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Locals awoke Tuesday to the sight of uprooted trees, strewn branches and downed power lines after a severe storm blew through the region around midnight.
Powered by 85-kilometre-per-hour gusts, the storm set off several false alarms, claimed at least one heritage tree along No. 2 Road, and knocked out power to an undetermined number of local homes.
B.C. Hydro's Nadine Cahan said tens of thousands of Lower Mainland homes were without power Tuesday morning, but repair crews were working around the clock. Power was expected to be restored to most of the homes by Tuesday, but Cahan said it was possible some isolated pockets may go without power throughout the night.
"It was one of the most severe wind storms we've had in the past eight to 10 years."
Richmond's Agnes Varona, of 11551 No. 2 Rd., recalls hearing a loud "thud" around midnight and found a large tree had toppled onto two cars parked in her driveway.
Richmond Fire-Rescue advised Varona to either evacuate the two-storey house or ensure the occupants slept on the far side of the home because of concerns that a second tree might topple onto it, fire inspector Gordon Gill said.
The storm's winds peaked between midnight and 1 a.m., during which airport monitors recorded wind speeds as high as 85 kilometres per hour, Gill said. During that time Richmond Fire-Rescue responded to six reports of downed power lines, mainly in northern and southern parts of the city.
As many as three dozen trees were knocked down during the storm, according to a city parks foreman.
City crews were expecting to remove those trees by Wednesday.
Local fire crews were called to an unusual rescue Monday afternoon.
A Richmond visitor couldn't get a sensitive part of his body out of a tight spot, prompting a call for help to Richmond Fire-Rescue from a local emergency room doctor.
A source at Richmond Fire-Rescue told The Review Tuesday that the middle-aged man's penis became lodged inside a five-centimetre-long "custom-made" stainless steel pipe. The tip of the sensitive appendage swelled to several times its normal size and couldn't be pulled out of the pipe. The man had apparently been wearing the device for the past two years.
A mechanic was brought to the ward, carrying an industrial strength, air-powered grinder with a diamond cutting blade. He showed the doctor how to use the tool and looked on as the one-quarter-centimetre-thick pipe was slowly removed over a two-hour period.
Water had to be sprayed on the appendage because the cutting process created a lot of heat, the source said.
And because the device was made of stainless steel, it was extremely difficult to cut in light of the delicate surroundings.
The source speculated that the victim may have used the device as a lengthener. A similar incident happened at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster a couple of years ago.
In that incident, a man's penis became stuck inside a nut and was removed by hand using a hacksaw.
A source at New Westminster's fire department said the victim thought the nut "would be a sexual enhancing device."
Another hospital source said this type of incident isn't unusual, but wouldn't comment on the particulars of the case.
"Just when you think you've seen everything, something else comes along."
The land claims stakes just got higher.
City assets, perhaps even some city parks and various programs and services, may be on the negotiating table, when the provincial and federal governments work out treaties with local native bands, city council was told Monday night.
Previously, city officials were under the impression that only Crown land - land owned by the federal or provincial governments and not the city - would be negotiated.
But a delegation from the Lower Mainland Treaty Advisory Committee, the group guiding municipalities affected by future treaties like Richmond, told council that the city should prepare a list of certain assets that it feels should become part of a treaty settlement. That may not mean ownership of assets will transfer, but it could see the birth of some form of co-management arrangement for the services with native bands.
Several Richmond councillors were confused over how the co-management of services could be worked out and how it will affect the city's overall population.
It didn't sit well with Coun. Ken Johnston, who previously understood treaty negotiations would be limited strictly to Crown land or compensation in lieu of land settlements.
"All of a sudden now this is on the table," he said in council. "How? What happened to the old Crown land thing?"
"I think we are handing out a menu. I don't understand it."
Johnston was told by advisory commitee vice-chair Vicki Huntington that all affected cities should produce a list so that arrangements can be worked out. She cited Delta's case, where the municipality and Tsawwassen Indian Band worked out servicing agreements for developments on band land. (Huntington is also a Delta councillor.)
But Coun. Bill McNulty said Tuesday he's concerned that the treaty process is secretive. Monday night was the first he'd officially heard that city assets were to be included, he said.
"We don't know where we stand," he said Tuesday.
At the very least, the new information has thrown a new quirk in the treaty settlement picture, one which is already clouded by overlapping claims to traditional lands in Richmond. As was reported in The Review earlier this year, five native bands - including the Tsawassen and Musqueam bands - have deemed parts or all of Richmond to be part of their historical territories.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the bands are seeking ownership of parts of Crown lands in Richmond - some may very well - but it could mean that the bands may be paid compensation for the loss of such traditional lands.
