Vancouver local news from Metronews.ca

Yukon-Nevada Q4 loss narrows to $7.5M

The Canadian Press — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:07:00 -0400

VANCOUVER - Yukon-Nevada Gold Corp. (TSX: YNG) says its fourth-quarter net loss narrowed to $7.5 million, largely due to an improvement in gross margins from operations and a favourable warrant liability revision.

The Vancouver-based miner said Thursday that the loss was equal to a penny per share compared to a loss of $50.9 million, or seven cents per share, in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Gold sales totalled $27.8 million, down from $29.9 million in the year-earlier period.

The company said it had $1 million gain from a fair valuation of a warrant liability, compared to a $33 million loss in the same quarter of 2010.

Yukon-Nevada took a loss of $2.8 million from mining operations in the fourth quarter, compared to a loss of $8 million for the same period of 2010.

In February, the company restarted production at its Jerritt Canyon gold mining operation in Nevada following nearly a month of downtime for installation and maintenance.

Gold production at the operations resumed on Jan. 25, and the first shipment was made on Jan. 31.

Yukon-Nevada holds a diverse portfolio of gold, silver, zinc and copper properties in the Yukon Territory and British Columbia in Canada and in Nevada in the United States.

Turn out the lights, Vancouver!

kate webb, Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:59:52 -0400

The World Wildlife Federation’s (WWF) annual Earth Hour presents a challenge to save energy that more and more British Columbians are finding fun and creative ways to take on.

BC Hydro’s numbers show participation is increasing each year, with the megawatt hours conserved during last year’s one-hour event nearly doubling, from 64 in 2010 to 117. That’s equivalent to 7.8 million 15-watt compact fluorescent bulbs all going dark at once.

Although that’s only a small fraction of the province’s typical hourly electricity use (1.04 per cent in 2010 versus 1.8 per cent in 2011), it’s significant enough that more communities than ever are getting in the game.

“The event really is taking off on its own so that communities are embracing it with innovative ideas to promote Earth Hour, and really doing the promotion themselves,” said BC Hydro spokeswoman Jennifer Young, adding this is the fourth year the corporation has supported the event.

“We’re one organization that helps promote Earth Hour. WWF, of course, does a lot of promotion of the event, but it really is starting to be a very organic event, where communities are starting to come up with their own interesting and innovative ways to celebrate and mark Earth Hour.”

Kamloops is hosting a “dim swim” at its Canada Games Pool this Saturday, while Pitt Meadows, which led the province with a six per cent drop in energy consumption during last year’s event, is hosting a parade of lights featuring an Earth Hour song written by two local artists.

In Vancouver many office towers will go dark, along with the string of lights on the Lions Gate Bridge.

“This year we’ve got 87 municipalities on board. Last year we had 80,” said Young. “People are really being creative in participating in Earth Hour. It’s a lot of fun, it’s super easy to participate and it’s one hour a day that can teach you good conservation behaviour.”

Feds streamline environmental approval for big oil interests

daniel palmer, Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:57:50 -0400

Massive resource-development programs in B.C. — including the Northern Gateway pipeline — will soon be subject to a simplified environmental-approval process that could see the projects breaking ground within two years.

The controversial announcement was part of Thursday’s federal budget release in Ottawa.

“We are in no way undermining the integrity of the regulatory process. The key here is to make the process more efficient,” said Ed Fast, Abbotsford MP and minister of international trade.

The new standards will require environmental regulators to complete a single approval process over a maximum period of 24 months. Currently, companies have to wait up to six years before breaking ground on new projects.

“We’ve been looking for one process for one project for many years,” said Iain Black, Vancouver Board of Trade chief executive. “This has been one of the greatest inhibitors to investment in our province.”

But some environmentalists believe the streamlined process is designed to benefit oil-export projects such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan TransMountain pipeline projects.

“If I was a lobbyist for big oil, and I had a laundry list for helping to get my project approved, I would be walking away from this budget with a big smile on my face,” said Ben West, spokesman for the Wilderness Committee.

Libby Davies, NDP deputy leader and Vancouver East MP, said the new process will hinder community consultation for development projects.

“This is a government that is driven to basically give a green light to the huge organizations that want to go ahead with developments,” she said.

“You have to have a properly grounded environmental assessment where people can be heard. If you limit people’s ability to be heard, that’s a fundamental problem, especially in a province like B.C.”

Extend Pickton inquiry: Victims’ families

Graham Templeton, Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:55:55 -0400

The families of missing and murdered women have renewed a plea to extend the Pickton inquiry, a day after Attorney General Shirley Bond rejected the notion.

