By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
The only X-ray clinic in Cochrane shut down Feb. 20 because Alberta Health Services (AHS) deemed taking over the service too expensive and it did not want to interfere with a private business consolidating its services into Calgary.
The clinic, EFW Radiology, was located on the second floor of the First Street professional building.
It was a decision, according to Banff-Cochrane Conservative MLA Janis Tarchuk Feb. 23, that is supported by the Minister of Alberta Health and Wellness Ron Liepert, and his letter relaying this announcement to the town is on its way.
“Now we are approaching the limit of what we can do,” said Mayor Truper McBride at the Feb. 23 town council meeting.
He had written an open letter Feb. 13 to Liepert asking for help in retaining the service.
McBride said at a meeting with AHS on Feb. 12 he was told they did not have the “marching orders” or the funds from the province to keep the clinic open.
McBride hoped contacting Liepert would have helped keep the X-ray clinic open.
A spokesman for the health minister said he was out of the country and not available for comment.
Questions about the service were relayed to Alberta Health and Wellness spokesman Howard May, who said while AHS gets funding from the province it is ultimately that body’s decision to help keep the X-ray clinic in Cochrane.
Bruce Conway, spokesman for AHS, said this was a business decision made by a private company and there are a number of alternate diagnostic imaging facilities in Calgary, Airdrie and Canmore.
He said the closest X-ray available to Cochrane residents is in Crowfoot Crossing in Calgary.
“There are plans for diagnostic imaging services in the new urgent care centre scheduled for 2011,” said Conway. “Of course with all capital projects, this kind of development does hinge on available provincial dollars.”
He said Cochrane is not alone as “there are a number of communities that are wondering what their future will be in terms of a number of services.”
Chris Histed, chief operating officer for EFW Radiology, said the company met with AHS to see if it would take over the service until the urgent care centre opened.
“We did have some discussions of potentially bridging the service,” said Histed. “But I am not sure what went on after that.”
McBride said it is probably fair to say that Cochrane has got the “short-end of the stick” when it comes to health care compared to communities like Okotoks, Canmore and Airdrie.
On Feb. 20, McBride met with provincial Liberal leader Dr. David Swann who had asked to discuss the problem with him and his Liberal caucus. McBride said the Liberals repeatedly raised the issue in the legislature while during the week of Feb. 16-20.
“At least we are speaking to someone in the province that is listening,” said McBride. “We do understand this would be out of the norm for the province when a private company steps away to step in and run it, but what we are saying is that Cochrane is growing, and growing rapidly, and it is unacceptable for us to see a reduction in health care services.”
McBride said the next move is to meet with Alberta Transport Minister Luke Ouellette and Tarchuk.
Tarchuk said she is very disappointed to hear Cochrane is losing its X-ray services. She said it is too bad AHS couldn’t keep it open until the new urgent care centre is completed, but she sees how it is not financially feasible.
“I think what is important now is to monitor the transition period,” she said.

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After a Jan. 26 fire killed three, and sent a fourth person to hospital, the Cochrane Fire Department and local housing officials are urging tenants and landlords to be vigilant in assuring that their properties are legal and fire safe. (more…)

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By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
The town is looking forward to meeting potential summer employees at a Hiring Fair March 4-6.
Tracey Radloff, human resources advisor for the town, said they are hoping for a “good heads up” on how many people are interested in applying.
“We are hoping to provide some good two-way communication for the candidates to come in and seek some information,” said Radloff.
Although new permanent town positions for 2009 will not be hired until after May, the town wants to get seasonal positions hired. There are 35 seasonal positions open from everything from animal control and bylaw services to engineering.
Detailed job postings are on the town website at www.cochrane.ca.

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By Coun. Brenda Sine
A couple of weeks ago, I was in Ontario for my father-in-law’s funeral. While I was there, I was amazed at the small-town spirit and feeling I observed even though we were in a large community. The neighbours come out of their homes to help my mother-in-law shovel her walk, brought over casseroles, soup and all sorts of goodies. I thought about our community of Cochrane and how everyone seems to want that small-town feel.
As most of you know, Cochrane is involved in a Sustainability Plan which is looking at what we need and want for our future, and the steps to achieving this end. One thing has come through loud and clear: Cochranites like the small-town atmosphere. While this is not ground-breaking news to anyone, the challenge is how do we keep the small-town atmosphere as we grow?
Well, so far we have been pretty good at it. We truly aren’t a small town. In fact, we achieved the numbers to be classed a city several years ago but decided not to request that status. As the citizens of Cochrane look to council to continue to provide a small-town atmosphere, we will do our best to provide walkways and other infrastructure that promote citizens coming together. The town also has traditions that help with the small-town atmosphere, such as our Labour Day Parade, Christmas Light Up and July 1 celebrations.
But a small-town atmosphere is more than that. As individual citizens and neighbours, we all need to do our part as well. We need to become engaged with one another, that is what truly will give Cochrane a small-town atmosphere, not the physical size. We need to get to know our neighbours, shop locally, join committees and local activities. Sometimes it seems like such an effort, but in the end it will be worth it and we will all have a better place to live.
I would love to hear how you make Cochrane special for your neighbours, or how the neighbours make this a great place for you. E-mail me at Brenda.Sine@cochrane.ca.

