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Weasel wonders, it's not about the bars, it's not about the warm milk either, fingering foreign aid, trashing First Nations, waking up the bear

Hats off to Weasels I only have admiration for all those fantastic volunteers who were involved in helping put on the series of ski races over the last 10 days.

Hats off to Weasels

I only have admiration for all those fantastic volunteers who were involved in helping put on the series of ski races over the last 10 days. There were probably at least 300 of them that worked tirelessly in some of the wettest weather of the winter. Great to see it finally change for the last few days.  

They came from Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, all corners of B.C., and even from across our border to the south. For many, it was a week or so of their hard earned holidays. All the volunteers had two goals in mind: first, to help make the different race courses as racer friendly as they possibly could, and second, to start gaining experience and building the teams that will be running the races in 2010.

There were all sorts of positions, each equally important. It didn’t matter if one was a chief of race, chief of course, start referee, gate judge, marshal, security guard, timer, bib collector, slipper, worked in the race office producing results, or a sandwich maker at 5 o’clock every morning, they were all key to making things happen. The beauty of the 10 days-plus was all the positive vibes that circulated around the course during the day and continued into the “Beer Tent” every evening.

Feel left out? Next year the Canadian Championships are the first week in February, and at the end of that same month there will be World Cup races. They will need twice the number of volunteers, so please consider getting involved.

My hat is off to all these hard working, fun loving people.

Congratulations.

Noel Villard

Whistler

 

Now a gun...

I am writing in regards to the passionate letters written by Brian Walker and Scott Fennell regarding the shooting in Whistler.

I believe that the service industry has been blamed for too much in these last few years. It still remains the butter for the bread (the mountains) of this town.

If Whistler was a dry resort there would be no jobs and no one to run this town. If we shut the bars at 12:30 a.m. (Scott's idea) then over 1,000 people would be roaming the village with no place to go. May I remind everyone that there have been way more attacks, stabbings, fights and now shooting outside of Whistler establishments than inside.

We can monitor people’s behaviour in buildings. It is when they are in the village we have no control.

We need to support our police force and embrace a new need for higher security. Society is changing and instead of fighting it we need to change with it.

Thank God for the police officer on the Citta’ patio who had his dog with him to catch the kid who shot someone. I pray that this is a sign to the municipality and our mayor that we need people like him around every night.

Blaming all this on our restaurants and on over serving seems silly to me. No one was over serving that punk when he packed his suitcase for the weekend in Whistler... Skis, gloves, wallet and now a gun.

Joanne Van Engelsdorp

Whistler

 

Whistler is a party town

You know what I'm talking about, world famous Whistler Resort, two amazing mountains located on either side of Whistler Village, the home of the best restaurants and the biggest, best bar/nightclub scene of any resort in North America. This is a party town and that's what makes it better than all the rest.

I have worked as a frontline doorman for close to 10 years now in Whistler and as such I feel uniquely qualified to comment on what I've seen in that time. After reading the letter to the editor by Scott Fennell last week I felt compelled to educate him and the rest of the community about the Whistler bar/nightclub scene and the problems associated with it. I think the major problems are noise pollution, drunkenness and rowdy patrons outside a club yelling, screaming and getting into trouble.

There are people outside because (1) they're waiting in line to get in; (2) they have to smoke... and you aren’t allowed to smoke inside bars anymore. You have to have the lineup outside for two reasons: (a) fire safety, you can't be blocking an emergency exit with a lineup; (b) Check IDs. In some bars this is done in front of security cameras to cover yourself from prosecution by the liquor board. Get everything on camera.

Most of the nightclubs here in Whistler shut around 2 a.m. So what happens is all the bars empty out at the same time, so what you get is around 1,500 drunk and rowdy people all piling onto the street all together. This can lead to confrontations. They all want food and a taxi to get home. I think the security guard at 7-Eleven is the bravest guy in Whistler at 2:30 a.m. in the morning.

OK, so we need a solution to this problem. Here are a few Ideas.

1) Bring back happy hour. The liquor board will tell you that this promotes binge drinking... hello, that's what people do... wake up. If they can't do it at a bar they'll do it before they leave the house. The benefit of this is people get drunk early and go home early. Six bars in this town are owned by two   companies. We need more competition. Bring back cheap beer. Bring back happy hour.

