MONDAY JULY 14, 2014
BRITISH SOCCER CAMP
PASSION FOR FOOTBALL
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PREMIER’S VISIT
ENERGY SAVINGS ANNOUNCED
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THE BULLETIN PROUDLY SERVING KIMBERLEY AND AREA SINCE 1932 | Vol. 82, Issue 232 | www.dailybulletin.ca
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Premier visits Kimberley C AROLYN GR ANT Bulletin Editor
Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar.
MIKE-OLSON PHOTO
Expect it loud Wide Mouth Mason and Big Sugar hit the Civic Centre stage Saturday BARRY COULTER Townsman Editor
The East Kootenay’s rock event of the summer is taking place this weekend approaching, as two top Canadian rock bands — Wide Mouth Mason and Big Sugar — take the stage Saturday, July 19, at the Kimberley Civic Centre as part of
JulyFest celebrations. Expect it loud. Expect to be transported. Big Sugar, formed by singer, guitar player and producer Gordie Johnson in the late 1980s, are renowned for their heavy blues-rockreggae stylings, Johnson’s mindbending guitar work, and high volume, marathon concerts. Wide Mouth Mason draws its style from electric blues, and was last featured in the area opening for ZZ Top in Cranbrook in 2010. See CONCERT, page 4
Premier Christy Clark made a whirlwind tour of the East Kootenay late last week, visiting Fernie, Cranbrook on Thursday and Kimberley on Friday. Clark was met by teachers with picket signs in Cranbrook on Thursday, but when asked about the ongoing labour dispute with teachers, she said emphatically that there will be no back to work legislation this time. “I don’t foresee back to work legislation,” she told the Bulletin. “We’ve had 20 years of dysfunction. It’s time we reached an agreement through bargaining. Our negotiators are waiting every day. We are not taking the summer off. There is $1.2 billion on the table and we’re flexible about how we spend it. A billion two is a lot of money.” Travelling with the Premier, Minister of Energy and Mines and Kootenay East MLA Bill Bennett added that the B.C. Teachers’ Federation needed to understand that was all the money available and come to the table with a wage demand in line with what other public sector unions have settled on. During the roundtable, there was a wide-ranging discussion on all sorts of issues affecting small business. One issue that came under discussion was the recent announcement that temporary foreign workers are no longer eligible for employment in the Kootenays as the cap is an unemployment rate of six per
CAROLYN GRANT PHOTO
Premier Christy Clark speaks to the media after a business roundtable at Chateau Kimberley Friday. cent. The rate in the Kootenays is 7.2. Representatives of the ski resort business in attendance said that province-wide, 500 positions are filled by temporary workers. “I have 30 positions at Panorama that I can’t fill,” said one. Clark said B.C. was “the victim of the federal government right now.” She said Shirley Bond, Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training will be meeting with federal Minister Jason Kenney on this. “Shirley Bond may be the only person Jason Kenney is scared of,” Clark said. Joking aside, Clark said the western provinces are all against the cap and will be lobbying the federal government together to make the point. “We are very con-
cerned about this. We see it writ large with the natural gas investment. Even if every available worker in B.C. were trained, we still wouldn’t have enough workers. We have to put politics aside for the sake of the economy,” she said. “It’s not good public policy. Also in attendance with the Premier was Doug Clovechok, the BC Liberal candidate for the Columbia River Revelstoke riding in the next provincial election. Minister Bennett made a few closing remarks and didn’t hide that he was making a political statement. “It matters who is in government,” Bennett said. “The NDP is bad for business. They are not bad people, but they are naive about how the economy works. I’m here today in Columbia River
Revelstoke because of Doug Clovechok. You need to elect Doug Clovechok in the next election for your own self-preservation.” Bennett went on to say that he tries to assist Kimberley as much as he could even though it isn’t his riding, but he wasn’t always going to be around. He said he was likely to run in the next election but hadn’t yet made his mind up entirely. “I am Kimberley’s MLA,” Bennett said. “What will you do when I am not around?” Bennett made an appeal for financial and volunteer support in this riding in the next election. “It’s to your own benefit to have a free enterprise MLA like Doug Clovechok.,” Bennett said.
Caldwell Agencies
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