Emery to do Time in Canada, Vision Needed for the Downtown Eastside

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Canada's Prince of Pot Should Face the Music: Tieleman

High-profile Vancouver bud-booster Marc Emery was teetering on the edge of an extradition request that would have seen him effectively spend the rest of his life behind bars in the US of A. The latest post from Bill Tieleman's blog states that “Emery freely admits he sold $15 million dollars worth of marijuana seeds by mail in the last 10 years and that over half his customers were in the U.S., more than 70,000 people.” Emery's lawyers have reportedly saved him from life in prison, with a meager 5 year sentence to be served in Canada.

According to Tieleman, Emery should consider himself lucky instead of trying to portray himself as a victim. “I don't feel sorry for Emery at all. He willfully broke U.S. laws to challenge America's losing war on drugs. Fighting what one believes are unjust laws can be a noble calling. But shipping marijuana seeds illegally into a foreign country and then whining about it when they take offence isn't noble - it's just dopey.” While Emery claims that there were “no victims” from his mail-order seed business, Tieleman points to the recent spate of gangland-style shootings in the region as proof that drugs (even seemingly harmless ones) are still fought and killed over. The post declared, “Emery deliberately provoked the U.S. government into charging him. Now he has to accept the consequences - do the time, stop the whine.”

Vision for Revitalized DTES Needed

The latest post from Peter Ladner's blog has chronicled the agreement between financier Milt Wong and ex-Carnegie Center director Michael Clague to create a vision and a purpose for a revitalized downtown east side. According to Ladner, these two are trying to “trying to harness the city-wide eagerness to solve the area’s problems in a compassionate way, before the developers move in.” With the onset of the 2010 games approaching, the city really must confront the problem sooner as opposed to later.

Ladner mentions that the first step is to clean up the streets and alleyways in the DTES. “I strongly support Councillor Capri’s initiative, passed by council Jan. 15, to start with cleaner streets and alleys.” While there has been much resistance to the “safe streets” legislation, Ladner is firm in his belief that revitalizing this district must start with cleaning up the streets. Following that, Ladner floats such ideas as “What about providing and protecting decent accommodation for today’s low income tenants? Adding middle income residents? Eliminating open drug use? Bringing in legitimate private businesses? Turning the area into an arts precinct?” There are a number of different options available in order to bring traditional residents back to this drug-addled neighborhood. The post declares, “if the DTES neighbourhood groups and the rest of the city could agree on outcomes, change could be embraced with much less resistance and suspicion.”

Another Campbell Crony Jumps to the Private Sector

The Public Eye Online blog has carried details of the latest member from the Campbell administration to sidle over to the greener pastures of the private sector. The post declares that “last month, former house leader Graham Bruce registered to represent the interests of the Eagle Group of Companies.” The group has interests in an assortment of different sectors including trucking, information technology, property management, HVAC, and emergency medical transport.

Public Eye seemed especially suspicious of Bruce's involvement with the Eagle Group of Companies due to the fact that when he was questioned about it, Bruce refused to even answer which company he was leaving the government for. Additionally, “According to the lobbyist registry, Mr. Bruce declared his intent to contact Premier Gordon Campbell and a number of cabinet minister about Viscon - a fuel additive.” Seemingly the Eagle Group of Companies sees Bruce as the ideal influencer for their latest business venture.

Winter Blast Assists Ice Wine Harvest

The Wine Knows, a blog chronicling the goings-on within the Pacific Northwest's wine industry, has declared that our latest dose of winter weather has been a real boon to the province's Ice Wine industry. This latest storm has helped the wineries finish up their 2007 harvests, almost a month into 2008. According to the post, “Lisa Cameron of the British Columbia Wine Institute reported that 24 wineries harvested 520 tons of ice wine grapes this season, with everything wrapped up Thursday.”

The post also reports that Walter Gehringer of Gehringer Brothers Estate Winery declared this year's ice wine season to be particularly worrisome. “He spent a lot of time checking weather conditions in the middle of the night - only to be thwarted from picking grapes. He added that he had more sleepless nights this vintage than any in recent memory.” In order to legally make ice wine, the grapes must be harvested when the temperature is -9 degrees Celsius.

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