40TH ANNUAL
Double whammy
RED DEER RV EXPOSITION & SALE
Rebels lose to Americans and also lose netminder Toth to injury
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FEB. 12-21, 2016 WESTERNER PARK, RED DEER Sunday-Thursday 10-6 • Friday-Saturday 10-8
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SPORTS — PAGE B4
Red Deer Advocate TUESDAY, FEB. 16, 2016
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Making a difference RCMP OFFICER SEEING BIG STRIDES IN THIRD YEAR OF MENTORSHIP PROGRAM BY CRYSTAL RHYNO ADVOCATE STAFF One student caught Red Deer RCMP Const. Derek Turner’s attention. Three years ago Turner, who works in Community Policing, was dealing with some students who threatened another over Social Media at a local high school. “This was the first time he got into trouble,” remembered Turner, who works in schools. “His mother said this past year he just wasn’t himself. He was angry.” Turner knew there had to be consequences for the student instead of going the court system route. He saw an opportunity. “I felt I could give him an opportunity to turn things around and do something positive for someone else,” said Turner. “To lift another kid up and build him up.” Turner connected the high school student with a student in middle school who showed signs of heading down a bad path as part of a new peer mentoring program. Now in its third year, the program matches high school with middle school students. The students spend about an hour together each week talking, playing games or just hanging out. Turner said it is making a difference in the lives of the students. Currently there are four mentors working with students at Eastview
Middle School. “Every kid is different and has different needs,” said Turner. “I don’t want to overwhelm the high school kid with a kid with lot of behaviour problems and that sort of thing. Those kids have lots of other supports. It is some of the kids that might be a little piece or a role model.” Alyeah Plante, 13, a Grade 8 student at Eastview Middle School said having a mentor takes off the pressure of school. “I have a long week and I finally get to talk to someone,” she said. “If I have a test she can give me some tips. “It’s easier to talk to someone who is a little bit older than me.” Her mentor Payton Watts, a Hunting Hills Grade 12 student, said mentoring has helped with her communication skills, something she will need when she gets into social work. “I love helping people out and being someone’s person,” said Watts. Mentor Donté Nowell, a Grade 12 student at Hunting Hills, admits he wasn’t the greatest student in middle school. He mentors a student at Eastview Middle School once a week for 45 minutes. He said it is a great program for both the mentor and the middle school student. “I spent some time in the office,” he laughed. “I definitely cleaned up in high school … I want to be a police officer so I couldn’t get into the wrong crowd.” crhyno@reddeeradvocate.com
Photo by Crystal Rhyno/Advocate staff
Payton Watts, a Grade 12 Hunting Hills student, sits with Alyeah Plante, a grade 8 student at Eastview Middle School. The two meet weekly as part of the RCMP Peer Youth Mentorship program.
Local brothers taking rivalry to television show SOK BROTHERS CHOSEN FOR NEW SEASON OF CHOPPED CANADA BY CRYSTAL RHYNO ADVOCATE STAFF It’s no secret that great chefs run in the Sok family. Food lovers have been flocking to the Sok family-owned Blue Dragon Restaurant and Sophear Bar and Restaurant in Red Deer, and Bamboo Hut in Sylvan Lake to taste the culinary delights whipped up by Peter, Sue, Dany or Pon for several years. And a real life sibling rivalry will play out on television for the whole world to see when Peter, 36, and Dany, 30, compete on the Food Network’s Chopped Canada on March 26. The brothers will put their kitchen skills to the test in an episode called Bro-Down Showdown with two other chefs. The brothers applied individually without telling one another. When the family found out they both had applied, it brought up a little friendly competition. The odds were low that they would be both picked, said Dany. Pete, on the other hand, was much more worried that his younger and less experienced brother would make the cut instead of him. The 36-year-old owner of Sophear has a chef de cuisine diploma from Le Cordon Bleu Ottawa. Dany operates Bamboo Hut. “What if Dany gets in and I don’t,” laughed Pete. “I am such a failure if Dany get’s in. That’s actually how I felt. Because after our video interview, Dany calls about an email. I was like, “what email?” I didn’t get the email.”
WEATHER Partly cloudy, High 5
Toll of missing and murdered indigenous women higher than thought: minister BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
Photo by Crystal Rhyno/Advocate staff
Siblings Dany, 30, and Pete, 36, Sok compete against eachother and another set of brothers in Chopped Canada airing on March 26 on the Food Network. The good news was actually in Pete’s junk mail. The brothers taped the show in the summer. They are not allowed to release any information on the outcome. It was only recently that they were permitted to let people know they were in the competition. Pete, who has loved cooking all his life, said taping the show was a wonderful experience. He said the Red Deer community has been very supportive. “We don’t even get to see any of
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the footage,” said Dany. “We are really excited.” “I just enjoy cooking for people,” said Dany, who is mostly a self-taught chef. “I get to see the customers come in the door. I get to see them walk out the door while I am cooking. When they leave, the majority of the time they are happy because they got their fix. That’s what I enjoy about it.” The episode airs on the Food Network at 7 p.m. on March 26. crhyno@reddeeradvocate.com
OTTAWA — The number of missing and murdered indigenous women across the country is “way bigger” than 1,200, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett said Monday. Her comments came as the government marked the end of a consultation process with the families of victims as it prepares to establish a public inquiry into these losses. The real breadth and depth of the tragedy is greater than was thought, Bennett said at a downtown Ottawa hotel as families met behind closed doors. “It is bigger than 1,200,” she said. “Way bigger than 1,200.” The minister’s comments suggest that an RCMP report in 2014, which put the tally at 1,181 murdered and missing women between 1980 and 2012, did not paint a complete picture of the magnitude of the problem. The force added another 32 deaths and 11 disappearances in a 2015 update. Bennett, who has been travelling the country to talk to grieving loved ones, hopes the government will be able to develop the inquiry’s mandate by summer. A key step in this process will involve naming a commissioner or commissioners to lead the examination, which is intended to be arm’s length from government once it is up and running. The inquiry leadership will have to consider a number of questions, including whether cold cases need to be revisited, Bennett noted. “That will be the job of the commissioners — to sort out what they feel they can do about these,” she said. The process also needs to consider the survivors, she added. “When we talk about families, we haven’t been focused on the people who know it could have been them, it was almost them, people who ran away from the (Robert) Pickton farm, people who woke up after being strangled,” she said.
Please see MISSING on Page A2
Slain officer remembered as a stand up guy Friends and family remember young Quebec constable killed in line of duty while responding to domestic disturbance call. Story on page A3
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