Submissions against a northeast housing project for the working poor continued all day Tuesday at a quasi-judicial public hearing, with expectations that a series of rebuttals and several days of deliberation will continue to lengthen the drawn-out battle.

The Subdivision and Development Appeal Board has entered its second day of submissions against an application by the Calgary Drop-In and Rehab Centre to convert a former Quality Inn into an affordable housing complex along Edmonton Trail just south of McKnight Boulevard N.E.

Inside the packed hearing room, seating about 50 people, business owners and their representatives spoke out against the proposed project, arguing that it isn’t “cohesive” with the adjacent communities of Thorncliffe and Greenview.

Myrna Belyea, a consultant and land-use expert, speaking on behalf of an adjacent business owner, said “we want development that will draw people to it, and this, people won’t be drawn to it. So there’s no cohesiveness.”

Belyea also argued the application doesn’t provide enough parking and the retail uses suggested for the building’s main floor may not be attractive enough.

“We question whether it would be the kind of retail that would cause people to linger, or that people would want to patronize.”

Marvin Quashnick, vice-president of the Thorncliffe-Greenview Community Association, agreed, fearing the complex would create a “business blight, degradation, and a lack of revitalization of the commercial corridor.”

But Andy Lockhart, past board chair for the Drop-In Centre, argued the DI application suggests retail uses such as a small grocer or pharmacy, because that’s what the community asked for.

“To turn around and say now it’s inadequate, it’s pretty disingenuous.”

Lockhart said the DI application also meets all parking requirements put forward by the city.

“And, most importantly, homeless people don’t have cars,” he added, explaining that crowded parking or increased traffic won’t be an issue.

The Calgary DI has faced a four-year battle to transform the former hotel into a housing complex for the city’s homeless. Supporters and opponents to the project, called Centre 4800, have flocked to hearings at the SDAB starting in late March, with the centre asking for an earlier rejection of its proposal by Calgary Planning Commission to be overturned.

Attendees have been told the hearing could take as many as three days — stretched out over several weeks — and that the board could take another month and a half to provide a written ruling.

Lockhart stressed Tuesday the bigger issue is the serious need for affordable housing in the city.

“There are 4,000 homeless in Calgary right now.

“And we have 200 to 300 people on the top floor of the DI who have graduated, who are working, who are ready to move on. But we don’t have anywhere to put them.”

Residents living at the centre undergo a rigorous selection process, including a secure income, whether through employment, a pension or AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped) through strict qualifications, and all will be employed.

eferguson@postmedia.com

Nearly a decade after Adam Cavanagh’s fatal shooting, his killer on Tuesday was given a maximum youth sentence of seven years in prison.

The man, who was a young offender at the time of Cavanagh’s Feb.  3, 2007, death and can’t be named, said he wished he’d acted differently when the 18-year-old was struck in the head by a bullet fired through a northeast basement window.

“I didn’t intend for this to happen,” he told court while apologizing to Cavanagh’s family.

“I wish I’d had the courage to take control of the situation that night so no one would suffer, but I didn’t . . . I’m ashamed and disappointed in myself.”

He vowed to help youth through community service.

The meandering case never fully determined who pulled the trigger the night Cavanagh was killed during a party at his family’s Templeby Cres. N.E. home.

Another man linked to the crime, Salim Kaddoura, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced last July to four years in prison.

After the unnamed defendant pleaded guilty last November to second-degree murder that had been reduced from first degree, Crown Prosecutor Andrew Barg said Tuesday he remains frustrated for not pinning the actual shooting on either man.

“He’s being sentenced on the basis he was not the one who pulled the trigger, but he formed a common intention with Mr. Kaddoura,” Barg told Court of Queen’s Bench.

He said evidence pointed to the guilt of both men.

But he said a joint submission reached with the defence means Tuesday’s sentence won’t give credit for six years already served for the killing and delivers four years behind bars, starting from last November.

The man, 26, will be eligible for parole in November, 2019 and will serve the final three years in the community.

Perry Cavanaugh, father of murder victim Adam Cavanaugh, tears up while speaking to media at Calgary Courts Centre in Calgary, Alta., on Tuesday, April 5, 2016.

In handing down the sentence, Justice Karen Horner said the guilty man had changed for the better while in jail, and was genuinely contrite.

“I believe him and his counsel when they say he is remorseful,” she said.

Cavanagh’s father, Perry, said he wasn’t so sure and will wait to see what his son’s killer does with his life.

“I would  lean a little less toward it being less sincere — there’s a lot of lying going on back and forth between the two individuals who were at the side of our house that evening,” said Cavanagh, who regretted the charge being downgraded.

“That was a large pill to swallow.”

And he choked up when speaking of his slain son, for whom his family still dedicate a part of their home.

“We still continue to celebrate Adam . . . he’s still our son,” said Cavanagh.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn

Alberta dentists suing their governing body over alleged Charter violations and heavy-handed tactics to crack down on advertising are seeing their ranks grow, says one of the class-action lawsuit’s plaintiffs.

Dr. Larry Stanleigh said after launching the legal action in February with two other dentists on behalf of 100 of their colleagues, more have stepped forward to support the effort, which accuses the Alberta Dental Association & College of creating a climate of intimidation and bullying, and violating dentists’ right to free speech.

“Lots of eyebrows have been raised and we’ve got a ton of dentists showing interest in joining the suit,” said the Calgary dentist, who last month sent letters to every dental office in the province, outlining the case.

“Most dentists in Alberta are completely unaware of what’s going on behind the scenes.”

The three dentists named in the suit allege the ADA&C has taken its opposition to dentists advertising to the extreme, vigorously pursuing violators while offering reduced penalties or immunity to those who out their peers for similar infractions.

Several other dentists have reached out to Postmedia in recent weeks, echoing the lawsuit’s claims while insisting on anonymity.

Stanleigh said many dentists in Alberta are fearful about going public for fear of reprisals from the ADA&C, but he said those who join the legal action can remain anonymous while defraying costs of pursuing the lawsuit or potentially losing it.

“The average dentist is three months away from bankruptcy, so there’s some that don’t want to take that risk,” he said.

Even as its proponents claim their ranks are swelling, one of the plaintiffs is now facing a lengthy exile from practising in Alberta.

Red Deer’s Dr. Michael Zuk met with the ADA&C’s disciplinary board last Friday and it recommended a five-year suspension to his licence and $200,000 in investigation costs for a laundry list of alleged violations of the ADA&C’s advertising policies, as well as for a satirical website and newsletter that’s critical of the agency.