The only large-scale piece of Crown land left in Richmond is the old Transport Department lands - the square chunk of lands with the towering airport antennas on it - that borders Westminster Highway, No. 4 Road, Garden City Road and Alderbridge Way.
Meanwhile, it was disclosed that even the airport lands and Sea Island are part of a land claims negotiations.
More information on the treaty negotiations can be obtained by calling 1-800-880-1022 or by accessing the following website: www.aaf.gov.bc.ca
Local nurses could begin walking picket lines outside Richmond Hospital at any time.
That can only mean bad news for patients, according to the Health Employers Association of B.C.
The B.C. Nurses Union advised the health employers association "to be prepared for full picket lines at any time," according to an employers' press release. The nurses union will also stop providing direct notice of escalating job action, the press release states.
By discontinuing the practice of giving notice, the nurses' union is reneging on promises it has previously made and that is "simply not acceptable," employers' spokesperson Gary Moser said in the prepared statement.
B.C. Nurses Union president Cathy Ferguson told The Review Tuesday that there have been no talks between the two groups for the past nine days and "nurses are fed-up and frustrated."
Ferguson refuted Moser's allegation that nurses would be reneging on a previous promise of notifying employers about job action.
"We're notifying them that we're not notifying them anymore."
A letter was sent to the employers' association on Monday warning that nurses have been instructed to be ready for anything, including picket lines, she said.
"Now we're saying to the health employers association to be ready for anything at any time," she said Tuesday afternoon.
The nurses union implemented a province-wide ban on overtime Tuesday, and is waiting to see how the employers' association responds.
"I challenged (Gary Moser) to invite us back to the table," she said.
Although there were no plans to picket at The Review's press time Tuesday afternoon, Ferguson didn't rule out the possibility of escalated job action.
Should the nurses union set up picket lines, the public will be notified, she said.
"We will do as we always have done and have a press conference."
There are currently only 400 registered nurses in the province under the age of 25, but there are 4,000 nurses less than five years from the age of retirement, she noted.
The last employers' offer was a $45 million pledge to hire 600 nurses across the province.
But Ferguson said that money would only pay for about 500 nurses' salaries.
The local Sikh community is further divided and rife with emotion after the slaying of Surrey newspaper publisher Tara Singh Hayer last week.
"We are all shocked and horrified at this tragedy," said Balwant Sanghera, a local Sikh who attends the Nanak Niwas temple (also known as the India Cultural Centre) on No. 5 Road. "We are all still wondering why it happened."
Tara Singh Hayer, 64, was the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times. He was gunned down at his home on Wednesday, Nov. 18, while moving from his car to his wheelchair in his garage.
National Revenue Minister Herb Dhaliwal, a Richmond resident, noted Sikhism does not condone violence.
"I am shocked and saddened at the death of Tara Singh Hayer," he said in a prepared statement. "This is a tragedy for Mr. Hayer's family, the Sikh community, the Lower Mainland, and for all of Canada. Such acts of violence are never justified."
It is widely believed that Hayer's attackers were "fundamentalists". They too were blamed for a previous attack on Hayer that left him paralyzed 10 years ago.
Hayer's death has sparked a wave of outrage and sympathy throughout the Lower Mainland, which has further divided the Sikh community.
"There is a lot of emotion in the community," Sanghera, himself a moderate said. "I don't want to point fingers because all of us are trying to avoid that."
The Sikh community has been split in recent years between so-called "moderates" and "fundamentalists." Much of the media attention has focussed on the infamous tables-and-chairs conflict. Fundamentalists don't want tables and chairs in the temple dining halls, paying homage to a long-standing tradition. Moderates, however, believe tables and chairs are part of the Sikh community's tradition in Canada for the past 90 years, reflecting the past practice of the Vancouver's Ross Street temple which allowed chairs and tables.
But Sanghera noted the conflict goes beyond furniture; it's about control of the temples by each faction.
"There are some people who are engaging in a lot of rhetoric, which is not very good," he said. "But the majority of moderates and the majority of fundamentalists are really civilized people, they are still trying to behave in a very appropriate manner. I think everybody is keeping cool heads right now and I think this is what we need."
The RCMP have set up a toll-free tip line to help catch Hayer's killers at 1-877-599-7890.
Meanwhile, the B.C. and Yukon Community Newspaper Association announced it is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and charge of the person or persons responsible for killing.
The purchase of $300,000 worth of canned fish earmarked for hurricane-ravaged Central America drew criticism last week from Richmond-South Delta MP John Cummins.
