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Sentinel
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Northern
Years est. 1954
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 60 No. 09
Kiticorp responds to pastor’s words Cameron Orr Pastor Don Read, with the Kitimat Ministerial Association, spoke up on behalf of Kitimat’s vulnerable when he suggested that property developers in Kitimat for the most part lack a community conscience. But the owner of property management company Kiticorp says the accusations that included his company are unfounded. Pastor Read was reacting to an application by Kiticorp to renovate the exterior of their Viewpoint Apartments on Albatross Street. While the permit is needed just for outside renovations, he feels it will tie in to internal renovations, which is at the core of what some are dubbing “renovictions” — renovations which are leading to evictions. “My hope is as a community we would remember that the strength of our community lies, really, within our ability to care for the most vulnerable within our midst. And that’s really how you measure a healthy and strong community,” said Read. Kiticorp wasn’t spared from his plea to look out for those without a voice in the community. “The latest application by Kiticorp for a development permit on Albatross Street, to me, is an example of continuance of a corporate policy that actually puts profits above individual people,” he said. “When we have developers that have no clear social conscience or long-standing ties to our community, where our community becomes a place where they’re just in here to get exuberant financial gain, when developers like this are not held in check, when their unbridled greed becomes the basis for how decisions are made, and when we allow these corporations to treat longstanding members of community, in essence, with contempt, what we’re really doing is forfeiting our leadership.” But Kiticorp owner Eli Abergel takes exception to his company being portrayed in a negative light and said that there is absolutely no malice in decisions by the company. “When we started working in Kitimat we actually increased the rental pool dramatically. We increased the number of units that were available to be rented in Kitimat,” he said. He refers to the Kuldo Apartments where he said 40 per cent of their units were vacant and uninhabitable. “The reason for that is because rent, historically, has been so low in Kitimat that landlords have not been able to afford to maintain, never mind renovate, the suites,” he said. He adds that by summer there will be 47 more units renovated and available, all finished without evictions. Continued on page 8
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
1.30 INCLUDES TAX
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Roland Wright with Haisla Business Operations tries his hand at a welding simulator at the Northwest Community College booth at a Haisla career fair on February 19. That’s the college’s Keisha Reichert, trades coordinator, guiding Wright’s torch on the simulator.
Empowering students against bullying Cameron Orr The Kitimat Rotary Club teamed up to bring in the Red Cross to deliver an anti-bullying program to Mount Elizabeth Middle Secondary School. The program, part of the Red Cross’ Respect Ed program, makes students themselves the leaders of the program and trains them to present anti-bullying messages to younger grades. “I come in and train youth facilitators so I’m training them to deliver anti-bullying workshops in schools to other grades,” said the Red Cross’ Jesse Bowen, who came to Kitimat to get the program going locally. “All the workshops are highly interactive, get kids up and moving,” she said. Among the core lessons of the antibullying program are ways to create positive relationships to combat bullying behaviour.
“A digital record is permanent. You erase it... but it’s still out there.” “We start talking about healthy relationships and healthy schools and what that looks like,” she said. “We discuss the difference between bullying and harassment, ways to intervene, resources they can turn to.” The program also talks about the three parts to any bullying behaviour: The person who is doing the bullying, the victim, and the bystander to any incident. While this program has been run by the Red Cross since 1984, Bowen said bullying is an issue that is continually growing more prominent. “Bullying has become a bigger is-
sue over the last few years, for sure, particularly with the introduction of cyber bullying,” she said. “Bullying is a fairly serious problem in a lot of schools. Teen suicide as a result of bullying is way up.” Social media has meant bullying behaviour can follow kids home, and programs that are advertised as more private don’t even offer protection people might expect. Bowen refers to a program called SnapChat that is supposed to erase a message or photo shortly after receiving, but it’s not immune to screenshots, for example. “A digital record is permanent. You erase it, but you erase it from your phone...but it’s still out there,” she said. The effect of the proliferation of social media applications hasn’t gone unnoticed by the students themselves. Continued on page 11
PM477761
MLA responds to provincial budget ... page 3