APRIL
• After being served with a freedom of information request and lobbied by the Southern Sunshine Coast Ferry Advisory Committee, BC Ferries restored the eighth sailing to its Sunday schedule between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay, effective April 3. The Langdale to Horseshoe Bay route was reduced to seven round-trip sailings on Sundays in April last year as a way for BC Ferries to cut costs on the local run.
• Sunshine Coast RCMP arrested two people who were allegedly squatting on Island Timberlands property in Roberts Creek. Makenzie Leine of Island Timberlands said the move was prompted by safety concerns, and the fact the land use designation doesn’t allow “construction of living shelters.”
• The Sunshine Coast Regional District’s (SCRD) 2016 budget included some big spending on water projects, and one of the priciest was phase 2 of universal water metering. The $5.5-million project will be covered by a $3.5-million Build Canada grant, and SCRD reserves. While the metering would be universal, public buy-in was not. People had concerns about cost, fairness, and whether water metering will actually achieve the goals of cutting consumption and reducing future infrastructure costs.
• Bill Higgs, Sechelt’s fire chief for the last 26 years, moved into retirement on April 2, his 59th birthday, stepping aside to let someone else take the helm of what has been a trend-setting department under his watch. New fire Chief Trevor Pike was named chief on May 1.
• The 2016 SCRD budget included the Chapman Lake Access Expansion, estimated at $4.23 million, and a plan to start searching for potential groundwater sources. That had a cost of around $150,000. A total of $500,000 from reserves was earmarked for engineering and pre-construction work for the Chapman Lake Access. A contract was awarded earlier this year to AECOM. SCRD treasurer Tina Perrault said the money would be raised through a loan, part of which would be used to restore the $500,000 from reserves.
• Sechelt council’s call for a traffic impact study prior to public hearing and refusal to allow SSC Properties to connect to the sewer treatment plant didn’t deter the large East Porpoise Bay development from moving forward, according to SSC general manager Werner Hofstätter.
• AJB Investments went to court to try to get an injunction against demonstrators who had been blocking access to the company’s land in the Chapman Creek watershed for more than two months. AJB started logging on part of its private managed forest land above the airport in early February. The company claimed in court documents filed in Vancouver that because of the blockade that went up Feb. 12, they had to leave more than 1,500 cubic metres of cut timber on the ground, leaving it at risk of rotting and other damage that could lessen its value, or even make it unfit for sale.
• The province’s Passenger Transportation Board approved a Sechelt company’s application to start a new bus service linking the upper and lower Sunshine Coast with Vancouver. Sunshine Coast Connector Ltd. stepped in to offer service between Powell River and Vancouver, on a route previously run by Malaspina Coach Lines, which ceased operations last September.
• Coast Reporter was named winner of four national newspaper awards – two Canadian Community Newspaper Awards (CCNA) including best news story and two Great Ideas Awards for best promotional campaign of 2016.
• Earth Day in Roberts Creek celebrated its 27th consecutive year on April 24 with an estimated 1,500 attendees. Event organizer Graham Starsage said the biggest highlights this year were the tribute to Daniel Kingsbury given by Sechelt councillor Noel Muller, the opening speech by Chief Calvin Craigan of the shíshálh Nation and Andy Johnson, who performed a Salish welcome song.
• Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) took down its blockade and camp north of the Sechelt airport, after AJB Investments was granted an injunction against the protesters. ELF supporters had blocked the company’s access to its property in the Chapman Creek watershed since early February. ELF wanted to see serious negotiations between the Sunshine Coast Regional District and AJB for the purchase of the land (roughly 161 hectares, or 400 acres) before it’s too late to keep it from being logged.
• Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons demanded answers from the health minister in the case of an 84-year-old Gibsons man with severe dementia, who was stuck at Sechelt (shíshálh) Hospital for more than nine months. Tom Morrison’s wife, Corrine, told Coast Reporter he was first admitted to the hospital early last July, after showing dementia-like symptoms. Simons and Corrine said that because the hospital isn’t set up for cases like Tom’s, he was often restrained in a chair under heavy sedation, and there were incidents that included wandering into other patients’ rooms, an attempt to climb out onto the roof, and lashing out at health care workers.