Zuk, a former member of the ADA&C’s executive board, has been a vocal opponent of the governing body and is the subject of a $9 million defamation lawsuit from the agency’s executive director, Dr. Gordon Thompson, as well as complaints director Colleen Wetter.

It was Wetter, Zuk said, that recommended the punishment he calls “unprecedented,” making the decision despite the apparent conflict.

No one from the ADA&C was made available for comment Tuesday, providing Postmedia with essentially the same written statement attributed to president Dr. Tobin Doty that was issued last month, but adds it has yet to file a statement of defence.

“The Alberta Dental Association and College has a statutory duty to respond to complaints about violations of marketing rules, set out in its Code of Ethics,” the statement said.

“The Code was adopted by its members through a consultative process with membership and government, and applies to all dentists in Alberta. The allegations in the Statement of Claim are denied, and will be vigorously contested by the ADA&C when it files its Statement of Defence.” 

Zuk said the harsh penalty, which will ultimately be ruled on by an appointed tribunal within four weeks, is an obvious gambit to chill other dentists and put him on the sidelines.

“How can I continue to fight a $9 million lawsuit if they take away my livelihood,” he said.

“They’re definitely trying to pour cold water on me — and $9 million is a lot of cold water.”

Alberta’s Wildrose Party has called on the province’s health boss to not only lift the ban on dental providers advertising costs and expertise, but also separating the dental association, which advocates on behalf of members, from the college, which sets codes of conduct and investigates complaints.

Health Minister Sarah Hoffman said she’s open to hearing arguments on all sides on how to fix the system, including the potential of bringing back a fee schedule for the profession.

“There are a lot of different questions about potential solutions, but we’re not at the point yet where we’re going to be releasing a report and acting on recommendations,” she said.

As for separating the two entities, Hoffman said that would be considered as part of the review.

“It think that that is an interesting idea. I don’t think it’s necessarily a solution, but this is why we’re taking the time to do a review and make sure we have good evidence about what works in Alberta as well as other jurisdictions,” she said.

With files from Darcy Henton.

slogan@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @ShawnLogan403

Wearing a brace supporting his head and neck, Caleb Hettinga appeared in a video posted online to give thanks for an outpouring of support after he was seriously hurt — and two friends were killed — in a stunt at Canada Olympic Park.

Hettinga lost sight in his right eye, suffered myriad facial injuries and broke the base of his skull after he and seven friends sneaked into the closed ski park on Feb. 6 and slid down the bobsled track on plastic slides.

Two of the boys, twin brothers Jordan and Evan Caldwell, were killed when they collided with a barrier on the track. Hettinga suffered life-altering injuries.

“One thing I’ve learned through this experience is that God never leaves you alone to suffer through an experience like this,” Hettinga said in a video shared online with church supporters.

In the video, he wears a plaid, button-up shirt with a brace holding his head and neck. His right eye is covered with a patch; his left eye still appears swollen.

“A lot of people would probably get really depressed after something like this,” he said, “but I’ve really felt a peace and a hope through this, definitely because of God and all your guys’ prayers and support.”

The eight boys slid down the bobsled track that night at 1 a.m. on three sleds, one at a time, each crashing midway. A barrier that separates the bobsled from luge tracks had blocked their path. 

A survivor of the second sled attempted to reach the top of the hill to warn the remaining boys but was too late — the third sled was already on its way down. 

The Caldwell brothers were declared dead at the scene from blunt-force trauma, while the other boys were rushed to hospital with various injuries.

“Caleb’s face took the impact; it smashed every bone in his face,” Larry Sagert, Hettinga’s grandfather, said in the video shared with church supporters. 

Sagert said his family has been overwhelmed by words of encouragement through email, Facebook, phone calls and personal visits. They’ve received meals in hospital, help with laundry and financial support.

“I challenged Caleb to seize the opportunity to grow in character and in hope,” Sagert said in the video. “At this point his eye was completely swollen shut so he couldn’t see. He had a (tracheotomy) so he couldn’t speak.

“But he gave me two thumbs up.”

rsouthwick@postmedia.com

SAIT unveiled its new logo and branding on Tuesday, the product of a year of research that led the school to drop “polytechnic” from its name and devise a colourful emblem.

“More than 4,000 voices united to contribute to SAIT’s new brand,” Carol Rogalski, marketing director at SAIT, said in a news release. “One piece of overwhelming feedback was the understanding that SAIT offers a polytechnic education, but having the word in the name wasn’t necessary. We listened and the new brand reflects that.”

A rendering of how SAIT’s new logo might look on a building. (Screen grab: SAIT/YouTube)

According to a branding document, the new logo’s symbolism includes “s-shaped connectors that represent the people and relationships that define us.”

The shapes become infinity symbols and the star formed in the middle is intended to be a nod to the school’s passion for excellence.

The colours, which go beyond the red and blue familiar to SAIT alumni, are meant to represent “diversity, adaptability and innovation.”

You may not see the branding changes all over SAIT immediately. The new look will be rolled out over the next two to three years as materials with the old branding are used up or reach the end of their life cycle.

Here’s the logo reveal video from SAIT, including some different colour schemes we might end up seeing used on various materials.

Police continued to beat Christian Duckchief long after he was on the floor and handcuffed, his fiancée says — until his orbital bone, cheek and nose were all fractured.

Chantel Stonechild said Duckchief, 23, was dragged from the house, naked.

“They treated him worse than an animal,” she said.

Duckchief and Stonechild were asleep, in bed in her Siksika Nation home, when Gleichen RCMP came for him Friday morning — Stonechild believes their eight-year-old daughter let the Mounties in.

She woke up to Duckchief struggling with an officer on top of him.

Duckchief’s lawyer said his client didn’t know what was happening.

“Somebody jumped him on the bed and woke him up out of his sleep, grabbing his arms,” Dale Fedorchuk said.

“He had his wife and his four kids in the house and started fighting back — one of the people put a hand in front of his mouth and so he bit that person’s hand.

“After that he heard somebody say ‘stop resisting arrest’ and at the point that he became aware of the fact that it was police, he said ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m not resisting’ and stopped resisting.”

Stonechild said it should have stopped there but it didn’t.

“They just kept hitting him,” she said.

Duckchief ended up in to hospital in Calgary — in need of surgery.

His father, Rosario Duckchief said seeing his son in that condition “broke his heart.”

Now he’s at Calgary Remand Centre awaiting a Wednesday court date, charged with breaching recognizance conditions, resisting a peace officer and assaulting a peace officer.

