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Tuesday, July 30, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916

CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE

High stakes Krystal Cameron competes in the stakes event at the Salmon Valley Gymkhana Club on Friday evening.

Rustad calls for replacement Couple, city at odds over flooding of forests minister Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca

Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff

Nechako-Lakes MLA John Rustad is calling on Premier John Horgan to replace Forests Minister Doug Donaldson rather than give him some help in the form of an NDP backbencher. On Friday, Horgan appointed Delta North MLA Ravi Kahlon as a parliamentary secretary to assist Donaldson “in working with communities and stakeholders in the Interior as the forest industry faces significant challenges.” In a statement issued the same day, Rustad, the B.C. Liberals’ critic for forests, lands, natural resource operations and rural development, had some sharp words. “John Horgan has assigned a former NDP political director to babysit his ineffective forestry minister just two weeks after demoting him by removing his responsibility for wildfire recovery,” said Rustad in reference to a July 11 Order in Council reassigning those duties and functions to the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. “That demotion didn’t go far enough, as Minister Donaldson has dragged his feet for two years, unable to help British Columbians that rely on the forestry sector. He has to go.” Rustad likened the move to Horgan’s decision to call on former B.C. Liberal MLA Blair Lekstrom to help Donaldson when the controversy over caribou recovery in the B.C. Peace blew up. The government has since put a proposed moratorium on hold while it seeks further public input. In a response provided Monday, Kahlon accused the B.C. Liberals of “trying to play partisan politics on this file and called the move “despicable.” “When they were in government they knew that mills would be closing and they did absolutely nothing to protect those workers,” he added. “It’s also curious that MLA Rustad refers to adding a Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry as ‘babysitting’ because that was actually his role for a number of years and that’s not a very professional way to address his former minister.” Kahlon went on to say he is looking forward to “working with the communities and workers to ensure that we are providing the right kind of support and effectively promoting this vitally important industry.”

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A conflict between a Blackburn-area couple and the city over the cause of flooding that struck their home has landed in court. Shane Faulkner and Delonna Russell are claiming the city is at fault for the damage their 2002 McLaren Road West home suffered during a March 26, 2018 event and are seeking damages. In a notice of claim, the couple say a failed water main was the cause and that on several occasions before the incident, they had alerted the city to abnormally high water flowing in a nearby drainage ditch. They also say they told the city that they believed a leaking water main was the source but the city failed to investigate their reports and as a result, water from the ditch overflowed onto the property and damaged their home and its contents. The city is denying the claim. In a response, it admits the couple raised their concerns with the city about a month before the incident “but specifically denies

RUSTAD

that there was a broken or leaking water main.” “The property is located in an area with a high water table, and there is a history of high ground and surface water in this area,” the city continues. “The area is prone to blocked culverts and standing water. Flooding regularly occurs in the area of the property in the spring.” On the day in question, the city received a call for service from the couple and upon arrival workers unblocked the culverts in a timely manner, according to the city. In the process, the workers also discovered that the water service connection to a home at 2116 McLaren Road was leaking and so, excavated and repaired that section. “The flood was caused by blocked culverts and not by the break in the service connection line,” the city says. Faulkner and Russell’s notice of claim was filed in September 2018 and the city’s response was filed earlier this month, both in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver. None of the allegations have yet been tested in court.

NDP names Sapergia as local candidate Citizen staff DONALDSON The government has launched a public engagement process on the future of the forest industry in the Interior. It includes a series of meetings with stakeholders across the region as well as a chance for the public to have their say through an online portal. Noting that process does not end until the fall, Rustad has said it will do little to help laid off sawmill workers in the interim and outlined measures in his party’s five-point plan to revive the industry. “Forestry-dependent communities lost 6,600 direct jobs in 2018,” Rustad said Friday. “Appointing a Parliamentary Secretary to the file is the first job John Horgan has created in the forestry sector since coming to power two years ago.”

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A recently-retired health science professional will be the New Democratic Party’s candidate in Cariboo-Prince George in the next federal election. “Northerners often tell me three things,” Heather Sapergia said in a statement issued Monday. “They want government to ease the cost burden on working and aging Canadians by establishing a universal pharmacare system. They want to see upgrades to vital infrastructure in small, remote, northern and First Nations communities and they want Ottawa to get real about supporting the creation of new sustainable jobs in resource-dependent communities. “I want these things too.” — see ‘WORKING PEOPLE, page 3

The manhunt is on LOCAL 3

See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts

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SAPERGIA

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