S TANDARD TERRACE
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VOL. 27 NO. 50
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Detox plan discussed By JOSH MASSEY
JOSH MASSEY PHOTO
■ Pumped up NATALIE WILSON pumps up her tire with the help of her mom Linda at the city’s new bike tire pump at George Little Park. The pump also has tools for changing a bike tire. For more, see story on Page A3.
THE CITY is taking a leadership role along with the Northern Health Authority to look at establishing a detox facility somewhere in Terrace. One potential location could involve a proposed homeless shelter on Lazelle Ave. should a contentious rezoning application be accepted by city council. Establishing a detox facility was one of 16 recommendations from a coroner’s inquest into the 2013 death of First Nations woman Alyssa George at the hospital after being found in medical distress in Terrace RCMP cells. Mayor Carol Leclerc said her death and the inquest recommendations released late last year shine a light on the substance addiction issues that have been a problem here for many years. “The detox centre keeps being pushed away as a priority because it’s a huge cost,” said Leclerc, recalling discussions dating back to her time as a city councillor prior to being elected as mayor. “Northern Health thought they had services they could provide that weren’t a full detox... With the unfortunate death of Alyssa George, it indicates that it really needs to be stepped up a bit.” The committee examining the detox recommendation is made up of senior city and Northern Health Authority officials and others, including the First Nations Health Authority. Also part of that discussion is the Ksan Housing Society, which wants the empty building and property at 4614 Lazelle Ave. – between the Canada Post building and Terrace Interiors – to be rezoned for institutional use. Executive director Amanda Bains says any detox service Ksan might be involved with would have to be established in collaboration with the Northern Health Authority as it is a medical service. A detox centre is not within the scope of social services provided by the society. If the necessary rezoning and renovations do happen, then a discussion around the feasibility of having detox beds at the Lazelle Ave. location could move forward, but Bains said that would have to be initiated by Northern Health. “Ksan would not initiate a detox centre,” said Bains. “If Northern Health came to us and said, ‘hey we need a place to put a few detox beds,’ we would accommodate them. But it would have to be initiated by Northern Health and staffed by them.”
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Oil refinery plan sent to regulators THE PROPONENT of a plan to spend $22 billion to construct an oil refinery north of Kitimat along with associated works has sketched out a scenario to obtain environmental and other approvals within three years. Speaking late last week, Kitimat Clean Ltd. president David Black
said he can start working on the finer details of the project now that a 129-page comprehensive description of the project has been filed with federal and provincial regulators. The filing on March 31 contains details on the refinery itself, which would be located on approximate-
ly 1,000 hectares of mostly Crown land 13 kilometres north of Kitimat, as well as on associated works such as rail spurs, a tank farm, a marine export terminal on the Douglas Channel near Kitimat, and on a 23-kilometre long corridor containing three pipelines to carry refined fuels from the refin-
ery to the terminal for tanker export overseas. The raw product, Alberta oil sands bitumen, would be brought by rail to the refinery and turned into diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and some low-sulphur diesel. Filing of the project description, which was produced by the firm of Hatch Ltd., now places in motion
a series of events including public comment periods, contract signings and permit applications and approvals, said Black. “Hatch really put its best people on this,” said Black of the project description document.
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30 years later
Shelter debate
Victory plays coy
Terrace Toastmasters celebrates anniversary year with speech contest \COMMUNITY A10
A petition is prepared opposing a new homeless shelter downtown \NEWS A13
River Kings place second at Terrace-hosted Coy Cup hockey tourney. \SPORTS A20