MAY
• A group of shíshálh Nation members chained and padlocked all entrances to the Sechelt Indian Band administration offices on May 3, and posted signs on the doors that read: “Lock Down For Change.” About a dozen members were on site continuing the protest, saying they represented more than 40 members who shared their concerns. Among the concerns expressed were the dismissal of Coun. Ben Pierre Jr. and the alleged dismantling of a locally run fishing business.
• The City of Vancouver filed its response to the civil claim filed by Margie and Mark Gray about the alleged beating death of their son Myles by Vancouver police, admitting none of the facts alleged in the lawsuit.
• The shíshálh Nation said archeologists going over a property on Osprey Street in Sechelt turned up a midden (an ancient trash pile), showing evidence of First Nations’ occupation of the site going back thousands of years. The finds reportedly included shells, bones and beads. Shíshálh Chief Calvin Craigan claimed the discovery of the midden also pointed to the area being the site of at least one longhouse.
• A bank robbery in Sechelt drew international media attention after RCMP charged Deleriyes Joe Cramer, 42, of Gibsons with the Scotiabank robbery committed on April 28 in Sechelt. Cramer, who worked in movies under the name Joey Cramer, is best known for the 1986 film Flight of the Navigator. Over the past decade, Cramer has been in and out of court on drug and fraud related charges.
• Sunshine Coast Tourism received the OK from the province for a Municipal Regional District Tax, commonly called a room or hotel tax. The tax, a two per cent levy on overnight stays at accommodation providers with four rooms or more, is expected to bring in $250,000 a year.
• The lockout at the shíshálh Nation ended May 10 with the agreement Chief Calvin Craigan would take a leave of absence for at least 30 days while a forensic audit was conducted. The protesters had amassed 87 signatures on a petition asking for Craigan’s resignation. On May 10, Ben Pierre Sr., one of the spokespeople for the protesters, removed the locks and chains.
• The District of Sechelt’s new management team became complete with the arrival of director of planning Andre Isakov at the end of May and the team’s most pressing order of business was to help set up a new development cost charge bylaw for the district.
• Shíshálh Nation leadership remained silent, following an agreement that was reached and signed between protesters and councillors Garry Feschuk and Randy Joe on May 10 that called for the chief to step down for 30 days pending a forensic audit. Following the signing of that agreement, Feschuk was taken to hospital on May 12 after his family said he suffered a stroke that they suspected was brought on by the stress of the lockout and protest.
• Linda Feuerhelm of the passenger ferry service Pacific Ferries was eyeing a new 72-passenger vessel as it readied for a busy summer and a possible expansion in the future.
• The bus company Sunshine Coast Connector was set to start regular Powell River – Vancouver runs on May 19, with a second route planned, running between the Earls Cove and Langdale ferry terminals seven days a week.
• In a ceremony on May 24, the Capilano University (Cap-U) Sunshine Coast campus building was renamed kàlax-ay – a name chosen by shíshálh Nation elders that translates to ocean spray bush or ironwood in English. Cap-U Sunshine Coast asked shíshálh elders for a traditional tree name for the campus building, to keep in line with a custom started at Cap-U North Vancouver.
• A baby barred owl that fell out of its nest in Roberts Creek was being cared for by the Gibsons Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. The young male owl, named Creeker by the couple that found him, was not hurt but he was too young to fly and his mother wasn’t capable of getting him back into the nest high up in a tree.
• A tragic trampoline accident that left four-year-old Max Du Preez unable to walk or talk created an outpouring of love and support from the Sunshine Coast community that greatly touched Max’s parents Danni and Frans. The Du Preez family, which includes eight-year-old Zach, moved to the Coast from South Africa in February to run the Quality Garden and Pet store and start a new life here. Those plans were put on hold, however, when the accident happened at the Preez’s home in Gibsons on April 2.
JUNE
• Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) announced a long-awaited expansion in residential care on the Sunshine Coast – but it would mean the closure of two existing facilities. VCH revealed June 1 that it signed a deal with the Trellis Group – which operates facilities in Penticton, Kamloops and Prince George – to build a new long-term care centre in Sechelt. The plan was for a 128-bed facility, Silverstone Care Centre, to be built on Derby Road in West Sechelt, which would replace both Totem Lodge and Shorncliffe.
• Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe and Klaus Fuerniss of Gibsons Marina hoisted the Environmental Defence Blue Flag at a ceremony June 4. The Blue Flag is a globally recognized symbol of commitment to ecological stewardship, safety and cleanliness, and Gibsons Marina was the first marina on the western seaboard of North America to be awarded the designation.
