Thompson Rivers University (TRU) is home to the province’s new fast-track respiratory therapist diploma.
The provincial government funded $320,000 to TRU to add 20 one-time fast-track seats in an effort to increase the number of respiratory therapists in BC.
TRU was also funded with an additional $65,900 for equipment, including a new ventilator, to support the program expansion.
Students began the program this September and the fast-track option can be completed in two years.
“Expanding the number of respiratory therapists has never been more important, and these new fast-track seats mean more British Columbians experiencing lung and breathing issues can get the care they need,” said Anne Kang, minister of advanced education.
Respiratory therapists work in hospitals, homes and clinics and can help assess and perform medical tests and treatment for cardio-respiratory diseases.
They can also provide a wide-range of support in acute situations and provide lung health information and education.
Students with bachelor of science or associate of science degrees can apply to this fast-track option or directly enter the second year after completing some prerequisite coursework.
“The expansion of the respiratory therapy program will fulfil a high-demand need for trained professionals,” explains Brett Fairbairn, president and vice-chancellor, TRU.
“The growth of this program will allow students to transform themselves and the health of the communities they will support in the future.”
This program funding builds upon $4.4 million announced last year for new seats for health-care workers to help the government respond to local and emerging needs in BC.
President Biden spent three days in Rome talking to world leaders before and during the G-20. He held a formal press conference before heading to the UN climate summit in Glasgow. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden said on Sunday that the world can't immediately stop using oil and said OPEC and Russia need to pump more of it, even as he pushes the world to pledge to cut climate-changing carbon emissions at the Glasgow climate summit this week.
After three days of meeting with world leaders in Rome, where he attended the G-20 summit, Biden said he is worried that surging energy costs are hurting working class families.
"On the surface it seems like an irony," Biden said of simultaneously calling on major oil producers to pump more as he heads to the COP26 climate change summit. "But the truth of the matter is ... everyone knows that idea that we're going to be able to move to renewable energy overnight ... it's just not rational," he said.
Biden said the idea that Russia, Saudi Arabia and other producers are holding back to boost prices "is not right." With gas prices averaging $3.40 a gallon in the US, according to AAA, Biden said families are feeling it.
"It has profound impact on working class families just to get back and forth to work," Biden said. He talked about the issue with other major oil-consuming countries at the G-20, but told reporters he was reluctant to reveal any of their plans to spur producers to pump more.
Biden says he isn't worried about his sagging approval ratings
Surging gas and grocery prices and supply chain snarls have prompted concerns among Americans about the state of the U.S. economy, even as unemployment continues to improve and wages rise.
Biden's approval rating has sunk well below 50%. An NBC News poll released Sunday that found 70% of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction, eight points worse than in August, a moment when Biden's fortunes really began to slide because of the surge in COVID-19 cases and the chaotic troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Asked about his poll numbers, Biden said "the polls are going to go up and down and up and down," adding that he didn't seek the presidency for the ratings.
President Biden leaves the stage after addressing a press conference at the end of the G-20. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
He says he's confident his big legislative package will soon pass
Biden said he's confident the U.S. can meet his goal of cutting U.S. carbon emissions in half by 2030 from 2005 levels, even though a key climate measure was cut out of the legislative package currently before Congress. He said that sweeping package of climate measures and social safety net spending, combined with the infrastructure bill passed by the Senate, together contain $900 billion in climate and resilience measures.
Lawmakers within his own party have struggled to agree on the scope and cost of his plan. "It's going to pass in my view – but we'll see," he said, saying a vote could happen soon.
He acknowledge that climate activists found the G-20 agreement on climate measures underwhelming, but blamed Russia, China and Saudi Arabia for not making commitments. "I found it disappointing myself," he said.
President Biden leaves the Vatican on Oct. 29 after visiting Pope Francis. Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
In Rome, Biden expounds on his relationship with Pope Francis
Biden spoke at length about his meeting on Friday with Pope Francis. Biden finds himself at the center of a debate among American Catholic leaders about whether the Catholic president should continue to receive communion, because his stance in favor of abortion rights conflicts with the church's position.
Biden had told reporters the pope told him he was a "good Catholic" and should continue to receive communion. Asked how that made him feel and whether it should put the debate to rest, Biden said "a lot of this is just personal," explaining that Francis had "provided great solace" after the death of his son Beau Biden in 2015.
"He is just a fine, decent honorable man," Biden said of Pope Francis. "He is everything I learned about Catholicism from the time I was a kid going from grade school through high school."
Shawn Driver didn’t even plan to be in the U.S. when the World Finals took place at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah this fall.
Despite what the name suggests, the World Finals – which takes place over four days – is a smaller event than Bonneville Speed Week, About 600 drivers attend Speed Week in August, while 100 go to the World Finals in September.
But an unfortunate transmission failure during Speed Week meant Driver and his team missed out on the record they were trying to set in the Altered Coupe class. He left the car, a 1953 Studebaker, with its 1955 Hemi Studebaker tow vehicle and hauler in storage, in Utah.
With Driver’s car failing, another team broke his record, and Driver wanted it back. Luckily because the World Finals are in September, conditions are cooler, and the salt is harder.
