Former North Coast MLA Graham Lea passes away

Graham Lea, a name well known across the North Coast and in British Columbia politics has passed away at the age of 79. His passing having taken place on April 3rd in Victoria, with a celebration of his life held in Colwood on Sunday.

Mr. Lea had a rather diverse working life, first as a worker at a smelter in Trail, then as a former Royal Canadian Air Force mechanic. He was once a Broadcaster with the CBC and in his post political year  a champion of the trucking industry. 

But he no doubt was known on the North Coast for his time on the political stage. Part of the bare knuckle era of party politics in the province. 

Elected to the Legislature in Victoria from 1972 through to 1986, which placed him firmly in the mix of one of the most colourful of periods in recent British Columbia political history. 

As a member of Dave Barrett's cabinet he served as the Minister of Highways in the NDP government of the day.

His time with the NDP also included a shot at party leadership following the Barret years, as Lea ran for the leadership of the party in 1984, a leadership convention that eventually selected Bob Skelly. 

An interesting review of that NDP leadership race can be found here.

Following that unsuccessful bid, Mr. Lea later sat as an Independent/United/Conservative MLA in Victoria for a short period of time, something that proved to be a rather controversial thing both in Victoria and on the North Coast.

A small retrospective of his time in Victoria can be found in this 1997 piece from Hubert Beyer.

Mr. Lea for the most part settled in the Victoria region until the time of his passing.

An obituary piece appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist, an obituary item also appeared on the Legacy.com website. That site also features a number of remembrances that call to his time in Prince Rupert.

Locally the  Northern Connector had this larger overview in the Obituary notices from the weekend. (e edition page 19)

(photo above from Times Colonist item)

Nomination period for Election Candidates ends Friday

While it may seem as though the Provincial Election campaign has been going on for a while now, in reality it is but one week old, with three declared candidates currently seeking your approval and the chance to take a seat at the Legislature in Victoria.

For those that may still have thoughts of a political campaign this Spring, the timeline for entry into the 2013 campaign is drawing close to the end however. As would be candidates for this election have until Friday to place their name on the ballot for voting.

Elections BC advises that the deadline to place your name into nomination is Friday, April 26th at 1 PM.

Potential North Coast candidates require 75 eligible voters to place their name in nomination by writing and hopefuls can access more information on the process and a variety of links for information kits from the Elections BC Nomination site here.

At the moment, the three declared candidates for the May 14th election are Jennifer Rice of the NDP, Judy Fraser of the BC Liberals and Hondo Arendt of the Green Party.

Earlier this year there was a desire of some in the community to see Prince Rupert District Teachers Union head Joanna Larson take a run at the election campaign as an Independent, but that movement seems to have run out of steam as the actual election process began to go into motion.

Should Ms. Larson, or any other aspirant to public office have plans, the clock is now officially ticking.

You can review up to date developments on the local campaigns from our Election Desk archives here.

City Council Session for Monday, April 22, 2013

City Council Sessions for Monday, April 22, 2013

Home page and archive of sessions can be found here

Live Broadcast of session can be found here

North Coast Review Preview of Council Session for April 22, 2013

Agenda for Regular City Council Session of for April 22, 2013

Agenda for Committee of the Whole Meeting for April 22, 2013

Agenda for Special Council Meeting April 22, 2013
(resolution to exclude the public)

Info to Council

April 10, 2013


Mayor Jack Mussallem--  Absent
Councillor Anna Ashley-- Present (acting as Chair for this meeting)
Councillor Judy Carlick-Pearson-- Present 
Councillor Gina Garon--  Present 
Councillor Nelson Kinney--  Present
Councillor Jennifer Rice--  Present
Councillor Joy Thorkelson-- Present

Minutes of Regular Meeting April 22, 2013  

Audio Recording of April 22, 2013  

Video Recording of April 22, 2013  

North Coast Review City Council Timeline April 22, 2013 

North Coast Items on April 22nd Session of Council

Council looks to Port to provide financial assistance amid current fiscal troubles
A CityWest Surprise?

News items from the April 22nd Council session

CFTK-- Prince Rupert Facing Budget Crisis After CityWest Fails to Deliver Dividend
CFTK-- Salmonberry Trading Society seeks market move (video)
The Northern View-- Search for new Prince Rupert City Manager ongoing
The Northern View-- Council turning up heat on Port Authority (e edition May 1 pg 6)
The Northern View-- Port Edward, regional district seeking more info on Prince Rupert 'land grab'
The Northern View-- CityWest tells City of Prince Rupert expected $500,000 dividend won't be coming this year
The Northern View--  Council struggling with budget red ink (e edition pages 1 and 2)

City Council Preview for April 22, 2013

After last weeks marathon Budget session at City Hall, this week brings a regularly scheduled session, one that features a Regular city council meeting, a Committee of the Whole meeting and for good measure a Special Session (closed to the public).

The Committee of the Whole session will provide the public with the opportunity to comment in public forum on matters of civic concern and then it's on to the regular business of the week from City Council Agenda.