“We came across Mr. Duckchief through the course of a criminal investigation,” Alberta RCMP Cpl. Sharon Franks said.

“It was at the time we were trying to make an arrest in relation to that investigation that the incident took place,” she said, but couldn’t offer further details.

Duckchief is known to police for matters including domestic incidents resulting in court orders not to be near Stonechild or their children.

Fedorchuk said the orders were supposed to have been changed to allow for contact some time back.

Officers did say Duckchief wasn’t allowed to be at the home during the arrest, Stonechild said, as well as something about a stolen vehicle.

Franks said anyone who feels they’ve been treated unfairly by police has the right to file a complaint with the public complaint commission.

But in general, Franks said, “We use as much force as is necessary to bring someone into custody.”

Alberta’s bid to establish an independent environmental monitoring agency ended Tuesday when Environment Minister Shannon Phillips announced the government is taking over its duties.

Phillips said her ministry is dissolving the board of the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency and folding the agency back into her ministry this summer.

She said the move — based on the recommendation of former federal environment deputy minister Paul Boothe — will improve environmental monitoring, increase the capacity for sound science and bolster accountability.

“What the Boothe report identified was there was a fragmentation of scientific capacity that existed within the previous model,” she said. “We’re ensuring the scarce resources that we do have are being put to bear in a co-ordinated and rational way.”

Phillips said the move was not prompted by a failure of staff, but rather a requirement for a change in governance.

“I think this is core government business on the level of public health and public safety,” she said. “The model of an external agency was unsustainable.”

Boothe reported the monitoring agency had strained relations with the federal and provincial governments because of confusion over their respective roles.

“It is hard to escape the conclusion that AEMERA is a failed experiment in outsourcing a core responsibility of government to an arm’s-length body,” he said in the report he produced last fall. “Three years and tens of millions of dollars later, the results are an organization that is still struggling to get established.”

However, Lorne Taylor, who is losing his job as the agency’s board chair, said the government is making a mistake by putting monitoring back into ministry hands.

The reason monitoring was handed off to an outside agency in the first place was because the previous government initially disputed independent scientific reports of oilsands contamination, Taylor pointed out.

“The board’s view is it is not in the public interest to have the organization inside a government that’s determining what’s getting monitored, where it’s getting monitored, how it’s being monitored and how it’s reported to the public,” he said. “There’s no transparency.”

Taylor, a former cabinet minister in the Ralph Klein government, said that when science is pulled into a government department it becomes “politicized.”

“You want the science to be devoid of political and business interests,” he said. “In this case it’s not going to be.”

Val Mellesmoen, an outgoing vice-president, disputed Boothe’s contention the agency was top-heavy with over-paid management, saying he got his staffing and salary numbers wrong.

“The people of this organization are hurting because it has been implied they have been doing bad work — and that’s not the case at all,” she said. “It’s just very unfortunate the way this report has portrayed the work of AEMERA.”

Liberal Leader David Swann said monitoring under the previous PC government lacked credibility and he was withholding judgment on the move.

“It remains to be seen whether this government will establish itself as a credible, transparent, accountable monitoring agency for this critical area of our development of the oilsands,” Swann said.

Phillips noted her government is retaining an external international science advisory panel that gave the agency a B grade last month.

She said the ministry is keeping the agency’s chief scientist, Fred Wrona, who will head the monitoring division and report to deputy minister Andre Corbould.

Phillips said she has also asked the auditor general to review the independent monitoring function of the ministry two years after the transition is complete. 

Interim PC Leader Ric McIver questioned Phillips in the legislature why the oil and gas industry would want to continue to provide $50 million annually to an independent monitoring agency that is no longer independent.

“What we have learned here today is that the industry is still going to pay for something they’re not getting,” responded McIver. “This is taxation without representation, if ever I saw it.”

But Terry Abel, oilsands director for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the industry association has no concerns about the move.

He said the monitoring agency has done good work.

“At this point we haven’t seen substantive changes in the mandate,” he said. “We would continue to support that. We don’t see that as a problem.”

The Pembina Institute’s Andrew Read said the province appears committed to rigorous environmental monitoring.

“As long as it produces scientifically rigorous information and that information is provided to the decision-makers, both within the government and to the general public, I think we’ll see some positive steps in the right direction.”

Wildrose MLA Todd Loewen was disappointed the agency wasn’t given more time to demonstrate its capabilities.

“I think it’s too bad it didn’t really work out,” he said. “It wasn’t given a lot of time to work, but obviously if there are problems it needs to be looked at again.”

Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark said transparency of the monitoring is key.

“If it’s going into the ministry, I want to make sure it’s transparent.”

dhenton@postmedia.com

The mother of a Canadian Forces member who died in an avalanche during a training exercise in Banff National Park says she’s satisfied with the results of a report into his death.

Late Monday, the military delivered the board of inquiry report into Sgt. Mark Anthony Salesse’s death to his mother, Liz Quinn, at her family’s home in Moncton, N.B.

“It’s been long waiting,” Quinn said Tuesday in an interview.

Salesse, a 44-year-old search-and-rescue technician based in Winnipeg, died in February 2015 when he was swept off a cliff by an avalanche during a training exercise on Polar Circus — a well-known ice climbing route in Banff National Park.

Parks Canada visitor safety specialists search for Sgt. Mark Salesse at the Polar Circus ice climb.

When Salesse and his climbing partner went out Feb. 5, 2015, avalanche conditions were rated as moderate in the alpine — although the forecasts for both Banff and nearby Jasper National Park warned those conditions could change by mid-day as a storm blew in.

There were also questions about why he wasn’t wearing an avalanche beacon, an electronic device that helps locate people buried under the snow.

It took Parks Canada’s rescue team three days to get into the area because avalanche conditions were too dangerous.

When they were finally able to get on the ground, it took another three days before they were able to dig out Salesse’s body, which was found buried under several metres of snow by a rescue dog.

Salesse’s death led to the board of inquiry by the Canadian Forces, which came up with the nearly 50-page report on how to improve the safety of search-and-rescue technicians. 

The recommendations:

1. Include a section on human factors in mountain rescue to technical courses for search-and-rescue technicians;
2. Make the Avalanche Skills Training 2 (AST2) course a prerequisite for search-and-rescue technicians;
3. Create a working group to identify other requirements for search-and-rescue technicians for mountain rescue and terrain travel;
4. Require technicians to update their training annually;
5. Direct the use of avalanche equipment and an appropriate communications device when involved in ice climbing or backcountry skiing training in terrain with an avalanche hazard; and,
6. Ensure all mountain rescue equipment be purchased with centrally controlled funding to allow for oversight, control and life-cycle management.