Driver and his partner Donna (Miss Daisy) Gray travelled back up to their welding and car parts shop in Sooke, with plans to return for the World Finals a month later, the first time they would ever attend the event.
But first, Driver had to get the car working again, which involved welding the main transmission shaft back together. There wasn’t much time for repairs. It’s also hard to test the car. Speed Week is the only place Driver can see how the car is performing.
“Unless they let me use the airport, there’s nowhere to drive this thing,” he said.
Gray says that’s one of the scary things about the whole experience.
“This is a dangerous sport. We’ve seen friends crash. We’ve seen friends lose their lives,” she said. “The officials do everything they can. The rest is up to us.”
“Every time, my heart goes into my throat as he drives down.”
Driver managed to get the car fixed. But anyone attempting a record needs to do two runs, and the average is where the record is set.
On the first day, Driver hit 291 mph (468 km/h). The current record, broken six weeks prior at Speed Week, was 256. But Driver needed a good second run. Waking up at the crack of dawn, Driver completed his second run and set a new world record – 286 miles per hour.
As the car was towed back to the pit area, the other drivers lined the road and cheered.
“That’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I get goosebumps just telling the story,” he said. “The flats isn’t like other racing. You’re not competing against each other. You’re competing against an existing record.”
Shawn Driver proudly stands next to his car in his Sooke shop. (Bailey Moreton - Sooke News Mirror)
“It’s like a family,” he added. “You can’t explain the camaraderie. You have to experience it in the flats for yourself. Once you’ve been, you’re a sodium junkie. The salt is in your blood.”
While Driver is driving at breakneck speeds, it takes a village to get the car there. Sponsors include local companies like Sooke Brewing Company, Lordco Auto Parts in Langford, Canamera Refrigerated Transport in Saanichton, and individuals like Rod Zaran and Curtis Halvorson to companies like TBM and DIYMS3Pro in California and Georgia.
“There’s no money in it for them,” he said. “Someone from California sees a Sooke Brewing Company sticker on the car; they’re not going to know what that is. They do it because they love it.”
As for the team, there are brothers Les and Lorne Holm out of Tacoma, Richard Gido and Matt Blasco, “the engine whisperer” out of Alberta, and Vancouver Islanders Richard Norton, Richard Eldridge, Scott Macdonald and Carl Scott, owner of Sooke Brewing Company. Scott even got behind the wheel himself this year, earning his rookie license, allowing him to drive up to 149 miles per hour.
Driver has his red hat — making him one of around 760 members of the 200 Miles Per Hour Club — and is 10 mph away from earning a blue hat, which drivers earn when they break a record at speeds over 300 mph.
“But I told Miss Daisy, I don’t look good in blue,” he laughed. “So I want that black hat. Five years from now, I’d like to be in the 400 Miles Per Hour Club.”
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They don’t have friends, they have family. Since Paul Walker‘s 2013 death, his former Fast and Furious castmates have worked together to make sure his daughter, Meadow Walker, always has support.
The California native welcomed Meadow in November 1998 with his ex-girlfriend Rebecca Soteros. Meadow was just a toddler when The Fast and the Furious premiered in June 2001, but her dad was already establishing friendships that would last the rest of his life.
Paul and his costar Vin Diesel connected right away while doing research for the first Fast film years before the franchise became a billion-dollar global enterprise. The Bloodshot actor played Dominic Toretto, a street racing kingpin, while Paul played Brian O’Conner, an LAPD officer assigned to infiltrate Dom’s crew of racers.
“Our chemistry is that we don’t have any chemistry,” the Joy Ride star said of Diesel in 2009. “That’s the funny thing. He’s east coast, I’m west coast, you know? We respect each other as human beings. And that’s about all it takes. We get around, we laugh. But we have such two totally different approaches to this whole game.”
Just four years later, however, the family suffered a blow when Paul, then 40, was involved in a single-car collision that left him and friend Roger Rodas dead. Furious 7 was still in production at the time, but Paul’s brothers, Cody and Caleb Walker, filled in to film his remaining scenes as Brian.
As a final tribute to his beloved friend, Diesel convinced Fast producers to keep Paul’s character alive in the franchise. In Furious 7, Brian decides to “retire” from the crew so he can focus on raising his family with Mia (Brewster). Since then, subsequent Fast movies have included nods to an offscreen Brian living a happy and relaxed life.
“I can’t envision making a Fast film continuing this mythology without my brother Pablo’s soul being the guiding spirit,” Diesel said in June 2021 ahead of the F9 release. “The fact that I can make these movies and these chapters with people that I love is probably the biggest blessing of all.”
Keep scrolling to see how Paul’s Fast family has supported Meadow over the years:
Sicamous council has said not so fast to a fast food development.
A gas bar and accompanying food service development proposed for Main Street in Sicamous has been tabled for the time being.
To be located at 530 and 534 Main St., the development may include two fast food establishments, a gas bar, a convenience store, a sit-in restaurant and later, a hotel.
A development permit application was submitted to the district by Hemkund Developments. Sicamous council discussed the application at its Oct. 27 regular council meeting before tabling a motion to issue a permit for “the development of the service and repair establishment phase of the development, consisting of a gas bar and canopy, paving, parking, waste storage enclosure and landscaping.”
