborated before and given memorable performances separately (Moneyball, Spring Breakers)

but fail to connect and convince us of the “bromance” so crucial to the true story.

Jones, already miscast, wanders through the film offering up red herrings such as looking at ancient manuscripts. She provides the only scene with a heartbeat, when she confronts Christian.

She is also at the centre of the film’s most stylish scene (thanks to cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi) as she takes a prison phone call from Christian and wanders around her home closing and checking windows. It’s a glimpse of what the thriller might have been.

True Story opens Friday at International Village.

Jonah Hill plays a bespectacled fallen journalist to James Franco’s expressionless accused murderer in True Story.

Masque

Party like it’s 1599!

Join musica intima for the next performance in the radius series at the Telus Studio Theatre, Chan Centre, UBC. Masque is a Renaissance celebration of the opulent feast of San Marco, incorporating the works of Adriano Banchieri, Orazio Vecchi, Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi. Come out and enjoy in Venetian style!

Friday April 24 - 7:30 PM Saturday April 25 - 2:30 PM

Telus Studio Theatre The Chan Centre 6265 Crescent Road, Vancouver

nourishing music for the heart and soul Tickets on sale at musicaintima.org | 604.731.6618 |

|

The Martha Lou Henley Charitable Foundation

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A31

Notice of Development Permit Application - DP 15010

Public Open House

Natural and Artificial Turf Soccer Fields You are invited to attend an Open House on Tuesday, April 28 to view and comment on three new UBC/Whitecaps soccer fields to be located next to the proposed National Soccer Development Centre within Thunderbird Park. Plans will be displayed for two natural grass and one artificial turf fields.

Date: Tuesday,April28, 2015 Time: 4:30 - 6:00PM Place: Tennis Centre - Multipurpose Room, 6160 Thunderbird Boulevard Representatives from the project team and Campus + Community Planning will be available to provide information and respond to inquiries about this project.

START NOTHING: 4:06 p.m. Sunday to 4:28 p.m. Monday, 10:38 p.m. Tuesday to 9:25 p.m. Wednesday, and 10:04 a.m. Friday to 6:13 a.m. Saturday.

PREAMBLE: Notice Scorpio Hillary officially kicked off her campaign (April 12) when the Moon was in Aquarius, her sign of domesticity, of “folding the tents and going home.” Fittingly, her initial campaign stop was a small intimate affair.

This is a sector of tiredness, or “hibernation.” Now, I suspect Hillary is an Aquarian rising — hence her marriage to Leo Bill and her dimpled cheeks, an Aquarian feature. To some degree, then, starting the campaign when the Moon was in her rising sign gives her some boost. Even so, if her heart was really set on winning this election, she should have begun the campaign when the Moon was in Leo, Scorpio’s sign of ambition, and Aquarius’ sign of opportunity and dealing with the public. It’s almost as if she’s scared to take to that big stage. I suspect that, deep down, this election is a sacrificial move for Hillary, she’s running because she’s expected to. She has my sympathy.

A month of money starts now. Buy/sell, find bargains, collect what’s owed you and pay your debts, insure possessions, learn, take rote or memory tests, and pursue sensual attractions. (This last could be a person, a fine painting, or a plush pair of drapes.) Your energy remains nicely high.

This whole area of money is quite intense now — perhaps you’re in pursuit of a large fortune, or perhaps money comes flowing by in larger amounts than expected.

The weeks ahead (especially this Sunday/Monday) emphasize secrets, mysteries, mutual monies and possessions, sexual desires, intimacy, large finances (investments, debt, etc.) lifestyle choices, health diagnoses, commitment and consequence. Your intuition is high; your subconscious bursts to the surface. Take care that the pull of these things doesn’t land you in an irrevocable contract, business partnership or marriage, especially now to May 11.

Your energy, charisma, effectiveness and clout soar now through the weeks ahead. Start significant projects, get out, see and be seen, ask favors — you’re in charge.

(However, though your energy is nicely buoyant Sunday, don’t start any projects this day — wait until at least Tues.) You’re both assertive and talkative the rest of April — if this “aims toward” romance, good; if you’re just gossiping (or arguing with civil servants) bad.

The weeks ahead feature relationships, partnerships, relocation, interfacing with the public, negotiations and agreements, especially this Sunday/Monday (better Sunday). These are generally good, but don’t form a working partnership (especially not with a co-worker) and don’t sign any employment contracts nor buy into heavy machinery, a vehicle, etc. (These do better after mid-November.