2) Let the bars stay open longer, not close earlier. If the bars were open till 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. people would leave the bar when they were drunk and tired, not all together at 2 a.m. This would spread out the demand for food and taxis over the course of the night. This should also result in a lot less confrontation and violent behavior.

To all the whining hotels around town, buy some ear plugs for your guests. At 39 cents each it’s the cheapest solution to your problem. People are here to party, get used to it. If you don't want to live in a party town, drink your glass of warm milk before bed and go ski at Silverstar.

PS I love the Cops in this town, they're awesome and do a great job.

Mark Hall (Doorman extraordinaire)

Garfinkels, Moe Joe’s, GLC

 

Redefining the white man’s burden

How much should the Canadian government contribute to foreign aid to make a difference? Although the commitment from G8 countries was there (0.7 per cent of GDP per country), this issue is far from clear in terms of answering the above questions. It will, therefore, be really interesting to see how Mr. Brock Carlton from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) addresses one aspect of this complex issue: Municipal partnerships with developing countries. This presentation will take place at the Telus Conference Centre on Sunday, April 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. Every member of the Whistler community is welcome to attend this presentation.

Actually, I would say even further that everybody who considers themself an engaged citizen has the obligation to attend this meeting in order to better understand this complex issue.

One obvious reason is that this is about how your government spends your tax money more effectively in far distant lands. But for Whistler, this will also help implement the concept of Whistler 2020 abroad. It is no coincidence that citizens in Canada and other developed countries are becoming more concerned about the environment and how we conduct globalization here and abroad. We are increasingly dependant on each other. Our local actions will have an impact globally and vice versa. Sustainability in our own backyard will be meaningless if we as a nation do not know how to implement this concept abroad. The prosperity of this community will also very much depend on how we as a nation conduct our business in other parts of the world.

In order to improve the way our government spends our foreign aid, we need to show that we care about this issue. And Canadians do indeed care, as seen through the introduction of Bill C-293 in the House of Commons last year, dubbed the “Better Aid Bill”. This Bill will limit the use of our foreign aid to directly reduce poverty and also give aid recipients in foreign countries a chance to have a say in whether or not they benefit from our aid. Although I agree that this is a move in the right direction, we are far from solving the accountability issue of our foreign aid, which now amounts to roughly $4 billion per year.

It is therefore, crucial to put this issue back in front of the average Canadian citizen. Programs like the municipal partnership program and Global Partnership in Local Governance that are introduced by the FCM will help average Canadians get involved in foreign aid projects through their own municipalities. Canada is the only country in the world that has had these programs in place for years. The community of Whistler needs to show its supports for this effort. This effort will help redefine the meaning of the words, “White man’s burden”, because this issue has become “The citizen of the world’s burden”. And Whistlerites are citizens of the world.

Jay Wahono

Whistler

 

A familiar script

Native references to “stolen land” reminds me of the old adage about the pot calling the kettle black (Builders and destroyers, Pique Opening Remarks, March 15).

First, even if B.C. would be “stolen” land, Europeans wouldn’t have been the first to steal it. Natives have been “stealing” land from each other long before the Europeans arrived. B.C. First Nations, for example, did not all arrive here together at the same time. Some came earlier, some later, some much later. Archeology, warrior cultures and overlapping land claims attest that conflict, conquest and displacement were rampant throughout pre-Columbian history as more aggressive newcomers encountered earlier arrivals.

Second, Europeans conquered the land fair and square. Up until the end of WWII, conquest was a legitimate, if insalubrious, means of acquiring territory. Europeans were merely the latest wave of conquerors on the continent. Apart from their deadlier technology, they were no different from the successive waves of early Indian ancestors migrating from Siberia, Inca and Aztec imperialists or Haida raiders. The European conquest of the Americas even followed the script of the Aztec conquest of Mexico: alliances while weak, conquest when strong. In this province, British assertion of sovereignty in the 1850s and the overwhelming non-Native presence now here must represent conquest of the land (if not the people) to any rational observer.

Joe Bako

Vancouver

 

A legacy to be proud of?

VANOC will cease to exist in three years and the legacies they leave behind will reflect on all our communities, either in a positive or negative way. VANOC's website states under sustainability/environmental performance: "We have carefully selected the sites for Games venues to avoid environmentally sensitive and undisturbed natural areas..." VANOC has recently submitted an Environmental Assessment application amendment to the provincial government for the Legacy Trails at the Whistler Nordic Centre in the Callaghan Valley. There seem to be more questions than answers whether these proposed trails will leave a legacy we can be proud of after 2010.