You can access further information on the City Council Agenda for April 22nd here, (click on their agenda page blocks to be directed to those items).

Below find some of Monday's discussion points, we list the agenda page in red for your use with the link above)

Among some of the discussion points ahead will be a a presentation from the Salmonberry Trading Company seeking a Change of Date for the Farmer's market, seeking to move the market from Thursdays to Sundays. With the volume of Cruise Ship visits having declined on Thursdays over the last few years, the group would like to make Sunday the new Farmer's Market day of choice.
(Agenda Page 9)

CityWest makes a return to Council Chambers, providing for a rather large group to offer up a presentation on a rather extensive list  of developments from the city owned communications company. Their appearance at this session makes for an interesting bit of timing, the topic of CityWest was brought up last week by a citizen at the Public Budget Session (see North Coast Review item here). He inquired at that time as to whether CityWest could be asked to provide more financial benefit to the City of Prince Rupert, or if perhaps City Council may wish to consider selling the asset to private industry.

Following the CityWest presentation, Council will again offer the public opportunity to make comment on the 2013 Financial Plan.

Once the public comment period is over things are turned over to the Acting City Manager/Chief Financial Officer to provide some options for Council regarding their deliberations on the 2013 Financial Plan. Included in his report a review of some of the options to reduce the 2013 budget deficit, as well as a better understanding of short term and long term tactics in budget balancing.
(Agenda Page 10)

Mr. Rodin then will provide a Report on the topic of the recent provincial government Incentives for the Rural Recruitment of Physicians, a program that Prince Rupert was not at the time apparently considered for (see North Coast Review item on that here).
(Agenda Page 17)

We will also receive another update on the City's ambitious Boundary Expansion proposal.
(Agenda Page 20)

Reports on a bid to replace the McBride Street Mural and a proposal to Stratify the Inn on the Harbour will wrap up the Reports portion of the City Council session.
(Agenda Pages 24 and 26)

Council will then consider a pair of proclamation requests, from the Prince Rupert Labour Council seeking to have April 28th declared as a Day of Mourning in the City of Prince Rupert and one from the Prince Rupert Cemetery Committee, seeking to have May 1st declared Cemetery Day in Prince Rupert.
(Agenda pages 40 and 42)

Council will then advise  as to some of their Resolutions from the Closed meetings that they feel confident in reporting to the public.

The City Manager will offer up a report on some of his Outstanding Council Initiatives, including the upcoming Open House on the development of an Antenna (tower) policy (see our North Coast Item here)
(Agenda Page 44)

City Council members can then offer up some of their topics for discussion, a portion of the Council meetings of late that has provided for much in the way of talking points for the community.

In addition to the Agenda items highlighted above, you can also access the package of Information that City Councillors have been provided for this meeting, you can find that here.

Council begins their work on Monday at 5 PM with that Special Closed Session, the Regular Council and Committee of the Whole Sessions get underway at 7 PM.

Those with a high speed Internet connection can watch Council proceedings live through the City's Website.

The results of this weeks Sessions and any media follow ups to the items of the day can be found from our Council session page here.

A full review of the Council year so far in 2013 can be found on our City Council Archive page.

Tales From the Port Ed School bookshelf

“Look at me! Look at me! 
Look at me NOW! 
It is fun to have fun 
But you have to know how.”
From the Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss

Through the decades of political campaigns in British Columbia, one imagines that the combination of kids, politicians and schools, most likely means that  eventually you're going to have a photo at some time.

So keeping in the fine tradition of  the political campaign trail, that was again the case on Friday in Port Edward

However, for some on the North Coast, the seemingly obligatory photo opportunity of Premier Clark reading a book to children at Port Edward school is making for a bit of a controversy.

Once the photos and videos of the Premier's reading time at the Port Edward School spread to the community, via the local news sources, both CFTK and the Northern View, the Prince Rupert District Teacher's Association President  ( and one time aspiring NDP candidate) Joanna Larson was quick to her twitter feed to offer up her thoughts on the photo and the nature of political messaging.

Beyond the world of twitter, the story time session did not escape the notice of participants on one of Prince Rupert's local chat forums, where the discussion carried over into Saturday. A portion of the theme of that particular conversation being as to whether the Premier should have been allowed to read for the students in the first place.

It provided for a topic which once again offered the regular forum participants the opportunity to take the local School District to task, a theme that occasionally pops up there from time to time.

On this occasion, it seems that  it was the fact that the Premier was reading from a Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat,  that provided for much of the theme of the conversation on the Port Edward visit. Offering up the chance for some of the forum participants to find much of intrigue and potential supposition on the nature of the book selection in relation to recent events at the School District.

Part of the whole book reading controversy, such as it is, stems from recent events between School District 52 and the local teacher's union. Which has made for a most controversial period over the last year,  featuring such highly publicized incidents as the visual review of the teaching's of the Dr. Seuss classic Yertle the Turtle (by way of clothing or a sign in a teacher's car), to questions of fashion and political messaging through the wearing of Charter of Rights T shirts at local schools.