The Canadian International Development Agency, Ottawa's foreign development wing, didn't give B.C. fishers the opportunity to bid on the assistance, and instead turned to New Brunswick-based Connors Bros. Ltd.
"I don't think (CIDA) even considered (it)," Cummins told The Review Monday.
Local fishers had ample opportunity this year to fish for chum salmon, which is comparable in price to the canned herring and mackerel purchased by CIDA, Cummins said. But most fishers opted not to fish for chum because of the lack of a market, and those fishers who did go out had trouble selling it, he added.
At the very least, B.C.'s canning industry should have been considered for the substantial $300,000 purchase, he said.
"There's just no excuse."
United Nations' Michael Crosthwaite, stationed in Rome, Italy, told The Review Tuesday that there was no specific type of fish requested by the UN.
"We just ask for food," said Crosthwaite, the senior resource mobilization officer for the World Food Programme.
"In the past Canada has been generous and continues to be generous."
Cummins contends that if CIDA had opted to buy chum salmon, that would have allowed local processors to purchase more of this type of salmon from fishers.
And he's convinced there was ample chum salmon available for immediate delivery to Central America.
This isn't the first time that he's has made an issue of CIDA's purchasing choices, he said.
But CIDA spokesperson Robin Walsh defended the decision. It was based both on severe time constraints and the appropriateness of the food.
The United Nation's World Food Programme coordinated donor responses and indicated that herring and mackerel were "appropriate".
CIDA provided more than $9 million in relief, nearly a quarter of which was food, including the 100 tonnes of canned mackerel and herring.
The food had to be taken to the hardest hit areas of Central America within 48 hours, and trucked to the Trenton Air Force Base, three hours outside of Ottawa, Ontario.
But Cummins said there's no reason why chum shouldn't be considered as an alternative to herring and mackerel.
"I presume it's political," Cummins said of CIDA's decision. "It just doesn't make sense."
United Nations' Crosthwaite urged Cummins to contact CIDA with his concerns.
"I can appreciate what he's saying."
Some are aggressive and defiant. Others refuse to work and are withdrawn.
Children with social and behavioural problems have for nearly two decades received special attention at Blundell elementary school's day treatment program.
But the program recently received a serious boost with the addition of much-needed therapeutic services and space aimed at helping children overcome these obstacles.
Two classroom portables were brought to the school, gutted and then renovated to accommodate the range of therapies that are now available, including play, family, speech-language and occupational therapy.
"We want to provide intensive intervention at an early stage to break the pattern (of behavioural problems)," program coordinator Sherry King said Thursday. "The Richmond community has been asking for this service for some time."
In some cases, children in the program are from broken homes or have either been abused or witnessed abusive situations. But the kids often lack the means to express their frustrations in words, and instead lash out physically or withdraw.
"They don't do so well with verbalizing their problems," King said.
That's where a highly-skilled counsellor steps in, and through play therapy, for example, uncovers the underlying problems and helps children to deal with them. Play provides a respectful and trusting environment through which children can communicate with a counsellor.
Aggressive children are taught alternative ways to express their feelings when things aren't going well, she said.
The program is patterned after a similar one in Vancouver, and provides special assistance to children with problems serious enough that they can't be managed by counselors at their home school.
When these children are identified they are brought into the program, which can accommodate up to 15 children. The duration of a child's stay in the program can vary from a few months to a year, she said.
As soon as a student's behaviour is "back on track", they rejoin their former classmates at their home school.
Although the move to a new school and program is often difficult, some kids welcome the opportunity for a fresh start.
In the intermediate classroom, which caters to up to five children in Grades 4 to 7, a teacher and an adult trained in behaviour management instruct the students. Each child is enroled in a specialized education program and tackles the same subjects as children in regular classrooms, King said.
The primary classroom caters to a maximum of 10 children (from kindergarten through Grade 3) and is supervised by one teacher and two adults with special behaviour management training.
What sets the program apart is the fact that each teacher has fewer children to look after, and can devote more time to his or her students.
The new therapeutic services were brought in "in response to a real push from the Richmond community," King said, and are housed in the converted classroom portables.
Therapists work with children and families on an individual basis through scheduled appointments. King is hopeful that psychiatric services may be added to the program.
The local school district, Greater Vancouver Mental Health Service, Vancouver/Richmond health board and the Ministry for Children and Families are part of the advisory board for the program.
The official opening of the program was scheduled for today (Wednesday).
Nurses continued to put the pressure on management by stepping up job action this week.
On Thursday morning, community nurses in several B.C. cities, including Richmond, showed up for work without their vehicles as part of job action involving the current contract negotiations.