The Madeley drainage in the Callaghan Valley, site of the proposed Legacy Trails, is relatively undisturbed although already popular with the public in its current state. The Legacy Trail application proposes at least an additional new 20km of trail varying from a minimum of 10 to a maximum of 20 metres clearing width which will result in the removal of 38.3 hectares of 250 year and older old growth trees. By contrast the average trail at Lost Lake is 4 to 5 metres wide and the widest on old logging road beds is 7 metres wide, existing commercial cross country trails in the Callaghan are 6 metres wide, the standard set by B.C. Parks and the B.C. Forest Service. Does this amount of old growth removal for the Legacy Trails meet VANOC's objective to: "avoid... undisturbed natural areas?"

There are already over 80km of existing commercial cross-country trails in the Callaghan as well as 22km of newly constructed competition trails at the Nordic Centre. The Legacy Trails application proposes to add yet more trails carving up the old growth forest with up to 20 metre wide cutblocks as well as dozens of watercourse crossings over the many streams and productive small wetlands in the damp and shady Madeley drainage. Have all the options for utilizing existing trail infrastructure been fully explored?

The executive summary for the VANOC application states in part: "...the most sensitive species including northern goshawk, northern spotted owl, grizzly bear and wolverine are rare or absent from these areas, while common species may have already become somewhat habituated to the current level of human activity. However, disturbance associated with increased recreational use could compromise any efforts to restore grizzly bears or other sensitive species to the valley."

Two years of grizzly bear DNA research data conducted by Aspen Wildlife Research and All Relations Wildlife Research for Ledcor Inc. and the Ministry of the Environment confirms that in 2005 five individual grizzly bears were using the upper Callaghan valley. VANOC's grizzly research is broad scale and does not include any detailed on-the-ground data such as Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping (TEM), Predictive Ecosystem Mapping (PEM) and/or Wildlife Habitat Ratings (WHR), the minimum research required to assess potential wildlife impacts with any confidence. Can VANOC say they have: "...carefully selected the sites for Games venues to avoid environmentally sensitive and undisturbed natural areas..." without conducting this detailed and scientifically sound research?

The proposed Legacy Trails additions to the Whistler Nordic Centre are a large scale development of mostly untouched forest and wetlands in a wilderness area where grizzly bears and other wildlife are fortunately still present. In order for VANOC to meet their own sustainability objectives detailed and defensible research has to be conducted and other potential existing trail options need to be fully explored before environmental approval is granted by the provincial government. If you have concerns about this project there is an opportunity for input by the public by emailing: eaoinfo@gov.bc.ca by April 29th.

Eckhard Zeidler

Whistler

 

Enough already

Please, no more sustainability propaganda.

I am tired of this sustainability term being used to excess in every facet of the media locally and globally.

What a grand gesture by the municipality, only bowing over 85 degrees as opposed to the full 90, in regards to limiting the tax break for Uncle Intrawest/Fortress for the proposed Peak to Peak gondola — something that is no more than an advertising gimmick designed for increasing the cash intake and resort resale price.

Here's the ideal moment in time for an earth-shattering proposal. How about instead of spending $50 million-plus on little more than redundant facilities, why not spend this money on something that is oriented towards achieving this much-touted goal of sustainability, at least in regards to the energy consumption of Whistler? What a message that would send to the world come Olympics time, about how forward thinking and proactive Whistler and the nation of Canada are. Imagine a resort town that supplies itself with all or at least most of its own power needs. This is not a pipe-dream but a technologically achievable real world vision.

How about an array of alpine high efficiency megawatt wind turbines? Before the NIMBYs reply in regards to ruining the mountain vistas I would like to ask you to re-focus your eyes for a moment, on the numerous gondolas, cables, chairlifts, T-bars and all associated towers, not to mention the clearcuts that provide the means of enjoying the machine-powered, largely self-indulgent sport that is downhill skiing/boarding (not including backcountry hikers).

Don't get me wrong, I, too, indulge. I’m just trying to keep things real in a town in which it's easy to lose perspective.

Even further, consider looking upon the beautiful sight of wind turbines on the horizon with the pride of a town taking responsibility for its own energy requirements.

Mark Neumeyer

Whistler