Council supported a motion to refer the application back to the district’s planning and development committee, so that a meeting on-site with the developer could be arranged.
Coun. Gord Bushell said the meeting would be very beneficial, and council thanked the developer for their understanding.
Before discussion on the development ended, Coun. Colleen Anderson said she’d heard many concerns from the public and understands them.
“It’s getting a little archaic, building gas stations as we move to an electric world,” she said. “Fast food is a roadblock, its not inviting people to our community. It doesn’t drive people down Main Street, it redirects them.”
Anderson suggested sharing Sicamous residents’ letters and concerns with the developer at the on-site meeting, in the hopes that a compromise or fresh look for the development can be realized.
The Sicamous Chamber of Commerce, as well as multiple Sicamous residents, submitted letters in opposition to the development prior to Oct. 27’s council meeting.
Residents Dawn and Paul Backs claimed the development is in contravention of Sicamous’ official community plan — an opinion shared by the chamber.
“Does Sicamous want to be a carbon copy of every other community along the Trans-Canada Highway, with nothing to entice travelers to visit the downtown core?” wrote Dawn.
Ian Baillie runs two Sicamous restaurants: G&G Kitchen and Tap and the Narrows Smokehouse. He wrote to council and said allowing the developments will take Sicamous down the wrong path.
“In the past year we have had four new restaurants or food trucks open up in town, all of them offer unique small town experiences, all are locally owned. If we fill our highway with gas bars, convenience stores and fast food drive-thrus, I can assure you not all the current businesses operating in town will make it,” wrote Baillie.
Philadelphia-based fast-casual restaurant HipCityVeg opened its first New York City location this week. This is the first step in the company’s goal to more than double its unit count, going from 7 to 15, by February 2022.
“We see this as the ideal time to grow our brand and have a bold vision,” HipCityVeg CEO Nicole Marquis said in a release. “People are realizing they can get the foods they crave and enjoy them in a way that has a much, much lower impact on the planet, while aligning with their compassionate values.”
The plant-based chain now has eight units. There are plans to open three more stores in the Philadelphia area, two in Washington D.C. and two more in the New York boroughs.
The two upcoming NYC units will be delivery-only “Go Kitchens,” which were created during the pandemic to accommodate the on-the-go consumer.
“This novel approach responds to the unique moment we are in, with more consumers wanting to enjoy their favorite foods at home,” said Marquis. “Yet, we don’t want to lose the in-person experience that makes restaurants destinations and community gathering places, so we are taking a hybrid approach to growth.”
Those units will be in Brooklyn and Queens; the unit that just opened is in Manhattan.
“No matter where people enjoy plant-based foods, whether it’s at HipCityVeg, or wherever is most convenient for them, it’s so important for all our futures to have more affordable, convenient and delicious ways to do so. Plant-based is the future, and now is the moment,” Marquis said in the release.
In July, the brand announced it would pay all workers $15 an hour at its stores in Philadelphia, where minimum wage is currently $7.25. The minimum wage in Washington D.C. is $15 an hour and New York City is $20 an hour.
The Star’s Heather Scoffield is travelling with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the G20 Summit in Rome and the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, covering Canada’s role in the shifting world order and the global fight against climate change.
THE HAGUE—Canada needs to figure out who its friends are.
We’re at “the beginning of the end” stage in the pandemic, as Justin Trudeau said in his address to the Dutch parliament on Friday.
In foreign policy terms, it’s that time when we gingerly poke our heads out of our houses after an 18-month confinement, look around and realize our social circle has been shaken up while we were keeping the virus at bay.
Through the fog, we need to remember how to socialize in the new, post-pandemic world order. We need to remember that the problems that plagued us and our friendships before the pandemic are still lurking, and they’re even worse than before. And we have a pile of residual COVID-19 damage to contend with.
That’s where Trudeau’s visit to the Netherlands comes in.
Before wading into the turbulent waters of the G20 in Rome and COP26 in Glasgow this weekend — where rich-versus-poor, China-versus-the-U.S, and oil-versus-solar battles will play out with fireworks — the prime minister spent a busy but amiable day with like-minded Dutch politicians to set out some of his thoughts about foreign policy.
As always, the two countries’ leaders reminded each other that they’re bound by a linked history from the Second World War, a dedication to global trade, and a middle-power status that demands a dedication to multilateralism.
Trudeau was here to ask the Dutch to double down on those values alongside Canada — and solidify his own principles in foreign policy at the same time. His speech to the Dutch Parliament and his off-the-cuff comments to students at day’s end hammered home his message: countries that have a modern, inclusive and moderate approach to promoting democracy and sustainable growth need to stick together.
“It’s the best exposition I’ve seen from Trudeau of what he means by a ‘progressive’ foreign policy,” says the University of Ottawa’s Roland Paris, a former senior foreign policy adviser to Trudeau.
“It’s also clearly an appeal for the Netherlands, and by extension other like-minded states, to rally together in support of these values.”
Trudeau compared historic threats to liberal democracy, such as fascism, to today’s online hate mongering, which he said was driven not just by conspiracy theorists but also by state actors.