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By Mayor Truper McBride
Over the course of this council’s term we have been working hard at reforming planning and the way development is done in Cochrane.
We’ve made some solid statements about the need for sustainable planning and have rewritten the town’s municipal development plan to reflect that. We’ve hired a new director of planning and engineering and are also focusing much more attention on long-range planning.
In the last election, we heard from you loud and clear that you didn’t want more and more fields of purely residential subdivisions, and that we needed to make the notion of living, working and playing in Cochrane a priority in order to steer away from the old and failed practices creeping us ever closer to bedroom community status. It’s time to start growing Cochrane as a complete community.
Ultimately, for the people of Cochrane this will mean a reduced tax burden in the future by avoiding costs associated with urban sprawl, as well as better access to services with larger, more connected parks, expansive pathway systems and transit.
Council and I are quite serious about getting Cochrane on the right track as we grow into the future; we will put the brakes on some new development that is being proposed that does not reflect this new direction for Cochrane.
We’ll be taking some plans back to the drawing board to be rewritten in order to build the Cochrane we’ve heard you describe so clearly. Council is firm that the days of urban sprawl and inefficient, expensive development at the expense of existing residents are over — we’ll be handing a new rule book over to developers to make sure of that.
No doubt there will be those in the development industry that may become frustrated by this new vision. It’s always easier to continue what one has always done rather than striving to be better. We are asking developers to be patient while we revise existing plans to reflect a sustainable Cochrane and look forward to working with them to implement your new vision.

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Coffee with Warren
by Warren Harbeck
When I last corresponded with him 10 years ago last week, I asked this engaging scholar of heavenly vision and enquiring mind how things were going since he moved from Cochrane’s Mount St. Francis Retreat to Lumsden, Sask. He responded, “I find myself ‘curiouser,’ excited by all the stuff still to discover.”
Only a couple of days later, Lucian “Lamplighter Luc” Kemble, Franciscan priest, popular lecturer on science and faith, and celebrated amateur astronomer, looked through his Celestron 280mm Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope one last time. Then on Feb. 23, 1999, he rested from this world and joined the Artist Himself who “stretches out the heavens like a tent” — words from Psalm 104, one of his favourites. He was 76. How excited he must be over all the stuff he has discovered since that day.
Among those who knew him, Lamplighter Luc left a legacy of wonder and awe at simple beauty. He would go into near ecstasy over sunlight refracted through a glass of wine or a drop of water.
He won his place among astronomers internationally by his discovery one evening of a faint asterism (cluster of stars) in the northern sky not far from the constellation of Cassiopeia, referred to now in the literature as “Kemble’s Cascade.” He’s held in especially high regard by members of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Edmonton Chapter, who named their library after him.
“Luc was an extraordinary man,” Edmonton star-hopper and coffee companion Bruce McCurdy wrote on the anniversary of his death. He was “the most observant person I have ever met, a man who could speak with immense wisdom yet who preferred to listen, to look, and to think.”
In a field often at odds with religion, “Lucian saw the Universe as revealed by observation and science to be God’s work, and he was curious to understand what really made it tick,” Bruce said.
In my final discussion with Lamplighter Luc, I asked him about this tension.
“Basically for me, there can be no contradiction between what I know by faith and what I experience by even the most rudimentary scientific knowledge about the real world,” he responded. “Simply, they both use the questioning approach but have two different methods of inquiry.
“The beauty and elegant ordering of the universe cannot be the simple result of pure blind chance, but neither is it a machine-like constant creation of God’s whim. Both are involved in the great questions of Who are we? Where from? Where to? As one great author once put it: ‘If God could have created the universe any way he chose, is it not all the more incumbent upon us to study the way he actually did create it?’
“The scientist might ask the same question in a slightly different way: If the universe we live in is only one of any number of hypothetical universes, it is all the more incumbent upon us to study the real one. There is a difference of method: when scientists ask ‘Why?’ they usually mean, ‘How does this thing work the way it does?’ When theologians ask ‘Why?’ they usually imply, ‘For what purpose does this and the whole universe exist?’”
Amidst all this heavenly grandeur, it would be easy to feel quite insignificant, as indeed one of his stargazing companions confided to him one night. To this the smiling Friar replied:
“Insignificant? I don’t think so. I’m as big as the things I comprehend. You and I may be made from dust, true — but it’s star dust!”
(c) 2009 Warren Harbeck,
warren@harbeck.ca, www.coffeewithwarren.com

