oO Provincial legislation to force homeless people into shelters By Tanya Colledge, Staff Reporter new law passed by the provincial government A: uesday giving police the power and authority to orce homeless people from the streets-and into local Vancouver shelters has ignited much controversy, with civil rights activists claiming that the legislation could force the homeless into shelters against their own will. The Assistance to Shelter Act’s introduction was spurred by the death of a homeless woman last January, who burned to death trying to keep warm in a makeshift shelter. As extreme weather conditions are expected to occur once again this winter, the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is embracing the new legislation in hopes that it may save more people from encountering such fates. Local activists disagree, saying that the act is merely a Strategy to force the poor off the streets during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and has been seen in many previous Olympic host cities attempting to hide the poor from the global attention received during the Games. The VPD has counter-attacked, saying that the department’s main focus will remain on encouraging the Vancouver homeless community to voluntarily check-into shelters. They will also continue to hand out blankets, socks and lists of shelters to those in need— giving them the opportunity to seek the help for themselves. But activists insist that the new law does not help the city to deal with the issue of homelessness, and instead will push more people into less safe parts of the community and increase chances of conflicts between street people and officers. Prior to the legislation, the only time a police officer was able to force someone off the streets was if they posed as a threat to themselves or those around them, were mentally ill or had committed a crime. The new act, however, allows officers to use “reasonable force if necessary” to remove a homeless person from the street and transport them to a shelter. Critics and activists believe that this will lead to more charges of resisting, interfering or assaulting police officers. Death of Hornby Island folk-punk singer ruled a homicide The 25-year-old performer was well loved by the community By Kristina Mameli, News Editor he suspicious death of 25-year-old Hornby Island resident Tempest Grace Gale is officially being investigated as a homicide, the Comox Valley RCMP announced Friday following an autopsy. The popular artist and performer’s body was supposedly found in the water at Ford’s Cove Marina, where she lived on a boat with her boyfriend, Wednesday morning. RCMP have not yet released how she died. A person of interest was questioned Thursday and later released. Matthew Fredbeck, owner of the marina, told a number of news outlets that that person was a man who had been harassing people, including Gale’s family, in the small community of Hornby Island for a week prior to her death. Constable Tammy Douglas said in a press release via CBC.ca that investigators are using every available resource to move the case forward. ““We don’t know where the investigation is going at this point,” said Douglas. There was a person who was in police custody. That person was spoken to by investigators and has since been released and all other avenues are being looked at at this point.” Douglas also noted that Hornby Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island, is a small community with a population of under 1,000, so everyone knew Gale well. Residents of the tight-knit community have said Gale was quite the character, well liked and well known for her poetry and music. She sang with local folk-punk act the Killer Bagels and performed on stilts, often delivering spoken word performances and riding a unicycle. The Comox Valley RCMP detachment is asking anyone with information about the case to call 1.250.338.1321 or Crime Stoppers at 1.800.222.8477. Kicking out Coke Campus group trying to abolish Coca-Cola Douglas College Wrap-Up By Kristina Mameli Tonight: shopping for charity Tonight from 6-9 p.m. at Coquitlam Centre, Douglas is encouraging you to get a head start on your Christmas shopping. The event is an invitation only affair with 100 per cent of each $10 ticket sold by the Douglas College Foundation and the Alumni Association going directly to the Emerging Needs Bursary at Douglas. The mall will only be open to ticket holders who will be treated to special discounts, music, appetizers and a wine tasting. To order your tickets, email Andrew Senjack, alumni coordinator, at senjacka@douglas.be.ca. Douglas students headed to Walt Disney World Resort Douglas students Bailey Chambers of Port Coquitlam and Damian Craig of Maple Ridge are headed to the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida for six- month internships. They are the first students from B.C, selected for the academic internships through the University of California-Riverside and the Walt Disney World Resort. They'll start off in California with an intro to hospitality intensive at the University of California- Riverside. Then they will go to Florida where they’Il be instructed by Disney certified teachers and start training/ work for up to 37.5 hours per week. The adventure starts mid-January. Governor General’s Award given to Douglas poet : Long-time Douglas creative writing instructor David Zieroth, who retired in 2007, won the Governor General’s Award for English-language poetry Tuesday for his book The Fly in Autumn. The award was announced in Montreal and the book chosen by a national panel as the best of its kind in 2009. The prestigious award comes with $25,000 plus an additional $3 ,000 for the publisher. By Austin M. Davis, the Carillon (University of Regina) REGINA (CUP)—A University of Regina campus group called Food Fight is waging a battle against the world’s largest manufacturer, distributor, and advertiser of non-alcoholic beverages: the Coca-Cola Company. The Food Fight initiative was born when Mariel Harvey and 22 other students attended Food Sovereignty Mexico 2009, a course that was offered through the university. There, students paid specific attention to issues like water privatization and food sovereignty. Harvey returned to Canadian soil with a plan, motivated by the information she had received. “My action plan was to remove Coca-Cola from campus,” Harvey explained. “Mayah [Stratton] and I had talked about this previously—a couple years before, actually —and never got our act together until this group was formed and we had other people backing us up.” The group officially formed in September of this year. Citing human rights violations and environmental abuses that committed by Coca-Cola as the group’s motivation, Food Fight has made significant progress despite having only existed for several months. Harvey, Stratton, and other members of the group first had tables in various high-profile places on the University of Regina campus to spread awareness of their cause in early October. They repeated this 4 tactic on November 16; this time at the campus’s largest food court. The growing visibility has benefited Food Fight’s petition to try to abolish the soft drink giant from campus. The petition currently has about 700 signatures, according to Harvey, growing the chances to put forward a deciding referendum on the matter. The goal is to remove Coca-Cola products, including Dasani, Fanta, Minute Maid, Nestea, Powerade, and Sprite from the campus. Food Fight has partnered with two organizations, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke (killercoke. org) and Corporate Accountability International (stopcorporateabuse.org). This fight against the drink company adds the University of Regina to a long list of North American and European post-secondary institutions campaigning for the same ban. Food Fight members have been handing out copies of material used by killercoke.org that claim criminal, malicious activity by Coca-Cola, discussing lawsuits filed in 2001 and 2006 against the company. “For the most part, I think people are impressed that they’re learning the issues behind Coca-Cola’s practices,” said Stratton of the campaign’s reception. The reliance on anecdotal evidence from killercoke.org, however, and not sources from the company or the Colombian government, has had some students question the issues being brought forward. “A lot of people have never heard of such issues,” said Stratton. “A lot of people want us to prove such things, [but] those kind of things aren’t really our purpose to prove.”