“In this age of unreason, of disinformation, of skepticism and cynicism, we need to acknowledge that there are those who would tear down what we are building, who stand against these positive values we share,” Trudeau told the Dutch parliament in a 900-year-old building laden with the history of fighting Nazis and finding peace.
The rule of law, multilateralism and collaboration with like-minded countries can keep those forces at bay, Trudeau said.
But he also called on the public, young people in particular, to get off the sidelines and demand action, especially when it comes to climate change.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte made a point of enthusiastically agreeing with Trudeau repeatedly throughout the day, underlining the need for liberal democracies to stand up to autocracy and the destructive forces of populism.
That’s a real-life challenge in Europe, where some governments in the eastern part of the continent have veered hard right, and opposition parties in Holland and elsewhere have gained a steady share of the electorate for anti-immigrant views.
And perhaps that’s why the Dutch parliamentarians, when they had a chance to ask Trudeau some questions, pushed hard on how Canada and other liberal democracies could stand a chance of standing up to China when we are so dependent on their exports and finance.
Indeed, that’s where Trudeau’s progressive foreign policy rhetoric runs into difficulty, and he falls back on the pragmatism learned the hard way during the imprisonment of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.
Canada will challenge China on human rights, and won’t let up on its international campaign to call out “coercive diplomacy” but will co-operate with the superpower on trade and economics, he explained.
“We can’t pretend China isn’t there.”
The post-pandemic Trudeau is unbridled when it comes to advocating progress on climate, free and fair trade, and a better distribution of the world’s riches.
China’s voice in the discussion about how to smooth out global supply chains is also a prerequisite, given the fact that so many of those trade routes draw from that country at some point.
Both those discussions will be top of mind starting Saturday when G20 leaders meet in Rome on the economy and then move on to Glasgow to negotiate cutting greenhouse gases.
Trudeau, with the help of his new foreign affairs minister, Melanie Joly, will have to carefully rationalize that realpolitik with their renewed vigour for progressivism in foreign policy.
Figuring out who our friends are is a necessity to navigate the post-pandemic world, but that’s a lot easier than to plot how to deal with our sometime rival.
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Toronto Raptors guard Gary Trent Jr. battles for the loose ball against Indiana Pacers guard T.J. McConnell in Toronto on Oct. 27.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
A little over eight years. That’s how long the New Golden Age of Toronto sports lasted.
This week it began returning to normal. The megacorp overseeing most of the operation has gone all War of the Roses. The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the midst of blowing the season in Month No. 1. The Raptors are mired in a rebuilding phase, a no-man’s land more than a few NBA teams never emerge from. Toronto FC has become a basket case no one cares about (again).
The Blue Jays don’t look totally pooched, but wait for it. Once this curse gets going, it has a way of turning the bluest skies grey. And then hailing rocks.
Eight years isn’t a bad run. It’s more than most cities get. It can only be fully appreciated in retrospect, a place we are rapidly approaching.
You can trace the beginning of it to the day – July 15, 2013.
That’s when newly hired Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke did his first interviews.
It’s important to remember how desolate the Toronto sports scene was as he arrived. No major-league team had won anything in 20 years. It had been a decade since any of those four teams had taken a single playoff round.
The Leafs were coming off that Game 7 against the Bruins. The star turn on the soccer club had announced that his side was not just awful by sad North American standards, but “the worst team in the world.”
There was a pervading sense that Toronto was not only a place where nothing went right, but that nothing ever could.
On that July afternoon, Leiweke made a series of wild proclamations about where he saw things going. He was going to take down most of the 1950s and 60s memorabilia that covered every vertical inch of the Leafs’ arena. He said a bunch of weird things about how many construction cranes he could see from his office window.
He told reporters he had the parade route planned. His only worry was finding a spot big enough to hold it.
“If Chicago had one million people, Toronto will have two,” Leiweke said.
The reaction to this sort of U.S.-style carnival barking was not mockery. It was something closer to rage. One paper called him “the ultimate Hog Town dim bulb.” It got so bad that Leiweke had to apologize for promising to be good at his job.
And, of course, because we can’t get anything right, we were wrong about that, too. Leiweke made a bunch of quick decisions that turned the ship. He invested heavily in the soccer team because it was the one outfit that could spend its way to competence. It won a championship four years later.
An intoxicating sense that winning was suddenly permissible convinced the Jays to stop thinking about risk like an insurance company. They made the first real breakthrough in 2015.
Leiweke hired Brendan Shanahan to run the Leafs. That unwound the team’s “born to lose” mission statement.
And he hired Masai Ujiri to reinvent the Raptors. When the parade happened, Leiweke was proved right again about spacing requirements. They weren’t enough.
But Toronto has a gravity that cannot be denied. All along, unseen forces were pulling it back toward its old combo – mediocrity and chaos.
The mediocrity had already begun to settle in, but it’s the chaos that really gets you. It showed up this week.
The key obstacle to building a sustained culture of winning in Toronto is inbreeding. Three clans control the whole fief – Rogers, Bell and Larry Tanenbaum. Among them, they own five teams, including the Argos (who don’t win anything either).
Were they all set against each other in a war of all against all, that might be one thing. Competition among bored, megalomaniacal billionaires has worked a charm in other cities. Boston’s a good example of this.
