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News for Youse: Burger recall, higher fees and taxes in budget, and UBC student found dead

by The Georgia Straight Staff on February 20th, 2013 at 8:48 AM
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      Burger recall announced  The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Canada Safeway Limited have warned the public not to eat frozen burgers under some Gourmet Meat Shoppe and the Butcher's Cut brands because they may be contaminated with E. coli. Details on the recall are available here.

      B.C. Liberals balance budget  Thanks to higher corporate and income taxes, rising health-care premiums, and greater tobacco levies, Finance Minister Mike de Jong was able to introduce a budget with a modest surplus. 

      NDP attacks budget  NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston says the B.C. Liberal government is spending just as much on a Bollywood awards show—$11 million—as it's spending on increasing the budget for the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

      Suspicious fires in East Van  Investigators are at the scene at the corner of East 41st Avenue and Rupert Street after fires broke out overnight in a garage and in a house across the alley.

      UBC student found dead in Los Angeles  The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that the body of 21-year-old UBC student Elisa Lam was discovered in a water tank on top of that city's Cecil Hotel.

      Feds close Kitsilano Coast Guard base  On provincial budget day, the federal government padlocked the Kitsilano Coast Guard base. Mayor Gregor Robertson called it a "sad day for Vancouver".

      Beach Towers public hearing resumes  Tonight, the public hearing will continue over a controversial proposal to build 133 rental units on the Beach Towers site in the West End. A huge crowd showed up last night at Vancouver City Hall. 

      Sullivan, Mayencourt, or Fixter?  B.C. Liberals will choose their candidate this evening in Vancouver–False Creek. Two well-known former politicians, Sam Sullivan and Lorne Mayencourt, are competing along with lawyer Brian Fixter.

      Jessie Jackson Jr. pleads guilty  Ex-Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr.—son of the famed civil-rights leader of the same name—is likely heading to jail after pleading guilty to spending $750,000 in campaign donations on personal items.

      Chinese military accused of cyber spying  Computer-security firm Mandiant Corp. has issued a report linking cyber attacks against 141 companies to a building in Shanghai. It's reportedly under the control of the People's Liberation Army.

      'Hawks win, Hossa injured  The NHL will hold a hearing with Canucks forward Jannik Hansen after his forearm hit the head of Blackhawks star Marian Hossa, sending him out of the game last night. The 'Hawks won 4-3 in the shootout.

      Clive Davis sees no shame in bisexuality  Famed record producer Clive Davis is speaking up about his bisexuality in a new autobiography called The Soundtrack of My Life.

      Comments

      1 Comments

      Mea Jones

      Feb 21, 2013 at 5:24pm

      You complain above because the Ministry of Children and Family Development is apparently getting an increase in their budget that is equal to what is being doled out for a Bollywood production. What people fail to appreciate is that MCFD already gets massive funding, and doesn't need any more. What they need is accountability, and to stop apprehending children from good parents like Derek Hoare and Paul and Zabeth Bayne.

      People don't realize that MCFD takes many, many children from good parents, then throws them to the wolves in foster "care" where they emerge, years later, only to end up on the street, in the prisons, and all too often, in the graveyards. MCFD and all those who profit from MCFD then say - oh, that's because they were traumatized by their parents' abuse. Wrong! It's because the act of apprehension alone is highly traumatizing (getting kidnapped by the state, with police with guns taking you away from your family, whom you love dearly, is not a walk in the park). The subsequent years getting bounced around in foster "care" are also very, very traumatizing for a child. They never feel loved, they feel like - and are - outcasts. They, all too often, get abused, in every way. They are also routinely put on drugs (as was Derek Hoare's daughter, in massive doses). But the money made by the whole system keeps it going. And it is a massive system, comprised of social workers, psychiatrists, the pharmaceutical industry, "experts", foster "parents" who can get thousands a month for housing children who they may feed mac & cheese. Oh I know there are good social workers and good foster parents, but far too few.

      What MCFD needs is not more money or more social workers. They need to be accountable for all the lives they have destroyed, all the families they have ripped apart, all the suicides of children "in care" and parents who have lost those children and are heartbroken and hopeless, and the justice system which has been perverted by allowing 21 year olds without children the greatest power on the planet: the power to take away, forever, that which is most precious to you - your child.

      And all it takes to have them in your lives in ONE anonymous phone call to the abuse hotline.