Three to stand trial for mother’s murder page 3
Delta mom makes a clean sweep page 19
Tuesday May 22, 2012 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
Surrey gunman dead after standoff, explosion in Kamloops 48-year-old electrician with bombs strapped to his body took ex-girlfriend hostage by Tim Petruk POLICE INVESTIGATORS spent the weekend examining the remains of
IAN MATHESON PHOTO
Fire crews battle a house ďŹ re in Kamloops after a six-hour standoff with a Surrey man ended with explosions and ames.
Gas tax take tops $1 billion
a Kamloops home destroyed by fire after a deadly shooting-turnedstandoff came to an explosive end Thursday night (May 17). One man from Surrey is dead and the home was reduced to rubble after the six-hour standoff. It was “a terrible night for everybody,� Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said. As of Friday, authorities had not released the name of the deceased suspect, who has been identified only as a 48-year-old electrician from Surrey. Learned said Friday investigators had not been able to even locate his body, let alone make any determinations about manner of death. The incident began just before 5:30 p.m. Thursday when police received a report of shots being fired at a single-family home. Neighbours called 911 after apparently spotting a man wearing a trench coat and armed with a shotgun enter the home. A single shot was then heard. The house was home to a single mother and her four children. Learned described the gunman as “an estranged acquaintance� of the woman, and he was believed to be in possession of a five-kilogram box of explosives in addition to the firearm. The woman was inside with her current boyfriend and her four kids.
See FIRE CREWS / Page 3
Nearly 50 cents per litre goes to governments, TransLink by Jeff Nagel METRO VANCOUVER drivers
are now paying more than $1 billion a year in combined gas and carbon taxes, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The lobby group said the latest two-cent-per-litre increase in TransLink’s fuel tax on April 1 and the next 1.1-cent bump in B.C.’s carbon tax on July 1 puts the region over that threshold. Drivers in Metro Vancouver now pay nearly 50 cents per
litre in combined fuel taxes. “This is highway robbery,� said Jordan Bateman, the CTF’s B.C. director. “Drivers are tired of seeing their hard-earned money evaporate into government’s coffers.� The federal and provincial
Editorial 6 Letters 7 Life 19 ClassiďŹ eds 27
governments and TransLink took in a total of $958 million from Metro drivers last year through taxes at the pumps, and the CTF calculated that will rise to $1.02 billion this year. See DRIVERS / Page 5
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