Opposition NDP Leader Adrian Dix said his party supports the request, saying the inquiry has been hamstrung by unwise decisions and insufficient support from the government.

“We’re dealing with issues of poverty and racism and inequality,” Dix said on Thursday. “At every stage, things that could have allowed the inquiry to succeed have been denied by the government.”

When asked about Bond’s promise to end the inquiry by June, Dix said Premier Christy Clark has disagreed with the attorney general before, and this is the perfect time to do so again.

“I understand that (the government is) stuck on their position, but they need to change that position, because it’s not the right position.”

Bond says an extension to the inquiry, which already has been given a year and a half, would just delay implementation of the changes its findings recommend.

NDP MLA Jenny Kwan noted that the inquiry into the Tasering death of Robert Dziekanski was given two years to complete its investigations, despite being of much smaller scope and involving just a single police jurisdiction.

Family member Lori-Ann Ellis pleaded for more time, saying that an extension would show “that society has changed — that our daughters, sisters and mothers did not die in vain, and that the women who work the streets today deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Bond says she is “confident” that inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal will be able to properly complete the inquiry by the scheduled end time in June.

Earth Hour the recipe for success

kate webb, Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:54:13 -0400

Dozens of popular Vancouver eateries are planning to dim the lights and break out the candles for Earth Hour this Saturday from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m.

Sutton Place Hotel executive chef Michael Deutsch has drawn up a special Earth-friendly dinner menu and Earth Day cocktails for both the upscale Fleuri Restaurant and more casual Gerard Lounge.

“It’s not all raw, but we have components to it that use less energy,” Deutsch explained. “For the (albacore tuna tataki) appetizer we don’t require any electricity.... We do it with a blowtorch, so it just sort of scorches the skin, meaning the middle of it is still sashimi.”

The tataki is served with a cold mango, celeriac and cinnamon basil salad and whipped crème fraiche sabayon.

For the second course, Deutsch plans to serve mushroom consommé, kept warm in a gas-powered portable stove. It comes with Dungeness-crab salad with hearts of palm and tarragon froth.

Next comes chicken “sous vide,” which means cooked in bag, served with potato gratin, creamed blue cheese, mushroom tapenade and striped beets. He admitted that dish will require use of the oven, but said the effort is what counts.

“It’s hard to do an Earth Hour menu where everything’s cold, because a lot of people don’t like three courses of cold,” he said. “I know I don’t like that, but we try to do as much as we can.”

The prix-fixe menu is $45 per head, and includes the hotel’s renowned chocolate buffet for dessert — a perfect excuse to linger late into the night in the candlelight.

Festival blooms again

Graham Templeton, Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:50:45 -0400

In Japan, cherry blossoms are a symbol of the beauty and the transience of life. In Vancouver, they mean it’s time to celebrate.

The cherry blossoms are predicted to be out in all their glory next week, as the sixth annual Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival (VCBF) ushers in springtime.

The month-long celebration — a favourite among local and international shutterbugs alike — begins Thursday at 11 a.m. inside the Burrard SkyTrain station, known for its beautiful but short-lived canopy of the colourful Japanese flowers.

The festival opening will feature the first public performance of renowned Indian choreographer Shiamak Davar’s Umbrella Dance, put on by the Vancouver Performance Team.

Other draws include a $20 lunch special prepared by some of Japan’s most famous chefs, a display of taiko drumming and, of course, the cherry blossoms themselves.

VIDEO: Langley little leaguers star in heartwarming Uganda doc

Kate Webb, METRO — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:45:29 -0400

When Langley Baseball made it into the Little League Baseball World Series last August the local boys were overjoyed.

But when a team they were supposed to play from Uganda couldn’t make it to the U.S. tournament because of paperwork issues, the Canadians turned pensive.

Five months later, they were on a plane to keep their date with the Ugandan team, having raised more than $155,000 to cover the costs of travelling to Uganda and starting some humanitarian projects in the impoverished African nation.

“When we won the nationals to go to the World Series, it was a huge accomplishment, but just to have someone take that away from us, we kind of put ourselves in their shoes and thought, ‘You know what? We’ve got to make this right,’” said team manager Dean Cantelon.

A 30-minute documentary about the team’s once-in-a-lifetime trip airs this Sunday on Sportsnet Pacific.

Cantelon explained some of the Ugandan boys don’t have birth certificates or even know when they were born, which is what made it impossible for the team to gain entry to the U.S. for the tournament.

