St. Albert news

• David Staples: Is society ready for folks walking down Jasper Avenue while smoking a joint?

  15-03-2018 23:39 via edmontonjournal.com
  The newest freedom to be enjoyed will be walking down Jasper Avenue while smoking a joint.
  If the federal government moves ahead as planned with its plan to legalize marijuana, any adult can do just that sometime in 2018. 
  This isn’t big news because people have known for years that legalization is coming, but the reality of it is causing a stir, for example at the convention of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, a group made up of city and town councillors.
  There was a buz
  
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• Researchers use tiny robots to help amputees 'feel' again

  15-03-2018 22:53 via edmontonjournal.com
  Researchers in Canada and the U.S. have developed technology that is giving the sensation of feeling back to amputees and helping those missing limbs feel connected to their motorized prosthetics.
  Using miniature custom-made robots to stimulate nerve endings at the base of the amputation, the team focused its attention on engineering a real-world application of the movement illusion concept.
  Study co-author and rehabilitation physician at Edmonton’s Glenrose Rehab Hospital, Dr. Jacqueline
  
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• Lindi Ortega loves birds, Tarantino — but not photos of herself

  15-03-2018 21:28 via edmontonjournal.com
  In the era of the ever-present selfie, Lindi Ortega had it rough.
  Objectively, the Calgary-based singer is both stylish and beautiful. Yet early in her career she suffered so much from body-dysmorphic disorder that when she wasn’t wearing giant sunglasses on stage, she actually hid her entire head under a stylized birdcage.
  In a frank and vulnerable article she penned for Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter earlier this month, Ortega talks about how she’s learned to live with the d
  
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• 10 things to do in Edmonton this week: Ray Bonneville, City of Angels, and NF

  15-03-2018 21:28 via edmontonjournal.com
  Ray Bonneville
  Singer-songwriter Ray Bonneville is a literal kick back at those who believe that the time to strike up a music career is in your youth. It was only in his 40s that the much travelled Bonneville began recording and playing in earnest, parlaying a long apprenticeship in blues and R & B bands, as well as a long list of supplemental side jobs, into what he likes to call “song and groove.” Now signed to Red House Records, he’s released seven records over the last
  
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• Social Seen: Interstellar Rodeo Launch

  15-03-2018 20:06 via edmontonjournal.com
  Codie McLachlan hits some of our city’s best bashes to snap photos for our weekly Social Seen column. He is an Edmonton photojournalist. Email your event suggestions to [email protected] or tweet Codie at @fotocodie. Follow Codie on Instagram (@fotocodie) and Facebook (facebook.com/fotocodie)
  Interstellar Rodeo Launch
  Where: ATB Arts and Culture Branch
  When: March 6
  Who: Interstellar Rodeo
  What: Interstellar Rodeo executive prod
  
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• Paula Simons: Gay rights pioneer Delwin Vriend didn't set out to a be hero. He became one anyway.

  15-03-2018 19:59 via edmontonjournal.com
  Delwin Vriend got up early on April 2, 1998.
  He made his way to the offices of Sheila Greckol.
  She was the lead lawyer fighting his case against the Alberta government to have same-sex orientation added to Alberta’s human rights legislation.
  The Supreme Court’s judgment was due that morning. Twenty years ago, the court didn’t post decisions to its website. They certainly didn’t tweet them out. So Greckol and the rest of the legal team gathered in her office, wai
  
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• Do you have tinfoil on your head? - St. Albert Gazette

  15-03-2018 19:50 via stalbertgazette.com
  St. Albert Gazette
  Do you have tinfoil on your head?
  St. Albert Gazette
  When I was growing up, we used to keep and reuse tin foil. You see, my parents lived during the Great Depression when certain things like tinfoil were scarce, so they learned to be thrifty and reuse items. Then along came the Second World War when ...
  
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• Trade Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for Mike Hoffman? Sounds pretty iffy, no?

  15-03-2018 18:57 via edmontonjournal.com
  This in from Sportsnet’s Mark Spector, his take that a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for Mike Hoffman deal might be in the cards: “Ryan Nugent-Hopkins may or may not know it. But with Ottawa Senators general manager Pierre Dorion taking in his second consecutive Edmonton Oilers game, he is auditioning. For the Oilers first, and the Senators second… Hoffman makes $5.2 million for the next two seasons. He’s roughly a 25-goal man who, we would guess, could do much better than that in
  
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• Edmonton Oilers lock up another prospect, sign Kirill Maksimov to entry-level pact

  15-03-2018 18:11 via edmontonjournal.com
  Not much doubt that the Edmonton Oilers are happy with their work in the 2017 NHL Draft. On Thursday morning they announced the signing of yet a fourth player from that draft, winger Kirill Maksimov of the OHL’s Niagara Ice Dogs.A right-shooting left winger, Maksimov has good size at 6’2, 193 lbs. In 59 games this season, he has scored 33-40-73 to rank inside the league’s top 20 in both goals and points. His +17 leads a middling Ice Dogs team that has won 32 of 65 games with a
  