The topic of education and/or labour relations at the School District, is always a hot button issue on the North Coast, the disagreements between School District and the BCTF local almost the thing of legend. So, it's perhaps not surprising that the simple reading of a story to a children's class by the Premier of the Province would veer into the domain of political theatre.

The brouhaha over the Premier's reading session will no doubt mean that other leaders best brush up on their Seuss.  Should Adrian Dix of the NDP, or Jane Sterk of the Green party make the trek up to the North Coast, we imagine that there will now be a mandatory reading session required for both.

Ms. Larson is helpful on that theme as well, providing the required reading list for all political stripes, including the BC Conservatives, who at the moment don't have a candidate on the North Coast.

Fine suggestions all, though we are thankful to a fashion that we don't have a full slate of candidates from all the parties here. As we wonder what book club selection that the leaders of the Marijuana party, or Christian Heritage party might wish to use for reading time.

One hopes that the school libraries of the city are fully stocked with the work's of the good Doctor Seuss, who clearly is going to shoot up the most popular lists before the election campaign comes to an end.

Premier's Northwest swing stresses the potential/promise of LNG

There was little doubt as to the talking points for the BC Liberals in the Northwest on Friday, it was LNG, LNG, LNG and oh, did we mention LNG.

The Premier made a whistle stop tour of Terrace, Port Edward and Prince Rupert and at each location the blue print of her LNG development strategy seemed to be the main focus, offering up the potential of growth and infrastructure as the main point of discussion.

A preview of the day's theme for discussion could be found in Terrace, where in addition to opening Liberal candidate Carol Leclerc's campaign office, she heralded the importance of the BC Liberal's LNG strategy and indicated that the Northwest is booming owing to Natural Gas. Perhaps getting a little ahead of herself in all of that, considering that Natural Gas benefits have yet to actually flow into the region yet.
.


.
Still, we get the idea, the Liberals are pretty well framing this election campaign on the potential of the LNG bounty that may await us, a financial bonanza that the Liberals suggest will greatly assist our future for years to come.

Along the way through the Northwest she indicated that with the financial reward of resource development would flow the required infrastructure of a community, from schools to civic needs, she highlighted how the development of natural gas resources and the prospect of LNG terminals for the region would help secure our future needs.

Using Port Edward School as the backdrop to her Port Edward discussion, the Liberal leader outlined what she believes the future will hold with LNG development.  Beyond the usual discussion of jobs, economic impact and such she outlined that with development, comes the ability to build new schools and create more employment opportunity within the education system.

CFTK-- Clark Visits Rupert (video)
CFTK-- Premier campaigns for re-election in Northwest
Northern View-- Premier Christy Clark talks LNG during Port Edward School Stop
Global BC-- B. C. Liberals offer energy dividend as plum for oil and gas developments
CBC-- Libs say LNG will grow economy
Vancouver Sun-- Christy Clark offers energy dividend as plum for oil and gas development

From Port Edward she was off to Prince Rupert, making a number of stops around the city before arriving at Judy Fraser's Third Avenue campaign office to officially open the Liberal headquarters in the region.

Over the course of the tour of the Northwest, the theme of infrastructure requirements received mention as part of the political speeches, the Premier using a template of what the Liberals have in place for the Peace Country as what the Northwest may come to expect in the form of assistance.

The Province recently announced a funding agreement with the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, an arrangement that will provide 200 million dollars in money for public infrastructure over a 20 year period.

Spread out over that  20 year period of time, the municipality will receive 10 million dollars a year to assist in the growth anticipated there with the development of the Natural Gas industry.

It's a program the Premier suggested could form the basis of a similar type of infrastructure arrangement for Northwest Communities as growth and expansion arrives here.

Business in Vancouver-- B. C. commits $200 M to help northern municipality deal with gas boom

That is a program that  we imagine might have caught the attention of Prince Rupert Mayor Jack Mussallem and his City Council, which currently is seeking a way to work through their budget difficulties, when they're not debunking the potential threat  of looming bankruptcy, a discussion point that they actually created themselves.

The Liberal's proposed infrastructure assistance, is tied in with the still in progress discussion on a "rural dividend" from the harvesting of natural gas and shipment through the Northwest.  A proposal that along with the larger Prosperity Fund discussions will most likely frame much of the election debate across Northern British Columbia.

An opportunity to ask questions of the local candidates on that theme (and any others) will come up on April 24th, when the Chamber of Commerce hosts a local candidates debate at the Lester Centre.

You can review all of our North Coast (and Northwest) election coverage from our Election Desk portal here.

CN investigating derailment near Terrace

An eastbound CN intermodal train derailed east of Terrace, near Cedarvale early Friday morning, a situation that has resulted in the temporary suspension of service between Prince Rupert and eastbound destinations.

There were five rail cars affected by the derailment, all of which reportedly remained upright and contained no hazardous or dangerous cargo.

CN crews are currently work on the situation, no time frame for the resumption of service was provided.

CFNR had the first of the media reports on Friday's incident.

Terrace Standard-- Train cars go off track east of Terrace
CFTK-- Train Derailment near Cedarvale