That prompted Richmond Hospital and at least one other city to declare essential services, hospital spokesperson Peter Roaf said Friday afternoon.Faced with 100 local patients who needed assistance, the hospital chose to declare essential services in an effort to force nurses to use their vehicles to visit their patients at home.
But B.C. Nurses Union's Marie Mackay said Richmond showed it was one of the few locations in the province incapable of managing the situation.
In Terrace, B.C., for example, management was able to drive community care nurses to their patients' homes without incident and without essential services having to be declared.
"Why are management in Terrace able to do this."
Instead, local management opted to declare essential services, which led to a contract dispute that wasn't settled for four hours.
During that time, nurses for two high-risk patients called a taxi provided by the hospital.
She noted that local management was too busy harassing and haranguing nurses, rather than dealing with the situation. Managers should have used their own vehicles to drive nurses around during the dispute, Mackay said.
But Mackay noted that patients weren't affected by the job action.
Nurses identified which patients were high-risk and ensured they were visited as required.
"There were no high risk patients that weren't seen (Thursday)," she said.
According to Roaf, nurses are upset about their current car allowance and are negotiating for more.
Community nurses provide various services to patients, including monitoring and inserting intravenous feeding lines, managing medicines, replacing surgical dressing and injecting insulin in diabetic patients.
On Wednesday, the nurses' union held a study session during their breaks, which hospital management claims forced them to cancel five elective surgeries.
A ban on overtime began Thursday at seven B.C. hospitals including Richmond Hospital. Overtime bans were planned at 10 other hospitals to begin Saturday morning.
To make matters worse, on Friday the Hospital Employees' Union announced its employees will take a strike vote early next month.
"It all comes down to a basic issue of fairness," HEU manager Chris Allnutt said in a press release. "Community social service workers do the same work with the same clients as their counterparts in health care yet they are paid up to $8 an hour less and have few, if any, benefits."
Health Canada issued an advisory this week concerning soft vinyl toys that are designed to be sucked or chewed by young kids.
The agency is concerned about toys with a plasticizer called DINP added to it, which is used to make the toys soft. Tests have shown that intense exposure to DINP can cause potential damages to kidneys and livers, Health Canada reports.
Parents and caregivers are urged to toss away such products.
The warning concerns products designed for sucking or teething like soft teethers and soft rattles, which the agency says can pose a potential health risk for very young kids, weighing less than eight kilograms (17.6 pounds) when sucked or chewed for longer than three or more hours daily.
The agency also advises parents to be cautious about children's sucking or chewing on other soft vinyl toys that are not specifically designed for that purpose. Parents should ensure these toys are not sucked or chewed for longer than three hours a day too, Health Canada states.
Because residents can't determine which toys are made with or without DINP by smell or by touch, the agency is also recommending parents and caregivers limit their child's exposure to all soft vinyl toys as a safety measure.
The warning does not apply to pacifiers and feeding bottle nipples. So far those products have not shown to include DINP.
More information is available by calling toll free 1-888-774-1111 or by accessing the agency's web site at www.hc-sc.gc.ca/advisory. A hearing-impaired teletypewriter is available by accessing 1-800-465-7735.
Some teethers are safe to use, and include some models of products with the brand names: Aceway, Ambl Toys, Baby, Baby King, Baby's Choice, Beautiful Beginnings, Bright Starts, Chicco, Ellie's Playthings, Evenflo, Gerber, Gerber NUK, Hasbro, Honey Baby, Lamaze, Nabisco Munchkin, Nicetoys, Nursery Needs, Pappa Geppelto's Toys, Piyo Piyo, Playskool, Safety 1st, Saniloy Inc., Sassy, Shelcore, Smart Baby, The first Years and Young Times.
Old Man River is feeling rejuvenated.
Environment Canada says the Fraser River's environmental health is improving.
But the final report of the Fraser River Action Plan, a seven-year effort concluded this week, also warns that the river is still adversely affected by the stresses placed on it by urban environments like Richmond.
Many aspects of day-to-day life in Richmond can harm the river, including dikes, sewage plants, population growth and covering ditches, said Dan Millar, manager of Fraser River Action Plan coordinating office.
Here's how:
Normally the source of jokes from those who call the city "Ditchmond", those street-side channels help filter water run-off before it empties into the river. Covering them up or filling them, means more harmful materials flow into the river, Millar said. "There's lots of grass there and as the water flows through it, it tends to clean it up," he said.
There's little doubt that Richmond needs dikes to protect itself from floods. Too bad then that those life-saving barriers don't allow the river's sediment to build-up along the river banks and form natural estuaries.
