April 23, 2008 Vol. 33 No. 38

Pic of the Past OUT WITH THE OLD -- A bulldozer demolishes the former Koffee Kup restaurant on Elizabeth Street in Okotoks, in January of 1978, to make way for a new shopping mall. The Koffee Kup had closed the year before and the building had been occupied by a pottery business and later Alpine TV television repair. From the files of the Western Wheel

Editorial-

Be a friend and parent

Parents need to ensure their children feel comfortable speaking with them about anything from school to friends to drugs, but there is a fine line between being a friend and being a parent.
When a child wants to talk, be a friend, but when it comes to discipline, being a parent should be foremost in one’s mind.
Recently, parents have voiced their concerns regarding some of the issues facing youth today including drugs, the internet and even dangerous “games” such as dusting and the choking game.
One cannot be naive to think youth will not experiment with alcohol, cigarettes and even drugs — most parents would have to admit they dabbled in a few things in their youth — but that does not mean parents should not keep a watchful eye on their children.
Parents should remain active in their child’s lives and try to stay informed about what they are doing and who they are doing it with.
There are some tips to keeping tabs on your children without being too overbearing such as: ask them to share with you their passwords to their internet chat sites or choose them together; ask them to be your “friend” on Facebook; talk to them about some of your own youthful experiences.
These discussions will help build that foundation of trust which is so important in a teen-parent relationship.
Perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask questions even though you may already think you know the answer. Surely, the answer to most of your questions will be “Nothing” or “I don’t know”, but parents need to be persistent.
Our children today are facing issues we cannot even fathom from crystal meth and ecstasy, to cyber bullying, to eating disorders and so on.
We need to be there for our youth, we need to be more involved to ensure they do not slide into trouble.
Our children need us — whether they realize it or not.

Guest Column -

TILMA will bolster Alberta’s economy

By Ron Stevens
Minister of International and
Intergovernmental Relations

Albertans and this government have worked hard to make our province what it is today. Together we have earned the highly coveted position of the strongest economy in North America. While we should all be proud of this accomplishment, we cannot take our prosperity for granted. This is why the Government of Alberta is moving forward with initiatives that not only maintain our success, but build on it. One of the key initiatives we have underway is the groundbreaking Alberta-B.C. Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).
The focus of the TILMA is to grow our economy by simplifying, streamlining and strengthening the way we do business with B.C.. While the TILMA is a complex agreement, it is easy to see how it will benefit Alberta businesses, workers and their families. By reducing barriers to trade and labour mobility between our provinces, the TILMA will open up new opportunities and create Canada’s second largest economic region, a dynamic and powerful marketplace supported by almost eight million people.
In addition to expanding our economy, the agreement will save time and money for businesses and workers. For example, under the TILMA, a business registered in one province can choose to be registered in the other…with no residency required and no added administration or cost. The agreement will also make it easier for people to move for work.
For example, a nurse or a welder will be able to move to Alberta or B.C. and keep working, without having to go through extensive re-certification or re-training. We are currently working on agreements for over 100 different regulated occupations, across a broad number of sectors, and this is just the beginning.
We have worked diligently with B.C. over the past three years and have consulted extensively with Albertans about the TILMA. We are now transitioning to the full implementation of the agreement, which will be in place in April 2009.
I look forward to the day when the TILMA will be fully implemented. In the meantime, Alberta is doing what is needed to keep the agreement on track through Bill 1, which was introduced April 15.
This new legislation provides the mechanics necessary to carry the TILMA forward, paving the way for a smooth delivery of the agreement. We are also continuing to consult with municipalities, school jurisdictions, occupational regulators, professionally regulated financial institutions, and others to determine the extent to which they will be affected by the TILMA.
Once implemented, the TILMA will help preserve Alberta’s quality of life into the future, as a strong and vibrant legacy for generations to come. The Government of Alberta is going to work with Albertans to do this, and with the TILMA we are well on our way. More information about the TILMA is available at www.tilma.ca or by calling 310-0000.