But in Toronto, the corporate and family interests are intertwined. They all sit on the board of MLSE together, bound by a common goal – increasing franchise value.
Each faction is run by grey men. All of them extremely Canadian types – quiet, unprepossessing, dull.
One is reminded of the 2019 ceremony at which the Raptors were presented with their championship rings. All the players had to run a gauntlet of plutocrats. You could see the thought bubbles over the players’ heads as they shook hands with the money: “Is this the guy I talk to about getting my parking pass renewed?”
Everyone’s in charge, so no one’s in charge. That worked with Leiweke as the charismatic head of the snake. But now that he’s gone – replaced (surprise! surprise!) by another grey man – there is no focus. Nobody’s pushing things along. But everyone was making money so everyone was happy.
Until one of the guys on top started getting ideas. He’s got some thoughts on payroll and personnel and, hey, why exactly do we need two guys running the basketball team? Only one guy cleans the boats at my 40-bedroom cottage and he’s doing an amazing job. Maybe he knows something about basketball, too. Carl. Or Cal. Or maybe it’s Kevin. I forget his name, but I’ll talk to him.
Then it goes public (baddest of the bad omens, right there) and now its PR fisticuffs. It’s an old-guy slap down. As one close observer of all things MLSE put it this week: “The board’s always been split. But now there’s a split in the split.”
Most sports clichés are nonsense, but this one at least is true – leadership is everything. Which is not to say that you need a genius running things, but that you require a clearly articulated plan guided by a single person. For a moment there, Toronto had that. Then it didn’t. And then it took a few more years for the plan to spin out.
If no one at the top is steering the ship, it goes off course. If the people at the top are fighting on the poop deck, it hits the rocks.
The only outcome that cannot happen is sinking the ship. That would require Torontonians to stop paying to watch bad teams, which they will never do.
This isn’t a Catch-22. It’s Toronto’s natural sports state. It’s not that we don’t enjoy winners. The past eight years were tons of fun.
It’s that we don’t want winners all the time. That would seem too much like attention seeking. Now that we’ve gorged on the spoils, it’s time to fast until the next golden dawn.
I love everything about electric cars except public charging.
At a fast charging station I can get an 80 percent charge in 40-60 minutes. Problem is, that’s on a good day. One a bad day, well...it’s a long story.
Scenario 1: musical chairs — first charger doesn’t work so you go to another. That one doesn’t work either so you try another. Finally, you hit pay dirt on the third plug. But ten minutes has elapsed and you’ve only just started a 40-60 minute charge.
Scenario 2: charging app isn’t communicating with charger or it won’t take a credit card.
Scenario 3: blue screen of death — chargers have crashed or are offline. You call support. It’s news to them. You give up and find another charging location. Time wasted: at least 30 minutes getting to another charging location. (This can happen at gas stations too but there’s usually another gas station nearby.)
Ford — who is sending people to go out and find bad chargers — says that “over 99.5 percent of customers go into a charger and get a charge,” according to Automotive News.
Based on my experience, that’s very optimistic. Recently, I used public Electrify America fast chargers exclusively (no home charging) several times a week for about three months. The upshot: chargers worked without a hitch about 75% of the time*.
(My most recent fail involved three attempts at three different chargers and finally getting a charge at the third plug. That took about 10 minutes.)
Most of the gas-car owning public won’t tolerate the inconvenience
The point is the average person thinking about switching from a gas car to an EV won’t tolerate this. Yes, you can charge an EV at home. But that’s not always practical. Sooner or later you have to rely on the public/private charging infrastructure.
“We are making progress – rapidly deploying the fastest High Powered Chargers available (150 and 350kW) – over 2,800 chargers to date in a little over three years – and we have suffered growing pains,” a spokesperson for Electrify America told me.
“We actually have our own testing group roaming the US testing chargers every day with various EVs to help us identify issues hopefully before you and other customers experience a problem,” the spokesperson added.
——
Notes
*Also included in that 25% are minor glitches such as not communicating with the charger on the first attempt.
People with acute critical conditions and cardiac and pulmonary disease will benefit from an additional 20 new fast-track seats added to Thompson Rivers University’s (TRU) respiratory therapist diploma program.
“We are committed to training, recruiting, and hiring a new generation of health-care professionals at all levels, including respiratory therapists, who are vital members of the health-care team,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “This program is an excellent example of home-grown talent adding to our health-care system. On Respiratory Therapy Week, I would like to recognize respiratory therapists working with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I thank the students who embark on this career path.”
To increase the number of respiratory therapists in B.C., the Ministry of Health provided $320,000 to TRU to expand its respiratory therapy diploma program. This funding allows TRU to add 20 additional one-time seats for the diploma fast-track stream to June 2023. Students started the program in September 2021.
The Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training will provide TRU with one-time funding of $65,900 for skills-training equipment to support expansion of this program. Equipment includes a new ventilator to support student learning.
“Respiratory therapists are vital members of the health system, and the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how essential they are,” said Anne Kang, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training. “Expanding the number of respiratory therapists has never been more important, and these new fast-track seats mean more British Columbians experiencing lung and breathing issues can get the care they need.”
Students with a bachelor of science or associate of science degree can apply for the fast-track option. Students can directly enter the second year of the diploma program after successfully completing other requisite coursework. The fast-track option can be completed in two years.