"It's really not an estuary there any more," Millar said. "It's just a rock bank. There's no reeds or anything that the fish can stay in and protect themselves or that a bird can eat."
Bushes, trees, shrubs and other plant life grow naturally next to the river banks and act as "buffer zone" that enriches the habitat. Those bushes and shrubs may be unsightly to some, but they help critters survive, he said.
But it's not all bad news.
Sewage treatment plants have for long been criticized for harming the river by dumping partially treated human waste into the river. The good news is that the Annacis Island plant located up river in Delta just completed the building of secondary sewage capabilities, meaning less-harmful waste will be deposited into the river.
Closer to home, the Lulu Island treatment plant in south Richmond will also soon have its own secondary treatment upgrades completed in the next few months. As well, scientists are beginning to find small plant life, bugs and other invertebrates near the Iona Island treatment plant on Sea Island near the airport, he said.
Over the past few years some heavy-duty wood preserving companies, such as the companies that preserve telephone polls, located in and around Richmond, have spent $30 million upgrading their facilities to reduce the amount of harmful toxic run off. "That's pretty significant," Millar said.
As well, many wetland areas around Richmond and Delta are prime resting and feeding grounds for migrating birds, he said. As increasing development occurs on open areas, there's less places for those birds to stage and feed, he said.
Fortunately, a joint public/private sector trust fund has helped purchase sensitive habitat areas like the group of small islands in the river on the south side of Richmond. Those islands now give the migrating birds and young salmon much needed resting and feeding grounds.
Copies of the report are available on Environment Canada's website at www.pyr.ec.gc.ca/ecfrap/index.html
Information on other river initiatives can be found at www.ec.gc.ca/ecosyst/infodoc.html
All doubt that Richmond is one of the hubs for lottery-selling scams was put to rest on Wednesday.
Vancouver RCMP simultaneously executed search orders at two local banquet halls and two local post office boxes, along with four other Lower Mainland sites, following an eight-month investigation of the Richmond and Burnaby-based telemarketing group Win USA.
RCMP Staff Sgt. Jeff Wright, head of the major fraud/commercial crime section, told The Review Thursday that $4 million dollars in assets - including properties, homes and vehicles - were seized.
"We're very happy with the stuff we got today," he said, noting that police successfully seized both paperwork and computer files.
The Riverside Banquet Hall, at 14500 River Rd., and the nearby Palace Banquet Hall, at 14431 Knox Way, are now frozen assets, Wright said. That means the two properties can't be sold until police have concluded their investigation and the case has been dealt with by the courts.
City hall records show the Riverside Banquet Hall was owned by Bhagat S. Sidhu, Daljit S. Hayer, Sardara S. Banwait and Hari B. Ghirra.
But The Review was told that Hari Ghirra bought out his other partners a few months ago.
"I wasn't aware that this was happening there," the adult son of a former property owner said Friday morning.
There is catering business run inside the banquet hall and his father was just a silent partner, he said. Although his family was aware of a lottery business at the address, "we didn't realize it was illegal. We've got nothing to hide."
The second seized property, The Palace Banquet Hall, is about a block away from the Riverside Banquet Hall and was recently constructed by the Ghirra family, he said.
The Review contacted the Ghirra household in Surrey, but family members declined to comment.
City hall records indicate the banquet hall is a new property owned by Vancouver-based Prudean Properties Ltd. Earlier this year, five North Richmond properties were consolidated and then subdivided into 16 other properties, including the banquet hall address, according to the city.
In a precedent setting move, Vancouver RCMP used the Trade Practices Act to help shut down the scam that preys on foreign seniors with false promises of million-dollar lottery ticket payouts.
Normally, police base their charges and search warrants on the Criminal Code of Canada. But since the scam normally targets foreigners, mostly Americans, police have difficulty rounding up the complainants necessary to sustain a criminal charge.
Under the Trade Practices Act, however, police don't have to identify victims ahead of time, and can use the information seized in the raids to track them down. Allegations under the Trade Practices Act are akin to those in a civil suit, and can only result in a monetary fine.
Since the spring, three or four full-time police investigators have been working on shutting down more than 100 suspected lottery selling businesses in B.C., mostly in the Lower Mainland. But for about a year, only one RCMP officer was working on the files.
Wright indicated more police raids are coming, but wouldn't indicate which regions police were concentrating on.
If the civil action is successful, the frozen assets will be sold and the money used to repay scam victims, many of whom have paid out $25,000.
The investigation involved the Ministry of the Attorney General's consumer services branch, the United States Federal Trade Commission, and attorneys general from Arizona and Washington State.