A month of quietude, weariness and sweet solitude begins. Retreat from the bustling crowd; rest, protect your health. Eat, sleep and dress sensibly.

Be charitable, reconnect with your spiritual self, contemplate and plan future moves. Despite your quietness, others will continue to be attracted – don’t let social demands make you over-extend your energy. You’ll hear secrets.

The weeks ahead emphasize work and minor health concerns. In some ways, a month of drudgery, but we all have to pay our dues. If you just plod along, the time will pass. A bit of advice: don’t plunge into work with vim and vigour; somehow this can lead you astray and even increase your workload; instead, just go steadily. It’s even better if you can work with someone — whether peer or boss.

From 2008 to 2024, Cancer, your romantic planet, Pluto, travels slowly through your marriage sign, Capricorn. This is almost certain to bring a romantic marriage. However, the person you fall in love with will likely be diplomatic, inscrutable, secretive and resistant to change. You actually like all those qualities except the last one. Be prepared to accept the whole package.

Romance, creative and speculative surges, charming kids, nature’s beauty, vacation, the pleasure of the moment — these fill Sunday/Monday, and the whole month ahead. You’ll ride a winning streak. Love might entail endless conversations, phone calls — someone you chase seems very active. One probably unnecessary bit of advice: don’t end a love affair before mid-May, nor try to talk a lover into living with you.

Time for ambition, Leo. Sit up straight, clear your throat, and ask for bigger responsibilities: you can do it, and you can handle them. Everything else in your life is expanding during this unusual, fortunate year, so why not your career also? You’ve recovered nicely since the dent put in your reputation or worldly position in 2012/13. Now’s the time — through late May — to forge ahead.

The weeks ahead shine a spotlight on your home, family, soul, nutrition, garden, retirement plans, property and security — especially this Sunday (smooth, easy, lucky) and Monday (stick to routine). Both days, the only point of dissension might be between you and your spouse over future plans. Keep this light, good-natured, for nothing’s set in stone. (When the future comes, you both will respond to an opportunity, anyway.)

Much of the year ahead is not exactly romantic, Virgo.

There are many kinds of love. In astrology, these are generally: self-love, friendship and sibling love, love of family and children, (deep) romance, spousal love, lust, mental or intellectual love (often called a “personality” attraction) and light or friendly romance. Until August, your energy and charisma are mildly restricted (in fact, are in a 13-year low) while retreat or solitude creates luck for you — not exactly a recipe for romance.

The emphasis, this Sunday/Monday, and the four weeks ahead, lies on errands, communications, siblings and casual acquaintances, short trips, visits, news media, and curiosity. It’s a busy time, but not an important time.

You can make one mistake, but that’s about all. The mistake: chasing money, income, or purchasing bargains through all this “busyness.” Instead, chase affection, especially among relatives, chase a home, rental, warehouse, business premises, or chase a fresh horizon.

Monday: Jessica Lange (66). Tuesday: Queen Elizabeth II (89). Wednesday: Jack Nicholson (78). Thursday: John Oliver (38). Friday: Barbra Streisand (73). Saturday: Al Pacino (74). Sunday: Carol Burnett (82).

For further information: Please direct questions to Karen Russell, Manager Development Services karen.russell@ubc.ca 604-822-1586

For more information or to comment on this project, please visit: planning.ubc.ca/vancouver/projects-consultations This event is wheelchair accessible.

Last year, 173 B.C. workers died.

Now, 173 families mourn. Let’s make our workplaces safer.

Tuesday, April 28 For information about events in your area, visit dayofmourning.bc.ca

A32

ALL THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

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Limit one coupon per family and/or customer account. No cash value. No copies. Coupon must be presented to the cashier at a time t of purchase. Valid from Friday, April 17th until closing Thursday, April 23rd, 2015.

