Saturday, September 7, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
City council to consider new snow, ice policy Citizen staff City council will consider a revamped strategy for controlling snow and ice on Prince George roads on Monday night when a policy based on the suggestions put forward by now-retired manager Frank Blues will be up for approval. The measures include a rejigging of which roads are given priority and clarity on what are considered arterial roads. It also sets out timelines for applying anti-icing material, namely liquid salt, as well as rock salt and winter crush and sand. In March, Blues was asked to carry out a review following heavy criticism of the city’s performance when heavy snowfall struck the city this past December and January. Also on the agenda: • Council will be asked to waive $20,900 worth of fees and charges related to a home-building project being pursued by the Foundations of Hope Community Builders Society. • Staff is recommending council deny first and second reading to an application for a multiplefamily housing development at 2150 Queensway. The 0.22-hectare site is currently zoned for parks and recreation and is adjacent to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park and Hudson’s Bay Slough and wetland nature park and trails. If council does give initial approval, staff is
recommending it be withheld from the public hearing stage until a geotechnical report, riparian assessment, servicing brief and traffic impact analysis have been completed. • A hearing will be held for an application to increase by 800 the number of patrons covered by the liquor primary licence at Treasure Cove Casino. If approved, it would raise the number to 2,016 and comes on the heels of a 1,152-square-metre addition to the casino’s show lounge. • A hearing will be held for a proposal to rezone 1224 Houston Lane from minor institutional to transitional commercial to allow office use for a business that focuses on the education and placement of healthcare professionals. • An updated cemetery bylaw and an acrossthe-board three-per-cent increase to fees and charges for the services provided will be up for three readings. The bylaw includes new interment options at Memorial Park Cemetery. • A new sanitary sewer bylaw will be up for three readings. Changes include clear standards for selecting, sizing and installing grease interceptors at restaurants and oil and water separators at car washes and for disposal of sewage by septic haulers. • A proposal from Telus for a 60-metre wireless communications tower at 9808 Kelly Road South will be up for approval.
Ottawa ordered to pay for mistreatment of First Nations children The Canadian Press A Friday ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal about Canada’s treatment of Indigenous children demands a full investigation of the federal Indigenous-affairs department, says childwelfare advocate Cindy Blackstock. The tribunal ruled the federal government had been “wilful and reckless” in discriminating against First Nations children living on reserves by chronically and knowingly underfunding child-welfare services. It ordered the federal government to pay $40,000 for every First Nations child who was inappropriately taken away from his or her parents after 2006. The same amount is to be paid to each of their parents. Children who were abused in foster care and those who had basic services, like medical care, denied to them are also each entitled to $40,000. That’s the maximum the tribunal can award. The Assembly of First Nations estimates about 54,000 children and their parents could be eligible for the money, meaning the total bill will likely exceed $2 billion. The tribunal has given the AFN, the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society and the federal government until December to come up with a plan for determining who is eligible for the compensation and how it will be paid. Blackstock, the executive director of the caring society and a member of the Gitxsan First Nation who was born in Burns Lake, said the tribunal’s findings make clear Canada didn’t learn from its apologies and compensation awarded for residential schools and the Sixties Scoop. She said if they had learned, this case wouldn’t have been necessary. “I want the whole department to be independently evaluated and all of the inequalities facing First Nations children to be costed out by the parliamentary budget officer,” she said.
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The compensation follows the tribunal’s 2016 finding of discrimination, saying Ottawa refused for years to provide the same amount of funding for child-welfare services on reserves as provincial governments provided for kids living off-reserve. The money available for kids was the same on and off reserve only when they were in foster care. The result: a mass removal of children from their families. Fewer than 10 per cent of the children in Canada are Indigenous but more than half the children in care are. In its 93-page order, the tribunal panel said the maximum compensation award is reserved for the worst cases of discrimination. “No amount of compensation can ever recover what you have lost, the scars that are left on your souls or the suffering that you have gone through as a result of racism, colonial practices and discrimination,” the panel wrote. When Blackstock, the holder of an honourary doctorate from UNBC, first brought the case in 2007, Indigenous Affairs was a single department. In 2017 the Liberals divided it into two: the departments of Crown-Indigenous Relations and of Indigenous Services. She said it was a good day for kids but “also a wake-up call for Canadians.” “Treating kids fairly should not require a court order,” she said. Since its ruling in 2016, the tribunal has said 10 times that Ottawa failed to comply with orders to fix the funding discrepancies. In 2018, the Liberals finally committed to funding prevention services at the needed levels. Blackstock said while that has mostly happened, Ottawa refused to fund supports for those services, such as for buildings to house programs. Kevin Deagle, spokesman for Indigenous Services Minister Seamus O’Regan, said Friday the government is reviewing the tribunal’s compensation order. He said it touches on “important and complex issues” the Liberals take seriously.
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CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
On the button Jamie Mould tries out the outdoor curling mat Friday in Canada Games Plaza during Foodie Friday. The demonstration was set up to help promote the World Women’s Curling Championships coming to CN Centre in March.
Canada rallies behind Andreescu at U.S. Open SPORTS 9
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