Respiratory therapists provide care in hospitals, homes and community health clinics, and are integral to team-based primary care. They can help assess and perform medical tests and provide a range of treatment options for cardio-respiratory diseases, as well as providing airway/breathing support in acute situations, and providing lung health information and education to patients.
This announcement builds upon $4.4 million last year for new seats for health-care workers, including respiratory therapists, to help government respond to local and emerging needs, including critical care, and are in addition to ongoing support of health-care education programs at post-secondary institutions throughout B.C.
Quotes:
Brett Fairbairn, president and vice-chancellor, Thompson Rivers University –
“The expansion of the respiratory therapy program will fulfil a high-demand need for trained professionals, who will learn in TRU’s new Chappell Family Building for Nursing and Population Health. The growth of this program will allow students to transform themselves and the health of the communities they will support in the future.”
Mike Lemphers, chairperson, TRU Allied Health department –
“This funding is vital for the TRU respiratory therapy program to help meet the huge demand for respiratory therapists within this province. The capital funding enables us to purchase a new Servo U ventilator. This helps our students gain experience on the newest ventilator models and applications that are used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.”
Tracey Rannie, executive director, Royal Inland Hospital (RIH) –
“Respiratory therapists play an incredibly important role in our health-care system across Interior Health, including RIH. This is a highly rewarding and in-demand career that can lead to jobs right here in Kamloops at RIH. This additional investment will support people throughout the Thompson-Cariboo region and bring much-needed access to these highly trained professionals for Interior Health.”
Tajinder Khosa, TRU fast-track respiratory therapy student in clinical practicum at RIH, expected to graduate April 2022 –
“It’s a great option, especially for students like myself who have completed their undergrad and are looking for a career. With the fast track, it is a heavy load, but it is manageable. You work with everyone from newborns taking their first breath to the most acute patients in the ICU, and you get to work with a lot of different technology. Wanting to work in health care, I thought it was the perfect role for me.”
Heavy rain from two back-to-back storm systems has increased the flow of the Stamp River over Stamp Falls to impressive levels.
Tony Tatoosh from Hupacasath First Nation was at the provincial park on Friday, Oct. 23 removing camera equipment at the fish counter for the season, before higher water levels made it impossible to reach the equipment. A trickle of visitors walked by, occasionally talking to Tatoosh, as they got in a walk while the sun was shining.
Stamp River Provincial Park is closed during storms due to threat of landslides and high water levels.
Law & Crime features multiple trials daily along with expert legal analysis and commentary. An expanding roster of original programmes includes the weekly series Coptales and Brian Ross Investigates, hosted by former ABC chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.
Law & Crime is using Amagi Content Plus to distribute and monetise its content
Using Amagi Content Plus, a non-exclusive, revenue share-based distribution model encompassing the channel playout solution Amagi Cloudport and ad insertion solution Amagi Thunderstorm, Law & Crime is distributing and monetising its linear content on TCL.
The Roku Channel and Peacock are among the other FAST platforms that now host Law & Crime content, powered by Amagi’s cloud-led technologies. Amagi has deep technical integrations with 50+ FAST platforms around the world.
“Amagi’s technology has given us access to millions of viewers around the world,” said Alex Kopacz, head of content distribution & licensing, Law & Crime. “Their robust and accurate ad insertion solution has helped us scale our ad revenues, while offering unintrusive, tailored ad recommendations to our viewers. Amagi is truly the one-stop shop for any content creator looking to amplify their presence across FAST platforms.”
“There is a lot of demand among new-age viewers for niche content of the kind that Law & Crime provides,” said Srinivasan KA, co-founder Amagi. “We’re excited to have enabled their distribution to more devices and screens around the world, giving Law & Crime the reach that they rightfully deserve. And Amagi, in turn, gets to count Law&Crime among our list of niche content partners.”
Shawn Driver didn’t even plan to be in the U.S. when the World Finals took place at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah this fall.
Despite what the name suggests, the World Finals – which takes place over four days – is a smaller event than Bonneville Speed Week – about 600 drivers attend Speed Week in August, while 100 go to the World Finals in September.
But an unfortunate transmission failure during Speed Week meant Driver and his team missed out on the record they were trying to set in the Altered Coupe class. He left the car, a 1953 Studebaker, with its 1955 Hemi Studebaker tow vehicle and hauler in storage, in Utah.
With Driver’s car failing, another team broke his record, and Driver wanted it back. Luckily because the World Finals are in September, conditions are cooler, and the salt is harder.
Driver and his partner Donna (Miss Daisy) Gray travelled back up to their welding and car parts shop in Sooke, with plans to return for the World Finals a month later, the first time they would ever attend the event.
But first, Driver had to get the car working again, which involved welding the main transmission shaft back together. There wasn’t much time for repairs. It’s also hard to test the car. Speed Week is the only place Driver can see how the car is performing.
“Unless they let me use the airport, there’s nowhere to drive this thing,” he said.
Gray says that’s one of the scary things about the whole experience.
“This is a dangerous sport. We’ve seen friends crash. We’ve seen friends lose their lives,” she said. “The officials do everything they can. The rest is up to us.”