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• Mysterious car-sized slab of concrete delays construction of Valley Line LRT bridge

  15-03-2018 18:06 via edmontonjournal.com
  Construction of the Valley Line LRT bridge across the North Saskatchewan River is delayed because of a partially buried concrete slab.
  The car-sized piece of concrete, buried nine metres deep under the river bed, cannot be moved, so construction will be diverted around it. The slab isn’t expected to cause significant delays, however, and construction of the line is still expected to be completed by 2020.
  The pedestrian bridge being built beneath the LRT bridge which was expected to be
  
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• Alberta Opposition to introduce bill on carbon tax referendum

  15-03-2018 17:39 via edmontonjournal.com
  The United Conservative Party is planning to bring forward a bill Thursday about a carbon tax referendum. 
  The private member’s bill  — Alberta Taxpayer Protection (Carbon Tax Referendum) Amendment Act — follows Opposition leader Jason Kenney’s repeated slamming of the tax.
  He has vowed to have the tax repealed should his party win a 2019 provincial election. 
  The NDP has touted the carbon tax as an investment in green infrastructure and energy diversificat
  
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• Killer squirrels commit infanticide in times of plentiful food, study

  15-03-2018 16:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  Red squirrels may look all cute and cuddly but there is something dark, crafty and cunning hiding behind those beady little eyes.
  Jessica Haines, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, found that in order to increase their chances of fathering pups, male red squirrels will kill the young of rival males.
  While infanticide was long suspected in the red squirrel population, no researchers had witnessed it, Haines said.
  That was until during PhD fieldwork in 2014 in the Yukon when Haine
  
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• 'Firefighter' tops list of most respected job, politicians rank last

  15-03-2018 15:49 via edmontonjournal.com
  It seems Canadians overwhelmingly respect the job firefighters do, but the same can’t be said for politicians.
  According to data compiled by Insights West marketing research, 92 per cent of Canadians who responded to an online survey have a positive opinion of firefighters, making it the number one most well-respected job in the country, followed closely by nurses at 91 per cent.
  Farmers trailed in third place with 88 per cent approval, scientists garnered 84 per cent and engineers round o
  
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• Edmonton weather: Slight chance of snow tonight

  15-03-2018 13:33 via edmontonjournal.com
  A look at today’s Edmonton weather forecast by Environment Canada.
  Morning temperatures at the Edmonton Blatchford station measured at -4.5 C with a 7 km/h wind contributing to a -8 wind chill.
  Today: Increasing cloudiness early this morning. Fog patches dissipating this morning. High -1 C.
  Tonight: Cloudy. 30 per cent chance of flurries late this evening and overnight. Low -5 C.
  Tomorrow: Overcast. High zero. Cloudy periods overnight. Low -6 C.
  On This Day
  Highest temperature: 12 C (2010)
  
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• Simons: How the Vriend case established LGBTQ rights across Canada

  15-03-2018 13:16 via edmontonjournal.com
  Doug Stollery remembers the moment he got pulled into the Delwin Vriend case.
  It was 1994, an era when Edmonton’s Pride Parade was more like a small protest rally along Whyte Avenue than a public party.
  After the parade, the group gathered at the gazebo on 83 Avenue. There, Stollery was surprised to see Sheila Greckol, an outspoken labour lawyer and political activist. He only knew Greckol by sight; she’d been a year ahead of him at the University of Alberta law school, but their pat
  
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• Paula Simons: Gay rights pioneer Delwin Vriend didn't set out to be hero. He became one anyway.

  15-03-2018 13:15 via edmontonjournal.com
  Delwin Vriend got up early on April 2, 1998.
  He made his way to the offices of Sheila Greckol.
  She was the lead lawyer fighting his case against the Alberta government to have same-sex orientation added to Alberta’s human rights legislation.
  The Supreme Court’s judgment was due that morning. Twenty years ago, the court didn’t post decisions to its website. They certainly didn’t tweet them out. So Greckol and the rest of the legal team gathered in her office, wai
  
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• Thursday's letters: River valley gondola not endorsed by Edmontonians

  15-03-2018 13:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  Re. “Gondola project is inspiring and revolutionary,” Opinion, March 13
  Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson goes to great lengths to persuade us that The Edmonton Project, now a gondola crossing the river valley, is an idea of the people and we will all be a part of it.
  Unfortunately, the reality is that the gondola project is an idea dreamed up by two people, the Poliquins, that was chosen by some panel of judges, whose number and identity is unknown (at least to me), and thus became The Edmonto
  