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Quantities and/or selection of items may be limited and may not be available in all stores. No rainchecks. No substitutions on clearance items or where quantities are advertised as limited. Advertised pricing and product selection (flavour, colour, patterns, style) may vary by store location. We reserve the right to limit quantities to reasonable family requirements. We are not obligated to sell items based on errors or misprints in typography or photography. Coupons must be presented and redeemed at time of purchase. Applicable taxes, deposits, or environmental surcharges are extra. No sales to retail outlets. Some items may have “plus deposit and environmental charge” where applicable. ®/™ The trademarks, service marks and logos displayed in this flyer are trademarks of Loblaws Inc. and others. All rights reserved. © 2015 Loblaws Inc. * we match prices! Applies only to our major supermarket competitors’ flyer items. Major supermarket competitors are determined solely by us based on a number of factors which can vary by store location. We will match the competitor’s advertised price only during the effective date of the competitor’s flyer advertisement. WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO LIMIT QUANTITIES (note that our major supermarket competitors may not). Due to the fact that product is ordered prior to the time of our Ad Match checks, quantities may be limited. We match identical items (defined as same brand, size, and attributes) and in the case of fresh produce, meat, seafood and bakery, we match a comparable item (as determined solely by us). We will not match competitors’ “multi-buys” (eg. 2 for $4), “spend x get x”, “Free”, “clearance”, discounts obtained through loyalty programs, or offers related to our third party operations (post office, gas bars, dry cleaners etc.). We reserve the right to cancel or change the terms of this program at any time.

Customer Relations: 1-866-999-9890.

superstore.ca

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A33

Sports&Recreation

GOT SPORTS? 604.630.3549 or mstewart@vancourier.com

Stomach crunches are not necessarily the best way to train your core.

Work your core for more than a six-pack Core muscles extend far beyond abs

COMMIT TO FIT Darnelle Moore

darnelle@eastsidefitness.ca

There is hardly a more confusing topic in the fitness industry today than the term “core” and what it takes to train it.

Core N More

Educated fitness professionals, for the most part, agree that the core is comprised of groups of muscles that originate from as high up as the neck, all the way down to the gluteus maximus and pelvic floor.

Yet, if you ask the general population of those who exercise, most will tell you the core equals the abdominal muscles and that by “working” the core, it will help tighten or firm up the stomach. They

will also mention that crunches are the best way to “work” the abdominals.

This drives personal trainers, physiotherapists, yoga and Pilates instructors, strength coaches, and sports medicine pros crazy. Include me in that group.

In fact, some pros think that by changing the language, we might be better able to explain “core” to the general population, but I actually like the term and here’s why:

An apple a day

Next time you think of the core (like right now while you’re reading this), picture an apple. You can picture whatever kind of apple you want; Gala, Spartan, Granny Smith.

They all have one thing in common: there is a stem at the top and there is a bottom that when placed on a solid, even surface, will hold the apple upright.

If you pick up the apple and toss it in the air or roll it along the top of a table, you will notice the stem

and bottom of the apple stay put, and the apple remains one solid unit.

Now visualize taking a few good bites out of the apple until what you are left with is the apple core.

What does the apple core look like? There is still a stem at the top and you can still place the apple on its bottom. It will still remain upright.

Keep the doctor away

Now that you can picture the core, why is it important to train it?

Picture that apple core again. Imagine if you were eating your apple and you ended up with a weak core.

Maybe there was too much apple at the top or bottom or maybe you ate too close to the centre, leaving only a small, floppy core.

If you tried to toss the apple in the air or roll it along a surface, what would happen? The top with the stem would likely separate from the bottom.

The connection between the top and bottom of the apple is lost.

In real life, your head

will not separate from your body if you don’t train your core properly.

What could — and often does — happen is injury.

With a weak core, there is a greater chance of injuring muscles along the spine, hips, shoulder blades and neck.

How to eat an apple

Imagine eating that apple again. Imagine how you would eat it in order to keep the core strong and solid so the stem remains connected to the base.

You’d take even bites, the entire way around the core, from the top to the bottom.

If you took a bunch of bites out of the centre, as if you just did a lot of crunches, it would not do too much to accomplish the goal of a strong core and could even be detrimental.

So what exercises will train the core to be strong, engaged and activated?

There are many. Depending on your fitness level, range of motion assessment, injuries, goals, and general body awareness, certain exercises will suit you better. Always

check with your friendly neighbourhood health or fitness professional to see what is right for you. In any case, these three basic moves will get you started and are the core training equivalent of eating an apple a day.

Glute Bridge

Lay on your back with your hands by your sides, your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Make sure your feet are under your knees.

Raise your hips up to create a straight line from your knees to your shoulders.

Hold for 10 to 60 seconds.

Heel Drops

Lay on your back with your knees bent and your feet off the ground. Your legs should create three 90 degree angles (the tops of your feet to your shins, your calves to the back of your thighs, and your thighs to your torso, which is on the ground).

Maintain the natural curvature of your spine as you slowly drop one heel towards the floor and lift it back to the starting position.

Alternate legs.

Front and Side Planks

Front: Get down on your knees and elbows.

