By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
Health Canada is advising parents and caregivers to not use over-the-counter cough and cold medicines for children under the age of six.
The products affected are orally taken over-the-counter cough and cold medicines that contain certain anti-histamines for sneezing and runny noses, otherwise known as anti-tussives, expectorants that loosen mucus, and decongestants.
Labels of the medicines will be updated to reflect the changes by fall 2009, but in the meantime parents should consult a pharmacist or other health care practitioner for medicines safe to use in the cough and cold season.
After research on the effects of cough and cold medicine on kids under 12, Health Canada found there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of these products on children under six, and reports of misuse, overdose, and rare side-effects have raised concerns.

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By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
Cochrane RCMP were called to Mitford Middle School during the early hours of Dec. 29 when the alarm system was triggered.
Several of the windows at the school’s entrance had been smashed, and a witness saw a male breaking the windows.
The male was seen running south from the school, towards the river on West Edge Road.
Police were unable to locate the suspect during patrols of the area.
The suspect is described as tall, slim build and was wearing a beige jacket with a hoodie and black pants.
Police are asking anyone with information on the incident to call 403-932-2213 or Crimestop-pers at 1-800-222-8477.

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By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
Cochrane RCMP recovered a stolen vehicle and several stolen cheques on Dec. 23.
The cheques had been stolen from Calgary and were related to a fraud in the amount of $26,000.
The vehicle was located on the Trans-Canada Highway near Highway 68.
Banff resident Daniel Hiltz, 33, has been charged with two counts of possession of stolen property, failure to comply with a probation order, and driving while unauthorized.
Hiltz will appear in Cochrane Provincial Court.

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By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
As Albertans bundle up and try to stay indoors while complaining about frigid temperatures, some government officials hope the deep-freeze continues.
The cold is the only guaranteed way to kill the mountain pine beetle, which has been chewing its way into more Alberta lodgepole pine forests, creating a crisis situation for the past four years.
With the pine beetle expected to spread to new trees in the spring, Rick Blackwood, Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) area manager for the Southern Rockies, is hoping this winter will be too cold for the voracious critters.
“Usually you need prolonged periods of cold weather at least lower than -30 C,” said Blackwood. “But that can be variable because if there is a deep snow pack the snow can insulate the bark and then the cold weather won’t penetrate deeply enough to kill the beetles. That is why we really can’t tell how effective the weather is until we do our survival study in the spring.”
Pine beetles also have a natural antifreeze in their body and are most affected by cold snaps in early winter and spring when they are not prepared.
So far weather in Alberta has been co-operating. With the ambient air temperature — not including wind chill — needing to be below -30 C, according to Environment Canada the average temperature in the Calgary area was -30.8 C from Dec. 13 to Dec. 21. Pine beetle hot spots, like the Kananaskis and Crowsnest Pass, have seen temperatures dip to -38 C in that period.
According to the Alberta government’s aerial surveys, the Crowsnest and Kananaskis areas have seen the number of infested pine trees in the area double to 45,000-50,000 from spring 2007 to spring 2008.