Quinn, who visited Polar Circus earlier this year, said she’s pleased with the final report and its recommendations.

“They covered it very well,” she said. “Not only have the recommendations been made, but they have been approved.

“They’ve also already started putting these things in progress, so that is monumental — the military sometimes does not work as fast as we’d like them to.”

Quinn said it’s been a long and difficult year since her son was killed.

“It helps that they remember him in moving things forward in a progressive way,” she said.

cderworiz@postmedia.com

twitter.com/cderworiz

With one move on Tuesday, the NDP government buried the final remains of the old Progressive Conservative approach to the oilsands, pollution and environmental protection.

Environment Minister Shannon Phillips framed it dramatically: measuring bad stuff in the air, land and water, she said, is a key government function, like public health and public safety.

This job is not to be shuffled off to quasi-independent bodies like the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency.

So she abolished this PC creation, disbanded the board, and took all the monitoring powers into her department.

The subtext is that heavy industry’s only role is to provide most of the money ($50 million a year), as well as necessary co-operation, in order to measure the impact of its activities.

PC interim leader Ric McIver instantly charged Phillips with collecting a tax for which the industry now gets nothing in return — it’s “taxation without representation,” he actually said.

McIver asked who would monitor Phillips, calling her a persistent critic of industry. She sharply accused him of character assassination and refused to answer his questions.

As often happens, though, it was hard to grasp McIver’s point.

Oil and gas firms, including oilsands producers, were never purchasing a service from the government.

They were supposed to be funding arm’s-length efforts to measure and mitigate environmental impacts, an enterprise that ultimately benefits the corporations as much as individuals.

But the PCs always felt they had to have a buffer between themselves and the companies.

Hence they created the monitoring agency, structuring it much like dozens of other arm’s-length bodies, with boards appointed by the government, and reporting to a minister.

Something had to be done after earlier revelations of lax monitoring.

It took a 2014 federal review to prove that toxic oilsands chemicals were leaching into the Athabasca River.

This came after years of provincial claims that the substances occurred naturally. The feds used new, more sensitive equipment that Alberta had not employed.

That was damned embarrassing. The same year, the PCs established the monitoring agency.

Phillips now calls it a “failed experiment.” A new study found the body was often dysfunctional and plagued by infighting.

The NDP found duplication of services and lack of communication with government. Earlier, an expert panel pointed to poor correlation of results, and failure to present them in ways the public can understand.

Then there’s politics. The chair of the monitoring agency was Lorne Taylor, a former PC environment minister.

(At a moment when another former environment minister, Robin Campbell, is fighting the NDP as new president of the Coal Association of Canada, you can imagine how Phillips feels about PC leftovers.)

In general, the New Democrats despise acrobatic arrangements that purport to separate a public function from government, often to placate some interest group.

A body that reports to the minister obviously isn’t independent, they say, so why pretend it is? And why pay a layer of executives to perform the function, when eager civil servants are standing by?

The new monitoring unit certainly won’t be independent of government. It will BE government.

Its role will be rigorous monitoring of environmental impacts from the oilsands, coal-fired electricity, agriculture, and just about everything else that puts up a puff of smoke. Phillips says money saved by waving farewell to the monitoring agency’s executives will be used to hire more scientists.

No government system is perfect, and the potential problem with this one is that it’s inherently political and subject to government whim.

That could make you wonder what happens if there’s a Wildrose environment minister someday.

But then, Wildrose environment critic Todd Loewen said he supports this NDP centralization because the goal has to be “world-class environmental monitoring.”

Wonders can take a long time to get rolling in Alberta. Then they never cease.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com

In a bid to ease access to 4 St. S.W.’s restaurant row, the city is easing a parking ban along the busy corridor.

Beginning mid-June, the 3:30 p.m.-6 p.m. rush hour parking prohibition will be eliminated on the northbound, east side of the street in a pilot project, said Eric MacNaughton, the city’s parking strategist.

“It’s a low-cost approach on how we can support a main street and its commercial area that’s evolving, to make it easier for people to access it,” said MacNaughton.

The six-month pilot project also aims to reduce parking pressure on nearby residential streets, he said.

In choosing those hours, it’s hoped the move will capture after-work patrons who often find it difficult finding a parking spot, said MacNaughton.

Later this month or in May, the pilot project will include turning four loading areas into paid parking zones as well, he said.

“We’ve concluded that changing four of eight of those zones would leave enough loading areas,” said MacNaughton, adding local businesses and community groups are applauding the project.

The change could help attract business, said Wayne Ha, owner of the Tea Factory, 1820 4 St. S.W.

“It should be a good idea, just to test it out at least,” said Ha.

But he said reducing northbound 4 St. to one lane could lead to congestion.

“Some people here might be opposed,” he said.

The city will closely monitor not only the new parking spaces’ usage but also traffic flow, comparing it to current volumes, said MacNaughton.

“If it’s clearly not working, we’ll take it out sooner than the six months,” he said.

The city is also examining adding more parking spots in Inglewood, with the possibility of adding angle spaces in streets off of 9 Ave. S.E., said MacNaughton.

BKaufmann@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/@BillKaufmannjrn

STARS helicopters are carrying more than paramedics and patients these days. The bright red air ambulances are emblazoned with stickers thanking Albertans for digging deep in tough times.

The decal with the phrase ‘Times are tough, Albertans are tougher’ will appear on each air ambulance until the next fundraising lottery in 2017.

“It takes a community to save a life and (Albertans) played a key role in making that possible through support of the STARS lottery,” said Andrea Robertson, president and CEO of STARS.

STARS wanted to express its gratitude after donors came to the rescue after a shaky start to its fundraising campaign this year. The poor economy hurt ticket sales and the lottery was in danger of not selling out for the first time in its 23-year history.

After a public plea, phone lines were jammed and website traffic surged. More than $2 million worth of tickets were sold in three days.

The last ticket was sold, just hours before the deadline, and the non-profit group netted more than $11.5 million.

STARS media spokesperson Fatima Khawaja said the sign is a small gesture of appreciation for its ongoing supporters. “It may be a $10 temporary decal, but we hope that the sentiment is priceless.”

The stickers are placed under the nose cone of the BK117 helicopters and under the tailboom of the AW139 helicopters so they are visible when they pass overhead.

Funds raised from the annual lottery help cover costs of the specialized emergency medical care and transportation for critically ill and injured patients across the province. STARS has bases in Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg.

They are images of desperation, sorrow and struggle almost unbearable to watch.

