Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 17, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS I MANITOBA / CANADA THE Pallister government must do a better job of vetting mining projects, Manitoba Liberals say, after learning the proponent of a controversial sand mine east of Winnipeg was part of an- other company ordered to cease trad- ing by the Alberta Securities Commis- sion last year. Feisal Somji, CEO of CanWhite Sands, is the former CEO of Prize Mining Corp., and was named by the Alberta Securities Commission in January 2019 when Prize was ordered to cease trad- ing while under investigation for al- legedly breaching Alberta securities laws. The company was accused of act- ing “contrary to the public interest, by making misrepresentations and failing to comply with its continuous disclo- sure obligations.” One month later, the company was ordered to issue a news release disclos- ing that of the $6.5 million it reportedly raised from investors, $5.5 million was returned to some of them for “consult- ing agreements,” the Alberta stocks watchdog said. “Prize so issued the release and the cease trade order has long since ex- pired,” Somji’s spokeswoman Marni Larkin wrote in an email. “There was no finding of any kind that Mr. Somji breached Alberta securities laws, or that he was even specifically involved in the transaction of Prize Mining in issue,” said Larkin, owner of Boom- DoneNext and a former top Tory strat- egist who worked with Gary Filmon’s PC government. Currently, Somji’s CanWhite Sands Corp. is seeking approval from the Manitoba government to build a sand- processing plant 35 kilometres east of Winnipeg. Critics say it would threaten the drinking water of 64,000 people and they want the project put under greater scrutiny. A spokesman for Conservation Minis- ter Sarah Guillemard said the applica- tion has not been approved. “The province is continuing to carry out its due diligence in reviewing the company’s application under the En- vironment Act for the proposed sand processing facility,” he said in a pre- pared statement. “The environmental assessment and licensing process will be followed, and the proposed project will be thoroughly reviewed in accord- ance with the act. The period for public feedback on the proposal closed on Aug. 25.” CanWhite Sands plans to remove 3.5 million tonnes of sand a year from the ground, for fracking and other purpos- es, at its Vivian Sand Facility Project near Anola, in the RM of Springfield. The plan is to pump sand and water up from the ground and then return the water. Opponents have argued that the water will become contaminated when the pyrite in the shale hits the surface, oxidizes and turns acidic. They say there is a risk of contaminating the groundwater as well as the Brokenhead River and Lake Winnipeg. The frack sand mining and processing might provide short-term wealth to some, but critics say it would threaten drinking water for 64,000 Manitobans. An environmental impact proposal, which was submitted to Manitoba Con- servation, says “overall, the adverse residual effects of the proposed project are expected to be negligible to minor in magnitude, and mitigable.” The Pallister government isn’t doing enough due diligence, and should have serious concerns about the project and its proponent, Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said. He has called for a full review of the project before the Clean Environment Commission, including public hearings, in which the company would be ques- tioned about its plans for Manitoba as well as its CEO’s experience with the Alberta Securities Commission. “Manitoba has enormous potential for resource development, but it has to be done with real integrity and respect for Manitoba’s people and our environ- ment,” said MLA Jon Gerrard, the Lib- eral party’s critic for sustainable de- velopment. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca Liberals sound alarm about sand mine project Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont wants a full review of the sand mine project. CAROL SANDERS VANCOUVER — Registered and psychiatric nurses in British Columbia will be able to prescribe safer drugs for people at risk of overdose under a new public health order that advocates are hailing as a major step in the battle to save lives. The order by provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry comes as B.C. experi- ences a record number of monthly over- dose fatalities. Border closings during the pandemic are being blamed for more toxic drugs on the streets. Henry said Wednesday that new nursing standards will be introduced, along with training, education and ac- cess to expert consultation through the BC Centre on Substance Use, which has been training doctors to prescribe medications like hydromorphone. More than 5,000 people have fatally overdosed in B.C. since the province declared a public health emergency in 2016, but fatalities were declining be- fore COVID-19. Only doctors and nurse practitioners are currently able to prescribe drugs, including substitute medications for illicit-drug users as an alternative to potentially deadly substances on the street. Henry said expanding the number of health professionals who can prescribe could lead to connections that prompt those with entrenched addictions to seek help. “When people are using drugs, it’s not the shunning and the shaming that’s go- ing to help them,” she said. “Right now, the toxicity of the drugs that are on the street is so high that we’re losing our colleagues, our friends, our family members before they’ve even had a chance to connect with people.” Henry said registered and psychiat- ric nurses who work on outreach teams in the community would be able to pre- scribe the medications to people seek- ing services. Drug users could also be given pre- scriptions in hospital when they’re seeking psychiatric care, and more people struggling with addiction will be reached in rural and remote areas where nurses are often providing pri- mary care, she said. Hydromorphone pills are being prescribed, but injectable and pow- der forms of the drug as well as other medications are under consideration as alternatives to substances such as fentanyl, Henry said. A spokeswoman with the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives said its board is expected to review standards related to the order at a meeting on Sept. 24 and to set a date to start the new service, which could be 30 days later. The latest data from the BC Coroners Service from July shows there were 175 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths, but the province set a monthly overdose record in June with 177 fatalities. In March, British Columbia tempor- arily expanded access to a safer supply of prescription drugs due to concerns about a high number of overdose deaths among isolated drug users during COVID-19. The ministries of Health and Mental Health and Addictions will expand that access by working with Henry’s office