“Some of the players on the Ugandan team live in the slum areas. One player named Ivan actually lives by a community field in a tool shed with his grandma,” he said.

“For these boys to actually see the conditions that some of these kids were living in, but yet their spirit was so upbeat and you just wouldn’t know it when you saw them on the ball field or outside where they reside, but when they take you to their place ... it was a huge eye-opener.”

He said his 13-year-old son Cole, who is on the Langley team, now has about 20 new Facebook friends living half a world away.

The documentary film that captured the team’s experience, Fair Ball: From Langley to Uganda, airs Sunday at both 2 and 9 p.m. on Sportsnet Pacific and will also be shown again throughout the month of April.

Watch the trailer>

Child denied justice by court delays: Watchdog

Kyla Jonas, For Metro Vancouver — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 05:40:13 -0400

A young girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by her father will never see justice, says a B.C. children’s representative Thursday.

Crown originally approved 13 charges against the father, including one count of incest, one count of sexual assault, five counts of assault and three counts of uttering threats, but the case was effectively dropped because of court delays.

“She will never be able to confront the alleged offender in a public court with the type of safety and protection from the state that’s needed to do that,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, B.C. representative for children and youth.

Turpel-Lafond found in her report, released Thursday, that charges were stayed in 2010 because translating services stalled due to financial pressures.

“There was a need to translate some statements, it was clear that it was required. It went to court several times pending the translation, but it never happened.”

Once a charge is stayed in B.C. because of delays, it’s rarely reactivated.

The independent watchdog waited a year in hopes of an internal review, but nothing moved forward, so she launched her own investigation.

“It means a lot to victims to know that this case is important enough that we examine it carefully and accept responsibility as a province that we failed this family.”

The Ministry of Justice announced Thursday that all of Turpel-Lafond’s recommendations will be immediately implemented, including proper funding to translation services and prioritizing cases involving the welfare of children.

NDP throne speech divides parties

Jennifer Taplin, Metro Halifax — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:31:51 -0400

The opposition called it a work of fiction, but the governing NDP called it The Future Starts Here.
Lt.-Gov. Mayann Francis delivered her last throne speech to open the fourth session of the 61st general assembly on Thursday.

Employment and economic growth is booming in Nova Scotia, she said.
“Nova Scotia is heading into an era of what promises to be great prosperity,” she said.

Most of the speech revolved around upcoming plans and strategies like the Welcome Home to Nova Scotia, the province’s new immigration strategy, and the Cape Breton Strategic Framework Advancement project.

The province will establish a special operating agency to involve tourism operators and experts to create a long-term tourism strategy. There will also be strategies on improving mental-health and addictions care, fisheries and a mineral incentive program providing financial assistance to prospectors.

In terms of legislation, Status of the Artist legislation will be introduced this spring session to “reflect the importance of art and culture to Nova Scotians.” There’s also a new cleaner-energy framework and a Fish Harvesters Registration and Certification Act on the way.

At best lacking and at worst “fiction,” Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil and Tory Leader Jamie Baillie were not at all impressed with this direction of government.

“Nova Scotians will be disappointed from what they heard today,” McNeil said. “There’s nothing in this throne speech that addresses rising power costs in the province of Nova Scotia. Nothing in this helps Nova Scotians with the rising cost of gasoline.”

Baillie said the promises within the speech are misleading.

“To tell all Nova Scotians they’re putting more money back in their pockets when they’ve taken out $743 from each of us in extra HST is a work of fiction.”

OrKidstra performers ‘take in their stride’

steve collins, Metro Ottawa — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:04:00 -0400

All the stars coming to town for the Juno Awards may get more attention, but the arrival of four musicians from Venezuela might be just as big an event for some local music students.

The Simon Bolivar String Quartet has toured all over the world, but they started out as students in a free music-education program for Venezuelan children known as El Sistema, which inspired similar programs globally, including Ottawa’s own OrKidstra.

“The program basically provides singing opportunities and free music lessons and free instruments and the opportunity to sing or play in an ensemble,” explained Craig MacDonald of the Leading Note Foundation, which runs OrKidstra with the help of charitable donations.

Many students, he added, can’t afford private lessons.

Kids from OrKidstra are scheduled to perform with the Simon Bolivar String Quartet at several of their appearances this weekend. They got their first chance to jam Thursday at Carleton University, where El Sistema’s founder, José Antonio Abreu, was granted an honorary degree.

“It’s amazing how they take in their stride, you know,” MacDonald said.