Off-leash area for dogs desperately needed in town

Dear Editor,
My family has lived in Okotoks since 1985. Dogs have always been a big part of our family. Dog walks are a fun way to spend free time, get exercise, fresh air and are a necessity for dogs. Okotoks is a beautiful town with numerous walking paths by the river. Some dogs are better on leash, some are better off leash. However, leash laws are in existence, so we have to abide by them. Unfortunately, our dogs suffer because of them. Letting your dog play in your yard is basic, but dogs, being nomadic, need walks and playtime off their own property. They need it for mental stimulation, as well as to run off energy and to meet their own kind. For years there have been numerous talks about dog parks, however, nothing seems to have moved in this direction. I just found out, through another dog person, that High River has a beautifully fenced dog park. We tried it out on Sunday, and it is fabulous. We noticed the joy and fun our one friendly dog had running off leash. High River is a smaller town than Okotoks. How come that they were able to build a dog park and we, in Okotoks, are still waiting... and waiting... and waiting...
Okotoks is growing at a tremendous rate with more people moving in, followed by more dogs. Last year when the town was working on upgrading the riverbed behind the houses on Woodhaven Drive, an area in the park, east of the baseball diamond, was used to dump the rocks for that project. That area is now an environmental footprint — already crushed and destroyed by human activity. A dog park in that location would not alter anything on the wildlife in that area. Deer have lost that area when the trucks and tractors moved in. A dog park in that area would be ideal for many Okotokians regularly walking their dogs, and would also serve the campers with dogs who are staying in the Lion’s campground.
When can we have a dog park?
Renilda Van Aerden
Okotoks

Community in good health with wellness centre

Dear Editor,
Recently I had a health emergency requiring me to attend the Okotoks Health and Wellness Center Urgent Care facility for the first time. 
I don’t care to enter into a debate on High River Hospital versus Oilfields Hospital or even Calgary hospitals, all excellent facilities. I would rather just praise the facility that Okotokians can call their own.
I arrived at Urgent Care in a very anxious state. I was fourth in a line to see the admitting nurse. (This, by the way was my longest wait). After explaining my problem to the nurse, having my temperature and blood gas taken, I was asked to take a seat. About five minutes later, much to my surprise, my name was called.  This happened before the other patients ahead of me, proving the sign correct that the sickest patients are seen first. I was taken to a treatment room where the doctor and urgent care staff tried everything in their power to treat my malady, all the while keeping me as calm as possible with their wonderful bed side manner. When they had exhausted all treatment they had capacity for the Foothills EMS was called to transfer me to the Rocky View in Calgary, where I was also treated in a very expeditious manner. I must thank the two EMS attendants for making a frightful situation as pleasant as possible.
Through this whole experience I was treated with respect, dignity and compassion, all things important to someone in a frightened state.
As for wait times I can only speak to my experience. I may have waited 20 minutes. I don’t really consider this a wait time at all considering I have been 20 minutes in line at some retail outlets.
We are very lucky to have this facility.  These people are caring, knowledgeable health care providers.  Thank you all for being there for us.
Kathy Robertson
Okotoks

Church’s sign does not cause disturbance

Dear Editor,
The Okotoks United Church received a letter in the mail from the Town of Okotoks informing us that we had to remove the interchangable sign we have had on our property for a while. Not only is it very beneficial to advertise all the things we do for the community such as the soup luncheons, garage sales, book sales and most recently the Watoto children’s choir, but it has been used to advertise our worship spaces and our special services as well.
The bonus feature of this board is the sayings that we are putting on one side and many people have commented on them.
What bothers me about being told to remove the sign is that there are other places that have the same kind of sign and they have not taken them down. In particular, on Southridge Drive there is one for the Foothills Centennial Centre and right beside it is one advertising the new recycle centre times. Telus has one up for help, and there is one on the other side advertising commercial lots for sale. Hirsche Fraser has had one up advertising free range turkeys  as has the new before and after school care centre advertising their preschool spaces open. The Willie has one up constantly.
I feel that if we have to remove our sign all the other signs that are around including the town’s should be taken down as well.
Betty-Lou Bayley
Okotoks

___________________________________

Correction

In last week’s Western Wheel it was incorrectly stated in John Barlow’s column on page 6 that a 13-year-old boy had apologized to the community for starting a fire that threatened homes near Drake Landing.
In fact, the youth started a much smaller grass fire on the hill near Okotoks Junior High School.
We apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused.

