By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
The Cochrane branch of the Royal Canadian Legion will be playing host to the annual Dominion darts championship.
Legion sports officer Ellison Smith said Cochrane has an active darts community.
“We have a 14-team league in town,” said Smith, adding that Cochrane residents have shown a lot of interest in the sport.
The tournament will have Legion members from all over Canada coming to compete in Cochrane.
This will be the first time the Cochrane branch has hosted the event.
“We were surprised that we got it. It’s going to be a good opportunity for us,” said Smith.
Between 40 to 60 players will attend the event May 1-4, 2009.

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By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
Cochrane RCMP are looking for the owner of an HP Pavilion laptop and black laptop case.
The laptop was found on Sunset Close and turned into police on Aug. 5.
Anyone with information, or the owner, can contact the RCMP at 403-932-2213.

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
For the first time in a long time, the Cochrane Library Board is full.
Council appointed Kathleen Muir and Carol Byler to the board.
Both appointments will expire on Dec. 1, 2010.

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
If in-stream work at the Cochrane water treatment plant extends past Sept. 30, a significant amount of damage to the spawning mountain whitefish population in the Bow River may occur, according to a local senior fisheries biologist.
Jim Stelfox, of Alberta Sustainable Resources Development (SRD), said Sept. 19 that an extension to Sept. 30 has been granted to complete in-stream work for the water treatment plant expansion. The original timeline called for a finish date of Sept. 15.
But Transportation Canada’s navigable waters division issued a stop-work order on the project Sept. 5 because Matrix Solutions, a contractor on the $12.17-million project, did not receive the necessary approvals from the federal department.
Although SRD does not have detailed spawning and population surveys of mountain whitefish, Stelfox said the small bottom-feeding fish spawn in the river during October.
“If in-stream work results in sediment being carried downstream and eggs are incubating, it could end up covering the eggs in silt and suffocating them,” he said.
While the Bow River between Ghost Dam and the Bearspaw Reservoir supports a “substantial population of mountain whitefish,” Stelfox said it isn’t known where the prime spawning habitat is. Thanks to a recent spawning survey on the Elbow River, SRD knows whitefish begin spawning in the first week of October and finish by the third week. Stelfox believes the timeline is similar in the Bow River.
While the Bow River contains a population of brook trout and brown trout, among other species, Stelfox said neither should be affected by in-stream work as the trout do not spawn in the main span of the river due to fluctuating water levels.
Gary Wagner, Cochrane’s environmental co-ordinator, said Sept. 18 that he is hopeful an agreement can be reached to complete the intake installation and remove the cofferdam — the area where the Bow is dammed off to allow construction — and other material “by the end of September.”
Under normal circumstances, it would take 45 days for Transport Canada to issue an approval, due to a 30-day public notice period. Wagner said pressure is being applied to expedite that process.
“With Fisheries and Oceans and Alberta Sustainable Resource Development looking over their shoulders, I think we might be able to convince Transport Canada to move this forward, because if the ultimate objective is to minimize the potential damage to the fish habitat, then we want to be out before the fish start spawning,” Wagner said, adding a biological consultant is currently researching the spawning conditions.
He estimated it will take 10 days to complete the in-stream work once an approval is issued.
Stelfox said if work is to continue past the Sept. 30 deadline, SRD would require a mountain whitefish spawning survey on the Bow River and “the proponent in this case will be responsible for funding this study, and the costs associated with that will hopefully provide the motivation for them to get the job done sooner rather than later.”
If the completed survey shows a negative impact on mountain whitefish spawning activity, mitigation could be required. Stelfox said this would likely be in a monetary form, which would then be used for projects in the Bow River watershed.
“They shouldn’t be making those mistakes and then expecting someone else to pay for the mistake by saying it is no longer necessary to consider the impact to fisheries,” Stelfox said.

