Storied, flood-damaged park to re-open by end of year

A historical and natural jewel in the city of Calgary, Bowness Park is expected to be once again open to the public by the end of the year.

In the midst of a $12 million redevelopment project, the park was one of the areas hit hardest by June 2013 flooding.… Read More

Back to Bowness Park is a post from: CREBNow

Sanitary infrastructure capacity impacting NW development

Rapid population growth in the city’s northwest is creating new challenges for planners on how to
best manage the quadrant`s already strained sewage infrastructure system.

The West Memorial Sanitary Trunk – which extends from the communities of Bowness to Rocky Ridge and impacts 24 communities overall – is, and has been for at least two years now, operating at capacity in certain areas. 

“There’s a portion of the trunk within Bowness that has a capacity constraint,” said Francois Bouchart manager of infrastructure and planning with City of Calgary Water Resources, noting the area the trunk serves has seen a 30 per cent population increase over the last decade.… Read More

Full of it is a post from: CREBNow

Community gardens not a new trend in Calgary

* Part two of the three-part series YYC Grows

While community gardens may seem to be a new trend in Calgary, they’ve actually been around a century.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Vacant Lots Garden Club’s first meeting.

“It started because they were really interested in getting town planning information and the goal behind it was they realized they kind of had a produce crisis,” said Gael Blackhall, co-ordinator for the Community Garden Resource Network of the Calgary Horticultural Society.… Read More

Making a comeback is a post from: CREBNow

This year’s Homes by Avi Stampede Rotary Dream Home takes on urban eateries and foodie fanatics

While kicking up their heels and tasting the latest deep fried treats, visitors to the Calgary Stampede also have a chance to win the home of their dreams while supporting a good cause.

In its 19th year, the Homes by Avi Stampede Rotary Dream Home is the major funding initiative for the Rotary Club of Calgary South.… Read More

A dream home of your own is a post from: CREBNow

City releases Bicycle Count report

Calgarians love their bicycles, and the City has the numbers to prove it.

Released as part of the City of Calgary’s first ever official bike count, data collected by the city
showed over 19,000 cyclists passed by one of 51 collection points during two six-hour periods (6:30-9:30 a.m.… Read More

Have bike, will travel is a post from: CREBNow

Homeowners in designated southern Alberta floodways can apply for relocation compensation until Aug. 30, said a release today from the Alberta Government.

Processed through the Disaster Recovery Program, Albertans who choose to move out of floodway areas have the option to sell their property to the government. Homeowners who take part will recieve 100 per cent of their 2013 municipal property tax assessed value.… Read More

Flood relocation deadline approaching is a post from: CREBNow

Today Calgary Economic Development and Calgary Chamber held a Business Recovery Task Force Commemoration sharing stories from local businesses impacted by 2013 flooding.

Also released at the event was an Emergency Business Contact Database to help facilitate communication and collaboration between the Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) and the business community during emergencies such as natural disasters.… Read More

In Quotes: Local businesses commemorated is a post from: CREBNow

West Village plans cast future of downtown core into spotlight

Construction cranes that dot the east downtown skyline are providing Calgarians a not-too distant
vision of what the city’s core might soon look like.

Yet industry experts suggest future plans in the underdeveloped West Village will provide a better understanding of what’s really in store in the heart of Calgary.… Read More

The new west is a post from: CREBNow

The City released the 2014 Civic Census results yesterday. Mayor Naheed Nenshi announced Calgary had its biggest year of growth ever increasing by 38,508 residents to 1,195,194 total.

Here’s a few of the things the mayor had to say about the census:

“Calgary experienced this year, its greatest single year of growth in population, as a matter of fact in my time in this job we have experienced three of our four largest years of population growth.”

“As you all know, the long term goal under the MDP (Municipal Development Plan) is to have half of development in existing parts of the city and half in new areas of the city.

… Read More

In Quotes: 2014 Civic Census is a post from: CREBNow

Brokerage supports program helping Calgarians graduate high school 

There can be many stumbling blocks to choosing the right home: finding the right location, amenities and availability, to name a few.

Yet for many Calgarians, the first step to buying a home comes not with securing a mortgage, but with securing an education. 

