This is contained in a corporate report from Scott Neuman, Surrey’s manager of engineering, that came before council on Nov. 3 asking the politicians to approve a new off-street pay parking and EV charging regulation bylaw for City of Surrey-owned parking including parkades and surface lots. The City operates roughly 2,000 pay-parking spaces and 90 public electric charging stations.

Council gave third-reading approval to the related bylaws.

“It’s frustrating that 46 per cent of people who receive tickets don’t pay them, I mean, that’s frustrating,” Coun. Harry Bains said, “but I understand from the City’s perspective it’s likely not cost-effective to go after somebody for a parking ticket considering we have to go through provincial court. So it’s good to see that we’re streamlining the process, putting some more bite into our bylaw, giving more bite to our bylaw officers and moving to a streamlined adjudication process.”

Parking enforcement of these are done by a third-party operator on the City’s behalf.

“Violations are issued by the operator, and unpaid or disputed violations must be pursued through other means such as collections or through the provincial court,” Neuman told council. “This approach is complex, resource-intensive, and often ineffective, as disputes rarely proceed to court. While bylaws exist for regulating on-street parking, the City does not currently have bylaws that govern off-street facilities or electric vehicle charging. This limits enforcement effectiveness and creates inconsistency between on-street and off-street practices.

Neuman said the newly developed parking regulations policy – with the bylaw to come into effect in Jan. 1, 2027 following a year of “transition planning and implementation” – is intended to “improve fairness, safety, and consistency in managing EV charging and parking in off-street facilities and will establish clear legal rights and dispute resolution mechanisms supported by enforceable penalties.”

Under the new policy, the general manager of engineering is authorized to revoke a parking permit when a fine payment remains outstanding for 90 days or more after it comes due and if a vehicle is impounded and its registered owner fails to pay costs, fees and other expenses the City incurs within 30 days of the impoundment “the City may seek to recover its fees, costs and expenses via public auction or proceedings within the Supreme Court of British Columbia.”

Moreover, the new rules stipulate that “where an offence is a continuing offence, each day that the offence is continued shall constitute a separate and distinct offence.”

Bains asked if the streamlined adjudication process is similar to the civil resolution tribunal.

Philip Huynh, city hall’s solicitor, replied that the new bylaw will move the fining and parking process “into an adjudication process like our other bylaw violations. It’s generally handled through an adjudicator short of a provincial court process, so it’s more efficient in that sense.”

As for EV charging, Neuman added, there is no time limit for that – people can connect and charge for as long as they want as the City charges by hour, not by kilowatt.

“What this bylaw is doing is currently there is no ticketing mechanism for the City to maybe ticket a vehicle that is parked and not charging – they might have the cord plugged in but they’re not actively charging, they’re just using that parking space as a parking space. So then the City is losing out on a revenue opportunity. So this bylaw gives the City the mechanism to ticket and then enforce that,” Neuman explained.

“Each project led to a truckload of ideas, so many ideas, germinating from one initial idea. It just felt unstoppable. I feel like it propelled my skills to a whole different level. … I was fully smitten by it.”

She speaks reverently about her instructor Angelika Werth, who has since retired, and her classmates.

“I felt very honoured that I got to be her student, and I met a cohort of students who are still my friends today. We are each other’s inspiration.”

Cedar has practised part time as fabric artist since, and plans to upgrade to a full-time business soon.

She said she would be tempted to take the program all over again, but for Selkirk College’s recent decision to close it. The college has announced the small campus on Victoria Street in Nelson that offers blacksmithing and metal arts, ceramics and textile arts will be shut down at the end of this academic year, and its programs terminated.

This comes after Selkirk College’s announcement that it must trim $9 million from its budget (including $3-4 million in 2026-27) to compensate for lost revenue from international students, whose numbers have been significantly restricted by changes in federal immigration policy.

Selkirk says the KSA program has been operating at a deficit for several years, and that operating the program, which costs $615,000 annually, is too expensive to maintain given the campus’ annual average of 25 students and its maximum capacity of 33.

Planning for arts education, again

The closure comes as another in a series of changes for arts education, which has held a consistent but precarious position in Nelson for the past 60 years. Many who have followed that history, while regretting the closure announced last month, are already asking what form the resurrection of studio arts training could take.

Selkirk ceramics instructor Robin DuPont is collecting testimonials and letters supporting a rebirth, whether at the present campus or not.

As of Oct. 27 he had received 324 testimonials from across the province and the country, as well 42 letters of support from local businesses, organizations and institutions.

He says his call-out was for “expressions of support for arts education, to make our community, particularly the City of Nelson, understand the value of the arts education. It is not a call-out to criticize Selkirk.”

The college will host a meeting for Nelson arts organizations in early November to discuss how to continue the programs outside of the college.

DuPont graduated from KSA in 1997 and has since taught clay at universities in Utah, Alberta, and Manitoba as well as the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He has earned a number of national and international awards for his work as an artist and educator, and was named Nelson’s cultural ambassador for 2023.

“I’m optimistic that our community will come together and the right diversity of people will roll up their sleeves and find us a solution, with me included.”

