The work of British Columbians to reduce the curve of COVID continued to show results over the weekend with Monday's update from Doctor Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix making note of 708 new cases of the coronavirus, making for an average of 236 per day of the three day review period.
“Today, we are reporting on three periods. From May 28 to May 29, we had 258 new cases. From May 29 to May 30, we had 238 new cases and in the last 24 hours, we had a further 212 new cases.
Federal Government site
British Columbia Government site
The World Health Organization website also offers up the latest advisories on the global situation.
More from Northern Health can be reviewed here
You can review our archive of past statements and local information here.
Local governments and organizations have also provided for increased awareness of COVID-19 issues, those past advisories can be reviewed here.
For notes from across Canada and British Columbia we have been archiving the latest items through our political portal Darcy McGee
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| BC CDC data for British Columbia for Monday, May 31 |
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| BC CDC data for Northern Health Region for Monday, May 31 |
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| Council will hear of some challenges towards the expansion of the City's landfill site tonight (maps from City of PR website) |
The progress for the city's expansion of the Ridley Island Landfill site is finding a few impediments owing to the COVID pandemic, a subject that will see Richard Pucci the City's Director of Operations providing an update for Council tonight, as well as a request for the green light to purchase some materials immediately.
The items of note from Mr. Pucci are the liner and HDPE piping material required for the landfill project, with the Operations Director to review the current situation as part of his report noting how without immediate action the result may be delays to completing the expansion this year.
The cost of the materials somewhat unknown it seems owing to the fluctuation of prices and ability to access the supplies, the Director notes he will provide a memo later on for the council members as to the cost of purchase.
You can review below from the City's Agenda Package for tonight.
If his presentation is an in person (or by way of Zoom) report, Council members may have some questions to ask toward the landfill work and may want to take advantage of the Directors public availability to follow up with a few questions on the other major infrastructure project of the moment, that being the Woodworth Dam construction work.
There hasn't been an update on that work in many months, so tonight would make for a good opportunity to share some notes on whether it too has suffered from COVID related delays and where in the timeline for completion of it may be at; as well as if the cost of the work has increased and if so why.
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| The Woodworth Dam project was one of the first items on the to do list from the Hays 2.0 timeline of Spring 2018 |
The Woodworth Dam work which made for just one of many items from the Hays 2.0 presentation of April 2018 saw its first delay later that year, with the original plan to have most of the work take place in 2020
As they await the conclusion of that work, Prince Rupert residents remain on a Water Quality advisory with recommendations that some residents will want to continue to boil water for some uses.
Updates on the status of the Water Quality situation for residents are not something that are frequentl provided to the city website.
More notes on tonight's Council Session can be reviewed from our archive page here.
A wider overview of the city's infrastructure work is available here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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| Prince Rupert's 2021 Paving project is set to be awarded tonight, with Prince Rupert's Adventure Paving set to lay the blacktop for the summer paving season |
In his report to Council, the Operations Director notes that the City received only one compliant bid for the work for 2021, with a recommendation to award the work to Adventure Paving with the cost for the roadwork ahead to come to 863,682.44 plus taxes.
The recommendation may be welcomed by City Councillor Barry Cunningham who had offered up a range of concerns over last years awarding of the paving contract to an out of town competitor, a topic that has re-appeared from time to time at Council sessions since that work was completed in the fall of 2020.
We outlined some of the concerns over last year's paving work, as well as to list the areas to be paved for 2021 with this blog item of May 13th.
More notes on what's on the Agenda for tonight's Council session can be explored here.
A wider overview of past Council discussions can be reviewed here.
A look at some of the past work on infrastructure by the city is available here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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| Kamloops Residential School (photo from Thompson Rivers University) |
The horrific news from Kamloops of Thursday of the discovery of 215 graves of children who attended the Residential School in that British Columbia community has given Canadians a weekend to consider the unfathomable.
How could the names of those children go unrecorded for so long, how could their families be left to never know of their fate and why have we neglected and not addressed a situation that has long been known, but never taken on as our own to complete.
The first word of the confirmation of the mass grave site came from Kamloops First Nations representatives with Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, which outlined the work that was done to determine the location of the graves.
"It is with a heavy heart that Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir confirms an unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented by the Kamloops Indian Residential School. This past weekend, with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist, the stark truth of the preliminary findings came to light – the confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students of the Kamloops Indian Residential School."
Perhaps the comments that resonated the most when it comes to the news from the weekend were delivered by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, British Columbia's former Representative for Children and Youth who noted in many media appearances over the weekend that:
"The discovery of buried remains of 215 children at a former residential school is horrific — but not shocking ... A mass grave is a crime scene, a mass grave is a place where there’s probably evidence of gross human rights violations"
And from those words and observations a journey of reckoning and reconciliation should now begin.
Locally the Nisga'a Nation was the first to speak to the Kamloops discovery, issuing a statement on Friday.
From Saturday forward, notes on gestures of remembrance followed from the Prime Minister and Premier Horgan and others.
And as the weekend evolved local leaders from the municipal, provincial and federal political spectrum shared their statements through Social Media
The weekend has served as a prologue for what will be a long journey ahead for Canadians, for Kamloops is just one location of what will be many, many more announcements of discovered graves and the need to dedicate not only resources; but required action to the past that needs to be charted, with names listed, causes of death if possible established.
It will not be an easy road this one ahead, but it is one that needs to be travelled.
As a nation, a province and among those religious institutions such as the Catholic Church which ran the Kamloops school and others, the need to move quickly towards a comprehensive review of each Residential School site records, should be the starting point.
The forensic work the guiding force that will determine how many more graves will be identified, how many more families will need to be notified and how many more stories will need to be told.
The Residential Schools story is not a dusty history lesson of a century ago, the Kamloops facility closed in 1977, the program of Residential Schools finally ending in 1990.
The still haunting spectre of the Residential Schools made for one of the many recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, a document which identifies the way forward and yet remains an extensive collection of goals for reconciliation that requires much work to address.
The Residential School System and the harm it caused and continues to inflict on the survivors was an important part of the focus at the time of the report.
There can be no further delay in reviewing each of the Residential School locations, to account for those who died with no acknowledgement at the time and for accountability as to how they perished.
All the words of the weekend and what will come in the future need to be followed by a concerted effort to address the horrific period of those times.
It should come with a dedication to ensure that no measure is left undone to identify and pay proper respects to those who lay buried both in Kamloops and in other unmarked and unknown burial sites wherever they may be found across the nation.
For families that have been impacted by Friday's announcement and for what may now be ahead, there is a service available to assist you with the Indian Residential School Survivors Society of BC offering live telephone support at 1-800-721-0066.
Another starting point on the journey can be the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation which hosts a wide number of resources and information to share.
A cross section of some of the national coverage of the Kamloops burial site and what the future journey for us all will be can be found here from our political blog D'Arcy McGee.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
