The mayor of Surrey says she’s frustrated by the province’s request for more information before it decides on the city’s plan to revert to the RCMP as its police service, which would mean scrapping the ongoing transition to a new municipal force. Brenda Locke says provincial bureaucrats are overplaying their hand by delaying the decision. This, after Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said the director of police services found more details are needed. Locke says delaying the decision is unfair to police officers who need assurance about their jobs, and it’s affecting the city’s ability to work on its 2023 budget — but she says the city will get the province every answer it can. Farnworth says the policing transition in Surrey is complex because it involves the largest RCMP detachment in Canada, and the decision will affect policing across the province.
Western Forest Products is the latest major forest company to announce changes in operations, saying it will not restart work at one of its Vancouver Island sawmills that has been curtailed since the fall. The company says it has a working group that includes the United Steelworkers union and Indigenous partners that will spend the next 90 days exploring potential industrial manufacturing options for the facility in Port Alberni. It notes an analysis commissioned last year found very limited options for primary manufacturing at the facility. CEO Steven Hofer says the company believes forestry along the coast has a “strong future.”
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in BC has continued to trend downwards, reaching its lowest number in more than a year. The BC Centre for Disease Control says as of yesterday there were 228 test-positive patients in hospitals across the province. The last time the number was that low was before the centre switched counting methods and began including “incidental” hospitalizations — meaning people who were hospitalized for unrelated reasons but tested positive during screening. That switch happened last January, and until this week the lowest number of patients in hospital since the change had been 255 last March.
Board members of the Vancouver Folk Festival are singing a different tune just days after they announced plans to shut down the event for good. The board says there has been an outpouring of support and several parties have offered possible solutions to its financial problems. It has paused a motion to dissolve the society and postponed its annual general meeting until March while it explores options to save the festival. The board says the festival has had incredible highlights in its 45-year history but its financial past hasn’t reflected the same harmony.
A blast of Arctic air is expected to move across much of BC later today, bringing colder-than-seasonal temperatures until sometime later next week. Environment Canada says the mercury will be five to 10 degrees below the usual for this time of year across the South Coast, central BC and the southern Interior. The weather office says temperatures will also drop in areas throughout the north coast, where winds are expected to add to the chill. The winds are expected to move through valleys along the north and central coasts before spreading south to the Sea-to-Sky and Fraser Valley regions tomorrow night.