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• Opinion: Alberta needs a coherent, evidence-based pharmaceutical policy

  15-03-2018 13:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  Alberta needs a coherent pharmaceutical policy. It was expected that the province’s NDP government would follow through on its commitment to a universal drug benefit program and to improve the drug benefits.
  Instead, the focus has been on protecting the drug budget even though it put patients at risk and shifted more cost onto patients.
  The most recent change in the drug benefit program is the reduction in pharmacists’ reimbursement. Pharmacists were shocked that the government, once
  
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• Edmonton Talk Back: Tim Cartmell pitches next steps for bike lanes and active transportation

  15-03-2018 13:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  That’s right. A suburban councillor has signed up to lead council’s initiative on bike lanes and active transportation. 
  Ward 9 Coun. Tim Cartmell – elected by Terwillegar-Riverbend and south – is joining south central Coun. Ben Henderson on the file.
  He’s agreed to host a Q and A on the issue on Edmonton Talk Back at noon on Thursday. Join us here and feel free to email questions ahead of time to reporter Elise Stolte.
  Cartmell says he wants to focus on findin
  
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• Player grades: Edmonton Oilers lead, lead, lead again, but can't stave off hungry Sharks

  15-03-2018 10:10 via edmontonjournal.com
  Sharks 4, Oilers 3 (OT)
  One night after the Edmonton Oilers held an opponent to a single goal but couldn’t score, they managed to hit the back of the net three times, only to allow four. The 2017-18 season in microcosm. 
  The Oilers spent 35 minutes trying to overcome a one-goal deficit in Calgary, but could only hold a trio of one-goal leads for a combined 15 minutes against the persistent San Jose Sharks, who battled back, back, and back again before taking their only lead of the nig
  
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• Supreme Court's landmark Vriend decision turns 20

  15-03-2018 10:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  On April 2, 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark Vriend decision. The unanimous ruling held that gay and lesbian Canadians were protected from discrimination by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
  The case involved Edmonton college instructor Delwin Vriend. He’d been fired from a private Christian college because he was gay.
  Alberta’s Human Rights Commission refused to hear his discrimination complaint. Because Ralph Klein’s government had refused to add sexual
  
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• From the Archives: The Vriend case is about bigotry

  15-03-2018 10:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  A Journal editorial published on April 3, 1998, the day following the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling on Vriend v. Alberta.
  Do the people of Alberta accept bigotry and discrimination institutionalized in their laws?
  That is the question that led to Thursday’s judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in Vriend v. Alberta.
  Albertans have debated it throughout this decade as their government stalled and obfuscated on inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected element in the province
  
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• Charges stayed as bail hearing delays potentially violate rights of thousands of Albertans in past year

  15-03-2018 10:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  An Edmonton judge stayed charges in a domestic assault case Wednesday, ruling the accused’s Charter rights were violated by not having timely access to a bail hearing.
  The problem, court heard, became systemic in 2017 in the wake of an overhaul to Alberta’s bail system — keeping hundreds of people in custody every month longer than 24 hours without a bail hearing. 
  Alberta Justice statistics filed in provincial court as an exhibit documented the trend under the new fi
  
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• Alberta parties debate merits of public vs. private health care

  15-03-2018 04:55 via edmontonjournal.com
  How to improve the health system, including the role of private providers, was the focus of a symposium Wednesday night at the University of Alberta that drew together representatives from four of the province’s political parties along with a handful of researchers.
  In front of a crowd of about 75 people, Liberal MLA David Swann spoke about how Alberta is receiving only mediocre results for some of the highest health-care spending in the country.
  He said the problem is that the system is o
  
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• Council gets recommendation to set up two new advisory committees

  15-03-2018 02:50 via edmontonjournal.com
  The community and public services committee recommended to city council to establish two new advisory committees by the end of this year or early next year.
  At a meeting Wednesday, officials heard from concerned citizens who face barriers because of race or sexual orientation.
  “We want more than just lip service,” said Mary Thomas, with the Interracial Alliance of Edmonton. 
  Ward 6 Coun. Scott McKeen said Edmontonians are good at talking about inclusion, but haven&rsqu
  
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• Sikhs around world celebrate new year using Edmonton man's calendar

  15-03-2018 02:42 via edmontonjournal.com
  Thousands of Sikhs around the world celebrated the start of their new year Wednesday thanks in part to the unrelenting drive of an Edmonton man who was the chief architect behind the creation and adoption of the faith’s most widely accepted calendar.
  Up until 2003, when the Nanakshahi calendar was adopted as the official calendar of Sikhs, followers of the religion shared the ancient Bikrami calendar with Hindus.
  The Bikrami calendar contains a complicated set of rules to help accommo
  
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• Paula Simons: Stop the gondolas — I want to get off!

