Wednesday, February 20, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Stuck truck A tow truck heads up Peden Hill Tuesday morning to help get a tanker truck that was stuck on the hill. Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) shut down all westbound traffic to allow the scene to be cleared.
Province unveils child fund, climate plan, revenue sharing Dirk MEISSNER Citizen news service
CITIZEN FILE PHOTO
A bulldozer moves snow up the pile at the city snow dump at 17th Avenue and Foothills Boulevard in January.
Leave snow piled on boulevards, Skakun says Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca Letting snow pile up on the city’s boulevards is among the measures city councillor Brian Skakun is suggesting to lessen the load taxpayers are shouldering for the snow control service. Skakun raised the possibility during council’s budget meeting on Feb. 11, when they approved a $1.5-million increase to the function, pushing the annual budget for the service up to $8.5 million. The hike amounted to 1.5 percentage points of the 4.3-percent increase to the property tax levy, making it the single largest component of the rise. Skakun said nearly 6,000 truckloads of snow were report-
Today’s Weather Hi -7° Low -19° See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts
edly transported to the city’s snow dumps from mid-November to early-January. “I’ve been on council awhile and I’ve never seen us haul that much snow,” Skakun said. “I did a lot of driving around today, and I counted kilometres where, in my opinion, we could’ve put snow on the sides of the roads or the meridians... to save a considerable amount of money.” Heights of the piles would still be reduced at intersections to provide sight lines for motorists and pedestrians, he added. In reply, public works director Gina Layte Liston said concern over the windrows “sitting even for the period of time that they are sitting,” generates the greatest number of service requests related
LOCAL HOROSCOPE NEWS OPINION MONEY
1-3 2 4-5,7 6 8
SPORTS A&E COMICS CROSSWORD CLASSIFIEDS
to snow control and added they’re removed in the name of traffic safety. During a normal snowfall, she said the streets are cleared and then contractors go back to remove the piles. “We also see loading out of areas that have one-way plows, specifically because of sidewalks and that loading out occurs also for the traffic and pedestrian safety reasons,” Layte Liston said. She also defended the practice, since 2014, of keeping four or five grader operators on monthly retainers, “so that when we call, they are there.” “That is an essential part of meeting the timelines during a normal snow event,” she added. — see ‘I THINK THAT, page 3
9-10 11-12 12 12 13-16
VICTORIA — The B.C. government maintained its focus on providing programs to help families cope financially in its latest budget Tuesday, following efforts a year ago to crack down on property speculation in the housing market, bringing in a child-care plan and eliminating health-care premiums. Finance Minister Carole James said Tuesday her balanced budget offers a helping hand to people with a package of child benefits for families, loan relief for students, assistance increases for the poor, homeowner incentives to fight climate change and a long-term revenue sharing agreement with Indigenous Peoples. B.C. is forecast to have the highest economic growth in Canada in 2019 and 2020 at 2.4 per cent this year and 2.3 per cent next year. It has also had the lowest jobless rate in Canada for the past 17 months, she said. The 2019-20 budget is forecast to post a surplus of $274 million. “People were told by the past government they had to chose between a strong economy or investments in people,” James said in her budget speech. “The truth is we can and must have both.” She said the minority NDP government’s budget is “balanced both fiscally and in its approach.” A spokesman for one of B.C. major business organizations said the budget numbers are credible, but investors would have liked to have seen more efforts to stimulate growth in the budget. “We expected to see a bit of a spending-oriented budget from the NDP and I think they deliv-
Wilson-Raybould to address committee NEWS 7
www.pgcitizen.ca
JAMES ered on that,” said Jock Finlayson, vice-president of the B.C. Business Council. “It’s a budget strong on the social side, but weak on the economic development side.” Opposition Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said the budget does nothing to stimulate the economy. “The NDP don’t really have a plan to make B.C. a better place,” he said. “This is a budget that’s designed to take people for a ride.” The budget includes a $400-million B.C. Child Opportunity Benefit that offers help to families with children up to 18 years old. James said the benefit, which starts in October 2020, provides up to $1,600 annually for families with one child, $2,600 for two children and $3,400 for three children. James said the benefit will make a difference to many families who want better lives for their children. “Too many people in our province are just a paycheque away from poverty,” she said. — see ‘IT’S THE, page 3
Newsstand $2.00 incl. tax Home Delivered 95¢/day
Contact Us CLASSIFIED: 250-562-6666 READER SALES: 250-562-3301 SWITCHBOARD: 250-562-2441
0
58307
00200
5