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By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
Spray Lake Sawmills is in the process of being licensed to clear cut areas near Crowsnest Mountain in southwestern Alberta to fight the pine beetle infestation, and pending approval, could start as early as mid-January.
The approval hinges on negotiations between the Cochrane-based logging company, the Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) and a local tourist business.
The plan is facing a large public backlash from residents in Crowsnest Pass who believe the clearcut will be devastating for tourism in the area, the community’s fastest growing industry.
One tourist company affected is Western Adventures, which has horse trails in the heart of the proposed clearcut area.
“It will put us out of business,” said Leslie Huber, co-owner of Western Adventures. “We won’t be opening if it goes ahead as planned because we run a trail riding business and people won’t pay to ride through clearcut . . . it’s one thing to drive through it on the way to get there, but you can’t take people out riding through it.”
Huber and her husband Glen have been working for five years on an application to SRD to invest in a permanent horse trail business, which includes a lodge and cabins. Plans are coming into the final stages. They have had to complete expensive procedures like land surveys, an environmental impact survey, a biologist’s inspection for wildlife in the area and a reclamation plan.
One thing Huber is against — as is the rest of Blairmore in the Crowsnest Pass, she claimed — is that there are no proposed buffer zones left on Atlas Road, which is partially under control by Spray Lake and Crowsnest town council.
When Spray Lake bought the Atlas Logging Company it not only picked up granted rights to the trees, but also the road. Huber is concerned because a lot of public use that road to access lakes and hiking and recreation areas under the Crowsnest Mountain, and that is the only road that has access to those areas.
SRD has targeted this area in its forest management plan because there are 7,645 confirmed pine beetle infested trees located there. Rick Blackwood, an SRD representative for the project, said the agency is trying to accommodate all parties.
Gord Lehn, woodlands manager for Spray Lake Sawmills, said people should remember it is SRD that made the forest management plan and approves licenses for the area, while the company is only the operating mechanism for the harvest of trees.
Lehn tries to remind people that Atlas Road was built by the timber industry for forest extraction and not for recreational purposes.
“Some people that have been the most vocal against it mistakenly advertise the road as a way into tourist attractions, but it is a working forest and people misrepresent it as a total wilderness experience,” he said.
Lehn said there has been logging going on in the area for hundreds of years, and when land is reclaimed the recreation industry usually takes advantage of the roads and trails. Also, today resources are fully allocated and industries have to work together.
“That is what land integration is all about,” he said. “Only one group cannot have sole access to use that landscape.”
Another controversy surrounding the project is how affective it will be in the fight against the pine beetle.
“People have denial or expertise about the mountain pine beetle,” Lehn said, “but I encourage them to drive into B.C. and see the reality there. . . . We still have an opportunity to learn from what happened in B.C.”
Huber believes the pine beetle is just an excuse and it makes better economic sense to cut along a road with close access to a highway, plus SRD is not taking into account the effect on communities in the Crowsnest Pass, which is only 10 kilometres from the area.
“Pine beetles fly, and are borne by the wind as well, and here we have one of the windiest spots in Alberta and they’re thinking that a clearcut a half a kilometre wide will stop them?” she said. “I don’t think so. The only thing it will do is send them further faster because there is nothing there to stop them.”
The only guaranteed solution to killing pine beetles is cold weather, and Blackwood said the SRD won’t know how affective the cold has been until survival surveys in the spring.
Crowsnest town Coun. Dean Ward said the plans to clearcut have created a split in council.
He said Crowsnest only has two industries — coal mining and tourism — and mining is not doing well. With attractions like the Frank Slide and Crowsnest Mountain, he said to clear cut right under Crowsnest Mountain is an eyesore and directly affects tourism.
“I understand there is a place for logging, but I just wish they would go somewhere else,” said Ward. “The basic concern is looking after our community and Crowsnest Mountain is such an icon, and there are so many other areas that could be logged that we would not see from the highway.”

