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Kodiaks Claw to Top of Division
Province okays transit tax referendum question By JEFF NAGEL Aldergrove Star
KURT LANGMANN PHOTO
Aldergrove Kodiaks and North Vancouver Wolf Pack scramble for the puck in the first period, Dec. 13. The Kodiaks took a 4-1 win that night to take the top spot in their division. Story, page 9.
Farmers think migratory birds spreading avian influenza By TYLER OLSEN Aldergrove Star
While the source of the avian influenza virus that has infected several local farms still hasn’t been confirmed, local farmers believe wild birds are the most likely culprit, according to the president of the BC Chicken Growers’ Association (BCCGA). Last Monday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced that an egg-laying operation in
Langley had become the 10th farm to be affected by the outbreak of the “highly pathogenic” H5N2 virus. A total of 233,800 birds have now either died from the outbreak, or been ordered euthanized. On Tuesday, officials in Washington State said avian influenza had been found in a pintail duck and a gyrfalcon in Whatcom county, which borders Canada. BCCGA president Ravi Bathe, who runs a 90,000-bird
broiler chicken operation in Abbotsford, said, “The farmers are doing everything they can and sometimes it’s out of their control,” he said. “This is coming through the migratory bird population, we think, and what are you going to do? ... we need ventilation, we need air to get in the barns.” In a report to the World Organization for Animal Health, the CFIA wrote: “the H5N2 virus detected in B.C. contains five of eight gene seg-
ments from highly pathogenic Eurasian H5N8 virus including the H5 gene and three of eight segments from typical North American viruses including the N2 gene (wild bird origin).” Earlier in the week, in an email to Black Press, the CFIA said that the specific strain currently affecting Abbotsford farms has not been detected in wild birds in Canada, although surveillance and testing continues.
The extra half of a per cent sales tax for transit expansion going to a regional referendum in the spring will be called a “Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax.” The province has released the question and approved the referendum, which will be officially called the Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite. In a letter to the Metro mayors council, Transportation Minister Todd Stone said the new tax would apply to “the majority of goods and services that are subject to the PST and are sold or delivered within the region.” Metro mayors had proposed a 0.5 per cent increase to the PST, taking it up to 7.5 per cent in the region, to generate an extra $250 million to help fund $7.5 billion in upgrades over 10 years. Metro Vancouver board chair Greg Moore said making it a separate tax may still amount to the same thing for most residents, but he noted it does provide scope for the province to allow different exemptions, potentially for large purchases like cars. Last week, car dealers raised concern they may lose business to competitors in the Fraser Valley if vehicle buyers face an extra 0.5 per cent tax within Metro. “I think they’re still analyzing whether there are any
exemptions beyond the PST ones today and what those would be,” Moore said. He noted treating the tax as a separate line item will be easier for businesses. Minor refinements to the proposed ballot were done with input from Elections BC “to meet their ballot fairness requirements,” Stone’s letter said. One change moves the promise of annual audits and independent reporting on how the tax money is spent out of the question and into the preamble. The wording of the provincially approved ballot is also less specific about the promised projects. Where the mayors’ ballot pledged to build “light rail transit” from Surrey City Centre to Newton, Guildford and Langley, the province’s now states “rapid transit.” Likewise, the final ballot simply says “build rapid transit along Broadway in Vancouver” rather than the mayors’ version to “extend the Millennium Line tunneled along Broadway.” Those changes may raise questions as to whether the province might go against Surrey’s insistence on light rail rather than SkyTrain or Vancouver’s preference for a more costly tunneled line, rather than cut-and-cover construction on Broadway as with the Canada Line on Cambie Street.
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