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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK THURSDAY
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NOVEMBER 5, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 133
PM Trudeau sworn in
Massive interest in PAC More than 3,600 Kamloopsians have now cast votes for or against the city’s proposed performing-arts centre. On the second day of advanced voting on Monday, another 2,080 people voted on whether the city should borrow up to $49 million for the arts centre and underground parkade the city wants to build at Seymour Street and Fourth Avenue. General voting day is this Saturday, Nov. 7 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Residents can vote at the following elementary schools: Lloyd George, Aberdeen, South Sa-Hali, Dufferin, Beattie, Dallas, R. L. Clemitson, Rayleigh, Arthur Hatton, Parkcrest, Westmount and Arthur Stevenson. Residents can also vote at the following secondary schools: Valleyview and NorKam. Votes can also be cast at Heritage House in Riverside Park. In addition, there will be a polling place in Sahali Mall from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, and voter identification requirements, go online to kamloops.ca/ referendum.
JOAN BRYDEN
THE CANADIAN PRESS
DAVE EAGLES/KTW FILE PHOTO
Twenty-three-year-old Archie LePretre is tended to after being attacked on March 22, 2011, while playing basketball with his cousin in the playground at Stuart Wood elementary. LePretre died later in hospital.
GUILTY PLEAS IN 2011 MURDER
TIM PETRUK
STAFF REPORTER
tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
Two men have pleaded guilty to reduced charges in relation to a gang-related 2011 murder in a downtown Kamloops schoolyard. Travis Johnny and Anthony Scotchman entered guilty pleas in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday. Both had been charged with one count each of first-degree murder and commission of an offence for a criminal orga-
Travis Johnny (left) has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and Anthony Scotchman has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
nization — alleged to be the Redd Alert street gang — stemming from the March 22, 2011, slaying of Archie Lepretre. In exchange for the guilty pleas, the Crown dropped the
criminal-organization charges. Johnny, 26, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, which carries an automatic sentence of life in prison, while Scotchman, 28, admitted to manslaughter. Lepretre, 23, was playing basketball in the Stuart Wood elementary schoolyard with his cousin when he was attacked by three masked assailants wielding knives and a baseball bat, police said at the time.
OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau has launched a new Liberal era with a 30-member cabinet that features predominantly fresh faces, an equal number of men and women and probably the most diverse lineup of ministers in Canadian history. The newly minted prime minister emerged yesterday from the formal swearing-in ceremony boasting that he has put together a cabinet “that looks like Canada.’’ Fully 18 of the newly minted ministers are rookies who won election for the first time on Oct. 19, including the all-important finance minister, millionaire Toronto businessman Bill Morneau. The cabinet includes two aboriginal ministers, two disabled ministers, one openly gay minister, a refugee from Afghanistan and four Sikhs — one of whom was once wrongly accused of terrorism, tortured and detained without trial for almost two years in India. From the moment Trudeau and his team arrived by bus at Rideau Hall and walked together up the long, tree-lined driveway to the Governor General’s mansion, the swearing-in event was designed to convey openness, optimism and inclusion — a stark contrast to nearly a decade of what the Liberals call the one-man, secretive rule and politics of division of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Even the weather seemed to co-operate, the brilliant, warm autumn day underscoring Trudeau’s vaunted “sunny ways’’ approach to politics. “We’re a government that wants to earn Canadians’ trust by demonstrating that we trust Canadians,’’ Trudeau said. “Openness and transparency’’ will be a hallmark of his government, he insisted, with the media allowed to hold government to account, MPs empowered to be powerful voices for their communities and public policy based on evidence, not partisanship.
See POLICE, A2
See TRUDEAU, A29
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