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By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
Cochrane town councillors said their 2009 resolution is to finish the Cochrane Sustainability Plan.
The plan, which is slated to be completed by spring, has been in the works for the past year with town council, committees, volunteers and citizens giving input on what they want Cochrane to look like in 50 years.
“I think this will be the biggest policy document that this council, or any council, to date has ever adopted,” said Mayor Truper McBride.
He said there has been a lot of effort just to get the framework for the plan, but then the real work starts in the implementation of proactively managing for growth rather than dealing with it as it comes up. He said the plan has been developed with input from the community, but is facilitated through the town.
“From there all of our other policy documents will be flowing out of this brand new document,” said McBride. “So I think that will be very exciting, and it will be all intertwined with the principles of sustainability.”
For Coun. Ivan Davies, as part of the art and culture sustainable planning, he hopes they can get a good idea on what sports, recreation, arts and culture will look like in 50 years, everything from the arts and recreation buildings to planning and sustaining activities like the Labour Day weekend parade and rodeo, Light Up and Canada Day.
Coun. Tara McFadden is looking at the Built Form side of the plan, or what type of buildings, recreation, pathways, and transportation will look like physically in 50 years.
“This council, I think, we really pride ourselves on looking ahead,” said McFadden. “People move here because it is a great community and this is all about making sure it’s the greatest community we can have in 50 years. We are in the best location, we have the best people, and the best opportunity right now to come up with a sustainability plan so when people look at how to build a community right, they look at Cochrane.”
Coun. Brenda Sine is also really looking forward to the sustainability plan because it was on everyone’s agenda when they ran for council.
Coun. Ross Watson said council will be revealing the plan at the Feb. 27 International Sustainability Conference that will be held in Cochrane.
“When that happens, our sustainability plan will be the actual model they will be looking at,” said Watson. “So I guess we have to have a presentable stage by the end of February.”
Mayor McBride is also looking forward to future planning discussions with the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) and the regional land use plan. Council will be able to attend a conference in June to discover the details of regional planning.
“It will be actually quite historic because nothing like this in Calgary has been done before,” said McBride about the conference. “It is very unique.”
McBride said part of that planning process will include regional transportation. Currently, a discussion paper on a commuter rail is being compiled with all the information and data gathered on it from the past year which will be made public in January. There will also be a transportation symposium at the regional level that will be held in Cochrane at the end of January, and the town will be looking for public feedback in February in order to roll out policies for adoption in June.
“From what I can say right now, is that there will be a focus on transit away from the automobile and away from building highways and roads,” said McBride. “We are looking at different ways to connect people and get people around other than driving cars.”
Coun. Miles Chester hopes this year can solve and answer some of the environmental questions with the regional plan, especially when it comes to the wetlands. He would also like to see a solution for the contaminated former-Domtar lands.
“That doesn’t mean having something built on it in 2009,” said Chester, “but it would be nice to see a developer start.”
He said the province’s Land Use Framework, which overlays the CRP, could affect the town’s expansion in the three major areas: Area A, B, and Westridge.
Chester is also looking forward to the new health centre, and two feasibility studies for a future pool and an arts centre.
Davies thinks 2009 could be a corrective year because with an economic slowdown there is time for more planning.
“We can get off that turbo-charged thrust to the top because it is really hard playing catch up,” he said. “Everyone is moving so fast in different areas of the town in the building, programs and infrastructure, and everything is just tapped out to the limit.”
He also thinks the work council has done with their Rocky View counterparts has been very successful.
“I hope to continue to solidify our relationship with the M.D.,” said Davies, “because we have a very good relationship going at this time, but it is something that didn’t come easy.”
Coun. Joann Churchill said she wants to be aware of the economy, and on the budget, she wants to keep taxes as low as they can without affecting services.
From a community perspective, Churchill would like to see an increase in communication. When councillors went door knocking they received positive feedback from residents and she would like to expand on that when the weather gets nice.
McFadden agrees and hopes people make it to a Jan. 12 town hall meeting for a public discussion of the 2009 draft budget, set for 7 p.m. at the RancheHouse.
McFadden’s New Year’s resolution is to get a zero per cent property tax increase.
“We now are in one of the tough times so let’s make use of that,” she said. “Personally, I was laid off in November and we are starting up a new business, we are a young family, we’ve got a house, and we are living the experience just like everyone else is and we can make sure we have a zero per cent on one front to lower the pain people are feeling.”
There is some debate in council about whether municipal reserves, or town savings, should be used to help get the property tax lower than the 4.9 per cent increase that is currently projected.
“We have very healthy reserves that should be able to cushion the way through this downturn,” said McBride, “because I don’t believe when people out there are concerned about their jobs and their home and their financial well-being, that we should turn around and tax them more.”
Watson is cautious about cutting reserves to bring the property tax lower because the economic future is uncertain.

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By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
A Cochrane man spent a chilly night inside his car Dec. 28 after sliding off George Fox Trail about two miles west of town.
The man entered the ditch at approximately 5 p.m. and was discovered at 10 a.m., Dec. 29, by a passerby.
Cochrane Fire/EMS Station Officer Grant MacKinnon couldn’t confirm the man’s age and he wasn’t sure why he didn’t walk to Cochrane.
He said the driver was “transported to hospital with exposure problems from not having the right equipment.”
The man didn’t have a cellphone, but Mac-Kinnon said they can’t always be counted on in emergencies.
“Be prepared when travelling in the winter time and don’t rely on your cellphone” because connections, even in urban areas, aren’t always possible, he said.
MacKinnon said it’s a good idea to alert someone of your destination.
Running a car to stay warm during an emergency is also a problem. If snow is blocking the exhaust “you run the risk of killing yourself with carbon monoxide poisoning,” said MacKinnon.
While temperatures have warmed up, cold weather still poses a threat.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” he said. “The cold will kill you and you have to treat it appropriately. You’re better to have too much stuff than not enough stuff.”
MacKinnon said motorists should stock their vehicles with boots, mittens, toques, jackets, and snowpants as well as first aid and emergency kits. Candles can burn for up to 10 hours and keep the interior of a car from freezing, he said.
MacKinnon said if the man had carried the proper equipment “he’d have been just fine. He didn’t follow all the rules for good winter driving.”