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By Sarah Junkin
The Eagle
The Eagle’s Nest Stoney Family Shelter is repeating a family violence prevention and parenting workshop that last year was so popular it had to be capped at 60 participants.
Dorothy Sam, the shelter’s director, said the three-day event was so successful it will again run March 3-5.
“People are becoming more and more aware about violence and how it affects families,” she said.
With that in mind, Sam is also bringing back North American Indigenous Games representative Nyla Klugie, who last year ran a wildly successful program at the Morley Community School based on ancient games.
Klugie, who hails from the Yukon, teaches the importance of living a healthy life through double ball and shinny.
Klugie will also spend a day at the Eagle’s Nest teaching women there about healing, Sam said.
The shelter has 20 beds, five bedrooms, a play area and a counselling room. Families may stay up to 21 days.

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Just the Facts
By Mary Lou Davis
Why won’t they take “no” for an answer?
Why, when your kids ask to borrow the car and you say no, do they want to negotiate?
Why, when your kids want to extend their curfew and you say no, do they want to negotiate?
Why, when you tell your kids no to an increase in their allowance, do they want to negotiate?
Why? Because you are raising them to be leaders.
Earlier this year a group of students known as the Bow Valley High School Leadership Group were turned down for a grant from the Town of Cochrane. The grant is required to support a small portion of the $300,000 they are responsible to raise as co-hosts and participants in the 25th annual National Youth Leadership Conference.
“No,” said town council.
No reason given in the formal letter of rejection, just no.
In a report in this newspaper, the students found out that they were turned down for a $3,000 grant because their application was late and it was unclear in their application whether Cochrane was involved and whether more than three or four students were involved.
It’s understandable the students were angry at this information. It is impressive that these students are using their anger to motivate themselves to negotiate this again with town council.
Bow Valley High School students are in the process of requesting an opportunity to present as a delegation before council to clarify the information in their grant application.
The fact that they were late with their application is true. The students knew that going in but were encouraged to still apply by our town clerk and they are grateful for that.
The fact that it was unclear as to whether Cochrane was involved, or how many students are involved, is not true if you read the application in its entirety. The application covers the involvement of Cochrane as a co-host with Olds, a venue for shopping for hundreds of students, as well as Cochrane motels being booked as accommodations for students — in no less than nine different paragraphs.
The students also presented before council on Dec. 8 the scope of this conference and their role with numerous questions and offers of support vocalized by our council.
The fact that they were turned down for a request of $3,000 by council in the grant process was most baffling to the leadership students since they had applied for $10,000 towards their $300,000 share of a $600,000 budget.
In reviewing the minutes of the council meeting, it became clear that this project that promotes student leadership, Cochrane as an ambassador to 800 national leadership students and the thousands of hours volunteered by these local students and their teacher were not even included in the grant dollars put before council for approval. It was only thanks to Coun. Tara McFadden that the amount of $3,000 was put forward in an amended motion to council which was subsequently rejected.
Bow Valley High students have already raised approximately $180,000 towards their share of the cost of this conference, which takes place this fall. They are going to ask again that council support them financially with a grant of $10,000.
This is leadership at its finest. Having the courage to bounce back and not take no for an answer is going to be a proud moment for the parents of these kids, and all the parents who have watched these kids grow into the leaders they already are today.
“No” is not the answer a great leader will accept.
“Negotiate” is the only language of a winning leader.
Mary Lou Davis is a former Cochrane town councillor and the owner of Bentleys Books.

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Dear Editor:
How sad can it be for our government to neglect the very people who came to Alberta to build it into the province it is today.
This was done by the hard work of thousands of people no different than Phillipa Thomas (“Injured agriculture worker seeks rights”, Feb. 18, Cochrane Eagle) in agriculture.
Today is indeed a sad day for a once proud Albertan.
Ron Belding

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