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
Seeking re-election in the Macleod riding in Southern Alberta, the incumbent Conservative MP is putting his back into his campaign.
Ted Menzies started his campaign by touring the far-flung riding, meeting residents and re-introducing himself.
“My campaign manager and I usually spend the first week putting up a lot of our own signs, just to let people know this old farmer can still work — I still know how to swing a sledgehammer,” Menzies said.
Since 2004, when he replaced Grant Hill, Menzies believes he has represented his constituents in Ottawa, but one thing that continues to nag him is the Canadian Wheat Board as the sole marketer of grain for Western Canadian farmers.
He credits the board for taking $2 per bushel of wheat away from those producers this year, something he said is caused by a disconnect between prairie farmers and MPs from the rest of the country.
“Seventy per cent of the members of the Canadian Parliament do not know any farmer in the wheat board district and those 70 per cent voted against marketing freedom for those farmers that democratically voted to get rid of the monopoly,” Menzies said.
Jared McCollum, a former campaigner for the Reform and Alliance parties before the merger with the Progressive Conservatives, first took the Green Party seriously during the 2006 election.
“In 2006, during the beginning of the election, I had received an e-mail from a friend that they were going to vote for the Green Party. So I shot back an e-mail saying “Oh, you started smoking pot too,” McCollum said.
Even though his first impression wasn’t great, McCollum said he spent the night reading the party’s platform and found the principles aligned with his own.
McCollum, who operates Healing Elements, an alternative medicine clinic in Okotoks, believes health care is a major concern for the riding’s residents.
“In Okotoks, we don’t have any walk-in clinics. We have an urgent-care centre that is being used as a walk-in clinic because people can’t get a doctor,” he said.
If elected, McCollum said he will express the riding’s concerns instead of being “muzzled” like Conservative MPs. He would push for a carbon tax, that unlike the Liberals’ Green Shift, which he contends is a poorly-created edition of the Green Party’s policy, which will help Albertans.
“Number one, it’s a tax and cap. It will be a tax of $50 for every tonne. From those taxes we get, then we give tax breaks on income tax and payroll so people play less CPP and EI,” McCollum said.
Isabel Paynter, formerly of Prince Edward Island, is the Liberal candidate in Macleod. As a former nurse, Paynter said resident should take the listeriosis outbreak seriously and punish the Conservatives.
“Now we are auditing books and not doing inspections, and all for $75-million they want to cut from the federal budget,” Paynter said. “There are places you cut money and there are places you don’t cut money. And you do not cut money risking people’s lives.”
Stan Knowlton of the New Democratic Party and Chris Slingerland of the Christian Heritage Party could not be reached.

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By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
With election campaigns in full swing and political parties vying for votes, Cochrane residents seem to be either on the fence, or chopping at the bit until the polls open.
Bonnie Abbey, a former playschool teacher, said that she is still undecided as to what party will receive her vote.
Abbey said she doesn’t have any loyalties to specific parties.
“Don’t vote for the party, vote for the people,” she said, adding it will be mostly the local candidates’ attitudes that will sway her decision.
Abbey said she hopes residents will look at local candidates to make their decisions and not “just look at the top people.”
Allan Bell, a professor of music at the University of Calgary, said while he didn’t know who would get his vote, he knew who wouldn’t.
Bell said he would not be voting Conservative because, with regards to the environment, “they’ve refused to accept we all have a part in what’s happening.”
He also expressed concern about the Conservatives’ views on arts funding, calling their policies “brutal.”
“My concern is for a healthy environment for artists,” said Bell. “When you invest in the arts it pays back economically four times over.”
Jim Parker, a professor of Drama at U of C, agreed that the Conservative Party wouldn’t be getting his vote, but for different reasons.
“I look for someone who is going to tell me the truth,” said Parker, adding Prime Minister Stephen Harper broke his own rules by calling the fall election.
“That’s really appalling to me,” said Parker, who also hadn’t made a decision on who he will cast his ballot for.
Some voters are ready and eager for the Oct. 14 polls to open.
Cochrane resident Corrie Danner said that while she was “still gathering information,” she was certain of which way she would be voting.
Danner declined to say which party would be getting her vote, but said she was basing her decision on history and track records.
She also said the current state of some of the campaigns are “like a bunch of kids throwing sand.”
“It’s really calling negative attention to yourself,” Danner said.
Cochrane residents Cliff and Helen Law were positive that they would be both be checking the box for the Conservatives.
“I pretty much know I’m voting Conservative,” said Cliff Law.
He made his decision based on being “totally unimpressed with everyone’s platform.”
The carbon tax proposed by Liberal leader Stephane Dion also played a part in his decision. He was not in favour of the tax because “his numbers didn’t add up.”
Law said he is hoping for a majority government, but not by a large margin.
“I like to see a fairly good Opposition because it keeps them accountable.”
The one thing all Cochrane residents did seem to agree on was everyone getting out to the polls.
“I don’t understand why people don’t vote,” said Helen Law. “They just don’t seem to care enough to vote.”
Bonnie Abbey said those who don’t vote, shouldn’t get a say when the election is over.
“If they don’t vote, then they have no reason to criticize anything that’s going on,” said Abbey.

