Round robin Win keeps Nanaimo Clippers in BCHL competition.
PAGE 31
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015
Island Health urges ban on e-cigarettes
Amendments hide lack of school funding BY KARL YU THE NEWS BULLETIN
Steve Rae, Nanaimo school board chairman, says proposed changes to B.C.’s School Act are a smokescreen for the underfunding of education. According to the Ministry of Education, proposals in Bill 11, the Education Statutes Amendment Act, include one that would give boards “clear authority to enter into shared service or alternative service delivery agreements with other boards or public sector entities.” Education Minister Peter Fassbender would also be afforded the power to instruct boards to take part in “specific service delivery arrangements.” The school district is facing a $4.5-million shortfall and has written the ministry asking it to address funding concerns. Rae said he isn’t against sharing services, but ultimately, more dollars are needed from the provincial government. “I’m all for consolidating services if it makes sense, but to me all they’re is doing is trying to take everybody’s eyes off the ball,” Rae said. “The fact is the provincial government continues to underfund education.” See ‘MINISTRY’ /7
VOL. 26, NO. 93
I
CITY ASKED to add devices to smoking bylaw.
BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
GREG SAKAKI/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Slam dunk
Snuneymuxw Native Sons coaches Paul Wyse-Seward, left, and Charles Gladstone cut the net down Thursday at the Vancouver Island University gym after the basketball team’s championship victory at the Junior All-Native Tournament. For full coverage, please see page 31. For a slideshow of photos from the finals, please visit www.nanaimobulletin.com/sports.
If smoking is banned from civic spaces, so should vaping, according to Island Health, which has asked Nanaimo politicians to consider changes to its smoking ban bylaw. Smokers have been banned from lighting up in city-managed recreational spaces like plazas and beaches since 2011, but there are no rules against puffing on e-cigarettes. Island Health now wants the city to consider covering electronic delivery systems under its smoking ban bylaw, with the aim to have tobacco and vapour products treated equally. Regulatory changes to the Tobacco Control Act introduced by the B.C. government include ensuring retailers are not selling to minors and banning the use on public and private school grounds, indoor public spaces and workplaces. Dr. Paul Hasselback, medical health officer for Island Health, says there are things the leg-
islation doesn’t include, from e-cigarette use at bus stops to parks and playgrounds. He’d like the city to consider a bylaw update which includes the addition of electronic devices, arguing that while the devices aren’t as bad as tobacco, they are an issue when it comes to demonstrating appropriate public behaviors to youth and are a gateway device into the use of other tobacco products, he said, adding that treating them the same “makes sense.” He anticipates the health authority could make a formal request in the next year or two. But Nanaimo resident Sarah Dickinson and Rob Gemmell, a senior salesman with Vapour Solutions in Langford, say the products are not the same and shouldn’t be treated as such. “I sit in restaurants all the time with friends who aren’t even aware I am vaping at the table with them because there’s so little vapour coming out of my mouth,” said Dickinson, who believes the products are unlike cigarettes in every way except that they deliver nicotine. “But so does the patch and so does nicotine gum.” See ‘CITY’ /4
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