The Never Too Late program has long supported adults in their quest to complete their Grade 12 Equivalency Diploma (GED).…Read More

It’s never too late is a post from: CREBNow

Part three of a three-part series looking at the sinister and spooky side of Calgary’s haunted housing history.

Serving as a place of work for more than 140,000 Calgarians, it may go unnoticed that the majority of this city’s historic buildings also reside downtown.

Lurking among the plethora of glass-and-steel towers representing the core’s newer additions are buildings that have managed to withstand the test of time.… Read More

Supernatural city is a post from: CREBNow

Motion to provide 18-month window under review

Calgary homeowners with existing illegal secondary suites could have an 18-month window to get city approval if a current motion by council is approved.

On Monday, Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot suggested establishing a year-and-a-half “relaxation” for homeowners with current suites to meet with city officials and determine if their suites are legal or apply to make them so.… Read More

Council undecided on relaxation of suites is a post from: CREBNow

West Village redevelopment taking back seat to twin to the east

With its eastern counterpart the darling of Calgary’s development scene, the West Village couldn’t be blamed for feeling a bit like a forgotten sibling.

Bounded to the north by the Bow River, to the east by 11th Street SW, to the south by the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks and to the west by Crowchild Trail, the area was once envisioned to be a “transit-oriented, sustainable urban community,” yet sits idle as “an auto-oriented brownfield site.”

While City officials maintain redeveloping West Village is still the plan, it remains a distant goal, at least for now.… Read More

Sibling rivalry is a post from: CREBNow

West Village plans cast future of downtown core into spotlight

Construction cranes that dot the east downtown skyline are providing Calgarians a not-too distant
vision of what the city’s core might soon look like.

Yet industry experts suggest future plans in the underdeveloped West Village will provide a better understanding of what’s really in store in the heart of Calgary.… Read More

The new west is a post from: CREBNow

Shopping communities within communities popping up all over Calgary

All over Calgary, a trend has begun.

Communities that once would’ve used a simple strip mall to provide residents with amenities are increasingly turning retail offerings into miniature town centres, plazas and High Streets, creating communities within communities.

Brookfield Residential recently announced its southeast community of Seton would be throwing their hat in the power strip pile, with plans for more than 800,000 square feet of retail space.… Read More

Retail emerging is a post from: CREBNow

City releases Bicycle Count report

Calgarians love their bicycles, and the City has the numbers to prove it.

Released as part of the City of Calgary’s first ever official bike count, data collected by the city
showed over 19,000 cyclists passed by one of 51 collection points during two six-hour periods (6:30-9:30 a.m.… Read More

Have bike, will travel is a post from: CREBNow

Recreation properties offer a scenic and serene home away from home

The dip of a paddle in the lake, the sizzle of a steak on the barbecue, the haunting hoot of a Great-Horned Owl: welcome to recreational living.

In a recreation survey conducted by the Alberta government, the top three favourite leisure activity of respondents was walking, golf and camping.… Read More

A little rest and relaxation is a post from: CREBNow

CALGARY – Calgary’s Muslim and Jewish leaders have condemned tensions during recent rallies in the city over the Gaza conflict.

Leaders of both religious groups met Thursday after an imam reached out to Jewish leaders and requested a meeting.

Last week, a protest at city hall in support of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in Gaza turned violent when a handful of Israeli supporters showed up.

Some men began pushing and shoving, and one man stomped on an Israeli flag before police moved in and separated the groups.

Police have also charged a man after two replica handguns were brought to a pro-Israel rally earlier this week.

The leaders have agreed imams will invite rabbis to speak at mosques and rabbis will invite imams to speak at synagogues to promote understanding.

“Violence cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. We may disagree on issues and perspectives but we are firmly against resolving disputes and conflicts through violence,” reads a statement from both sides following the meeting.

“The only way to resolve disputes and conflicts is through dialogue and the promotion of mutual understanding.”

The meeting was held at the Beth Tzedec synagogue.

For most of the Muslim leaders, the joint statement said, it was the first time they had ever entered a synagogue and met a rabbi.

“We believe in the freedom of expression. This is a treasured value of Canadian society that every citizen has an equal right of expression. We recognize and respect the rights of both the pro-Palestine and pro-Israel individuals and groups,” the statement said.