Now straighten your legs one at a time so that you are supporting your body with only your toes and elbows. Keeps your hips square to the ground so that you could balance a tray across your buttocks.

Hold for 10 to 60 seconds.

Side: Turn onto your side so one elbow and one knee or foot is supporting your body weight. (Both your left knee and elbow, for example, will do this simultaneously. Then you will switch sides.)

Keep your hips raised.

Your body should be in a straight line, with your hips and shoulders stacked. Hold for 10 to 20 seconds.

There are many modifications to these exercises to increase or decrease the intensity. Check with your fitness pro because form and technique are crucial to attaining the benefits of these exercises.

Darnelle Moore is the cofounder of Eastside Fitness.

A34

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Today’shomes

Home prices continue to skyrocket

Vancouver region continues to lead the country in year-over-year growth Emma Crawford Hampel

ecrawford@biv.com

The number of homes being sold in Greater Vancouver continues to grow while prices are also creeping upward, according to Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) data released April 15.

A total of 3,572 homes changed hands in March, which is up 4.5 per cent compared with a month prior.

The average home sold for $870,207 in the month – an increase of 3.1 per cent compared with February.

Nationally, the average home sale price was $431,276 — less than half of Vancouver’s average.

The Fraser Valley had an average sale price of $554,521, followed by Victoria at $506,899. The highest home sale price outside of Vancouver was found in Greater Toronto, at $601,454.

Nationwide, 40,670 homes were sold in March, which represents an in-

A total of 3,572 homes were sold in Metro Vancouver in March. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

crease of 4.1 per cent for the month.

“Greater Vancouver and the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] are really the only two hot spots for home sales and prices in Cana-

da,” CREA chief economist Gregory Klump said.

“Price gains in these two markets are being fuelled by a shortage of single family homes for sale in the face of strong demand.

“Meanwhile, supply and demand for homes is well balanced among the vast majority of housing markets elsewhere across Canada.”

Robert Hogue, RBC senior economist, reiterated

the fact that Toronto and Vancouver are leading the country, and pointed out that Vancouver is particularly hot.

“Toronto and Vancouver remain the most vibrant markets in the country—in fact, Vancouver is heating up quite rapidly at this stage—whereas the level of activity in the vast majority of other markets is still subdued,” Hogue said.

In 2015’s first quarter, the total dollar volume of all homes in Greater Vancouver soared 38 per cent — the highest rate of growth in the country — when compared with the same period last year. In the three months to March $8.6 billion worth of homes were sold, compared with $6.2 billion in Q1 2014.

All CREA numbers are seasonally adjusted and compiled from select MLS systems from across the country, including the British Columbia Real Estate Association.

Royal LePage also released its data for the quar-

ter April 15. The real estate company pointed out that it is detached homes and standard two-storey residences that are leading Vancouver’s price growth with doubledigit increases compared to the same period last year.

The average detached home sold for $1,174,509 in the quarter — an increase of 10.6 per cent — and the average two-storey home price was $1,267,287, up 10.3 per cent.

The Royal LePage House Price Survey is based on the organization’s opinions of fair market value based on local market knowledge of residential real estate experts.

The data from both the CREA and Royal LePage differs from the information released yesterday

by Teranet, which uses figures compiled from “repeat sales methodology” statistics. This involves examining an aggregation of home value changes for homes that have been sold multiple times in a particular time frame.

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

Today’shomes

New homes, hotels lead B.C. construction industry

Biggest project is condo development on False Creek Frank O’Brien

wieditor@biv.com

The biggest construction project in the province is Concord Pacific’s $1 billion central condominium development on the north shore of Vancouver’s False Creek. PHOTO DAN TOULGOET

FOR SALE forliving

Condominiums and tourist accommodation currently dominate B.C.’s construction activity, according to a recent Association of Consulting Engineering Companies British Columbia profile of major construction projects.

In fact, building homes and hotels beat out liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects by a spending factor of four when projects under construction are tallied.

The top 20 construction projects now underway in B.C. total $5.6 billion, and more than half of that – $2.94 billion – has a residential or hotel component.

But the executive director of B.C. Building Trades is not worried about a perception that lightweight

construction trumps big resource or energy projects.

“All construction is cyclical,” said Tom Sigurdson.

The biggest construction project in the province is Concord Pacific’s $1 billion central condominium development on the north shore of Vancouver’s False Creek.

The mixed-use project includes 1,300 homes in eight towers, an expanded casino, 90,000 square feet of community amenities and retail space.