to increase the types of medications that can be prescribed and dispensed by doctors, pharmacists and nurses. Henry has been an advocate for ac- cess to a safer supply of drugs and has called on the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, has also called for ac- cess to safer prescription drugs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re- cently agreed a safer supply is key dur- ing the dual public emergencies of a pandemic and the overdose crisis, but he has maintained his stance against decriminalization. Guy Felicella, peer clinical adviser with the Overdose Emergency Re- sponse Centre and the BC Centre on Substance Use, said Henry’s order will provide a lifeline to drug users. “This is what people have been call- ing for,” he said, adding the order goes beyond guidance for prescribing safer drugs. Expanding the number of prescribers is a positive step toward building a sys- tem of care that includes harm reduc- tion treatment and recovery, Felicella said. “It’s probably what I would compare to as this era’s Insite,” he said of Can- ada’s first supervised injection site, which opened in Vancouver in 2003. Mental Health and Addictions Min- ister Judy Darcy said an interim measure adopted in March to provide isolated drug users with prescription alternatives during COVID-19 will be broadened to include anyone at risk of overdose after they’ve had a medical evaluation. “This is a health issue, it’s an illness,” she said. — The Canadian Press B.C. nurses to prescribe safer drugs to reduce overdoses NOAH BERGER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A man examines homes destroyed by the fire at the Parkview Townhomes in Talent, Ore., Wednesday. The wildfire has scorched more than 4,000 square kilometres. Canada to send firefighters to battle Oregon inferno Manitoba contributes experts to nearly 300-strong force W ASHINGTON, D.C. — Canada is sending nearly 300 fire-fighters and technical spe- cialists to help beat back the flames ravaging Oregon, one of three states where wildfires are razing buildings, claiming lives and chasing residents from their homes along the U.S. West Coast. Some 230 firefighters, most from British Columbia but including a num- ber from Alberta, will be deployed on Friday, said Edwin Gillis, fire centre manager with the Winnipeg-based Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. They will join 40 to 50 “overhead personnel” — supervisors, specialists and technical experts — from On- tario, Manitoba, B.C. and Alberta who are leaving today, Gillis said. No other added resources are cur- rently planned, but there may be other deployments depending on any specif- ic arrangements that exist between states and the provinces, he added. “The request received from the U.S. National Interagency Co-ordination Center was for assistance on federal land in northern California and Ore- gon,” Gillis said. “Some provinces in the West have border agreements with neighbour- ing states. We have no details as of yet of what is being sent as part of those agreements.” Alberta Wildfire tweeted Tuesday that 45 crew members would be dis- patched to Oregon this week, but it wasn’t clear whether they were part of the national contingent. The 60 firefighters and three super- visors who arrived in California two weeks ago to help battle the North Complex cluster of fires have been sent home to Quebec, but only a single crew of 20 will relieve them, U.S. For- est Service officials say. Instead, the focus has shifted one state north to Oregon, where gusting winds and low humidity on Wednes- day fanned the blazes that have so far killed at least eight people, de- stroyed more than 1,000 homes and scorched more than 4,000 square kilometres. Smoke from what officials and pol- itical leaders say is the worst wildfire season in recent memory blankets the continent, reaching as far away as Washington, D.C., and fouling air quality across southern Canada as it drifts east towards Europe. The crisis is also taxing available resources at a time when the region’s fire season is only half over and the COVID-19 pandemic has exerted unprecedented pressure on govern- ments, agencies and families. Existing interstate and internation- al agreements for sharing fire sup- pression resources are reportedly maxed out. The crisis has also reached the presi- dential campaign trail: Democratic nominee Joe Biden is blaming climate change and accusing Donald Trump of ignoring the threat, while the presi- dent prefers to accuse states of failing to properly manage their forests. Climate change resonated Wednes- day on the other side of the country, where the slow-moving hurricane Sally made landfall in Alabama, bat- tering the coastline with torrential rains, damaging winds and a devas- tating storm surge. “The impacts of climate change are on the doorsteps everywhere, no matter where you live in the United States,” said Melinda Pierce, the Si- erra Club’s legislative director in Washington. That, Pierce said, is turning the en- vironment — long an issue that was forced to take a back seat to economic concerns — into an economic impera- tive that neither political leaders nor voters can afford to ignore. “You are seeing historic and de- structive wildfires, intense and fre- quent hurricanes in the Gulf, flooding in the Midwest, drought impacting farmers — there is no area of the country that isn’t seeing some impact from a changing climate.” Biden seized the chance this week to take the climate-crisis fight to Trump, calling him a “climate ar- sonist” whose re-election would only result in worsening floods, fires and droughts across the country. Biden has promised to spend an eye-bulging $2 trillion over the next four years on clean energy projects and efforts to stop power plants from producing planet-warming carbon emissions. By contrast, in a briefing Monday with state officials in California, Trump shrugged off efforts to con- vince him of the science behind cli- mate change, saying, “I don’t think science knows, actually.” Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice-presi- dential running mate, toured what she described as the “utterly predictable” aftermath of the California fires on Tuesday in her first visit to her home state since the crisis began. “This is not a partisan issue,” Har- ris said, standing alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom. “It is incumbent upon us, in terms of the leadership of our nation, to take seriously the extreme changes in our climate, and to do what we can to miti- gate against the damage.” Newsom has for months been fram- ing the situation in California, which recorded record-setting 54 C temper- atures last month, as an early warn- ing for the rest of the country and the world. “It’s snowing ashes,” he said. “The hots are getting hotter, the dries are getting drier. If you don’t believe in climate change, come to California.” — The Canadian Press CAMILLE BAINS JAMES MCCARTEN A_06_Sep-17-20_FP_01.indd A4 2020-09-16 10:00 PM ;