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PRODUCED BY LANGARA JOURNALISM STUDENTS
NOVEMBER 25, 2013 • VOL. 47 NO. 9 • VANCOUVER, B.C.
Cambie area businesses launch suit
Pat Quinn 1943-2014 Pat Quinn
Canada Line construction seems a world away now, but local businesses are claiming lasting damages
Player, coach and general manager passes away after lengthy illness at 71
By SHANNON LYNCH
T GERRY KAHRMANN/The Province photo
Pat Quinn adjusts his stick tape at GM Place (now Rogers Arena), shortly before the Canucks’ infamous 1994 Stanley Cup finals run. By ALICE D’EON
H
ockey legend Pat Quinn passed away on Sunday night after fighting a long battle with illness. He was 71. Quinn wore many hats throughout the course of his more than four-decade-long hockey career. After playing
for five years right out of high school in minor leagues, he was called to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1968. After retiring from the game as team captain for the Atlanta Flames in 1977 due to an ankle injury, Quinn went on to coach for several franchises. Quinn brought the Canucks to the Stanley Cup playoffs as head coach and general manag-
er in 1994. He is known for coaching Team Canada at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, where they won their first gold medal since 1952. In his first public address since Quinn’s passing, Canucks president Trevor Linden spoke Monday morning about Quinn’s unique teaching ability.
See QUINN, page 8
Scan to hear an interview with Trevor Linden
BC child poverty continues to rise Almost 170,000 children in British Columbia live below the poverty line, according to a new report By CHARLOTTE DREWETT
B
ritish Columbia is the only Canadian province that doesn’t have a poverty reduction plan, and the number of children living in poverty in the province has risen over five per cent since 1989, according to one report. Nov. 24 marks the 25-year anniversary of the House of Commons commitment to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. A report card released by First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition revealed the opposite is true; almost 170,000 children live in poverty in B.C. A 2013 report by Canada Without Poverty, revealed that B.C. and Saskatchewan were the only provinces that don’t have a poverty reduction strategy in place, but the Saskatchewan government announced the development of a poverty reduction plan in October this year. “We now have the ignominious label of being the only province in Canada Printed on recycled paper
without such a plan,” said Catherine Ludgate, manager of community investment at Vancity. The report card put forward 19 recommendations for reducing the poverty rate to seven per cent or less by 2020. Among the recommendations that were made, increasing the minimum wage was suggested, along with implementing a $10-a-day child-care plan. Scott Graham, associate executive director with the Social Planning and Research Council of BC, said all of the recommendations are “critically important,” and a “coherent strategy that brings together multiple effective mechanisms for reducing child poverty is the way to go forward.” Graham said the results of the report card are “sobering and unsettling,” and there is a lack of political action. Viveca Ellis, co-founder of Single Mothers’ Alliance of B.C., called child poverty “a policy failure crisis that violates the fundamental rights of a child.” She spoke of living on welfare and how the social assistance program perpetuated a cycle that forced her to take minimum wage jobs and trapped her in poverty. “Raising the welfare rates is crucial to reducing child poverty in B.C.,” she said.
oday was the first day of a class action lawsuit filed by Cambie Village business owners against the companies involved in the construction of the $2-billion Canada Line. Over 200 business and property owners in the lawsuit are claiming damages due to the cut-and-cover method of construction on used along Cambie Street. Paul Bennett, lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the court that TransLink and SNC-Lavalin should have used a bored tunnel method in Cambie Village instead of cut and cover. He said this method “would have eliminated the interference.” The court heard that the bored tunnel method would have cost an approximated $34 million more. “Evidence will show that the incremental cost could have been substantially lower, even at $34 million,” Bennett said. The defendants have yet to speak in court but have released a statement saying, “a bored tunnel project would have caused a similar degree of interference and disruption.” “If there was more tunnel, it wouldn’t have the additional impact of the cut and cover,” said Bennett. Leonard Schein owned the Park Theatre on Cambie Street during construction. He has A private since sold it to the company theatre giant Cineplex Odeon Corpo- has gained ration. Schein said financial SNC-Lavalin benefited from cheaper benefit construction at a to the cost to businesses in the Cambie Vil- detriment lage. of small “A private company has gained fi- businesses nancial benefit to LEONARD SCHEIN the detriment of EX-BUSINESS OWNER small businesses,” Schein said. Gary Gautam used to own the Cambie General Store. The original 2008 statement of claim says that construction using the cut and cover method “caused the Cambie General Store to suffer loss and damage.” Gautam claims his store lost around $154,000 in sales in 2007. The store now sits empty, its windows papered shut. The businesses are looking for compensation for their losses, but have not yet set a specific amount.
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CHARLOTTE DREWETT photo
B.C. has the fifth highest rate of child poverty in Canada but is the only province without a poverty reduction plan, according to First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition.
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