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THE
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013
PRINCE
GEORGE
cetizen
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Mill closures part of'manufactured crisis, says northern B.C. MP
Peter JAMES Citizen staff pjames@pgcitizen.ca
When faced with the mountain pine beetle epidemic, the provincial government didn’t do enough to ensure the viability of vulnerable mills, according to Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen.
The NDP representative said mill closures, like the ones announced recently by West Fraser in Houston and Canfor in Quesnel could have been prevented with better forest management practices.
“If you look at a lot of the evidence leading up to this, one keeps hoping that tenure reform and serious efforts from the provincial government would be coming,” Cullen said.
“Everybody knows that this serious, serious downfall is not inevitable, but certainly a high risk.”
Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Minister Steve Thomson said he regretted the closures but defended his government’s handling of the file.
“We sincerely appreciate and understand
the concerns of the communities and the families of the workers and we will be engaging directly and very closely with those communities,” he said.
The provincial government has spent $917 million since 2001 to deal with the pine beetle.
Of that, $185 million has been provided to Northern Development Initiative Trust for economic diversification programs, $269 million has been spent on reforestation and $58 million has been spent on research.
Cullen cited the continued practice of raw log exports, the lack of forest license tenure reform and inappropriate annual allowable cuts as reasons the mills were shut down.
“Parts of this are a manufactured crisis,” he said.
“You can’t just keep pointing at the beetle and saying all the fault is there.”
A spokesman for the ministry also confirmed that there have been no raw log exports from the Houston or Quesnel timber licence areas.
Speaking specifically to the closure in Houston because it’s in his riding, Cullen said he’s confident that the provincial government’s transition team will be able to help the community and families affected by the pending closures.
“I have some faith in the transition team because they’ve seen this bad movie before and they should have some learning from what happened in the past and be able to deliver services quickly,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cullen said he’s still waiting on the provincial NDP to release the rules surrounding its upcoming leadership convention before deciding whether or not he will enter the race.
His preference is for a convention in 2015, but outgoing leader Adrian Dix is encouraging the party to select his replacement sometime in 2014.
“It’s impossible for me to make a decision until I know what the rules are and how long the race is going to last,” Cullen said.
“I’m trying to be patient, but I don’t like sitting in this place of limbo.”
RV park opposed
Charelle EVELYN Citizen staff cevelyn@pgcitizen.ca
City campground operators who already have to compete with free RV parking aren’t too keen on an application before the city to add another busi-
ness to the mix. Tonight’s city council meeting will feature a public hearing on a proposal to rezone a nearly 10-hectare property between Sindia Road and Highway 16 for the development of an RV park and campground.
— see PARK, page 3
Hunt on for shooter
Citizen staff
Police are on the lookout for a suspect after a Saturday night shooting sent one man to hospital.
Around 11:45 p.m. on Nov. 3, Prince George RCMP responded to a 911 report of shots fired on Nation Crescent. A 51-year-
old man was found with a gunshot wound and transported to the University Hospital of Northern B.C.
The victim is expected to survive the shooting, which police said appeared to the be result of an altercation.
General duty officers and a police service dog were unable to locate any suspects after
searching the area.
Anyone with information about this event or those responsible are asked to contact the Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at
1-800-222-8477, online at www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca, or Text-A-Tip to CRIMES (274637) using keyword “pgtips.”
Many a slip...
Medical professions must learn from mistakes: doctor
Arthur WILLIAMS Citizen staff awilliams@pgcitizen.ca
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals are human beings.
They make mistakes, and some of those mistakes kill. According to a 2004 study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal 9,000 to 24,000 Canadians per year die as a result of preventable medical errors.
Dr. Brian Goldman - veteran ER doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, host of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art and author of The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the ER - believes its time for doctors and medical professions to start talking about their mistakes, and what can be done to prevent them in the future.
“The [healthcare] system should begin by admitting that humans make mistakes,” Goldman said. “To my colleagues my call is to be curious, not ashamed, of your mistakes. You can’t take them back, you can only pay them forward.”
GOLDMAN
Goldman was in Prince George on Saturday to present Mea Culpa, a lecture based on his 2011 TEDx talk Doctors Make Mistakes. Can We Talk About That? which has been viewed more than 842,000 times online.
The workplace culture of hospitals is that mistakes should never happen, Goldman said. One mistake might be viewed as momentary lapse, but multiple mistakes is seen as a sign of incompetence, he said.
As a result medical professionals rarely want to discuss or even think about their mistakes, he said.
“... [I] realized after many, many years the virtue of admitting mistakes,” Goldman said. “If you learn nothing [else] from me today, it’s that every single success I’ve had comes from failure. A wise urologist once told me that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”
Medical errors come in many forms including: preventable hospital infections; misdiagnosis of x-rays, biopsy results, CT scans or other tests; errors in prescribing or administering medication; and misdiagnosis or surgical errors caused by staff being overtired, too busy or coming to incorrect conclusions based on various factors.
— see GOLDMAN’S, page 3
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