The Globe and Mail - British Columbia News

Experts find a way to track onslaught of sea lice

MARK HUME — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

DNA research at the University of Guelph has provided insight into a perplexing environmental problem on British Columbia's west coast, where fish farms have been blamed for lice epidemics that have devastated wild salmon stocks.

Raw deal

ALEXANDRA GILL — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

agill@globeandmail.comHope springs eternal. The never-ending quest for a definitive seafood destination leads to Blue Water Cafe + Raw Bar.This swish Yaletown hot spot sparkles with sterling credentials. Part of the esteemed Top Table group that includes West, CinCin and Whistler's Araxi, it recently won top spot in the seafood category at the Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards for the second consecutive year. Last February, executive chef Frank Pabst took home silver at the Gold Medal Plates Grand Finale.

Strait talk: The plan to rename the sea

JANE ARMSTRONG — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Bert Webber has a plan for those don't know their Juan de Fuca Strait from a Puget Sound. Give the whole body of water - which straddles two countries and stretches from northern Vancouver Island south to the Seattle area - a brand new name. Like say, the Salish Sea.

Battle brews as MPs oppose sale of British Columbia coal terminal

PATRICK BRETHOUR — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Private companies are lining up to bid for the cash-strapped coal-shipping Crown corporation in Prince Rupert, potentially handing Ottawa as much as $131-million as it seeks to raise billions from the sale of government property this year.

Russia to pay big for gold medals

James Christie — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Russia will pay its athletes more than seven times the amount the Canadian Olympic Committee will pay its athletes for a gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In a bid for a record medal haul, the Russian government and Olympic committee have more than doubled bonus payments for medal winners in 2010, topping out at $135,000 (U.S.) for a gold medal, $81,600 for a silver and $54,400 for a bronze. The COC has approved payments of $20,000 (Canadian) for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze medals.

Tough? Beguiling? 'I'm just very direct'

FIONA MORROW — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Kathleen Bartels is not a woman to mince words. ''In my opinion,'' she says with a matter-of-fact shrug, ''money follows vision. And if you don't have the vision - and someone leading that vision - the money is not going to come.''

Police seeking information about death of woman in Lighthouse Park

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Police are looking for help in solving the death of a woman in a Vancouver-area park - the second time a woman has been killed in a regional park in less than two months.

Crown to skip preliminary hearing in gang case

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

A group of alleged B.C. gangsters accused of plotting to kill leaders of a rival gang in a bloody drug turf war won't get a preliminary hearing, a spokesman for the Crown says.

Group saves whale tangled in trap lines

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

A brand new group formed to save marine mammals is boasting one of its first successes after rescuing an exhausted and distressed humpback whale in the waters of Knight Inlet on the central B.C. coast. A prawn fisherman called in an alert Monday when the humpback became entangled in trap lines.

Firearms on crashed plane prompt probe

BRENNAN CLARKE — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

A U.S. pilot whose plane crashed near Sooke, B.C., on Monday evening became the focus of an investigation by RCMP and Immigration officials yesterday after rescue workers recovered a small cache of firearms from the wreckage of his aircraft.

Salvage crews recover submerged tanker truck

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Salvage crews have recovered a tanker truck that plunged to the bottom of Robson Bight off northern Vancouver Island in August, 2007, when a barge tipped over.The tanker was loaded with 10,000 litres of diesel fuel when it sank 350 metres below the surface of the water in the area, which is a protected killer whale habitat famed for its whale-rubbing beaches.

B.C. continues trend of low voter turnout

TERRI THEODORE — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Whether they're distracted, disenchanted or entirely disinterested, fewer Canadians are making the trek to their local polling station on voting days.Recent federal and provincial elections indicate that just over half the eligible voters make the decision for the whole electorate when they go to the polls to vote.

'Peacemaker,' 34, fatally shot in Surrey

PATRICK BRETHOUR — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Chris Whitmee had the reputation of a peacemaker, the kind of guy who would step into the middle of a scrap and urge everyone to calm down.So, when Heather Burkholder heard that Mr. Whitmee, the father of her nine-year-old daughter, had been shot along with another man in the washroom of a Surrey strip bar on Saturday night, she had no doubt that he had been trying to intervene.

Vancouver has the rainy day blues as it struggles with more precipitation

FRANCES BULA — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

It's not your imagination - it is raining more in Vancouver than it used to.A recent Metro Vancouver report on climate change has found that the average annual rainfall has risen by 20 per cent since the 1930s, when it averaged around 1,000 millimetres.

City nudges Olympic developer to repair its finances

FRANCES BULA — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Vancouver wants to make sure that it is the banker for the Olympic village for the shortest time possible.So to achieve this, the city is planning to set an interest rate that will encourage the private builders, Millennium Development Corp., to move quickly to get its own financing again. After months of revelations and uproar about the village's financial problems, the city stepped in and became the lender to Millennium this February, buying out the U.S. hedge fund Fortress Investment Group after a period where Fortress refused to keep advancing money to the project because of cost overruns.

Two dead, one in hospital after single-vehicle crash

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Two people are dead and a third is in hospital after a single-vehicle crash near Merritt.RCMP Corporal Mike Pears said two men and a woman were travelling inside a pickup truck Sunday when the vehicle went off the road and rolled over.

Pilot project offers shelter from the chaos within

WENDY STUECK — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

At 10, Nicole was a straight-A, soccer-playing student prone to dark thoughts and hoarding candy in her room.By her teens, she was binge-drinking and spending hundreds of dollars a week on food and booze, as her desperate parents put locks on the fridge and watched their family fall apart.

Sex trade workers offered media training

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

Vancouver's sex trade workers will be offered media training prior to the 2010 Olympic Games.Kerry Porth with the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling and Education Society (PACE) said it's important for sex trade workers to know their rights when dealing with cameras and reporters.

Missing camper found dead in B.C. river

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00 EDT

A 46-year-old man has been found dead in the Barriere River, north of Kamloops.RCMP Corporal Chris Newel said Adrien Joseph Lozeau was at a campsite gathering with 15 friends when he was last seen early Sunday morning.