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REVIEW March 20, 2013
32 PAGEs
Learning the ropes Amanda Oye photo Annika Penner from the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in the knot-making area of the historic site, where visitors can learn how seafarers secure boats and mend nets. The cannery is hosting various activities for spring break; see Page 23 for a look inside.
Forecast calls for Fraser River run of nearly 4.8 million salmon by Jeff Nagel Black Press Salmon watchers are hoping this is the year the troubled Fraser River sockeye run turns the corner on its disastrous collapse four years ago. If returns come in as forecast, nearly 4.8 million sockeye will make their way up the Fraser this summer. That’s still well short of the longer term average of 8.6 million for this part of the four-year cycle. But it would be a huge improvement from 2009, when more than 10 million salmon were expected and just 1.5 million arrived, prompting the federal government to appoint the Cohen Commission into the decline. “Hopefully we’ll get a run that’s much improved relative to 2009,” said Mike Lapointe, chief biologist for the Pacific Salmon Commission. “If the run returns bigger and we’re able to get some rebuilding, that will be very important for the sockeye moving forward. It will be definitely be more than what we had in the parent year that produced it.” See Page 3
No appetite for language law Citizens appeal to council for rules governing language on signs in Richmond by Martin van den Hemel Staff Reporter An appeal by two local residents who gathered a 1,000-signature petition denouncing the proliferation of Chinese language signs on storefronts, bus shelters, and real estate signs failed to sway members of council to take action. In front of a packed house at a council committee meeting Monday, the majority of council showed they were going to avoid reacting to the debate’s most recent iteration. Coun. Evelina Halsey-Brandt said if consumers are miffed about the signs, they can speak with their wallets, and simply spend their loonies and toonies elsewhere.
“I believe that every business has the right to try to attract the customers of their choice. If they don’t want me to come into their store because they have not informed me of what kind of business they offer, then I will talk with my wallet and with my feet, and I won’t go into it.” As it did in the mid-1990s, and again in the mid2000s, the debate on language content on signs has proved irksome enough that it prompted Kerry Starchuk and Ann Merdinyan to appeal to council. And as quickly as the TV cameras and reporters came, they stampeded away after hearing the committee accept the petition for information, and defeated a bid by Coun. Chak Au, who made a motion to have staff analyze the issue more closely. In a letter to the editor last January, Starchuk wrote:
“The complex signage issue in Richmond regarding the increasing prevalence of signs with Chinese characters has really bothered me, enough to become engaged in seeking answers on why and how it can be resolved. Astonishingly, it’s been a discussion in the city for 17 years.” Au sought to have a deeper discussion about the language debate, and wanted staff to look at signs at businesses, on buildings, and in advertising. But Halsey-Brandt, a council veteran of these past debates, said she didn’t want to go there, again. Instead, if a merchant wants to advertise mostly or solely in Chinese, she said she can choose to spend her money elsewhere. Starchuck said she was urged to gather signatures after speaking to Richmond’s MPs about the issue.
TONY LING
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