TUESDAY April 1, 2014 Vol. 29• No. 26 ••• $1.25 inc. G.S.T.
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The Nanaimo Musicians’ Association Big Band thunders into the Avalanche Bar this Thursday. page 7
Don Sharpe has been named B.C. assistant chef de mission at the 2015 Western Canada Summer Games. page 9
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Record third in the country
Mark Allan
Record Staff
The Comox Valley Record typically receives a blue ribbon each year from the Canadian Community Newspaper Association. Not this year. Instead of a blue ribbon, essentially an honourable mention, the Record finished third in general excellence. The CCNA announced last week that the St. Albert Gazette in Alberta finished first in our national circulation category. The Observer in Elmira-Woolrich in Ontario placed second. Of 120 total points that can be awarded by a judge, as many as 85 points can be given for a range of news coverage and editorial design, quality of writing, photography, front page and editorial page. Newspapers are also judged on typography and design, print quality, ad design and copy editing, and ad layout and effective use of colour. Awards will be presented May 29 in Charlottetown, PEI.
••• Former Record publisher Grant Lawrence will receive the prestigious BC Housing Eric Dunning Award for Dedication and Service to the Community Newspaper Industry on April 26. The Comox Valley Record is also a finalist in three other Ma Murray provincial newspaper award categories. • Erin Haluschak is one of three people in the running for the TD Feature Photo Award in our circulation class for an aerial picture publicizing the 2013 Comox Air Show. • The Record has a chance to receive a Special Publications Award for the winter issue of Trio magazine. • The Record is a finalist for the Safeway Ma Murray Community Service Award for work to publicize the Boys and Girls Clubs’ Christmas Village. Ma Murray Awards are presented annually at the River Rock Casino in Richmond by the B.C. and Yukon Community Newspaper Association.
Autism day on April 2 Scott Stanfield Record Staff
City Hall in Courtenay and Comox, along with numerous Valley business-
es, will Light It Up Blue this Wednesday to support World Autism Awareness Day. Each April 2, Autism Speaks kicks off a month... see CAMPAIGN ■ 2
WILL THIS 1988 blockade at Strathcona Provincial Park be repeated in 2014?
Reaction swift to parks changes Renee Andor Record Staff
Changes to B.C.’s Park Act remind Marlene Smith of the months spent defending Strathcona Provincial Park from exploratory mine drilling during the Strathcona Blockade of 1988. Smith is a founding member of Friends of Strathcona Park, (FOSP), which was developed in response to changes the government-of-the-day made — paving the way for industrial activity to occur in the park — about a year before the blockade started. According to the FOSP website, government created an industrial corridor through the centre of Strathcona Park, and adjusted boundaries to remove certain areas from the park. The public expressed concern via letters, telephone calls and meetings, but when Cream Silver Mines started moving drilling equipment into the
Cream Lake area of the park, the blockade began. The 63-year-old Smith clearly remembers the three-month blockade, which was in the midst of winter and included 64 arrests — and which pressured government to develop safeguards to ensure the park was protected. “Strathcona Park was safe for 25 years but now it is no longer,” says Smith. “The protection that we had before Monday (Feb. 24) that would safeguard Strathcona Park, and our other provincial parks, from industrial development within the boundaries of the park, that safeguard has dropped. “It is now wide open again to potential mining, logging, run-of-the-river projects, road building, you name it.” Bill 4, the Park Amendment Act, was passed last week. It allows ‘research’ to include feasibility stud-
ies for a range of industrial activities, such as pipelines, transmission lines, roads or highways, or “a prescribed project or a project in a prescribed class of projects.” The bill also allows the minister to grant a park use permit if the research is “necessary to inform decision making around changing the boundaries,” according to a news release from FOSP. Smith continues: “The primary concern is parks on the Lower Mainland and on the mainland that might be dissected and be destroyed, or parts of them destroyed, to allow pipeline building, road-building, logging roads or other roads, and the long-term concern is that it would open areas like Strathcona Park again for future claim staking and mine development.” Comox Valley Naturalists Society president Loys Maingon, who is also ... see PARKS ■ 2
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