Still, Gabriel Mbonigaba has made an effort to stay informed about the current humanitarian crisis facing the Syrian people.

“I know what being a refugee means, how it is to live without family, without a home,” says the 34-year-old Calgarian. “We can’t turn our backs — we need to educate ourselves about what is happening.”

It’s because of his belief in the power of education that on Saturday, April 9, Mbonigaba will once again relive his own nightmare as a young boy caught up in the Rwandan genocide. He will be one of the speakers at the Calgary Rwanda Genocide Commemoration, an annual event with the theme “remember, renew, unite.” It takes place from 3 to 6 p.m., in Mount Royal University’s Ross Glen Hall (4825 Mount Royal Gate S.W.).

On April 9, 1994, the long-simmering ethnic hatred in Rwanda boiled over into a massacre that over the next 99 days would take the lives of approximately one million people.

“Our house was burned to the ground, so we ran on to the mountain,” says Mbonigaba of the April day when he and 50 of his relatives were attacked by machete-wielding men. “I ran away with one of my sisters,” he says, “but before that, I saw them kill one of my uncles.”

Gabriel Mbonigaba, a Rwandan genocide survivor, poses for a photo in Calgary on Wednesday, April 6, 2016.

He lost five of his siblings and both of his parents in the spring of that year, in which the majority Hutu population went on a rampage meant to wipe out the Tutsi minority, a distinction based more on history and politics than ethnicity.

“I was 11 years old when they started the killing,” says Mbonigaba, who came to Canada as a refugee six years ago. “I tried to go on with my life in Rwanda, but a few years ago they released some of the prisoners who had committed the massacres. I just didn’t feel safe.”

According to Andy Amour, the commemorative event is one in which the city’s 10,000-strong Rwandan community welcomes fellow Calgarians to join them in marking the tragic events of 22 years ago, along with celebrating the strides his native homeland has made in both facing the past and fostering change for the future.

“There are lessons for everyone in the story of Rwanda,” says Amour, the head of the Rwandan Canadian Society of Calgary. “We hope that many will join us in acknowledging the past and learning about Rwanda of today.”

Andy Amour, left, of the local Rwandan community and Gabriel Mbonigaba, a genocide survivor, pictured in Calgary on Wednesday, April 6.

One of the speakers, famed Calgary author Will Ferguson, intends to spend some of his presentation focusing on the beauty of the place and its people today.

“Rwanda’s mantra is now one language, one culture, one people, one country,” says Ferguson, whose 2015 book, Road Trip Rwanda: A Journey into the New Heart of Africa, chronicles his journey into the heart of the central African country.

On that trip, Ferguson was accompanied by his friend Jean-Claude Munyezamu, a native of Rwanda whom he met a few years ago when their sons played on the same Calgary soccer teams. Munyezamu was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal for his community work in the city, which includes founding Soccer Without Boundaries, a low-income program that includes kids from countries like Rwanda, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.  

“The urge must be so powerful to say, ‘it’s too painful to acknowledge,’” says Ferguson of his fellow speakers, which include Jacqueline Murekatete, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide and founder of the New York-based Genocide Survivors Foundation. “I’m honoured to be a part of it.”

Gabriel Mbonigaba, a Rwandan genocide survivor,

For Mbonigaba, much of his life since 1994 has been about moving forward. Since arriving in Canada, he has juggled his job as a health care support worker with volunteer work for the Rwandan Canadian Society of Calgary, helping out with its various community initiatives. Currently, he is completing the sponsorship process of his wife Diana, who will soon join him from Rwanda.

Still, he knows the importance of sharing his past with people today.

“It happened 20 years ago, but sometimes it feels like yesterday,” he says.

“It is hard to talk about it, but I have to be a man and face the challenge,” he says. “I want to do my part. The only way we can be sure it won’t happen again is to never forget.”

vfortney@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/valfortney

Dozens of Edgemont residents packed into city hall Wednesday to oppose a new community beautification tax over concerns many people were duped into signing an earlier petition in support of the levy they now say unfairly burdens people living on fixed income.

The Landscape Enhancement Appreciation Fund (LEAF) would add $84 to each homeowner’s annual property tax bill annually over five years and generate an estimated $2.2 million over that period to pay for improvements of boulevards around streets and parks and snow removal on pathways.

Last year, members of the Edgemont Community Association circulated a petition throughout the northwest neighbourhood asking homeowners to support the levy. The group required support of two-thirds of the community and ultimately secured nearly 68 per cent. 

But several residents questioned the validity of the petition, accusing their pro-levy neighbours of using intimidation tactics and colluding with city officials to ensure the petition had the required number of signatures to trigger the special tax.

Opponents formed a second group, Residents of Edgemont Community Against LEAF Levy (RECALL), and launched a counter petition, but fell well short of the target needed to halt the process garnering just 11 per cent support of residents. 

“We do not believe that you should be collecting taxes from seniors on a fixed income or from homeowners who may have lost employment or from low-income families to shore up property values,” said Joe Kurucz, a member of RECALL. 

Kurucz said the city should disregard the pro-levy petition, scrap the LEAF program and establish a new approach such as establishing community endowments where funds are contributed through fundraising activities and use that money to beautify their neighbourhoods. 

“That’s a more sensible solution and much more equitable and respectful of everyone in the community,” he said. 

Catherine Scott told the committee issue has “fractured the community” pitting neighbour against neighbour and punishes homeowners on fixed incomes and struggling to make ends meet in a gloomy economy.  

“The disparity and damage that programs like LEAF can do our city by creating tiered, user-pay communities and resentment between neighbours goes against everything Calgary stands for,” Cook said. “This is the wrong process, the wrong program, and the wrong time.”

City administration told the standing policy committee on community and protective services that the program is currently under review but that the original petition was conducted above board. 

Janet Cook, a resident who supported the initiative, said 100 canvassers underwent a two-hour training program offered over a three-day period that provided an overview of the LEAF program, its main features and details on the tax increase. 

“We strongly believe that all homeowners received accurate, detailed information in a respectful manner so that they could make an informed decision around the LEAF program,” Cook said. “The training also stressed the importance of respecting the homeowner’s decision whether they decided to sign it or not.”

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who described himself as being agnostic about the program, said RECALL members raised legitimate concerns the flaws with the LEAF program but rejected the “conspiratorial” accusations levelled against their neighbours and city staff.

“You have every right to fundamentally philosophically disagree with what they’re opposing but please do not characterize your neighbours as evil or complicit in some grand conspiracy,” Carra said. “That’s ridiculous and completely undermines a lot of the legitimate concerns.”

Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu, who has previously accused city staff of producing “garbage” reports and substance abuse, praised administration on the handling of this file. 

“This is democracy at it’s best,” Chu said. “Democracy as we know it is 50 per cent plus one majority. However this is actually two-thirds … and that itself speaks volumes. It’s my job to listen to the majority. That’s why I’m supporting this program.”

The report now goes to council April 11 for final approval. 

thowell@postmedia.com

Millions of dollars could be redirected back to overburdened classrooms and the financial strain on parents lessened if Calgary’s public school board tightened its belt on administrative and school support costs, says a parents advocacy group.

Representatives with the Calgary Association of Parent and School Councils met with Postmedia’s editorial board Wednesday, rolling out numbers they say present a stark difference in how the Calgary Board of Education spends provincial dollars on its bureaucracy compared to its Catholic cohort.

Lisa Davis, vice-president of CAPSC, said if the CBE reduced the percentage of its $1.3 billion budget split between administrative costs and school and instructional supports to the same level of the Calgary Catholic School District’s, it would mean an extra $160 million that could go back into classrooms.

That would mean 1,600 new teachers or double that number of teachers’ aides, according to CAPSC.

“It’s an enormous amount of funds that’s being withheld from the classroom,” Davis said.

“One of the reasons we’ve got so much money going downtown is the average salaries downtown are very high.

“It does tend to say a lot about where the value is placed.”

Pointing to CBE financial documents, CAPSC representatives noted the public board spends 21 per cent of its budget on administrative (three per cent) and educational support costs (18 per cent), compared to the CCSD, which allocates some 8.8 per cent between those areas.

That leaves 66 per cent of the CBE’s budget to go directly to classrooms, compared to 76.3 per cent for the separate board.

However, CBE chair Joy Bowen-Eyre noted the province’s education ministry has very strict rules around how much can be spent on administration, and years of forced frugality has kept that piece of the budget pie very slim.

“All of Alberta’s metro boards are all funded the same and operate under the same rules and guidelines,” she said, noting no more than 3.6 per cent of a board’s budget can go directly to administration.

“We’ve all become exceptionally lean and efficient. The CBE also has programs no other school board in the province has.

“We’re actually one of the leanest school boards around.”

Joy Bowen-Eyre, Chair of the Calgary Board of Education, pictured on September 22, 2014.

Bowen-Eyre noted specialized education facilities in Alberta Children’s Hospital, the Calgary Young Offenders Centre, Wood’s Homes and others have costs associated that wouldn’t necessarily be included in classroom allocations.

But CAPSC insists there’s no financial breakdown of where those instructional support dollars outside of the classrooms are going, and the lack of cash often means parents of public system students wind up having to fundraise for school essentials.

“You begin to see why parents are buying early reading books for their libraries and math manipulatives (teaching tools),” Davis said.

“You have trustees who have simply not held administration to account, and you have education ministers who have simply not held trustees to account.”

Bowen-Eyre said the board covers all learning essentials, but extras for children’s’ learning experience — including travel and specialized instruction — often requires fundraising given the financial restrictions.

“That’s an absolutely legitimate concern,” she said.

“There’s a level of expectation parents and students have that’s different now. The idea of basic education is no longer what most students want.”

As for salaries, while CAPSC points out that teachers (both those with and without teaching certificates) saw modest increases last year, administration salaries soared.

According to CAPSC’s analysis, of 871 CBE employees working outside of schools, only 78 were making under 100,000 with benefits included.

That means the average certificated employee made an average of $154,750 last year, while those without teaching certificates made $112,773 all in.

The average certificated teacher pulled down $117,613 including benefits while those working without certificates made $63,157.

CAPSC has become a thorn in the side of Calgary’s public board, being vocally critical of educational policies, spending and instruction.

About a year and a half ago, CBE severed funding ties with the 15-year-old advocacy group, suggesting it had more than enough money squirrelled away and it only represented a fraction of the schools in the district.

Michael McIntosh, interim president of CAPSC, said the group’s concern boils down to parents seem to have been shuffled off to the side when it comes to making decisions about how public funds are being spent on their kids.

“It makes it very tough for the average parent to come in and say what the heck is going on,” he said.

“The CBE and even the provincial government have used things like the lack of schools as ‘we’re underfunded so we need more money,’ but there’s never really been any sort of honest communication as to what the money’s being used for.”

slogan@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @ShawnLogan403

Operating funding breakdown, Calgary Board of Education:

66% — directly allocated to schools

10% — Plant, operations and maintenance

3% — Transportation

10% — School supports

8% — Service unit instructive support

3% — Administration

Operating funding breakdown, Calgary Catholic School District:

76.3% — Schools and instruction

12.1% — Plant operations and maintenance

2.8% — Transportation

8.8% — Board, administration and instructional support

Average remuneration (including all benefits and negotiated allowances):

6,009 certificated teachers — $117,613

2,562 non-certificated teachers — $63,157

140 certificated positions outside of schools — $154,750

731 non-certificated positions outside of schools — $112,773

Chief superintendent remuneration — $396,386

Corporate treasurer remuneration — $289,479

*all figures based on 2015 audited financial statements

Mayor Naheed Nenshi staunchly defended Health Minister Sarah Hoffman’s handling of issues around ambulance dispatch in Calgary on Wednesday, but said it’s time for the NDP to kill — once and for all — a plan to move the service out of the city’s control.

Nenshi was responding to allegations made by former Alberta Health Services CEO Vickie Kaminski in her resignation letter last fall that she had stepped down because of interference by the government on a number of issues, including ambulance dispatch.

CBC reported that Kaminski wrote that the former PC government had given the go-ahead to AHS’s plan to end its contract with the city to provide ambulance dispatch and take over the service on its centralized model — but intended to defer the announcement until after last spring’s provincial election.

Kaminski said that when the NDP government took office, Health Minister Sarah Hoffman had endorsed the plan for AHS control but backed off after a conversation with Nenshi, who is fiercely opposed to the transfer.

But Nenshi said in a statement that both former Tory health minister Stephen Mandel and Hoffman had made it clear to him the plan would be put on hold so the province could examine the city’s worries.

In contrast, he said Kaminski told him post-election the plan was going ahead and that it “was not up for debate.” 

“Given Ms. Kaminski’s refusal to listen to our legitimate concerns, I raised these issues directly with the minister, who took immediate action,” he said.

“Minister Hoffman, to her great credit, put the transfer on hold and has repeatedly promised that she would get answers to the city’s questions … questions which AHS had refused to answer over a period of many years. Minister Hoffman did the right thing for Calgarians and she should be applauded for her actions.”