Dylan counting on every dime

The Okotoks community is once again showing why it is one of the best places in which to live.
Led by the students and staff at Percy Pegler School, the Okotoks community has jumped on board in an effort to help Dylan Hartley-Gulliford, a student at the local elementary school.  Through the Dimes for Dylan campaign the students have raised   $4,070 to help Dylan and his family. Dylan has cancer and the funds are to help the family through these tough times. Students have been donating their birthday money, having lemonade stands and even selling hot chocolate during the snow storm last weekend. Donations have even come in from families whose children do not attend the school.
Parents and school staff members will shave their heads for Dylan on April 30. There is also an online auction that is open to the community and donations continue to come in daily. The website is http://pp.fsd38.ab.ca/public/frameset.cfm
Check it out and do what you can to raise some Dimes for Dylan.
• • • • •
 Weather wise, wasn’t that last weekend a write-off? I guess we should know by now in this country that you don’t celebrate spring until the May 24 long weekend. Hard to complain too loud about the ice and snow when we have had a fairly easy winter.
• • • • •
Great to see the Montreal Canadians have made it to the second round of the Stanley Cup finals. I can hardly believe the violence that broke out after their game seven win. Were the police not prepared?
• • • • •
I think the new Town office in Okotoks looks great. A huge improvement to that corner. The new Royal Bank at the west end of downtown is also taking shape. We business owners in the downtown core appreciate the investments to this part of town as we do not want to see a vacant downtown area.
We may see the day where commercial and retail will run all the way along Highway 7 connecting High River and Okotoks. Remember you heard it here first.

A little perspective

All praise to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, which refused for four days to unload a shipment of Chinese arms destined for landlocked Zimbabwe. That was long enough for a South African court to issue a judgement refusing to let the 77 tonnes of weapons be shipped across the country to Zimbabwe, despite the South African government’s unwillingness to intervene.
Of course, the Chinese ship then just sailed up the coast to Mozambique. The Chinese weapons, which were shipped three days after President Robert Mugabe lost the Zimbabwean election on March 29, will still reach his army, police and party militia in time to terrorize the voters into reversing last month’s verdict in a run-off presidential election. But it was nice to see some fellow Africans take a stand against his thuggery. All praise also to former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan. After meeting Zimbabwean opposition leaders in Kenya on Friday, he asked bluntly, “Where are the Africans? Where are their leaders and the countries in the region, what are they doing?”
The answer, as Annan knew very well, is next to nothing. But why not? Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence 28 years ago, is now attempting to steal back last month’s election. Three weeks later the results of the presidential race have still not been published, almost certainly because he lost by a wide margin to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But, Mugabe has already said that there must be a run-off election even before the votes are “re-counted.”
Meanwhile, the militia of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, the so-called “war veterans,” are using the records from the polling booths in rural areas to identify villages that supported the opposition, and conducting mass beatings in those villages so that the residents vote correctly next time. Hundreds of people are in hospital with broken limbs after these beatings, and some are dead. Then there is the economic disaster of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, a country where unemployment is 80 per cent and inflation is 160,000 per cent. Almost 70 per cent of working-age Zimbabweans have fled the country in search of work, and those still at home mostly live off their remittances. But they don’t live very long: life expectancy in Zimbabwe is in the mid-30s.
This is in glaring contrast to the countries that surround Zimbabwe, which have reasonably healthy economies, free media, democratic politics and the rule of law. Mugabe’s regime in not only hurting Zimbabweans; it is doing huge damage to the region’s image in the rest of the world.
So, why does the main regional organization, the Southern African Development Community, not take a stronger stand against Mugabe? Why did South African President Thabo Mbeki insist that there is “no crisis” in Zimbabwe, when obviously there is? It’s all about perspective. Mugabe may be a monster, but as one of the last surviving leaders of the independence generation he is a sacred monster. Moreover, many other African leaders are half-seduced by Mugabe’s claim that he is facing a re-colonization attempt by Britain. It’s a comical notion for anybody who knows modern Britain, but in post-colonial Africa it has a certain resonance.
The fact is that Zimbabwe was once a British colony (called Rhodesia), and that Britain did nothing when the local white minority illegally seized independence. It took 15 years of war and tens of thousands of African lives to overthrow the white minority regime, and at the end Britain promised to provide large amounts of money to buy out the white farmers who still owned most of the country’s good land. Then it reneged on its promise.
In 1997 Clare Short, the International Development Secretary in Tony Blair’s new government, wrote a famously stupid letter to the Zimbabwean government in which she said: “We do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe. We are a new government from diverse backgrounds without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonized, not colonizers.”
Mugabe was understandably enraged by a British politician of Irish origin claiming equal victim status with black Zimbabweans, and using that to repudiate Britain’s treaty obligations to Zimbabwe. Whether that explains his decision to drive the white farmers off their land without compensation three years later (and thus to wreck Zimbabwe’s economy) remains to be seen. But the prominence of those same white Zimbabweans in the opposition movement that sprang up after 2000, however understandable, certainly fed his paranoia.
The other disturbing thing, from an African point of view, is the disproportionate interest that the Western media take in the Zimbabwean tragedy. A US-backed occupation of Somalia by Ethiopian troops has plunged the country back into war, killing thousands and turning hundreds of thousands into refugees, and it barely gets mentioned in the Western press. Nor does the West seem to mind the striking absence of democracy in Angola, from which it buys a lot of oil. But about Zimbabwe, for some reason, it cares. There is no Western plot to “re-colonize” Zimbabwe. Southern African countries need to bring pressure on Mugabe to accept his defeat in their own long-term self-interest. But they bring their own perspectives to the problem, and that makes it harder for them to act.

