THURSDAYJANUARY 21, 2016
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MEET NANOOSE BAY’S NEW CHIEF
Bard to Broadway looking for actors for its 17th season
Thursday Spotlight shines on Snaw-naw-as First Nation Chief Brent Edwards
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ENGLISHMAN RIVER ESTUARY
Geese to be killed City council sets aside $100K for goose cull JOHN HARDING editor@pqbnews.com
The City of Parksville will spend almost $50,000 this year killing geese in the Englishman River estuary. City council voted in favour of the expenditure at a meeting Monday night, a figure that could rise to more than $100,000 over the next few years. “I’ve been fed up now for 12 years; let’s get rid of them,” said Mayor Marc Lefebvre. Council approved an expenditure of $35,000 this year and the city will continue with an eggaddling program, which was approved previously with $13,000 of funding. The $35,000 provided Monday could be repeated for both 2017 and 2018. The city will ask the Regional District of Nanaimo to fund one-third of the program. “In order to get ahead of the geese, we have to proceed with something drastic, which is a cull, over the next three years,” said the city’s chief administrative officer, Debbie Comis. So-called humane cull procedures are set by the provincial veterinarian. “That does’t mean it’s pretty,” said Comis. In June of last year, council adopted in principle the 38 recommendations in a goose management strategy prepared by a group called the Guardians of Mid-island Estuaries Society. On Monday, council put the city’s name behind cull applications from the Guardians to the provincial and federal governments. The vote Monday night was not unanimous. Coun. Al Greir doesn’t seem convinced the Guardians — who will essentially use the city’s money to hire a contractor to kill the geese— are the right people to do the job. See CAN THEY BE USED FOR FOOD?, page A23
J.R. RARDON PHOTO
GAME OF THRONES: Alan McEwen of the Bishops of Bowser chess club follows the action as opponent Philip Boyle makes a move during the club's weekly gathering at Henry's Kitchen in Qualicum Bay. The club meets every Saturday at noon at Henry’s and new members are welcome.
CHURCH GROUP SPONSORING AFRICANS
More refugees headed here AUREN RUVINSKY writer@pqbnews.com
A third group is hoping to bring refugees to the Parksville Qualicum Beach area this winter, but not from Syria. “Given all the media in the last year, it would be impossible not to be aware of the dire needs of the refugees and their desperate drive to achieve a safe and more permanent place to live,” starts an e-mail from Ed and Lilian Mayne. Lilian explained that they started looking into sponsoring refugees in the
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fall as the Syrian refugee crisis hit the news and then “We unexpectedly found ourselves with a vacancy in our rental properties in about mid-November.” They had already been referred to the Mennonite Central Committee by Immigration Canada when their apartment became available “and we realized this was a great opportunity to do this,” she said of their plan to donate the accommodation. As the lead sponsors, the couple teamed up with the Qualicum Com-
munity Baptist Church, which she said had already considered it “but they are quite limited in resources, so they weren’t sure it was viable.” As they researched, she said they became concerned about a language barrier. “We are not a very diverse community. My concern was if we got refugees that spoke minimal or no English, how would we teach them English if we can’t find a tutor that speaks their language?” See SHOCKED, page A7
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