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WEST KELOWNA Warriors will have a first-round BCHL playoff date with the Merritt Centennials.
COLUMNIST Robert Smithson says the debate over the benefits of staff working at home for the employer even hit him in his law practice.
INTERIOR HEALTH says provincial programs for seniors with health issues will be expanded this year.
ALISTAIR WATERS says the bad news just keeps piling up for the B.C. Liberals as a new election campaign beckons.
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83 serving our community 1930 to 2013
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TUESDAY March 5, 2013 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
Appeal of legal right to die ruling delayed Alistair Waters ASSISTANT EDITOR
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FINAL CHECK… Christen Issler checks out his entry in the annual Okanagan College Spaghetti Bridge Building contest before it is put to the test to see how much weight it can sustain before shattering. For the results of this year’s event, see A8. BARRY GERDING/CAPITAL NEWS
▼ B.C. SPECIAL OLYMPIANS
Bus crash didn’t deter athletes from competing Wade Paterson STAFF REPORTER
A horrific traffic collision wasn’t enough to stop Special Olympics B.C. athletes from competing in West Kelowna last weekend. A charter bus carrying 22 athletes, coaches and staff collided with a car
Friday around 3:30 p.m. near Cache Creek. Ashcroft RCMP, fire rescue and paramedics arrived at the scene to find the driver of the car dead and passengers aboard the bus suffering from minor injuries. The Special Olympians were headed to the inaugural SOBC Snow
Sports Festival, being held at Crystal Mountain Resort and Telemark Nordic Club in West Kelowna March 2 and 3. The bus departed from Prince George earlier Friday and picked up athletes and coaches from various communities along the way. Dan Howe, president
and CEO of SOBC, said all athletes, coaches and staff were taken to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops to be checked out. “They all went in to be checked over, just as a precaution,” said Howe. “There were some minor scrapes and cuts. We understand there was one fractured hand and
maybe one fractured finger.” After all of the bus passengers were released from hospital, the coaches had a tough decision to make, said Howe. “We gave the decision to the coaches of the athletes as to whether or not they would like to continue on or return home.
“They all made the decision they’d like to continue on—they (came to) Kelowna for the festival.” A coach from Prince George, who didn’t want to be named, told Capital News about his experience Friday.
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The federal government’s appeal of a landmark B.C. Supreme Court ruling, one that gave a West Kelowna woman suffering from ALS the legal right to an assisted suicide, was scheduled to start Monday in Vancouver. But the court proceedings were short because the government requested, and received, a two-week adjournment after one of its lawyers fell ill. The June, 2012 court ruling, which said banning doctor-assisted suicide in Canada was unconstitutional, was suspended for one year to give the federal government time to draft new legislation. But it also gave West Kelowna’s Gloria Taylor, one of the plaintiffs in the ban challenge, a special and immediate exemption so she could seek a physician-assisted suicide during the period the ruling was suspended. The federal government announced a short time later it would appeal the ruling.