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Friday, December 12, 2014
Cowichan escapes worst of the storm
Frustrated MP hated her early days in Ottawa
Relatively minor issues here: Wind and rain batters north island
The interview: Longtime Cowichan MP Jean Crowder opens up about her life on Parliament Hill in a wide-ranging interview with Station magazine
John McKinley
John McKinley
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News Leader Pictorial
News Leader Pictorial
ancouver Island was battered early this week with wind and rain. But Cowichan seems to have escaped the worst of it. While flooding evacuated people from an RV park in Parksville and the Comox Valley declared a state of emergency, the Cowichan Valley appears wary, but relatively unscathed. “We’re wet, but we’re doing OK and we’re holding our own,” Cowichan Valley Regional District public safety manager Conrad Cowan said Wednesday morning. Cowan has been monitoring the situation closely as Environment Canada issued high wind and rainfall warnings early Monday, for a series of storm fronts that were expected to roll through the area in waves before disappating Thursday. The situation was exacerbated by exceptionally high “king” tides. Cowichan Bay Road was closed due to flooding, and Cowan said officials were keeping a close eye on Polkey and Tzouhalem Roads as well. But, as of Wednesday morning, no flooded homes had been reported. Cowan said between 25 and 100 millimetres of rain had fallen in various parts of Cowichan by Tuesday morning, while an Andrew Leong additional 40 to 70 mm was posSarah Dragicevich and her sister Haley light up a bulb in remembrance of their grand-dad Peter Dragicevich who passed away in September. sible by Thursday morning. more on page 9 They were among those taking part om the annual Cowichan District Hospital Remember a Love One Christmas Tree Light-up Dec. 3.
ean Crowder hated life on Parliament Hill so much in the early days it took all she had to stick with the job. The culture of adversarial, maledominated politicking, and the lack of a supportive community was so contrary to what she was comfortable with, she spent six months questioning why she had taken on the role. The long-time local MP reveals this and much more in a wide-ranging interview with Maeve Maguire published this week in the News Leader Pictorial’s Station Jean Crowder: in Station magazine. One anecdote typified for her how women were regarded in Canada’s highest corridors of power. “When I broke my leg, there’s an outside entrance door, and you hit the handicap thing and it opens the door. Except it opens the men’s door. But there was no handicap access to the women’s bathroom door,” she said “I couldn’t get in the bathroom! How come the men’s door has handicap access and the women’s doesn’t?” Among the article’s other highlights, Crowder speaks to the party system, her relationship with popular NDP leader Jack Layton and to the pressure on MPs to be working seven days a week, 365 days a year. MP since 2004, Crowder is retiring when her term expires next October after serving four terms as the Member of Parliament for Nanaimo-Cowichan. She says her primary goal is to spend more time at home and with her family. A limited-run quarterly publication, Station is available alongside select issues of Friday’s News Leader Pictorial and a wide variety of stores throughout Cowichan.
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