FRIDAY OCTOBER 23, 2015 VOL. 42, NO. 39
$1
including GST
Watch for more online at: WWW.BOWENISLANDUNDERCURRENT.COM
Fall Gardening
What to do in a fall garden after a hot dry summer
Sights and Sounds
Rodent Rage
Forum focuses on the future of Howe Sound
Fighting back against Rats
Bowen students vote-in Liberals, with Greens in tight second LOUISE LOIK EDITOR
While Islanders voted in the school gym for the federal election, upstairs at Bowen Island Community School, 135 students voted in a parallel polling station. Around 850,000 students across the country also cast ballots in their ridings. According to Sudent Vote.ca, results of the BICS poll Liberals got 39% of the votes, the Green Party 38% of the votes, NDP got 8%, and Conservatives came in with 4%. Marijuana, captured 9.6%. Other parties got 11%. According CIVIX, the organization, who with Elections Canada organized Student Vote. 2015 in BC, “164,019 participating students elected 29 Liberal, 7 NDP, 3 Conservative and 3 Green candidates.” An elementary school in Caufeild, West Vancouver, had the Liberals at 39, the same as Bowen, 30 per cent of Caufield, kids voted Conservative leaving 17 per cent to NDP and 11 percent backed the Green Party. Other took 3%. The game changed a bit at another Caulfeild school. At Rockridge Secondary School where many of Bowen’s kids attend school, the Liberal party won with 45% of the votes, the Conservatives held second place at 21% and Green got 13% of the vote. 11% voted for Other.
Jim and Michelle Gibson, owners of Par-T-Perfect enjoy a moment to goof around with their new line, Par-T-pets.
Bowen-based Franchise wins Gold Award of Excellence LOUISE LOIK EDITOR
Jim Gibson is wearing shiny black plastic pants adorned with a devilish tail s Michelle is wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. They’ve got a bunch of little stuffed animals and are having fun goofing around with Halloween props. Setting up a photo shoot with Jim and Michelle Gibson, you have to know that their take on “business casual” is very different for them than for most of us. Jim and Michelle are in the business of fun. As owners of ParT-Perfect Party Planners Inc. the Gibson’s work really is all fun and
games. Par-T-Perfect is a fullservice party planning and staging company with franchises across Canada. Michelle started party planning in ’88 with little more than enthusiasm and ideas but almost nothing in the way of party supplies. “Until someone booked it, I didn’t own it. I’d get a booking and then I’d run off to the store and get the supplies. Gibson decided she wanted to take party staging to the next level so she ordered a Bouncy Castle from England. “I had one of the first Bouncy Castles in North America. I’d pitch the idea to people but they had no idea what I was talking about.” Michelle’s Bouncy Castle arrived
from England around the same time as her bouncing baby boy. Unstoppable, Michelle kept looking for orders. She says the “first time I set it up in a mall, a kid jumped onto it from the floor above and we didn’t have insurance.” She laughs about it now. “You fly by the seat of your pants at first and then you evolve.” Little did she know that 28-years later, the business would take flight and win Canada’s top award of Excellence for an Established non-Traditional Franchise. Jim is justifiably proud of the achievement, which follows on a Bronze win last year.
continued PAGE 9
You need to. It’s the choice of your leader and if you don’t vote then afterwards if you don’t like what happens, you can’t complain. At BICS the kids have been learning about the election process since the start of the school year. They discussed their questions and concerns like whether or not the Green Party was pidgeon-holed as little more than a group for environmental advocacy with little attention being paid to their economic policies. They also had the opportunity to talk to people working at the polling stations and observe the process in the gym. One student, Sophie, said she asked a polling clerk about why it’s important to vote. She took his response to heart. She recalls that he told her “You need to. It’s the choice of your leader and if you don’t vote then afterwards if you don’t like what happens, you can’t complain.” The kids looked at the demographics of voters and discovered that the highest turnout was amongst some of the oldest voters. One girl, Eliane, didn’t think it made sense “for 75-year-olds to make the decision” on our next leader. For greater age representation she felt “it’s important to vote.” Ewan said that he thought “the environment” is a very important issue for this election, saying that our survival depends on how we take care of the environment. The BICS election activities was part of a national endevour on the part of Elections Canada and CIVIX, a civic education organization young Canadians. Parallel elections ran in elementary, high schools and universities. When Andrea Layzell teacher at BICS asked her students to describe their experience in their mini-election, overwhelmingly the kids responded with one word. “Fun.”
SATURDAY OCTOBER 31ST 9:00PM - 1:00AM
20 TICKETS
$
IN ADVANCE
DRESS TO IMPRESS
NO TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR!!
BEST MALE | BEST FEMALE | BEST GROUP
PRIZES FOR BEST
COSTUME
LIVE MUSIC BY “BLACK MOLLY”