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‘That whole beautiful green strip of forest right on the edge of the Fraser River has been nuked completely’
Another election: How we got here Ted COLLEY Staff Reporter
The Conservatives won 99 seats that time out, the NDP took just 19 and the Bloc Quebecois came out with 54 seats. One seat went to an independent. Eighteen months later, Canadians once again went to the polls to elect a minority Conservative government. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s party held 124 seats, with the Liberals, NDP and Bloc winning 103, 29 and 51, respectively. Once again, a lone seat when to “other.” That Parliament lasted fewer than two years. On Oct. 14, 2008, the Conservatives won 143 seats (still a minority) with the Liberals, NDP and Bloc counting 77, 37 and 49 seats, respectively, while the remaining two seats were won by “other.”
A heritage ‘heartbreak’
North Delta biologist says massive clear cut ‘a real kick in the gut’
NORTH DELTA – It’s Tom ZYTARUK a heartbreaking sight for Staff Reporter North Delta residents who played as children in the forests and gullies along the Fraser River. Great swaths of tall trees have been cut down to make way for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, transforming the once lush hillside to a scene reminiscent of the cratered war fields of 1917 Belgium. Locals knew it was going to happen, but to actually see the extensive clear-cutting, and the mud and wreckage the machinery has left behind, is hard to take in.
“It’s a real kick in the pants is what it is, a kick in the gut,” says Don DeMille, a biologist and North Delta resident. “That whole beautiful green strip of forest right on the edge of the Fraser River has been nuked completely. “It’s a real blow to the heritage of Delta,” he said. “That great long continuous green strip undoubtedly houses rare species.” Southern red-backed voles and Pacific water shrews have been found in the area, he noted. “In the United States, we would have just said ‘We can’t build a highway, or we can’t build it here, we’ll have to move it,’ but we don’t have any of the legislation that the United States has for protecting rare and endangered species.” The South Fraser Perimeter Road will connect with highways 1, 15, 17, 91, 99 and the Golden Ears Bridge. It’s scheduled to be completed in 2013, with a $1.2-billion price tag. The project has been in the works for some 20
years now but the clear-cutting is fairly recent. The four-lane expressway will run about 40 kilometres from DeltaPort Way in South Delta to 176th Street in Surrey’s Port Kells, hugging the Fraser River shoreline for a large part of the route. Seven environmentally sensitive streams are in its way. DeMille worked at one time with Environment Canada. Afterward, he did some work on local streams under a program called Fisheries Renewal, and knows them well. DeMille and Delta North NDP MLA Guy Gentner recently toured the area being cleared near Gunderson (Annieville) Slough, as well as the old Glenrose Cannery site, and the pair ran into some grief from project workers. “All of a sudden we’ve got these guys not only shoving a road down our throats but telling us to get off, keep off, get out,” DeMille lamented.
see CLEAR-CUTTING page 3
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❚PHOTO/Matt Law
Biologist Don DeMille laments at the logging and habitat destruction on Gunderson Slough near River Road in North Delta. The recent clear-cutting was done to make way for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, a project that has been in the works for some 20 years.
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SURREY – Frequent federal elections and minority governments are becoming fixtures in Canadian politics. Yet another election has been called for May 2. It will be the fourth federal election in less than seven years and, if the results follow the trend set by those previous trips to the polls, we will have a fourth minority government as well. This latest round of minority Parliaments began June 28, 2004, when the shortlived minority of Liberal Paul Martin was elected with 135 of 308 seats in the House of Commons.