Tied as B.C.’s largest project is the $1 billion behemoth known as the Tsawwassen First Nation mixed-use development, which will include 1,600 homes in South Delta.

With its $360 million project underway, the Trump International Hotel & Tower on West Georgia Street in Vancouver is the sixth-biggest active construction site in

B.C. The project includes 147 hotel rooms and 218 luxury condominiums, a spa and restaurants. The Holborn Group of Vancouver is the developer; New York-based Trump Entertainment Resorts is providing branding and design input and will manage the hotel.

As a comparison, the largest resource project underway in B.C. is the $400 million Tilbury LNG facility expansion in Delta, where a new storage tank is being added.

In the Okanagan, the $200 million, 600-home Skaha Hills residential development near Osoyoos and the $100 million expansion of the Manteo Resort in Kelowna are ranked in the top 20 construction projects currently underway.

Also on the list are 3 Civic Plaza in Surrey, where 353 condominiums

and 144 hotel rooms are being built; and Richmond’s River Park Place project, which will include 500 condos next to the Richmond Oval community centre.

Sigurdson noted that members of the BC and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council are confident that financial investment decisions on “billions of dollars’ worth” of major resource projects will soon put condo construction in the shade.

He added that “it’s fortunate” B.C. Hydro’s $8.8 billion Site C dam project or a large LNG plant is not being built now.

“We wouldn’t have the skilled labour available to handle it all.”

Still, Sigurdson added that “we’re keenly looking toward the first FID [final investment decision] on an LNG facility.”

THE BRIAR $668,000 201-2140 Briar Ave, Vancouver West 2 bed + 2 bath, 1,368 sqft.

FAIRMONT PACIFIC RIM $1,999,000 4304-1011 W Cordova St, Coal Harbour 2 bed + 2 bath, 1,306 sqft.

HALF DUPLEX FOR SALE $749,900 7570 17th Ave, Burnaby 4 bed + 3 bath, 2,187 sqft.

Gorgeous, well maintained NW corner home in a solid concrete low rise in fantastic location along the Arbutus corridor - close to parks, schools & shopping.

This bright 2 Bed & 2 Bath South facing estate showcases stunning views of city & English Bay from each room & HUGE balcony. Rare 2 parking stalls included.

Bright & well maintained duplex w/ suite potential located close to everything! BONUS additional 222 sf converted crawl space fully finished in the basement perfect for playroom or office.

HOUSE FOR SALE $1,288,000 381 W 19th Ave, Vancouver West 2 bed + 1.5 bath, 1,233 sqft Charming heritage style 2 Bed + 1.5 Bath perfect for young families or the professional couple! Main floor offers living room with gas f/p and beautiful bay window with window seat, ample dining space and function kitchen upgraded with granite countertops, cherry cabinets and quality appliances. Bright and spacious 2 bedrooms upstairs with plenty of windows, skylights and vaulted ceilings. Relax or entertain in the fully finished basement downstairs with open recreation and media room. Gorgeous garden in the front and backyard. Enjoy the convenience of the Cambie corridor right at your doorstep - Choices Market, Park Theatre, shops, restaurants, Canada Line, parks and schools only a short walk away! This home not to be missed.

OPEN HOUSE SAT APRIL 18TH & SUN APRIL 19TH 2PM - 4PM Distance to Groceries: 0.2 km

Nearest park: Mount Pleasant Park

SALINA KAI

PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPORATION

EXPERT Vancouver living

604.346.7200 • skai@rennie.com

rennie.com/salinakai

*PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPROATION. THIS COMMUNICATION IS NOT INTENDED TO CAUSE OR INDUCE A BREACH OF AN EXISTING AGREEMENT(S). E.& O.E

School nearby: Simon Fraser Elementary

Coffee shop nearby: Starbucks

DANNY CHOW

PERSONAL REAL ESTATE CORPORATION

604.346.7200 • dchow@rennie.com

rennie.com/dannychow

rennie.com

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

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A37

today’sdrive 20 15 BMW

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A41

Your journey starts here.

X6

One of a Kind

BY DAVID CHAO

Blending coupelike looks with a raised SUV body, the BMW X6 defies the idea of what an SUV should be. The X6 appeals to people looking for a sporty luxury SUV that is unique and distinct while offering a coupelike design.

The second generation X6 arrives for 2015 with a fresh design, smart technology and improved efficiency.