• Sechelt’s new mine manager announced plans to grow operations at Lehigh Heidelberg Cement and reclaim some land previously mined for a solar, food and bee farm. Mine manager Scott Broughton told Sechelt and District Chamber of Commerce members about his plans during a luncheon May 26.
• The George Hotel and Residences project still had hurdles to clear at Gibsons Town Hall, but Klaus Fuerniss Enterprises was confident enough to launch a big marketing campaign.
• Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons hoped to meet with local management from Paper Excellence, as Unifor continued to make its concerns about practices at the company’s Howe Sound Pulp and Paper mill public. Scott Doherty, executive assistant to Unifor’s national president, claimed there were 190 outstanding health and safety investigations, and continuing issues around contracting out work Unifor said laid-off members should be called back to do.
• Sunshine Coast Regional District and the Wilderness Committee added their voices to those calling for BC Timber Sales to halt the auction of cutblock A87125 on the slopes of Mount Elphinstone. The group Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) set up a 24/7 camp in the area, known by some as “Twist and Shout Forest” after a popular mountain biking trail. ELF said the cutblock has high ecological value that makes it worth preserving, and it falls within the 2,000-hectare (4,942-acre) zone the group has been lobbying Victoria to include in an expanded Mount Elphinstone Provincial Park.
• Stats showed another record month for real estate sales. Numbers released by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, which includes the Sunshine Coast, suggested the region’s housing market wasn’t likely to cool off soon.
• During the Sunshine Coast branch of the BC Schizophrenia Society’s 30th anniversary, the founding member was honoured. Julie Skippon spearheaded the local group after moving to the Coast with her husband and five children, two of whom suffer from schizophrenia.
• A string of cougar sightings in Gibsons caused the conservation office to issue a warning to residents. Four reports of cougar sightings in the Gibsons area were registered with the conservation office, and conservation officer Dean Miller expected more sightings had gone unreported.
• A former RCMP officer was remembered at a ceremony in Sechelt, where he spent his RCMP career serving his own community. RCMP Const. Carl Dixon, a member of the shíshálh Nation, joined the force in 1977 and spent his 20-year career working in his home community of Sechelt. Dixon, who passed away in 1999 at age 53, was honoured on May 17 by the RCMP, the chief and council of the shíshálh Nation, and other community members.
• Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue crews, Sunshine Coast RCMP and search and rescue aircraft were called out after a 16-year-old boy fell into the waters of Princess Louisa Inlet and could not be found. The South Korean teen was taking part in a Christian camp run by Young Life at Malibu Club with his classmates when he reportedly slipped and fell in the water on June 8. A two-day search for the exchange student came to a tragic end on June 10, when RCMP divers recovered the boy’s body in Malibu Rapids, at the entrance to Princess Louisa Inlet.
• Consultants with the firm AECOM confirmed the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s Chapman Lake expansion project would take a year longer than hoped. Project manager Brett DeWynter said the remote location inside a provincial park boundary added complications and required special permits.
• National Aboriginal Day was June 21 and students in School District No. 46 celebrated all month to mark the occasion.
• The inaugural Sunday in the Park with Pride was held on June 19. More than 200 people carrying rainbow pride flags and wearing flamboyant colours came out to the Davis Bay Pier and marched to Mission Point Park. The Orlando shooting was acknowledged as part of the event.
• Gibsons council gave third reading to its new smoking bylaw. The bylaw would increase buffer zones to 7.5 metres, ban smoking in parks, at beaches and on public trails, and impose a complete ban on smoking on pub and restaurant patios.
• After years of debate and a Supreme Court case, a new law on physician-assisted death – Bill C-14 – was given Royal Assent on June 17. The debate over C-14 was closely followed on the Sunshine Coast because Lee Carter and Hollis Johnson of Roberts Creek were among the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case Carter versus Canada, which stemmed from Lee’s mother Kay’s wish to have an assisted death.
• In his first public statement since May’s lockout, shíshálh Nation Chief Calvin Craigan talked about how the week-long protest impacted the band’s operations and announced the upcoming signing of a reconciliation agreement with the province. The B.C. Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation confirmed that it expected to sign a reconciliation agreement with the shíshálh Nation.
• Directors at the Sunshine Coast Regional District reaffirmed their opposition to logging in some areas, and asked BC Timber Sales for more time to negotiate a deal on a proposed cutblock in Area E.