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By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
Starting Jan. 1, tobacco products will be banned from the shelves of pharmacies, stores with pharmacies, health-care facilities and public post-secondary institutions.
It will be the final step in the Tobacco Reduction Act put together by the provincial government, which had banned smoking in work and public places, within five metres of a doorway, windows or air intakes of a public place or workplace, and had banned retail display and advertising of tobacco products last July.
“The Tobacco Reduction Act is one of the key elements of our strategy to reduce tobacco use and the harmful effects of second-hand smoke,” said Dr. Raj Sherman, parliamentary assistant to the minister of Health and Wellness in a press release.
Banned products include cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco and items like chewing tobacco and snuff.

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Just the Facts
By Mary Lou Davis
Christmas Eve was a beautiful day to be out in Cochrane. Many took the opportunity to pick up a last gift and enjoy the sense of community. Some, I hear, actually saved an item or two to shop for on Christmas Eve in order to feel that excitement of the day before Christmas in our town.
If you are lucky, like me, and enjoy working on Christmas Eve then you too get to enjoy the number of people who stop by to wish a Merry Christmas and share hugs. That is when my Christmas begins.
Throughout the day I check e-mails and receive greetings from those far away. Generally, I don’t like e-mail as much as a letter or a phone call, but Christmas e-mails allow us to share the details of our preparations and celebrations. It is so nice to hear who is cooking the turkey, making pies, wrapping gifts for the stocking or preparing for Boxing Day flights to wonderful vacations skiing in Austria or sunning in Mexico.
Phone calls came in throughout the day from people wanting to share in our community Christmas dinner. Someone’s flight is cancelled and they wonder do we have room at our table for them. Another, whose father passed away this year, is having dinner with close friends. She and her dad had joined us the past two years. Like family, she just wanted to check in. We unexpectedly lost another member of our dinner family this year and her friends stopped in to share her love of being a part of our Cochrane community dinner. An old neighbour and friend, that I met 15 years ago when I moved to Cochrane, phones to see if we need anyone to serve on Christmas day. My good friend Olga is baking pumpkin pies which I must remember to pick up, while others are participating by paying for the turkeys and hams that we’ll share as family and friends, and still others will set up, do loads of dishes and most importantly make new friends. Yes, this is Christmas.
Once I finish work on the 24th, I pick up the last of my groceries including brown sugar to make some apple pies, a last-minute inspiration which always feels festive. Earlier that week I baked a few dozen cookies with my daughter. This is something my mom always did with us at Christmas. My mom actually often did her Christmas baking twice: once to hide, which we would find and eat well before Christmas, and then once again to share with company.
After wrapping a couple of gifts I head to the neighbours for a visit. They have out-of-town guests who beat the weather and airline problems to make it in lots of time for Christmas. We share plenty of laughs. I am a stranger to most of them but this is Christmas and I feel like part of their family.
Christmas morning I wake up, late by my usual standards, and begin to stuff one of the turkeys for the dinner. The crock pot is almost overflowing with fresh cranberries and sugar to simmer all day. Friends are cooking two more turkeys and hams.
Thankfully the weather has turned for the better. We will get in a good hour walk while the turkey fills the house with a delicious smell.
After wrapping more gifts I will head out to the Tin Cup to direct and organize about 40 people for dinner. Thanks to Trish and Dave, I have very little to do but greet and visit. This is such a small and easy job because everyone participates. It is not the food or who serves it that counts. Our community dinner is all about sharing of oneself. Sharing our stories, laughter and friendship — this is Christmas.
There is an impromptu kitchen team directed by Dave. He wants to hire them when the Tin Cup re-opens Feb. 13. They’re a happy, efficient group pitching in to make this an awesome Christmas dinner.
I visit with a long-time friend that I so often just get to chat with in passing or over a quick cup of coffee as one of us is always rushing somewhere. We’ll share a gift, our friendship and a camaraderie that makes us more sisters than if we were born into the same family. True friends are those you may not see or talk to for days or weeks or years and still connect immediately with given the opportunity. It is time with friends like this that make it Christmas for me.
The only boxes on our Boxing Day will be those that are yet to be unwrapped from under the tree. It is a relaxing day with a walk and a trip to the coffee shop to sit and enjoy whoever shows up. I have time with my daughter and a dinner of scallops in white sauce baked with rice, a meal that is becoming a tradition for us like tortiere and turkey.
This is a perfect time to relax, enjoy whoever comes along, whatever opportunity arises. This is Christmas and with New Year just days away, I am feeling the anticipation of everything new and anything being possible!
Mary Lou Davis is a former Cochrane town councillor and the owner of Bentleys Books.

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