“Every time, my heart goes into my throat as he drives down.”
Driver managed to get the car fixed. But anyone attempting a record needs to do two runs, and the average is where the record is set.
On the first day, Driver hit 291 mph (468 km/h). The current record, broken six weeks prior at Speed Week, was 256. But Driver needed a good second run. Waking up at the crack of dawn, Driver completed his second run and set a new world record – 286 miles per hour.
As the car was towed back to the pit area, the other drivers lined the road and cheered.
“That’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I get goosebumps just telling the story,” he said. “The flats isn’t like other racing. You’re not competing against each other. You’re competing against an existing record.”
“It’s like a family,” he added. “You can’t explain the camaraderie. You have to experience it in the flats for yourself. Once you’ve been, you’re a sodium junkie. The salt is in your blood.”
While Driver is driving at breakneck speeds, it takes a village to get the car there. Sponsors include local companies like Sooke Brewing Company, Lordco Auto Parts in Langford, Canamera Refrigerated Transport in Saanichton, and individuals like Rod Zaran and Curtis Halvorson to companies like TBM and DIYMS3Pro in California and Georgia.
“There’s no money in it for them,” he said. “Someone from California sees a Sooke Brewing Company sticker on the car; they’re not going to know what that is. They do it because they love it.”
As for the team, there are brothers Les and Lorne Holm out of Tacoma, Richard Gido and Matt Blasco, “the engine whisperer” out of Alberta, and Vancouver Islanders Richard Norton, Richard Eldridge, Scott Macdonald and Carl Scott, owner of Sooke Brewing Company. Scott even got behind the wheel himself this year, earning his rookie license, allowing him to drive up to 149 miles per hour.
Driver has his red hat — making him one of around 760 members of the 200 Miles Per Hour Club — and is 10 mph away from earning a blue hat, which drivers earn when they break a record at speeds over 300 mph.
“But I told Miss Daisy, I don’t look good in blue,” he laughed. “So I want that black hat. Five years from now, I’d like to be in the 400 Miles Per Hour Club.”
Shawn Driver didn’t even plan to be in the U.S. when the World Finals took place at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah this fall.
Despite what the name suggests, the World Finals – which takes place over four days – is a smaller event than Bonneville Speed Week – about 600 drivers attend Speed Week in August, while 100 go to the World Finals in September.
But an unfortunate transmission failure during Speed Week meant Driver and his team missed out on the record they were trying to set in the Altered Coupe class. He left the car, a 1953 Studebaker, with its 1955 Hemi Studebaker tow vehicle and hauler in storage, in Utah.
With Driver’s car failing, another team broke his record, and Driver wanted it back. Luckily because the World Finals are in September, conditions are cooler, and the salt is harder.
Driver and his partner Donna (Miss Daisy) Gray travelled back up to their welding and car parts shop in Sooke, with plans to return for the World Finals a month later, the first time they would ever attend the event.
But first, Driver had to get the car working again, which involved welding the main transmission shaft back together. There wasn’t much time for repairs. It’s also hard to test the car. Speed Week is the only place Driver can see how the car is performing.
“Unless they let me use the airport, there’s nowhere to drive this thing,” he said.
Gray says that’s one of the scary things about the whole experience.
“This is a dangerous sport. We’ve seen friends crash. We’ve seen friends lose their lives,” she said. “The officials do everything they can. The rest is up to us.”
“Every time, my heart goes into my throat as he drives down.”
Driver managed to get the car fixed. But anyone attempting a record needs to do two runs, and the average is where the record is set.
On the first day, Driver hit 291 mph (468 km/h). The current record, broken six weeks prior at Speed Week, was 256. But Driver needed a good second run. Waking up at the crack of dawn, Driver completed his second run and set a new world record – 286 miles per hour.
As the car was towed back to the pit area, the other drivers lined the road and cheered.
“That’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I get goosebumps just telling the story,” he said. “The flats isn’t like other racing. You’re not competing against each other. You’re competing against an existing record.”
“It’s like a family,” he added. “You can’t explain the camaraderie. You have to experience it in the flats for yourself. Once you’ve been, you’re a sodium junkie. The salt is in your blood.”
While Driver is driving at breakneck speeds, it takes a village to get the car there. Sponsors include local companies like Sooke Brewing Company, Lordco Auto Parts in Langford, Canamera Refrigerated Transport in Saanichton, and individuals like Rod Zaran and Curtis Halvorson to companies like TBM and DIYMS3Pro in California and Georgia.
“There’s no money in it for them,” he said. “Someone from California sees a Sooke Brewing Company sticker on the car; they’re not going to know what that is. They do it because they love it.”
As for the team, there are brothers Les and Lorne Holm out of Tacoma, Richard Gido and Matt Blasco, “the engine whisperer” out of Alberta, and Vancouver Islanders Richard Norton, Richard Eldridge, Scott Macdonald and Carl Scott, owner of Sooke Brewing Company. Scott even got behind the wheel himself this year, earning his rookie license, allowing him to drive up to 149 miles per hour.
Driver has his red hat — making him one of around 760 members of the 200 Miles Per Hour Club — and is 10 mph away from earning a blue hat, which drivers earn when they break a record at speeds over 300 mph.
