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Concert for cancer research
May Day at Sea Cider
Six bands perform to benefit cancer research in a student-driven concert event this month, page 7
Get to know the bees as Sea Cider orchard hosts its annual May Day celebration this Sunday, page 6
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Friday, May 3, 2013
Poverty top issue at forum Saanich North and the Islands candidates challenged to offer more Steven Heywood News staff
Saanich North and the Islands candidates in the May 14 provincial election had just settled in to repeating their party platforms at a forum in Sidney when they were yanked into reality by moderator Stephen Andrew on the issue of child poverty. “I’ve heard no satisfactory answer from this panel on this,” Andrew, a CTV reporter, said. “This is this province’s badge of shame.” He asked the candidates what their actions would be — not party rhetoric — on alleviating child poverty in B.C. NDP candidate Gary Holman said his party plans to spend millions to get more affordable housing on the market, to help parents and therefore their children. Andrew called that a drop in the bucket on the issue, to which Holman agreed B.C. has no real strategy for dealing with poverty. He added the NDP will make a difference in its planned tax breaks and investments in housing, education and skills — but admitted that it would take time. B.C. Liberal candidate Stephen Roberts said B.C. needs to emulate successful examples of poverty reduction in other Canadian jurisdictions, admitting what his party has done over the last 12 years has not reached everyone who needs help. The Green Party’s Adam Olsen says B.C. needs to have a strategy and that starts with a discussion. “It’ll take work by the government in power and a commitment to follow through,” he said, adding the Green Party would funnel one per cent of the provincial budget to help with affordable housing for people in need. Please see: Local issues highlight, page 3
Devon MacKenzie/News staff
Chief scientist Richard Dewey (left) and scientist Steve Mihaly from Ocean Networks Canada set off on a month-long oceanographic expedition on the CCGS John P Tully (pictured in background) on Monday, April 29.
Whale song highlights expedition
Ocean Networks Canada kicks off oceanographic expedition season Devon MacKenzie News staff
Pig carcasses and killer whale communication will be some of the highlights of the latest Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) oceanographic expedition. A team from ONC, an initiative out of the University of Victoria, departed on the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P Tully Monday, April 29 from the Institute of Ocean Sciences at Patricia Bay. The ship will take around 17 scientists, engineers and technicians for a month long expedition which will include several dif-
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ferent tasks. On the first segment of the trip which will run into next week, the scientists will be pulling up two pig carcasses which have been decaying at the bottom of the Saanich Inlet and replacing them with two new ones. The pig carcasses have been an instrumental part of a forensics experiment by Gayle Anderson and Lynne Bell of Simon Fraser University. For the last seven years, Anderson has been using the information gathered from the experiment, which is part of the VENUS ocean observatory, to
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help police with cases related to water decomposition including insight into the cases of feet washing up in and around the Salish Sea. The second part of the first leg of the mission will include research on the sediment dynamics in the Fraser River delta. “We’ll be installing a whole slew of new equipment at the mouth of the Fraser River so we can study and monitor the sediment dynamics and the stability of the Fraser River slope,” explained Richard Dewey, the chief scientist. Please see: Team to study noise, page 2