Because the X6 is unique enough from other SUVs, it doesn’t really have direct rivals — for now. Customers seeking alternatives can look at the Porsche Cay-

enne for pure performance, or the Range Rover Sport for luxury and off-road capability. Those willing to wait can go and seek out the 2016 MercedesBenz GLE Coupe when it arrives at dealerships later this year; the GLE will be the closest direct competitor to the X6.

Design

While the BMW X6 has a sporty coupe-like body, it still has a bold, SUV-style look and features all-wheel drive. Both aspects are consistent with traditional SUVs, but in other respects compromises were made to make the X6 stand out among the crowd.

Aesthetics and on-road performance took precedence over versatility and capability. Seating and cargo capacity are certainly less than other SUVs, though not by much.

Most people like its bold, category-blurring looks - the second generation version actually has a

cleaner and more cohesive design, especially around the rear.

While the exterior is unconventional, the interior is immediately recognizable as a BMW. Leather and wood is abundant, and the fit and finish is of high quality.

Continued on page 42

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KingswayHonda.ca DEALER #8508. All payments exclude taxes. 2015 CR-V SE: total paid at maturity $20,048 + taxes. 2015 Civic LX: total paid at maturity $12,792 + taxes. Offer ends April 30th, 2015. Limited time weekly lease offer and all other offers are from Honda Canada Finance Inc., on approved credit. Prices and/or payments shown do not include a PPSA lien registration fee of $30.31 and lien registering agent’s fee of $5.25, which are both due at time of delivery and covered by the dealer on behalf of the customer on Specified Models only. Offers valid from until April 30th, 2015. Dealer may sell/lease for less. Dealer trade may be necessary on certain vehicles. Offers valid only for British Columbia residents at BC Honda Dealers locations. Offers subject to change or cancellation without notice. Terms and conditions apply. See

All offers are effective until May 15, 2015. Not applicable to tire sales. Taxes not included. Environment levies extra. Not to be combined with other offers. Please consult Kingsway Honda for more details. Valid at Kingsway Honda only. Limit one per person. Coupon does not apply to prior purchase.

Kingsway Honda retailer for full details.

Dealer #D8508

12th and Kingsway, Vancouver KingswayHonda.ca

Sales: 604.873.3676 Service: 604.874.6632

A42

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

today’sdrive Continued from page 41 The design is similar to the X5 with whom the X6 shares its basic platform.

The X6 comes in two flavours — the X6 xDrive35i and the xDrive50i. Many options and several equipment packages are available to increase the exclusivity of the X6.

Performance

If you are looking for a unique SUV that offers coupe-like performance, the BMW X6 is the only vehicle for you.

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The BMW X6 was never meant to be a rugged off-roader…while it does have a sophisticated all-wheel drive system, it is set up to perform on the road as a sports vehicle.

Continuing the contradictions, the X6 delivers impressive performance despite its hefty size and weight. On highways, it is easy and comfortable, but on twisting back roads it is surprisingly fun to drive. It’s not as sharp as a 6 Series mind you, but it is more dynamic than the X5 and most other SUVs in this price range. The overall performance is impressive.

The excellent chassis is backed by the two available engines. The base engine is a 3.0-litre turbocharged inline-six. Output is rated at 300 hp and 300 lb-ft of torque.

To up the excitement level, the optional engine is a 4.4-litre turbocharged V8 producing 445 hp and 479 lb-ft of torque.

Despite the mass of the X6, this motor can propel it to 100km/h in just 4.8 seconds.

Both models come equipped with BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system. Also, both engines are mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission.

To increase efficiency, all models feature a start/ stop function. This system shuts off the engine when it is idle, but start ups are not as smooth as other systems equipped on rivals.

Environment

Inside, the cabin of this X6 is roomier than the outgoing model. The two individual rear seats have been replaced by a three-seat bench and there is also more cargo space — though if you want an SUV to carry a lot of luggage, the X5 is still the better choice.

The cabin was designed around the driver and both front seats are comfortable and roomy with plenty of adjustability.

The X6’s raised chassis provides a nice view out front. Unfortunately, rear visibility is limited by the sloping roofline and it creates large blind spots.

The roofline also compromises rear seat headroom. It’s unfortunate, as legroom is quite decent.