‘Best little arts town’

DuPont says he teaches around the world and he often meets people who “don’t know where Calgary is, but they know where Nelson is, and it’s because we’re on the map because of culture, not just because we’re another beautiful mountain town.”

Nelson ceramic artist Eva Myers-McKimm supports the idea of a local solution for the arts programs, and hopes some momentum will build.

“I think that will happen again in some way, but I don’t want people to hear that and say, ‘Oh, good, I’m just going to wait for it to happen.’ People need to come forward and say, ‘This is what I can contribute.’”

Myers-McKimm re-took the ceramics program in 2024 after having already graduated from it 25 years ago. She has run a part-time and then full-time ceramics business in Nelson since. She needed a boost in both inspiration and skills, and said taking the program again was a “huge renewal.”

She says KSA is “baked into the fabric of this community” and that Nelson’s status as an arts town is threatened by the closure.

“I don’t think you can have a ‘best little arts town’ without an incubator for artists.”

Cedar agrees that Nelson needs to find a way to keep its reputation.

“Of all the places where the programs should be thriving, it should be here. You can come and learn a technique from some of those amazing artists, and then you can become one of them.”

Responding to the college’s rationale for the cutback, Myers-McKimm says there is no escaping the fact that post-secondary arts education costs money.

“But it’s worth it. It’s not a money maker. It requires funding. And the benefit is that whatever municipality the institution is in, they have this rich cultural legacy that they can continue to weave into the fabric of the community.”

‘It was magic’

KSA originated with a slightly different name –the Kootenay School of Art – in 1960 (with 105 full-time students by 1968) as part of the former B.C. Vocational School in collaboration with Notre Dame University. The provincial government phased out vocational schools in the 1970s and closed the university in 1977.

The David Thompson University Centre (DTUC) opened at the Tenth Street campus in 1979 with KSA as part of it, offering a large variety of fine arts and studio arts courses. After the provincial government closed DTUC in 1984, the non-profit DTUC Support Society re-started the school, calling it Kootenay School of the Arts, in 1991.

The school ran a variety of courses in various locations around town, started full-time credit programs in 1994, moved into the Victoria Street building in 1996 with funding from the province, and also offered a variety of courses at other locations in Nelson.

Dupont was a 19-year-old ceramics student at the new facility in 1996, and says the arts education scene in Nelson was very dynamic.

“It was magic. Even looking back it it now, it seemed like it was well and truly the heyday of what KSA was. It seemed like there was the most support KSA had ever seen. … There were many programs and many students in all of them. There was energy, there was money.”

In the late 1990s the school had more than 400 full-and part-time students at the Victoria Street campus and other locations in the city.

But these offerings gradually diminished over time, especially after the 2001 election of the B.C. Liberal party that cut the funding to the school.

In 2006, Selkirk College took over the programs at the campus building and offered training in ceramics, metalwork, jewelry and textile arts to a total capacity of 33 students. In 2012 the college changed the name to Kootenay Studio Arts. The City of Nelson, which owns the Victoria Street building, had been charging nominal rent of $1 per year since 1996 but in 2020 started charging market rent.

Since Selkirk took over, the ceramics program has been reduced from a three-year to a one-year program, the bronze casting part of metal arts program has been discontinued, jewelry has been discontinued, and textile arts program has been reduced.

‘A tragedy without a villain’

Nelson jeweler Lily Anderson graduated from KSA’s jewelry program in 2018.

“It really was everything to me,” she says. “It just opened me up to a whole new world. I didn’t realize that jewelry could be a successful career. It was always kind of looked at … as a hobby. And so it really opened my eyes to the fact that it could be a business and it could sustain you.”

Nelson artist Naomi Bourque is an Indigenous artist who grew up in the Northwest Territories and has taken three programs at KSA: jewelry, metal arts and textiles. She sells her work across the continent and at local markets. Her jewelry uses, in addition to silver, a range of materials she sources in the Territories including antler, horn, tusk, and claws, along with tanned hides and fur for textile work.

“Where else can you go to learn these old-world techniques for a year and come out accredited, and be here in a place like Nelson? What other options do people have now?”

When Bourque took the textile program there were only two people in the class, and she was surprised that it ran at all. She wonders if Selkirk College had marketed the program effectively.

“I often go to trade shows and such with my mom’s (furrier) business. Often there are scouts from colleges and universities trying to attract (students). How do people know about KSA?”

Corky Evans wonders the same thing. He was the local MLA who was instrumental in getting the Victoria Street location provincially funded and renovated into an art school after DTUC closed.

He says some other institutions, like the Banff Centre, “are hugely skilled at telling their story and recruiting.”

In an interview on Oct. 24, Selkirk College president Maggie Matear told the Nelson Star that the college uses a range of marketing and recruitment techniques.

“I know that they are featured in our Viewbook (the program guide for prospective students). I know that there are specific flyers and things like that that are available for all of our programs across the college. That being said, marketing is sort of beside the point. Even if we were full, we still couldn’t afford to offer these programs.”

Evans added that Selkirk’s rationale for closing the campus – the facility is too expensive for such a small student capacity, in light of the cut in revenue from international students – is understandable.

“This is a tragedy without a villain,” he said.