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
Even if you take the girl out of the small town, you can’t take the small town out of the girl.
Born and raised in Olds, rural values shaped Jenn Turcott. Now, after moving to Calgary, getting a university education and working in City Hall, Turcott hopes her country charm gets a Liberal elected in the Wild Rose riding for the first time since it was created 20 years ago.
Her campaign is based on a few things: sound environmental policy, past history and capitalizing on Alberta’s spirit.
“The fire underneath Albertans is not there anymore and I would like to revive that. Just because you have always been blue, doesn’t mean you are always going to have to be blue,” Turcott said.
Turcott sees herself in a number of the riding’s residents, especially those of her generation. She’s young, has “a modest income” and still raids her “parents’ pantries once in a while.”
“I’m still that small-town girl who still looks at deals made at the coffee shop through a handshake, you take care of each other, your door is unlocked most of the time, go to church on Sunday, and if you did something bad at school your parents would find out by the time you got home,” Turcott said.
In the 2006 federal election, over 72 per cent of Wild Rose voters cast their ballot in favour of Conservative Myron Thompson. Turcott said because the seat is such a safe riding for the Conservatives, residents aren’t represented in Ottawa.
“Farmers don’t have the ears of parliamentarians and when they have the ears of their elected officials, the elected officials don’t have the ear of the rest of the caucus and the government. I would like that ability to have that voice,” she said.
Nominated in April, Turcott has stuck by the Liberal brand even though it wasn’t popular in her home town. For others in the community, the brand was tied to names like Trudeau and unpopular policies in Western Canada. But
having grown up in a different era — Turcott is a scant 24, the youngest of the four candidates running in Wild Rose — the Liberal Party is defined by Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and prudent fiscal policy during the 1990s.
With an economy heading downward, she believes it is time to rely on past experience.
“We had the Liberals in office in the late-’90s when we were going down, there was an economic downturn and we still maintained being on top of the G7.”
This financial management will come by way of Stephane Dion’s Green Shift policy, which Turcott contends will add money to the pockets of residents, while at the same time continuing the strong oil and gas economy in the province.
Through the Green Shift, the average Albertan will put more money in their wallet, Turcott said, and “even without doing anything to change your lifestyle, you are still getting benefit from this increase with the carbon tax.”
“Albertans, if they want to continue with such progress, profit and prosperity, are either going to have to change or they are going to be left behind,” she said.
“With the Conserv-atives, they have put themselves on as being fiscally responsible, but is it fiscally responsible to be cutting more than what you can take off at at time?”

