Tuesday, March 8, 2011 A trio of veteran Ramblers prepares to bid adieu after five years of playing MRSS basketball.
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ary Annivers 1985-2010
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Customer service
Flying the coop A store in the Haney Place Mall has gone to the birds – in a good way. by Troy Landreville
tlandreville@mrtimes.com
WWW.MRTIMES.COM
Visit the Haney Marketplace & Antique Mall and you’ll hear the unmistakable sounds of chirping, tweeting, and squawking emanating from the back of the store. For years, the store (soon to be replaced by Thrifty Foods) attached to Haney Place Mall has become a refuge for orphaned and unwanted birds including zebra finches, canaries, budgies, cockatiels, ring-neck doves, and the most MORE famous resident, an African PHOTOS grey parrot named Whiskey. ONLINE Assistant manager Joie Pare said Whiskey has become somewhat of a celebrity to store visitors. Whiskey found a home at the store a few years back after he got into some hot water with his previous keeper’s landlord, who didn’t appreciate the bird’s foul language at the time. Whiskey loves visitors but don’t tease, pat, or feed him, as he might bite. He especially loves children and seniors but doesn’t share the same kind of affection for certain teenagers, who have been known to come into the store to harass him.
Troy Landreville/TIMES
Haney Place Marketplace & Antique Mall assistant manager Joie Pare visited with Whiskey, the store’s resident African grey parrot. Visitors to the store are given fair warning about Whiskey the parrot.
Federal election
Speirs picked to run for New Democrats Environment and human rights were themes at Sunday’s NDP meeting. by Maria Rantanen mrantanen@mrtimes.com
Maria Rantanen/TIMES
Craig Speirs was elected Sunday to represent the New Democrats heading into the next federal election, beating out candidate hopeful Elizabeth Rosenau.
Maple Ridge Councillor Craig Speirs was chosen as the local federal NDP candidate on Sunday afternoon. With the possibility of a May election, the Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission NDP riding association held its nomination meeting, and challenging Speirs to run was local pharmacist Elizabeth Rosenau. The environment was a prevalent theme at the meeting, along with criticism of MP Randy Kamp and the Harper government. “Locally produced food is becoming more and more important and we need to become more self-sufficient,” Speirs said. “Peak oil and peak water are real and will
challenge our society in a very basic way. We all need to to eat and drink.” During a question-and-answer session with the audience, Speirs said that “oil is a bit of a dinosaur.” He said government should be looking for alternative energy, saying he preferred a “run of roof” energy option, that is, solar power. Rosenau’s daughter Natalie Gray is suing the Toronto police with allegations she was mistreated at last summer’s G20 summit. Her daughter’s experience propelled Rosenau to become more politically active. “At first, it didn’t seem possible that this happened in the Canada I knew, the one that was a world leader in civil rights,” Rosenau told the NDP crowd before the election. “Now that I understand it’s entirely possible, my complacency is gone for good,”
she elaborated. Speirs’ criticism of the federal minority government included the scandal involving Bev Oda, the Conservatives’ campaign finance troubles, and the fact that Harper has prorogued government twice. “We have the federal Conservatives taking Canada in an increasingly undemocratic direction, openly contemptuous of its role in a minority government,” Speirs said. NDP party organizers said the turnout at the meeting was good with more than a hundred people in attendance including current provincial MLA Michael Sather, former MLA Bill Hartley, and Mike Bocking who has run both provincially and federally for the NDP. Speirs said Rosenau was a strong challenger and brought a level of interest to the meeting.
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