BALLADEER FALLS SILENT
SUTTER FUND CHIEFS HUNGRY FOR TITLE
Percy Sledge, who soared to fame with ‘When a Man Loves a Woman,’ has died
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Red Deer Advocate WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2015
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Illegal suite nets fine LANDLORD FAILED TO ENSURE SMOKE ALARMS WERE INSTALLED PROPERLY BY CRYSTAL RHYNO ADVOCATE STAFF A Red Deer man who put the lives of his tenants at risk in his illegal secondary suite when a fire ripped through the basement has paid a fine of $9,200. The landlord entered a guilty plea under the Safety Codes Act in Red Deer provincial court on March 2. The maximum fine per offence under the Safety Codes Act is $100,000 and/or six months in jail. The fines have been increased in recent years from $15,000 per offence. He plead guilty to failure to en-
sure smoke alarms are installed by permanent connections to an electrical circuit. Four other charges involving not installing a fire alarm in a common area, keeping records of fire alarm cleaning and improper fire separations were dropped. He had until May 30 to pay the fine or he would serve 107 days in jail. With the proceedings wrapped up, Wes Van Bavel, fire prevention officer for Red Deer Emergency Services, said the city wants to remind secondary suite owners to comply with the regulations. Van Bavel said Emergency Services crews were called to a fire at a single family home where they discovered an illegal secondary suite in June 2014.
Van Bavel said the tenants were cooking in the basement suite, then left it unattended to go into the backyard. A fire broke out on the stove top while the tenants were outside. Another tenant, who worked the night shift, was wearing earphones while he slept upstairs. The downstairs tenants tried to wake up the upstairs tenant but they could not gain access to the top floor because the door was locked. “Thankfully we got there and put the fire out before it spread throughout the house and put the other tenant at risk,” said Van Bavel.
Please see FINE on Page A2
Crack addict guilty of possession
THURBER IDOL
FOUND NOT GUILTY ON TRAFFICKING CHARGE BY MURRAY CRAWFORD ADVOCATE STAFF
Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff
Kyle Gonzales plays base while Michael Levia and Riley Parker bang out the beats on snare drums as the trio performs on stage at the Memorial Centre during the annual Thurber Idol competition Tuesday night. Fourteen acts took to the stage during the event with the top performers taking home $500 for first place $250 for second and $100 in prize money for third. A peoples choice award was also to be given out as judged by audience members.
Knee, hip replacements hitting wait-time benchmarks BY SUSAN ZIELINSKI ADVOCATE STAFF Central Alberta is the best in Alberta for knee replacements when it comes to surgery wait times, and it’s also a pretty good place for those awaiting hip replacement. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), 87 per cent of knee replacements in Alberta Health Services Central Zone were within Canada’s 182-day wait-time benchmark. The CIHI report: Wait Times for Priority Procedures in Canada, 2015, released on Tuesday, was based on surgeries performed between April and September 2014. In Central Zone, 50 per cent of patients had surgery within 71 days and 90 per cent within 196 days. Among large urban areas, Edmonton Zone did 79 per cent of knee replacements within 182 days and Calgary Zone completed 64 per cent. Wait times for hip replacements were slightly better in Calgary Zone. Calgary performed 90 per cent of replacements within the 182-day benchmark, while Central Zone performed 89 per cent. In Central Zone, 50 per cent of patients had hip replacement surgery within 84 days and 90 per cent within 184 days.
WEATHER Sunny. High 11. Low -1.
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INDEX Four sections Alberta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A3 Business. . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-B3 Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A5,C3 Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . D1-D4 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C4 Entertainment . . . . . . . . C5,C6 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B4-B6
Knee and hip surgery is performed in Central Zone at both Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre and St. Mary’s Hospital in Camrose. CIHI has only started collecting regional data on hip and knee replacements and will be adding regional cataract surgery data next year. Tracy Johnson, CIHI manager of emerging issues, said as a province, Alberta did noticeably better on hip replacement wait times with 87 per cent of patients getting surgery within 182 days compared to the Canadian average of 83 per cent. With 81 per cent of knee replacements done within 182 days, Alberta also beat the Canadian average of 79 per cent. She said Alberta has been working to improve wait times since 2010 and has looked at standardizing patient booking, performing more surgery, and increasing the availability of surgeons. Data from six comparable countries within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show wait times in Canada for cataract surgery and hip and knee replacement were among the shortest, with Canada having the shortest wait time for cataract surgery.
Please see WAIT TIMES on Page A2
A Red Deer man may have been using copious amounts of crack when he was arrested, but he wasn’t dealing it, a judge ruled. Rodney Ross Arens, 37, was found guilty of possession of crack cocaine and obstruction. He pleaded guilty to impaired care and control of a vehicle and two breach charges one for a recognizance requiring the vehicle to have an interlock device and the other to abstain from drugs and alcohol. He was found not guilty of trafficking drugs and possession of property obtained by crime. Testifying Tuesday in Red Deer provincial court before judge John Holmes, Arens admitted to being in possession of the drugs and in the midst of a lengthy drug abuse spiral. He was found by police with about 25 grams of crack cocaine. “I figured I would have had that (crack) smoked before I bumped into any law enforcement,” he testified Tuesday. He said key elements of the Crown’s case proving trafficking were not his. Sylvan Lake RCMP found a digital scale, imitation firearm and $262, which the Crown alleged were signs of trafficking. However, no cellphone was found. Holmes said it was difficult to prove trafficking without a cellphone to arrange transactions or police observing transactions occurring. The fact Arens was found with several different bags of drugs, both powder and crack cocaine was representative of Arens being a heavy drug user, but not trafficking said Holmes. In the nine months he was out on bail Arens admitted to smoking three to four grams of crack every day at a bare minimum. When he was on binges he’d use half an ounce to an ounce and easily more. On benders he’d also use cocaine, MDMA, mushrooms, speed and would consume alcohol the whole time. Arens was arrested at 9 a.m. on Dec. 21, 2013 in a Fas Gas parking lot in Sylvan Lake. At the time he was asleep in a truck that belonged to Rhonda Harvie and Jimmy Murray. Murray worked for Arens. At the time Arens was staying with the couple in Sylvan Lake while he was working a framing job in the area. Police found Arens asleep in a truck. When they awoke him, Arens tried to swallow a small bag of drugs. At the time he was on bail conditions to abstain from drugs and alcohol. He was granted release from custody ahead of his trial in the Canada Day 2010 drunk driving crash that killed Jeffrey Chanminaraj, 13, and injured siblings Jamie and Stephanie. He was convicted of impaired driving causing death and bodily harm and reckless driving causing bodily harm on June 16, 2014. He was sentenced to five years in jail.
Please see ARENS on Page A2
Top court strikes down part of Tory crime agenda The Supreme Court of Canada dealt the Conservative government’s tough-on-crime agenda a serious blow on Tuesday. Story on PAGE A5
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