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
A full corporate audit of the Town of Cochrane will happen next year if a councillor has her way.
Coun. Tara McFadden is pushing to complete a full audit in 2009, rather than wait an additional year.
“If we get it done now there is less stress for everyone around and if there are problems we can identify them and put solutions on the ground instead of dragging them out,” she said.
In 2008, council ordered an audit, called a Health Check, of Community and Protective Services. When this report came back to council, it centred on a statistical analysis of happiness in the department, and in particular the Fire and Emergency Medical Service sector.
McFadden said that wasn’t good enough and another audit needs to be more analytical. She wants to re-audit protective services as well.
Rather than embark on a head-hunting mission of certain town staffers, McFadden said a serious analysis of town staff’s strengths and weaknesses needs to be conducted.
“We are at a point where we are going to be 30,000 people before we know it, and for me the question is determining whether we have the staff in place that can take us there,” she said.
Any audit must include council, she said Sept. 22, and focus on its production and the friction between council and administration.
“We need to evaluate how the organization is running, we need to evaluate how the relationship between council and administration is going, and perhaps something else, we need to understand is how council fits into a town of 15,000 and how council will fit into a population of 30,000,” McFadden said.
Mayor Truper McBride campaigned on the promise of an audit and he likes McFadden’s move to abandon the “piece-meal approach” and complete it sooner rather than later.
“I’ve always supported doing it all at once. I think we do it immediately, send out an RFP (request for proposal) and get this process over with,” McBride said. “We put the corrections we need to make in place and move on,”
The mayor confirmed that he will bring an expedited audit to council during the 2009 budget proceedings in November.
He also hopes to include an investigation of town dealings in the same package. This would include an look into the town’s actions regarding the former-Domtar lands, the new Community and Protective Services building, and cash-in-lieu being accepted for subdivisions.
The town has applied for a $144,000 grant under the provincial Municipal Sponsorship Program to complete the audit.

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By Brad Herron
The Eagle
It’s a one-on-one race for the Wild Rose seat in Ottawa.
At least that’s what Lisa Fox, the Green Party candidate, contends — herself and the Greens against Blake Richards and the Conservatives.
For the first time in 15 years, Myron Thompson and his western charm won’t have a stanglehold on the Wild Rose seat. Instead, she will be on the same ballot as the newly-nominated Richards who, she said, is “unknown,” “untried,” and “doesn’t have a reputation.”
“Everyone voted for Myron because they love Myron. I like the guy. He is a great guy,” Fox said. “But they don’t know who Blake is.”
But outside of Cochrane, where she served as environmental co-ordinator for the town, Fox doesn’t have a large profile. She has never run for public office and has concentrated most of her focus on the environment.
But like the veteran parliamentarian she plans to replace, Fox is “not afraid to shoot from the hip.” As a candidate who agrees with nearly everything in her party’s platform — she does admit there are “two or three things” she does not agree with although she didn’t say what those are — Fox isn’t afraid to tell people how it is without a handbook or notes.
She contends the New Democratic Party and the Liberals will be unable to mount a challenge to local long-standing Conservative reign. Unlike the other options, she believes her values align with the majority of Wild Rose residents.
“Liberals have one thing going against them — they have a reputation in Alberta and it’s not a good reputation. Albertans, like anybody I suppose, are very passionate people who hang onto their roots and defend them to the end,” said the 38-year-old mother of three.
For farmers, if she is elected she pledges to end the practice of mono-culture production. To do that, she is headed to the Conservative heartbeat of Alberta to tell ranchers and farmers that to sustain a culture of fami-
ly farming they must change their practices and it will hurt in the short term.
“It is an absolute devastation of our culture in Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba that these third-generation farm families are telling me they will not have their kids on a tractor.”
But to redevelop agriculture, Fox believes a number of crops must be grown and animals reared so it isn’t strictly wheat and beef being exported.
If elected, Fox said she will not advocate the shutting down of the oilsands in Northern Alberta because “thousands of people, entire communities and the foundational economy in Alberta” rely on that income. Instead, she wants to make companies accountable for the pollution they cause and force them to prove projects won’t cause irreversible environmental destruction.
Infrastructure is being stretched in communities across the riding by the constant pressure of growth. As an MP, she said she will encourage growth by building in a sustainable way for future generations. This means retaining the past, while building a new future.
“It’s a smalltown community, we want to retain that rural character, but we want to grow, we want to make money in this community. But we need jobs here,” she said.
To do that, Fox would “use the one per cent GST hike to pay for an enormous expansion of the Green Municipal Fund.” This would fund local and regional infrastructure projects.
As environmental co-ordinator in Cochrane, Fox admits she had doors slammed in her face when she was encouraging water conservation. But a few years later, the residents of Cochrane heeded her advice and per capita water usage declined.
It’s that determination and persistence toward a cause that Fox believes would serve Wild Rose well in Ottawa.
“I’m not just a name on a ballot, not just that little green box. I’m a person that should I win in this riding, I will be in the House talking about these issues.”

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