He said Kaminski’s talk of deferring the ambulance takeover plan until after the election amounted to “betraying Calgarians by ramming it through” and “is nothing short of shocking.”  

Speaking to reporters in Edmonton, where he was attending that city’s anti-poverty summit, Nenshi said Kaminski’s account is entirely at odds with his understanding of what had taken place.

Calgary believes that moving ambulance calls away from the city’s integrated dispatch with police and fire over to AHS’s centralized “borderless” system would negatively impact both response times and co-ordination. The mayor said neither Kaminski nor AHS has proved their contention the system would be more efficient and less costly under centralized control. 

“Really, it’s time for the premier and Minister Hoffman to say, ‘This is a bad idea from the start, there’s no evidence to do it, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and stop,'” said Nenshi.

Hoffman has been saying for months she is weighing whether to cancel or move forward with the transfer of dispatch services to AHS.

She told reporters Wednesday she won’t be rushed into making a decision and that she had acted appropriately on the ambulance dispatch issue.

“The mayor of Calgary is an important stakeholder for my government and, I would say, for all Albertans,” said Hoffman. “We want to make sure we get it right for the biggest city in Alberta.”  

AHS has been paying $60,000 a month to rent an unused new dispatch centre for a year. The province said Wednesday there is a 15-year lease on the facility. 

The Edmonton-based health superboard has spent at least $10 million on transition costs to take over dispatch and hired nearly 30 staff, who are currently performing other duties.

The Opposition Wildrose has called for the NDP government to scrap the plan to centralize ambulance dispatch under AHS. In question period, health critic Drew Barnes accused Hoffman of not providing proper information to Calgary on the issue. 

 jwood@postmedia.com

Alberta Health Services is our very own provincial volcano. It may go quiet for a while, but you can always count on an eruption sooner or later.

The latest is the CBC’s revelation of former CEO Vickie Kaminski’s letter of resignation. It’s laden with fumes and ash, by far the most toxic of all the health-boss farewells, including the 2010 departure of Stephen Duckett, who became strangely famous for refusing to answer reporters’ questions because he was eating a cookie.

But the basic theme is always the same. The long-suffering executive hired to run the system isn’t being allowed to decide absolutely everything. When trouble looms, the government always steps in to interfere.

Kaminski especially blasts Sarah Hoffman, the NDP health minister, for her role in the controversy over AHS ambulance dispatch in Calgary.

But Kaminski was wrong on that issue; just read the scorcher from Mayor Naheed Nenshi. Hoffman was right. The dispatch plan was a looming nightmare for Calgary, and had to be reversed.

So, yes, there was political muscle from Hoffman. And it stopped a fiasco, for now at least. You can bet that the gnomes at AHS still haven’t lost hope for this plan.

The Progressive Conservatives, of course, were experts at political interference. Gene Zwozdesky would sometimes call meetings of doctors to shape policy. Fred Horne, a successor, got into a brawl over executive bonuses approved by the AHS board, and ended up firing everybody.

Ex-premier Jim Prentice cancelled an entire cancer hospital, for heaven’s sake, after 10 years of government and stakeholder planning for the Foothills site. That sent a chunk of his Calgary base into furious rebellion and helped cost him the election. 

Kaminski was CEO when that political meddling happened, and we didn’t hear any complaints. She was also there, smiling, the day Hoffman restored the Foothills project. More meddling, but no griping then either.

So, it was bizarre on Wednesday to find that Kaminski had all these grievances about politicians stepping onto her turf. And even weirder to hear the PCs, of all people, criticizing the New Democrats for political interference.

The fact is that it’s not possible, or even desirable, to remove all operational control over health care from government.

You cannot expect politicians responsible for a $19.7-billion budget (40 per cent of Alberta’s total spending!) to turn over crucial decisions to hired officials operating at arm’s-length. The scariest thing about Kaminski’s letter is she actually thought it’s supposed to work that way.

There can obviously be bad political influence; for instance, if a politician secures privileged medical access for friends or family. In 2013, a public inquiry on that issue found a few examples but no widespread abuse.

Shady influence can also deny a health facility to an area with an opposition MLA, or build one in an area of lesser need because of lobbying from a government MLA.

Given the temptations, and the nature of the system, it’s a wonder this doesn’t happen routinely in Alberta. But the clashes have been reasonably well-managed by local politicians who can still recognize a larger interest.

The far more serious problem comes not from the prying politicians, but from the inane bureaucracy of AHS itself, which often leaves communities tangled in thickets of red tape.

When Prentice was premier, he commissioned a study on rural grievances about health care. It became a blazing condemnation of AHS.

Some nurses were using their own money to buy bandages at the local pharmacy, or screws and light bulbs at the hardware store.

It could take months or even years to get AHS permission to buy such things. One local provider had to get six separate approvals, all the way to Edmonton, to buy the simplest thing.

Kaminski herself acknowledged that AHS had “taken away the goodness of the local level.” She promised to restore the goodness, as if it were a missing apple pie.

Prentice planned on returning some operational decisions to 10 new districts. That was a good idea — but Hoffman cancelled it, balancing off her good meddling choices with a bad one.

Political involvement that shades into management won’t stop, ever. The thing is to ensure that it’s beneficial.

Meanwhile, the NDP doesn’t have to take any lectures from Vickie Kaminski, the latest would-be czar to flee Canada’s most turbulent health-care system.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com 

The discovery of white-nose syndrome in Washington State could be a “death sentence” for bats in Western Canada — including Alberta.

Last week, officials with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Centre verified the first case of the deadly fungal disease in western North America.

It was discovered in a little brown bat found by a hiker on a trail near the slopes of the Cascade Mountains in Washington State.

Two of Canada’s leading bat experts, who have been busy this week on hastily arranged conference calls related to the discovery, said it’s extremely concerning for the Western provinces.

“It’s a death sentence for our bats,” said Cori Lausen, a bat biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. “We have always thought that white-nose would get here eventually, but there’s always been a glimmer of hope.

“At least we were thinking that it was going to be a long time yet.”

Bats are an integral part of the ecosystem, eating their body weight each night in mosquitoes, moths and agricultural pests.

Since 2006, white-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats in the eastern United States and five eastern provinces in Canada — and experts have been suggesting it was only a matter of time before it hits western North America.

It is a white fungus that grows on the nose of the hibernating bats, killing the animals while they sleep.

A little brown bat flies through Cadomin Cave in Alberta.

