Conservation groups put up $9.4-million to save Flathead Valley
Slow start: Sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago
Vancouver -- A reported "15-foot crocodile" that drew a half-dozen police cars to a Vancouver backyard on Sunday night after panicked 911 calls from a resident turned out to fit easily into a shoe-box-sized enclosure when brought before the media yesterday.
Animal-shelter staff were looking after the bearded lizard thought to have wandered away from his owners' home.
"Sometimes they can be hard to handle, and will bite, but this guy's pretty gentle," said Paul Teichroeb, chief licence inspector for the City of Vancouver, holding up the sandy-coloured creature yesterday during a police news conference.
Police say they got a 911 call from a panicky homeowner who claimed there was a five-metre-long crocodile in his back yard.
Six officers were sent in, only to discover a 30-centimetre-long reptile called a bearded lizard.
Chief licence inspector Paul Teichroeb displays Bud a bearded dragon lizard found in a backyard on 14th Avenue.
Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
August 19
Edmonton, Alberta
Protesting the SPP in Edmonton! Help preserve Canada’s sovereignty, join the protest.
Host: Protest The S.P.P.
Time: 10:00am - 2:00pm GMT
Where: Legislative Assembly of Alberta Street: 10800 - 97 Ave. Edmonton, AB
Calgary, Alberta
Protesting the North American Union
Host: Lindsay Ross and other concerned citizens!.
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 3 p.m. GMT
Where: Calgary City Hall, 800 Macleod Trail SE, Calgary, AB, then marching to the U.S. Consulate at 615 Macleod Trail for more speeches
For cross Canada protests see Verbena-19
See:
Censored: From Mickey Mouse to the Marx Brothers
Mr. Fox says a common misconception is that censorship activities were focused primarily on sex. He says B.C. censors cast a wide net and employed loose interpretation of the act, censoring for not only sexual morality and political content, but for social and even artistic reasons.
From movies to murals to FOI, censorship lives onWe might think porn was the main concern, but we would be wrong. Porn pretty much kept its knickers on back in the early 20th century.
Instead it was felt necessary to shield British Columbian moviegoers in the 1920s and 1930s from political controversies in the newsreels that used to precede feature films.
Private BC clinic to reopenThe False Creek Urgent Care Centre, which was criticized by some as a direct assault on Canada's public health-care system, agreed to stop admitting B.C. patients within days of its opening last December. Now, after obtaining legal advice and rounding up a roster of out-of-province doctors, the clinic is on stronger legal footing, Chris Freimond said.
And Health Minister George Abbott said this time it appears the private clinic is operating within the law.
The Canada Health Act and the province's Medicare Protection Act prohibit doctors or clinics from billing patients for medically necessary services that are covered by publicly funded medicare.
To get around this legal barrier, Dr. Godley has recruited a team of emergency physicians from outside the province, Mr. Freimond said.
Mr. Abbott said if the clinic hires doctors from outside the B.C. Medical Services Plan, then no laws are being broached.
Mr. Abbott said he was told the clinic has hired two doctors from Alberta and one from Manitoba.
By bringing doctors from out of province, Dr. Godley said the clinic will not be raiding the public system. He added that the clinic will relieve pressure on hospital emergency rooms and help reduce waiting times.
The Council of Canadians has denounced the pact as an intrusion on provincial political rights. It warns, for example, that it could stymie B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell's ambitious new environmental plan.
The agreement gives businesses and individuals the right to sue either province if they find that any regulation or government policy "restricts or impairs" investment.
Governments in the two provinces see the deal as a blueprint for other provinces wanting to remove interprovincial trade barriers.
The council is also warning that a trade, investment and labour agreement between B.C. and Alberta could negatively affect municipalities.
It says school boards and health and social service agencies could also be stripped of protection by private investors wanting to put profit before regulations.
Pickard, the council's regional organizer for B.C., says that unfortunately, TILMA is not an April fool's joke.
The B.C. and Alberta governments are selling the agreement as a way to erase trade barriers.
But Pickard says it was signed without public consultation or legislative debate.
"TILMA has very powerful provisions that will allow companies to challenge and overturn important municipal bylaws," Pickard said in a statement.
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Canada, workers, work, employees, labour, labor, unions, Alberta, B.C., TILMA, Monte Solberg, Labour laws,
The boom that is bringing thousands of temporary foreign workers to Alberta is also attracting recruiters hoping to profit from the demand. Some recruiters may be breaking the rules by charging foreign workers for the privilege of earning a paycheque in Alberta.Even worse, says the Alberta Federation of Labour, no one is enforcing the law, creating a situation ripe for exploitation. "It's like the Wild West," said AFL president Gil McGowan. "We need a sheriff to bring some order to the situation. Unfortunately, neither our federal or provincial governments seem willing to put on the badge."
And we wouldn't be having a labour shortage if we did not have an unregulated, unplanned development boom in Fort McMurray.
Unlike his counterparts in Ottawa and Victoria, Stelmach doesn't see the political potential in going green. On the contrary, he's using the issue to titillate the NEP base, a la Ralph Klein. Speaking in downtown Calgary this week, Stelmach said Alberta is not prepared to make any grand sacrifices or interventions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. "My government does not believe in interfering in the free marketplace," he said.
In Alberta and BC the new internal Labour Immigration agreement (TILMA) opens up both provinces to influxes of workers not just from their respective provinces but from across North America because it is NAFTA compliant.
And with our new Federal Minister of Immigration and Human Resoucrces being pro-temporary workers, is allowing an extension of two years to work in Canada.
While the move was applauded by stressed western Canadian businesses desperate for foreign workers, it was panned by labour leaders worried about Canadians' jobs and workers' rights.
"Employers shouldn't be put in the driver's seat when it comes to who gets into the country, because their interests aren't necessarily in line with the broader Canadian public," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.
The new temporary worker extension was announced the same day that the Business Councils of North America met with Mexican, Canadian and American politicians in Ottawa to discuss the North American Security and Prosperity treaty. Meetings which were held in secret. This exploitation will continue until these workers are unionized.
It is forward to the past, backwards to the future.
Alberta's highly touted free trade agreement with B.C. is "a wolf in sheep's clothing," says the head of the Alberta Federation of Labour. Gil McGowan is warning other provinces that the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, dubbed TILMA, "is not all sweetness and light."
But McGowan says union lawyers fear the deal will give companies the right to sue municipal and provincial governments and school boards that try to bring privatized services under the public umbrella.
He's also concerned the deal will result in a "dumbing down" of Alberta rules for trades training.
Liberal critic Bill Bonko says the deal should have been debated in the legislature if it was so good, rather than being negotiated behind closed doors.
But Jason Clemens of the Fraser Institute raves about the deal, saying the Yukon, Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces are keen on it.
"This really could be a domino effect across the country to remove or dramatically reduce trade barriers," he said.
Also see: Legal advice on TILMA
The $10-billion plan to help manufacturing compete globallyAnd let's not forget who Harper put in charge as Minister of Human Resources.
Expand the temporary foreign worker program to make it easier to hire non-Canadians when there are no domestic citizens available.Although governments can only influence manufacturers' success to a certain degree, the industry believes Ottawa could be doing much more to help.
The sector's wish list includes lower corporate income taxes, the elimination of provincial trade barriers, more investment in skills, and broader tax credits for industrial training and corporate research.