  15-03-2018 02:21 via edmontonjournal.com
  I have a lot of experience with being the only sober person at a party.
  So I know the feeling that washes over you when people all around you start shouting loudly and excitedly about some wild, delightful and cockamamie scheme they’re convinced can fix all their problems. I know what it’s like to be the designated buzz kill, the spoil sport who has to explain why their master plan won’t work. It’s a lonely, thankless task. But since I have a lot of experience at bursting
  
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• Midget hockey player killed in Tuesday crash near Three Hills

  15-03-2018 02:07 via edmontonjournal.com
  A Red Deer midget hockey team is mourning after one of its former players was killed in a collision with a truck on a foggy central Alberta highway Tuesday morning.
  Red Deer Optimist Chiefs manager Ken Frame said Ryan McBeath, a power-forward and assistant captain on the Midget AAA team, died in the crash. 
  “(The team) all got together at one of the boys’ house last night and did some crying and did some hugging,” Frame said Wednesday. “They’re trying to g
  
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• Volunteers needed for local launch of group fighting food waste

  15-03-2018 02:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  A new non-profit organization fighting food waste is holding an open house for volunteers, hoping to expand Edmonton’s system for food redistribution.
  Co-ordinated by local chef and volunteer Daniel Huber, Leftovers Edmonton is modelled after the Calgary organization of the same name which runs 51 delivery routes in that city to carry food that might otherwise be wasted between producers and organizations serving people in need.
  The Leftovers Edmonton Community Kick-off is being held at No
  
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• Graham Thomson: Jason Kenney quick to attack NDP's climate plan, slow to show his own

  15-03-2018 01:41 via edmontonjournal.com
  During question period Monday and Tuesday, Premier Rachel Notley slammed the official Opposition MLAs as climate change deniers.
  United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s response: “We’re not climate deniers, we’re climate tax deniers.”
  Kenney’s comeback is a great quip.
  But Notley wasn’t randomly throwing insults. Several members of the UCP, when they were Wildrose MLAs, made comments that made them look like climate change deniers.
  But the Opposi
  
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• Cappies reviews: 1984

  15-03-2018 01:34 via edmontonjournal.com
  By Arden Phillips
  Strathcona High School
  In a world where war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength, where a cult of personality reigns supreme and where Big Brother is always watching, a “minority of one” struggles to achieve individuality and stay alive in the process. In their eerily topical rendition of 1984, St. Albert Catholic High School dared audience members to see themselves and their world reflected back at them.
  Based on George Orwell’s classic 194
  
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• Cappies reviews: The Three Musketeers

  15-03-2018 01:00 via edmontonjournal.com
  By Shaina Cyr
  Eastglen High School
  All for one, and one for all! True and loyal friends are something to cherish; you never know when you will need to set off on a mission to protect France. Holy Trinity High School’s modern adaptation of The Three Musketeers presented an inspiring story about friendship, sacrifice and devotion.
  First published in the 19th Century by Alexandre Dumas, this adaptation by Catherine Bush focuses on D’Artagnan, who leaves home with the motive to become a
  
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• Committee recommends council raise age at which children can ride transit for free

  15-03-2018 00:33 via edmontonjournal.com
  Children under the age of 13 may soon ride Edmonton transit for free — as long as a fare-paying person accompanies them.
  “The impact’s a couple hundred thousand bucks, which I think we can absorb,” Mayor Don Iveson said Wednesday at a meeting of the community and public services committee.
  City officials are looking to match best practices in other cities, which have similar programs where children under a certain age can ride for free when accompanied by a fare-paying pe
  
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• Motorists were advised to avoid the area while crews work to clean up

  15-03-2018 00:17 via edmontonjournal.com
  RCMP were still on the scene Wednesday afternoon after a lumber truck rolled over and caught fire near Breton. 
  Emergency crews were called to the single-vehicle crash at 10:56 Wednesday morning near Breton, around 100 km southwest of Edmonton. Police said in a news release that a truck hauling lumber was involved in a rollover and caught fire.
  Both the truck and the lumber were “fully engulfed” in flames, the news release stated. The driver and lone occupant of the vehicle was
  
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• Police tactical unit arrests 'high-risk,' potentially armed suspect at south Edmonton motel

  15-03-2018 00:01 via edmontonjournal.com
  City police tactical officers arrested a suspect after converging on a south Edmonton motel Wednesday afternoon.
  Police surrounded the second-floor suite at the Whitemud Inn, 4805 Gateway Blvd., just after 1 p.m.
  The tactical unit was called in, arriving with the police Ballistic Armoured Tactical Transport armoured vehicle. 
  Tactical members filed up the staircase to the second-floor suite and made the arrest just before 3 p.m. 
  Edmonton police tactical officers surroun
  
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