MAY
• Local candidates did their best to make the grade at an all-candidates meeting hosted by School District No. 46, the Sunshine Coast Teachers’ Association and CUPE 801 on May 1. About 100 people came to the meeting at Elphinstone Secondary School dedicated to education issues.
• Bill Humphries received a traditional blessing with cedar boughs from Squamish Nation members at the official ribbon cutting ceremony to open Gibsons Public Market on April 29.
• BC SPCA Sunshine Coast Branch manager Cindy Krapiec was one of this year’s recipients of the BC SPCA’s Leadership Award, presented to her at the society’s annual award dinner in Richmond on May 5. The award was created to recognize the outstanding achievements of individuals who go the extra mile to achieve the society’s goals and who lead and inspire others to live out the mission and purpose of the BC SPCA. Krapiec was honoured for her work as a tireless advocate for the animals in her care, and also for her staff and volunteers.
• Statistics Canada released age and gender breakdowns from the 2016 census, and they show an increase in the number of people 65 and older who call the Sunshine Coast home. In 2011, 23.6 per cent of the Sunshine Coast population was 65 or older; in 2016 that percentage had climbed to 29.6.
• A total of 1,675 mock ballots were cast by students in the Powell River-Sunshine Coast electoral district on May 8. The NDP took 43.46 per cent of the vote, reinstating incumbent Nicholas Simons for another term.
Student Vote is a program run by the civic education charity CIVIX, where students learn about the electoral process and take part in it by way of a mock election.
• Christy Clark’s Liberals were barely re-elected May 9 to B.C.’s first minority government since 1952, with the Greens poised to hold the balance of power. Election night saw the Liberals’ early lead diminish as John Horgan’s NDP narrowed the gap by picking up new seats in Metro Vancouver, finishing with 41 seats compared to the Liberals’ 43. In a breakthrough for Andrew Weaver’s Greens, the party won three seats, all on Vancouver Island. With recounts expected in some ridings and absentee ballots not counted for two weeks, there was still a possibility that the final outcome could change.
• NDP incumbent Nicholas Simons was re-elected for a fourth term in Powell River-Sunshine Coast. After all the ballots were counted, Simons had 11,846 votes (50.75 per cent), Liberal Mathew Wilson was sitting at 5,717 votes, Kim Darwin of the Greens had 5,629 and Cascadia candidate Reuben Richards had 152.
• Sunshine Coast RCMP Sgt. Chris Backus was at the forefront of a movement for better pay and improved working conditions for RCMP members. He said he’s worried the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission report urging the federal government to address issues like harassment and bullying on the job will end up gathering dust like similar reports in the past.
• After a winter hiatus to refit two vessels and reorganize, Pacific Ferries was plying the waters of Howe Sound with a new Gibsons - Horseshoe Bay - Coal Harbour route, and on May 15, the company added a scenic cruise to its offerings. The daily trip departs Coal Harbour in the morning with long stops in Gibsons and Snug Cove on Bowen Island before heading back to Vancouver to take passengers around Stanley Park and Vancouver Harbour.
• With construction of the Chapman Lake water system expansion on hold until at least 2018, Sunshine Coast Regional District staff were looking for board approval to deploy the siphon system in the summer, if needed. The siphon – which would use a pump and five pipes to draw extra water from the lake and maintain a flow of 200 litres per second into Chapman Creek – was designed in 2015 but has never been installed.
• Nearly a decade ago, archeologists working with the shíshálh Nation came across an extraordinary discovery, recognized as “one of the most significant chiefly burial finds in North America.” The story it tells was set to be featured at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau as of July 1, including a 3D forensic facial reconstruction of a shíshálh chief who lived nearly 4,000 years ago. Shíshálh Chief Warren Paull was part of a delegation that travelled to Ontario in early May for a preview of the exhibit. He said it’s impossible to overstate the emotions the group felt on first seeing the exhibit.
• Sechelt’s online citizen satisfaction survey results from late last year were finally released. A total of 51 per cent of all online respondents to the survey said they were “very dissatisfied” with council’s management, planning and decision-making.
• District of Sechelt councillors at the May 24 planning and community development committee meeting were against moving the Trellis seniors’ development forward and instead asked staff to draft new policies to guide long-term residential care development in Sechelt. The seniors’ development being pitched by Trellis Seniors Services in cooperation with Vancouver Coastal Health is envisioned to replace the current seniors’ facilities at Totem Lodge and Shorncliffe. It’s proposed to contain 128 long-term care beds, four hospice beds and an adult daycare on a 1.2-hectare site in West Sechelt. On May 24, the Trellis application was before Sechelt’s planning committee for a first look and consideration of the official community plan and zoning bylaw amendments needed for the project to proceed.
• Transportation Choices Sunshine Coast (TraC) pointed to a crash involving a cycle tourist as a warning that something needs to be done about sand and gravel left on the roads from crack sealing. Rat Portage Hill on the Roberts Creek-Sechelt boundary was one of the sections still waiting to be swept of excess gravel, and that’s where Eduard Llado was injured on May 23.