“They have the right to protest and lobby for their causes, but these protests and rallies must be peaceful and law-abiding. We will never allow anyone to disturb the peace of our city.”

TORONTO – When a code blue is announced in hospital and a resuscitation team rushes to a patient’s side, tradition has dictated that family members get out of the way, both to protect their sensibilities and to give doctors and nurses the room and concentration needed to perform life-saving care.

But that notion of separating patient and loved ones is slowly being replaced by a new model of care, in which family members are given the option – and sometimes even encouragement – to remain near the bedside, where their presence is viewed as beneficial.

Among centres embracing the idea is Calgary’s recently opened acute-care hospital, South Health Campus, where staff make sure family members know they are welcome to be present during a resuscitation if they so choose.

When Lisa Lazenby’s then two-month-old son Abel suddenly had a seizure and stopped breathing at home in February 2013, she and her husband rushed to the nearby hospital, where staff whisked the baby off to the ER’s resuscitation room.

READ MORE: We’re doing CPR all wrong, Canadian doctor suggests

Supported by a family liaison worker – her husband Jason had taken their two older children to a friend’s home – Lazenby initially stood in the corner, biting her nails and trying to stay out of the medical team’s way so she wouldn’t jeopardize the care of her son.

“Part of that is you’re really scared of what’s happening to him … And you also get accustomed to thinking that the doctors want you out of the room and out of the way, because on TV shows it’s always like that,” she said Wednesday from Calgary.

She then heard a doctor working on Abel ask: “Where’s Mom?”

“He said, ‘You won’t be in the way because you are the only voice and sound and touch that he will recognize in the whole room, so you come close and we will work around you,”‘ Lazenby recalls.

“I just went right in and I held onto his little head and his eyes were closed and he was quite unresponsive, but I was like petting his head and trying to sing to him a little bit.

“Then you get a front-row view – they’re trying to get in an IV and they’re trying to do all these things and I can just talk to him,” she says. “That sticks with me forever because that room, of course, is buzzing with people and beeps and sounds, and if I imagine myself in his little shoes, of course the only sound that’s familiar is me.

“I thought that was pretty impressive on the team’s part and I won’t ever forget it.”

Joanne Ganton, manager of the Patient and Family Centred Care program at South Health Campus, said the idea of hospitals including loved ones during life-saving efforts raised a number of objections in the past, including that it would be too traumatic for families to witness, there would not be enough room to work and there was a danger of a person fainting, thereby creating another patient.

However, research into the issue and experience shows those fears haven’t been borne out, said Ganton.

“All the families that attended said they would attend a code in a heartbeat.”

Stephen Samis, vice-president of programs at the Canadian Foundation for Health Care Improvement, said studies have shown that the presence of family has a number of benefits – for the patient, their loved ones and the resuscitation team.

“What they’ve found is … that families want to be there and they’re not traumatized by the experience,” Samis said from Vancouver, where he was attending the International Conference on Patient- and Family-Centered Care.

“In fact, they’re less traumatized than if they’ve been waiting out in the corridors and having somebody come out and tell them, ‘Well, here’s what happened. Here’s what the results were.’

“Their loved one will often understand and feel their presence and they also can see how hard the providers are working to try to do what they can for the patient,” he said, adding that research suggests patient outcomes are better, care is improved and there are fewer medical errors.

“Having the loved ones of the patient present really creates a much better experience for everybody.”

While resuscitation staff may experience some performance anxiety under the eyes of family members, Ganton said loved ones are typically focused on the patient.

“They just want to be close, because your biggest fear is ‘I don’t want him to die alone. I don’t want him to die with strangers.”‘

And if a patient doesn’t survive, she said, family members often regret they weren’t at the bedside: “They feel that if ‘he could have just heard my voice, felt my touch, I know that he would have known I was there for him, and maybe he would have held on.’

“It’s that regret. It’s not knowing what happened,” Ganton said, adding that witnessing a loved one’s end can help ease the grieving process.