“But I told Miss Daisy, I don’t look good in blue,” he laughed. “So I want that black hat. Five years from now, I’d like to be in the 400 Miles Per Hour Club.”
When I worked in restaurant kitchens, cooling down leftovers was serious business. The importance of getting big batches of cooked food—think giant pots of stocks, sauces, and stews—out of what’s known as the “danger zone” (40°–140°) as quickly as possible before getting it into the refrigerator was drilled into every cook on the line. This was a matter of food safety, enforced by the ever-present fear of a surprise health inspection; if the inspector showed up and dipped their dreaded thermometer into a container of 90° beans in the walk-in, your day was about to get a whole lot worse.
For home cooks, who are usually cooking in much smaller quantities that cool down much more quickly, this isn’t as big of a concern. The FDA recommends putting most leftovers in the fridge as soon as possible, and definitely within two hours, rather than waiting for them to reach room temp. That said, there are still times when I find myself staring down a stockpot of broth or a hulking Dutch oven of chili and I want to cool it down rapidly to avoid getting burned and/or raising the temperature of everything else in my fridge. In these cases I use a handy tool I learned about in restaurants years ago: an ice paddle.
Ice paddles are commonplace in professional kitchens and are essentially little more than giant refillable tubes made from food-grade plastic. They get filled with water, capped, and frozen, and then can be placed in a vessel of hot food to speed up the cooling-down process. (You can also wield them like frosty medieval weapons if you want, but that’s a different story.)
At home I obviously don’t have a need for something quite so large, but I can accomplish the same thing with clean quart containers I’ve filled with water and frozen. I try to keep a few of these bad boys stashed in the freezer so that they’re always ready to go, and then all I have to do is plop one directly into a big pot of soup and stir it around occasionally while I tidy up the kitchen. After 45 minutes or so the food in question is no longer piping hot and I can let the fridge do the rest of the work.
And while this use-case might seem a bit rare, I find that having quart-size blocks of ice in the fridge can be useful in other ways too. I basically always forget to make simple syrup until I’m jonesing for a cocktail, so I often use one of these DIY ice paddles to cool it down rapidly before adding it to a batch of margaritas. (Yes, I could use an ice bath—but then I’d be wasting all of those precious cubes I need for the drinks.) I’ve also used them when I’ve made a batch of punch or large-format cocktail and forgotten to make an ice mold—just warm the quart container under some hot water until the chunk of ice releases and drop that ’berg right into your Big Drink. And they’re always ready to function as an ice pack for a small cooler or to soothe a pesky bug bite, burn, or minor sprain.
See for yourself: Stash an ice paddle or two in your freezer and you’ll be surprised how often they come in handy.
Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc. is one of the first corporations to utilize large-scale carbon removal technology as part of its effort to limit climate change.Photo by David Kawai/Bloomberg
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Shopify is bound by the laws of physics after all. On Thursday, the e-commerce giant reported third-quarter revenues of $1.1 billion (all figures U.S.), up 46 per cent year over year.
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That’s about the same pace it had established just before the pandemic slammed into offline retailers in March 2020. Shopify’s revenues soared as merchants rushed to establish or expand their online presence. This boosted both of Shopify’s main streams of revenue — the company charges for a monthly subscription and also pay fees related to a variety of apps ranging from payment processing to shipping.
During the first four quarters of the pandemic, Shopify’s sales roughly doubled year over year. During the quarter ended last June, they climbed a more leisurely 57 per cent from a much higher base.
Had it not been for the pandemic, Shopify’s third-quarter revenues would have been somewhere between $750 million and $800 million — at least $300 million shy of where they turned out.
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Shopify is that rare company, one that has spent much of its existence accommodating relentless demand for its software and services. In sharp contrast, most software startups spent inordinate effort trying to convince customers to come on board. A few years ago, Shopify had the luxury of turning its attention to expanding its operations and product lines at scale in an effort to stay ahead of the curve.
The company has added thousands of employees — the head count is now more than 12,000 worldwide, about 10 per cent of them in Ottawa — expanded its presence overseas and built a network of app developers. It also raised billions of dollars along the way. Its cash balance at the end of September was $7.5 billion.
Shopify’s net third-quarter income was $1.1 billion thanks to an unrealized gain related largely to its investment in San Francisco-based Affirm, which sells software that permits customers to take out loans at most retailers. Affirm’s share price has escalated sharply in recent months, prompting the higher valuation on Shopify’s books.
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Ignoring the impact of that one-time gain, Shopify recorded a $4.1-million operating loss compared to a $130.9-million loss from the third quarter of 2020. The loss included an additional $30-million cost connected to the termination of lease agreements. Shopify committed to a permanent work-from-home model for the vast majority of its employees last year, when it booked an initial charge of nearly $32 million to close offices.
The company is abiding by the revenue outlook it established early this year, one that assumes the economy will remain reasonably healthy and that people will gradually resume shopping in person while continuing to buy online at a pace greatly exceeding the one it established pre-pandemic. Shopify is expected to finish the year with roughly $4.6 billion in revenue, up more than 55 per cent compared to 2020.
Investors reacted Thursday like they often do with this company. They bid up its shares. The momentum may be slowing, but it’s still there.
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