Continued on next page

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‡Based on total Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC) Category wins (various) up to the 2014 model year. *To learn more about the Mazda Unlimited Warranty, go to mazdaunlimited.ca. ÐSigning Bonuses are available on retail cash purchase/finance/lease of select new, in-stock 2014/2015/2016 Mazda models from April 1 – 30, 2015. Bonus amounts vary by model. $500 Signing Bonus applies to all 2014 Mazda2, all 2014/2015 Mazda3, all 2014/2015 Mazda5, and all 2015/2016 Mazda6 models. $750 Signing Bonus applies to all 2015/2016 CX-5 models.

Maximum $1,000 Signing Bonus only available on all 2015 CX-9 and all 2014/2015 MX-5 models. Signing Bonus will be deducted from the negotiated price before taxes. See dealer for complete details. †0% APR purchase financing is available on all new 2015 Mazda vehicles. Other terms available and vary by model. Based on a representative agreement using offered pricing of $24,990 for the 2015 CX-5 GX (NVXK65AA00) with a financed amount of $25,000, the cost of borrowing for a 48-month term is $0, monthly payment is $521, total finance obligation is $25,000. **Lease offers available on approved credit for new 2015 Mazda3 GX (D4XK65AA00)/2015 Mazda6 GX (G4XL65AA00)/2016 CX-5 GX (NVXK66AA00) with a lease APR of 2.49%/1.99%/3.49% and bi-weekly payments of $89/$147/$138 for 60 months, the total lease obligation is $11,528/$19,046/$17,938 including down payment of $0. Lease offers include $500/$500/$750 Signing Bonuses. PPSA and first monthly payment due at lease inception. 20,000 km lease allowance per year, if exceeded, additional 8¢/km applies. 24,000 km leases available. Offered leasing available to retail customers only. Taxes extra. As shown, price for 2015 Mazda3 GT (D4TL65AA00)/2016 CX-5 GT (NXTL86AA00)/2015 Mazda6 GT (G4TL65AA00) is $27,790/$36,880/$34,090. All prices include freight & PDI of $1,695/$1,895 for Mazda3, Mazda6/CX-5. PPSA, licence, insurance, taxes, down payment and other dealer charges are extra and may be required at the time of purchase.

Dealer may sell/lease for less. Dealer order/trade may be necessary on certain vehicles. Lease and Finance on approved credit for qualified customers only. Offers valid April 1 – 30, 2015, while supplies last. Prices and rates subject to change without notice. Visit mazda.ca or see your dealer for complete details.

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The cabin was designed around the driver and both front seats are comfortable and roomy with plenty of adjustability.

F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5 THE VANCOUVER COURIER

A43

today’sdrive Continued from previous page Infotainment wise, the latest version of BMW’s iDrive system runs on a 10.25-inch screen. The large screen replaces many of the buttons and cleans up the entire dash.

It looks elegant sitting prominently in the centre and its high-resolution crisply renders navigation images and entertainment info.

Features

The X6 xDrive35i starts at $68,890, while prices for the xDrive50i start at $83,190.

Standard equipment includes heated front seats, heated steering wheel, a sunroof, auto dimming exterior mirrors, rearview camera, front and rear parking sensors, adaptive headlights, navigation, and BMW’s No-Charge Scheduled Maintenance.

Additional features, available as options or on higher trims, include lane departure and collision warning, blind spot detection, ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, surround view camera, automatic four-zone climate control, head-up display, high-beam assistant, and

a rear seat entertainment package.

Fuel efficiency numbers (L/100km) for the xDrive35i are 13.0 city, 8.9 highway and 11.1 combined. The xDrive50i returns 16.0 city, 10.9 highway for 13.7 combined.

Thumbs Up

The driver and the passengers are treated to a comfortable and luxurious interior. The driver will enjoy an SUV that is genuinely fun to drive with a unique styling.

Thumbs Down

The big drawback is the X6’s limited versatility compared to other SUVs. Also, the ride is quite firm for leisurely drives.

The Bottom Line

If you are looking for a unique SUV that offers coupe-like performance, the BMW X6 is the only vehicle for you.

Competitors

Porsche Cayenne The Porsche Cayenne has the character of a sports car and the practicality of a traditional SUV. Unfortunately, this blend

of exhilaration, good looks and cargo space doesn’t come cheap.

The base model Cayenne start at $67,400, but the price quickly grows, all the way up to $178,100 for the Cayenne Turbo S. Range Rover Sport The Range Rover Sport is a massively capable off-road SUV, and it also happens to be one the world’s most luxurious as well. In fact, it rivals many dedicated luxury cars, all the while offering far more practicality and versatility.

The driving feel is somewhat numb, however.