Fortunately for Lazenby, the team was able to stabilize her son, though he spent a week sedated and intubated in a children’s hospital for a week until he fully recovered. Doctors said Abel, who’d been born seven weeks’ prematurely, had been struck down by a cold virus and his tiny airwaves had swollen closed, leaving him unable to breathe.

Now 20 months old, he still has the odd episode of breathing difficulties but is otherwise healthy.

But at the time, as she watched the doctors and nurses frantically working on her boy, Lazenby was terrified of what might happen.

“It was really momentous for me because I think in that moment I thought if he does – it’s awful, I can’t even say it – if he does die, then I have to be here,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion at the still-raw memory. “I can’t have been out of the room and missed those moments.

“I couldn’t have not been with him.”

For the latest health news follow @Carmen_Chai

He’s one of Canada’s most prominent billionaires – co-owner of the Calgary Flames, chairman and creator of oilsands giant Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and head of Penn West and other sundry energy companies. According to Forbes, he’s worth about $2.2 billion (but told the National Post last year he doesn’t keep track).

He chairs Ensign Energy (and paid, along with other insiders, a total of $4.37 million as a reimbursement to settle concerns around stock option irregularities earlier this year); he owns Resorts of the Canadian Rockies and chairs Magellan Aerospace.

Forbes called him “the most important billionaire in Canada” two years ago, shortly after the Globe and Mail reported he’d advised Prime Minister Stephen Harper on how to deal with ownership bids by state-owned foreign (read: Chinese) companies for Canadian resource companies.

Murray Edwards is also the controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals, whose Mount Polley mine tailings pond failed catastrophically in the early hours of Monday morning, releasing a wall of sludge and wastewater whose full impact on the people and wildlife of British Columbia’s Cariboo Region have yet to be fully felt.

READ MORE: What five million cubic metres of tailings looks like

Edwards hasn’t spoken on the spill and hasn’t returned calls from Global News requesting an interview this week.

(We feel less slighted knowing that, several years ago, he tried to flee an interview when he found himself alone unexpectedly with a reporter)

Edwards owns 36% of Imperial Metals, whose share price has tanked since Monday’s breach – down 44% by Tuesday, by noon Thursday it was sitting at about $9.55 , compared to more than $16 a week ago.

It isn’t clear what the massive tailings breach will mean for Imperial Metals, which has multiple other mines in B.C. and elsewhere, including Red Chris, which has yet to begin production.

Mount Polley was Imperials’ first mine and, as chairman Pierre Lebel told the Vancouver Sun earlier this year, it almost didn’t materialize when partner Gibraltar pulled out.

“Don’t even think about” abandoning the project, Lebel recalls Edwards saying. “We can do this on our own.”

Lebel described Edwards as a “very engaged partner” on Red Chris – someone who is “all about making things happen.”

“It always amazes me the depth of Murray’s understanding and his ability to retain details and names and events of the past,” Lebel told the Sun. “He engages people as he goes along. People really respond well to him.”

READ MORE: A closer look at Imperial Metals

Recent court cases have established a precedent for a company’s directors being held responsible for environmental misdemeanours: The Ontario government has argued directors of a now-insolvent company were responsible for cleanup at a contaminated site.

But the Canadian Energy Research Institute’s Dinara Millington thinks it’s unlikely the Mount Polley breach will hurt Edwards directly.

“Him personally beign held responsible, I don’t think so. But what might happen is you might see if he’s feeling pressure … he might be selling off shares,” she said.

“There could be pressure – internally or externally … to get him to rethink what companies to invest in.”

READ MORE: BC orders mine to plug toxic tailings release

Last year, Edwards was awarded the International Horatio Alger Award, given to someone “who has persevered through adversity to become a successful entrepreneur or community leader.”

“There isn’t a Canadian more deserving of this award than Murray Edwards – a man of extraordinary business achievement and a dedicated philanthropist,” Dominic D’Alessandro, President of the Horatio Alger Association of Canada, said in a statement at the time. “Murray’s story showcases that hard work pays off.”

An alumnus of the University of Saskatchewan (which named a business school after him) and the University of Toronto, Regina-born Edwards told the Post he grew up in a “spectacularly unspectacular middle-class family.”

“Anybody can do a deal,” he said at the time. “The tough part is doing the deal at the right time, being strategic.”