Letter to the Editor -

Pound Rescue filling a void in community

Dear Editor,
On March 17 I came across a very distressed and hungry German shepherd roaming all over 242nd Avenue. I stopped, and so did three other cars. We assessed the situation and knew something had to be done not only for the dog’s safety but for public safety, as the dog was very close to the highway. 
Now where do I start trying to get help?  Having never been involved in anything like this before I really had no idea, nor did I realize what a ridiculous, frustrating and emotional  task I had before me.
I made calls to the RCMP, the Foothills MD bylaw office and the Humane Society and received no help.  Now what do I do?  Finally, I found Pound Rescue. 
The lady from Pound Rescue arrived and she caught the dog.
Who could ever think of changing the one and only system that works? Whatever bylaw changes you all want, you surely would never, ever consider closing down Pound Rescue before you have a facility that is large enough and has a dog catcher that can come out any time of day.  
I am telling you, had Mrs. Barrie not have done all that she did to secure this dog’s safety, it would still be on 242nd Avenue — no other option other than death, or even worse. 
Have you bothered to find out how many positives there are as opposed to negatives regarding this situation? Are you examining a way to help Mrs. Barrie continue operating within the law of a new bylaw?  Should you not be asking yourselves why the bylaw office had no solution to my plight other than the dog catcher was on holiday? Do you all think it was right for me to come to such a dead end and that it was up to me to scratch my head and think what next I could do? Could the bylaw office not have told me about Pound Rescue? How many animals have been left to die?
Seems so strange to me that I should have this encounter on the eve of all this publicity — I was left totally drained Monday afternoon. I even phoned the police back and said I had got nowhere. And you think closing Mrs. Barrie down is the answer? I hope not. Not only has she saved a dog, she has also probably saved a very dangerous situation on Highway 2A.
Mrs. Young-McLaren
DeWinton

Staffing issues also comes down to management

Dear Editor,
Everywhere you go these days, you hear complaints of lack of service in the retail and service sector. Some of us are inclined to think this is not as bad in our smaller town as it is in the city. But I have just received two reminders that this is not necessarily the case.
Needing my barbecue tank filled with propane, I proceeded to a local service station. I pushed the button outside to summon someone to fill my tank. When no one showed up I went inside. Two male employees were standing around in the store. It was explained to me that they could not provide me with any propane, as the first young man was not qualified to pump propane and the second advised me that he was off duty at 1 p.m. Which of course begs the question of why he was still standing around there at 2:15 p.m.? This man went on to explain that he had already booked off and that he would get in trouble with the union if he pumped any propane for me after that.
The bottom line is that even though there were two employees standing around doing nothing, they could not, or would not, supply me with any propane.
I proceeded to another service station, where they exchange full propane tanks for empty ones. I went inside and asked the woman at the counter if I could obtain some propane. The woman from the counter eventually came out to attempt to serve me, only to find that all of the many propane tanks they had on hand were empty. I might add that the last time I tried to exchange a tank at that location it was with the same result.       
If you are able to find a management person to complain to at all, chances are that the excuse they will offer is that they cannot get staff. The truth is that there is staff on hand, but there is definitely a lack of properly trained staff, and that is the fault of management.
If management does not instill a service ethic in their staff, they can expect to lose customers as a result.
As a result, both of these businesses have ensured that I will never again do business with them. One can only wonder how many other customers they have lost due to these uncaring or inattentive attitudes.
 Stan Johnston
Okotoks