The Range Rover ranges in price from $75,490 for the SE, up to $124,990 for the 550 hp SVR.

While the BMW X6 has a sporty coupe-like body, it still has a bold, SUV-style.

Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe The GLE Coupe was designed as a four-door coupe, only with a raised seating position. The large front grille leads to a stretched cabin offset by massive wheel arches and a high beltline.

Canadian prices have not yet been announced, but expect them to start about $70,000. It will arrive later in the year.

THE 2015 GLA-CLASS

THE 2015 GLK-CLASS

60th Anniversary Sales Event.

Ask us about Prepaid Maintenance.

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Celebrate with 3 months payments waived in addition to exceptional lease offers.

THE 2015 GLA 250 4MATICTM. TOTAL PRICE* STARTS AT: $40,260.*

THE 2015 GLK 350 BlueTEC™ 4MATICTM AVANTGARDE EDITION. TOTAL PRICE* STARTS AT: $51,660.*

Lease APR

Lease APR

Lease Payment 1

Plus Receive

$4,6921 Down

Payments Waived2

Lease Payment 1

Plus Receive

Includes

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Payments Waived2

In Delivery Credits3

3.9% $398 3 months

2.9% $468 3 months $2,000

** Fees and taxes extra.

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1

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1

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AMG Performance Centre Vancouver | 550 Terminal Avenue | Open Sunday: 12pm – 5pm | D#6276

1-855-554-9088 | vancouver.mercedes-benz.ca

©2015 Mercedes-Benz Canada Inc. Shown above is the 2015 GLA 250 4MATIC™ with optional Premium and Premium Plus package/2015 GLK 250 BlueTEC™ 4MATIC™ Avantgarde Edition with optional Sport package for a total price of $46,260/$52,760. MSRP of advertised 2015 GLA 250 4MATIC™/2015 GLK 250 BlueTEC™ 4MATIC™ Avantgarde Edition is $37,200/$48,600. *Total price of $40,260/$51,660 includes freight/PDI of $2,295, dealer admin fee of $595, air-conditioning levy of $100, PPSA up to $45.48 and a $25.00 fee covering EHF tires, filters and batteries. **Vehicle options, fees and taxes extra. Vehicle license, insurance, and registration are extra. Lease offer based on the 2015 GLA 250 4MATIC™/2015 GLK 250 BlueTEC™ 4MATIC™ Avantgarde Edition. Available only through Mercedes-Benz Financial Services on approved credit for a limited time. 1 Lease example based on $398/$468 (excluding taxes) per month for 39/45 months (STK#V1562726/V1552584), due on delivery includes down payment or equivalent trade of $4,692/$7830, plus first month lease payment, security deposit, and applicable fees and taxes. Lease APR of 3.9%/2.9% applies. Total cost of borrowing is $3,598/$3,585. Total obligation is $22,640/$32,357. 12,000km/year allowance ($0.20/km for excess kilometres applies). 2 Three (3) month payment waivers are only valid on 2015 GLA 250 4MATIC™/2015 GLK 250 BlueTEC™ 4MATIC™ Avantgarde Edition for deals closed before April 30, 2015. First, second, and third month payment waivers are capped at $400/$550 per month for lease. Only on approved credit through Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. 3 Please note a credit of $2,000 has been applied/included in the calculation of the monthly lease payment on the 2015 GLK 250 BlueTEC™ 4MATIC™ Avantgarde Edition. It is a one-time credit for deals closed before April 30, 2015. See in-store for full details. Dealer may sell for less. Offers may change without notice and cannot be combined with any other offers. See your authorized Mercedes-Benz Vancouver dealer for details or call the Mercedes-Benz Vancouver Customer Care at 1-855-554-9088. Offer ends April 30, 2015.

A44

THE VANCOUVER COURIER F R I DAY, A P R I L 1 7 , 2 0 1 5

EARTH WEEK Prices Effective April 16 to April 22, 2015.

100% BC Owned and Operated PRODUCE

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BC Organic Long English Cucumbers from Origin Organics, Delta product of Canada

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GROCERY

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Liberté Organic Yogurt or Kefir

Rogers Granola

Dream Beverages

assorted varieties

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700-750g • product of BC

946ml – 3 pack • product of USA

500g – 1L • product of Canada

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Being more mindful of our buying habits is all part of living more sustainably and having less of an impact on the planet. During Choices’ Earth Week Event, we’re making it easier for you to find quality brands that are sourced or crafted with more sustainable means that are lighter on the environment.

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