The premier of the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) has declared a state of emergency as flooding and landslides caused food shortages, left motorists stranded and cut off the west coast city of Vancouver.
John Horgan made the announcement on Wednesday after the Canadian government said it was sending the airforce to the area to assist with evacuations and support supply lines cut off by mud and rising waters triggered by torrential rain.
The state of emergency allows provincial leaders to take extreme measures such as limiting non-essential travel and using other means to restore supply routes.
Mudslides triggered by heavy rains destroyed several major roads and killed at least one person, with officials warning the death toll could rise. More rain is expected in the coming days.
Federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair on Wednesday said the military forces will also protect residents against further flooding or landslides. Military helicopters had already helped evacuate about 300 people from one highway where people were trapped in their cars overnight on Monday following two mudslides near the town of Agassiz, about 97km (60 miles) east of Vancouver.
“Torrential rains have led to terrible flooding that has disrupted the lives and taken lives of people across BC. I want people to know that the federal government has been engaging with the local authorities,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Washington.
“We’re sending resources like the Canadian Armed Forces to support people but also we’ll be there for the cleanup and the rebuilding after impacts of these extreme weather events.”
The Royal Canadian Air Force helps evacuate hundreds of motorists from a blocked road in Agassiz, British Columbia [RCAF via Reuters]
Several towns have been completely cut off and food was starting to run low in the town of Hope, 160km (100 miles) east of Vancouver.
Pastor Jeff Kuhn said a quarter of the town’s 6,000 residents were seeking shelter.
“There is not much left in the grocery stores. They just can’t restock, there is no way to get through,” he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, saying that although some food had been airlifted in, there was just a day’s supply left.
Closer to Vancouver in the town of Abbotsford, farmers ignored an evacuation order and desperately tried to save their animals from rising waters, in some cases tying ropes around the necks of cows and pulling them to higher ground.
“I know it’s hard for farmers to leave their livestock, but people’s lives are more important to me right now than livestock and chickens,” Mayor Henry Braun told reporters amid fears a water pumping station could fail and flood the area.
Crews spent Tuesday night sandbagging the Barrowtown pump station and the city’s fire chief told a news conference late on Tuesday that additional rescue and swift water-rescue equipment was being added, in anticipation of the need for immediate, life-saving assistance if the pumps go down.
In addition to the toll on residents, the floods have destroyed the area’s transport network.
“There’s been enormous damage to roads, to bridges, to rail lines, to water treatment centres, dykes and pumping stations. There’s a very significant impact on infrastructure,” Blair told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
The body of a woman was recovered from one of the landslides caused by the rain, while parts of several major highways have also been destroyed.
The total number of people and vehicles unaccounted for had not yet been confirmed. Investigators had received reports of two other people who were missing but added that there were concerns for the safety of motorists following a landslide on Highway 99 near the town of Lillooet.
A crew member from the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 442 Squadron leads some of more than 300 motorists stranded by mudslides to be airlifted to safety [RCAF/Reuters]
Blair said the air force will help clear supply chain routes that have been badly hit.
Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, the country’s two biggest rail companies, said the flooding has forced them to cut service to Vancouver, the country’s biggest port.
Vancouver’s port moves cargo worth 550 million Canadian dollars ($440m) every day, ranging from cars to containers packed with essential commodities.
The floods temporarily shut down much of the movement of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters.
Although the town of Merritt, 200km (120 miles) northeast of Vancouver, with a population of about 7,100, had officially been evacuated, some people have been stranded there. Pam Velt lost her house on Monday when the river started to rise rapidly.
“One minute we were sandbagging and I looked up and we were completely surrounded in water and debris, and things from our property were floating by us. It was awful,” she told the CBC.
British Columbia’s cabinet ministers are expected to consider whether to declare a province-wide state of emergency in response to floods, washouts and landslides that cut all routes from the Lower Mainland to the Interior following the record-breaking rainfall across southern BC between Saturday and Monday.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