Robert Barclay, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Calgary, said they expected it would be five or 10 years before the disease was seen in western North America.

“This is bad news,” he said, noting they no longer have as much time to put in place measures to ameliorate the disease. “Obviously, the game has changed.

“If the disease manifests in the same way on the west coast as it has in the east … we have much less time.”

Lausen said the “hour glass has tipped” and the sand is now flowing.

“We don’t know how long before it spreads throughout the west,” she said. “Most people thought the coast would be one of the last places to be hit. 

“It’s caught enough of us off-guard that what we start looking at is we really haven’t been sampling in the coastal area and what that means is that it could be more widespread than we think.”

Since the disease can be spread by cavers and tourists, she reminded people to disinfect all gear before entering a cave or a mine. 

“If people are going underground or going into bat roosts,” said Lausen, “we would like those people to at least know spores can be spread that way and that they need to take precautions and clean all of their equipment really well and possibly even use fungicide to kill the spores.

“For the most part, though, there’s not a lot that can be done at this point to slow the spread. We’re still hoping we can slow it down, but what it really comes down to is how fast the bats are going to spread it.”

Both she and the U of C’s Barclay said it could have implications for the economy.

“It’ll have an impact on insect control both from an agricultural and forestry perspective,” said Barclay. “What we’re only starting to learn is how the rest of the bat community — those who aren’t affected by white-nose — respond to the species that are affected decline.

“It appears that those species increase because there’s less competition. How that impacts the overall insect community, for example, I don’t think we know yet. It’s clearly a major perturbation to the overall ecosystem.”

cderworiz@postmedia.com

twitter.com/cderworiz

Some additional information:

If you find a dead bat for the rest of April, when the disease is still detectable, scientists ask that you bag it and contact the province.

In Alberta, contact your local Fish and Wildlife office. 

In British Columbia, call 1-800-GotBats. Visit the BC Ministry of Environment’s Wildlife Health website.

Scientists ask you do not touch the bat (i.e. use gloves to place it in a baggie). Freeze or refrigerate the dead bat if it will be a few days before you can get the specimen to the government.

Nothing says summer like lemons, raspberries — and beer. And by combining the big, bold flavours, its creators are hoping for the sweet taste of success.

Fiasco Gelato and Village Brewery have teamed up to create two new products: Village Squeeze and Fiasco Squeeze.

“They’re using our fruit and we’re using their beer,” said Brittany Back, marketing lead for Fiasco Gelato.

The beer, which launched Wednesday, will be sold in liquor stores, and restaurants and bars that serve Village products. The sorbetto will be available in grocery stores come May. The beer has a 4.8 per cent alcohol content but the sorbetto is only splashed with the brew so parents won’t have to worry about kids gorging on the sly.

“The alcohol content is very small in the sorbetto. I can’t see any issue with children eating it. That said, we’re definitely not marketing it to children,” said Back.

The #LoveThis City Collaboration has been in the works for a while, says Back, who notes that the owners of both companies are longtime friends. Fiasco’s James Boettcher and Village’s Jim Button are the forces behind the two-year-old Circle the Wagons beer and music festival.

“We’ve wanted to do a collaboration with Village Brewery for a long time,” said Back. We were huge fans of their Triplit (a three berry kolsch) last year. So we’ve been talking about different flavours and since we bring in these amazing raspberries from B.C. it seemed natural.”

Sarah Makowecky of Fiasco Gelato serves up the beer infused sorbetto Fiasco Squeeze at Village Brewery. 

Village Brewery co-founder Jim Button said coming up with this idea was very much like how Village operates — a pretty loose affair.

“Our process is about as non-professional and non-corporate as possible. We sit around in a room and talk about what fun beer we can make.”

The Village Squeeze beer is based on a Munich lager known for its sweet-malty notes and herbal hop aroma. The brewery has added lemon zest and raspberries to balance the German brew.

Like every Village beer, the Squeeze is based on a company character. The Blonde box bears a black and white image of Button’s mother while an old photo of another partner’s relative graces the Blacksmith case. The new beer pictures an employee’s parents in a lustful pose.

“We needed a name and a picture. Nicole had this one of her parents in full hug in the ’70s and he’s got a full hand of her bottom. The photo came first and the squeeze naturally followed,” said Button with a laugh.

“In a way, it’s a love story between Village Brewery and Fiasco Gelato. It’s a three-way because we’re both in love with the city.”

Both beer and sorbetto will only be available until October — or while supplies last.

A teenage boy is in hospital with serious injuries after a single-vehicle rollover southeast of Calgary.

STARS air ambulance was dispatched to Highway 24 and Range Road 250 east of Okotoks shortly after 5:30 p.m. Wednesday for reports of a crash.

Crews airlifted a 15-year-old boy to Alberta Children’s Hospital in serious but stable condition.

The homicide unit is trying to piece together what happened to a man who was found dead in an alley early Thursday in northeast Calgary.

Officers and EMS were called around 8:30 a.m. to the 9700 block of Harvest Link N.E. in the community of Harvest Hills to respond to reports of a body lying in an alley. When they arrived, they discovered a man dead at the scene.

Two residents said they heard at least one vehicle hastening from the scene amid shouts at about 2:30 a.m.

“They sped away fairly quickly and they were loud,” said a woman who wouldn’t give her name.

Police took considerable pains to barricade both sides and ends of the entire block with yellow tape.

But reporters who had viewed the death scene before police ejected them described it as “bloody” with the victim’s face severely battered.

Insp. Don Coleman with the major crimes section said there were “signs of violence,” although no cause or manner of death has been released at this time. The death is still considered suspicious.

“One witness in the area reports hearing some type of a disturbance around 2:30 but we’re not sure if it’s related or not,” Coleman added.

Police do not have a description of possible suspects or suspect vehicles.

Sheila Apps, who lives in a condo townhouse nearby said police asked her if she’d heard gunshots, but added she hadn’t.

“It’s a little unnerving but where can you live anymore where this kind of thing doesn’t happen?” she said.

Another neighbour who lives just metres from where the body was found echoed those sentiments.

“I hate to be cynical, but this is now a city of a million-plus,” said Rayna Becker.

“It is shocking in that there are all these children around here to be seeing this.”

Police tape mark the scene of a suspicious death in an alley behind the 9700 block of Harvest Hills Link in Calgary on Thursday, April 7, 2016. Gavin Young/Postmedia

Coleman said investigators have spoken to a couple witnesses who discovered the body, but are still looking for anyone who saw anything suspicious throughout the course of Wednesday night into Thursday morning or anyone with CCTV to come forward.