Evans said it’s clear why Selkirk did not put an equivalent amount of resources into recruiting art students as they did recruiting international students.

“International students have money, and artists don’t.”

The enrolment decline follows a decision made by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) to cut the number of international students that post-secondary institutions can admit. The cuts were first introduced in 2023, but were further reduced last year. IRCC also introduced new restrictions on post-graduate work permit applications.

These cuts have drastically affected international student enrolment at the college. New international student enrolment dropped by 32 per cent this year with 190 fewer students enrolling than the previous year. Total international enrolment this year was 425 compared to 615 last year.

Before the federal cuts began, there were about 760 international students and about 450 employees at the college.

Post-graduate programming in areas such as business administration and hospitality and tourism were hit the hardest as they are no longer eligible for post-graduate work permits.

The college says it has not cancelled any of these programs at this point, but it has suspended some intakes.

Earlier in 2025, the college projected a 60-to-85-per-cent reduction in international students over the next few years and $9 million in lost revenue. In a recent interview with the Nelson Star, Selkirk president Maggie Matear said they are currently anticipating a $3-4 million budget shortfall.

With the expected enrolment reductions in view, Selkirk College began laying off faculty and staff in February 2025 and offering early retirement or voluntary severance options.

In April, Selkirk College announced it would be closing its Kaslo and Nakusp learning centres, which had seen an average enrolment of just 12-13 students in academic upgrading and development programs.

In October, the college announced it would also close its Kootenay Studio Arts program in Nelson at the end of the academic year. The KSA campus includes the ceramics, textile arts, blacksmithing and metal arts programs. Ten full- and part-time positions will be lost as a result of the closure.

The average enrolment of those programs has been 25. Matear said the small numbers and high instructor-student ratio make the programs unaffordable.

The college says it will save approximately $615,000 per year by closing Kootenay Studio Arts, which doesn’t include other savings on indirect costs such as IT support and maintenance.

To combat the reduction in international enrolment, the college incorporated efforts to increase domestic students in its most recent strategic plans.

Those efforts have begun to pay off with domestic enrolment increasing by 170 students compared to 2024-25. Domestic enrolment for the current year is 1,346 compared to 1,175 last year.

“We’re encouraged by the growth in domestic enrolment,” says Brier Albano, associate vice-president, student success. “Students across our region are recognizing that our programs and transfer pathways lead to the kinds of careers they want.”

These enrolment numbers reflect intakes from April through October. Final annual totals will include winter intakes and be released in the spring.

After a board battle, Boeser got a pass from forward Elias Pettersson and backhanded the winner past Nashville goalie Juuse Saros. It was Boeser’s sixth goal of the season, second of the game and fourth career OT tally.

“I think it’s a huge win for our team,” said Boeser after the game.

Evander Kane also had two goals for the winners (7-7-0), with Jake DeBrusk adding a single. Thatcher Demko made 25 saves to earn the win in goal. Filip Forsberg, Erik Haula, Michael Bunting and Nick Blankenburg replied for the Preds (5-6-3). Saros made 3o saves and took the loss.

BROCK WITH THE BUZZER BEATER pic.twitter.com/B8Mz6qIxen

— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 4, 2025

Forsberg opened the scoring at 6:47 of the first, tapping in his own rebound in front of Demko.

The Canucks pulled even at 14:45, when Kane took a feed from Arshdeep Bains inside the right point and ripped a one-timer past Saros.

Shots after one period were 12-4 in favour of Vancouver.

The Canucks took a 2-1 lead 12:57 into the second, when DeBrusk deflected Boeser’s pass behind Saros on the power play. All three of DeBrusk’s goals this season have come with the man advantage.l

Vancouver upped the lead to 3-1 two minutes later when Boeser scored his fifth of the season, picking up a puck in the slot after a winding foray from rookie Tom Willander. The youngster picked up an assist on the play for his first NHL point.

At 18:45, the Preds pulled within one on Haula’s power-play marker. He took a slot feed from Forsberg and fired a shot high past Demko. It was Haula’s first goal in 10 games and third of the year.

Kane restored the two-goal margin on a delayed penalty at 3:02, knocking in a cross-crease pass from Linus Karlsson to make it 4-2.

With 8:08 remaining, Spencer Stastney’s point shot was directed behind Demko off the foot of Bunting to pull Nashville within 4-3.

Blankenburg pulled Nashville even on the power play at 16:38, with an assist going to Nanaimo’s Matthew Wood.

The Canucks return home Wednesday to host the Chicago Blackhawks (7 p.m.) and then the Columbus Blue Jackets come to B.C. on Saturday (7 p.m.) at Rogers Arena.

NOTES: The Canucks had captain Quinn Hughes back in the lineup after he missed four games with a lower body injury. He had six shots on goal and played more than 28 minutes… Boeser and DeBrusk also had six shots apiece for Vancouver… The Canucks were 2-for-3 on the power play, while the Preds were 2-for-4.

Newborn calf J64, who was first spotted in mid-September, has been declared missing and presumed dead by researchers from Washington-based Center for Whale Research.

The calf’s mother J42, also known as ‘Echo’, was observed travelling with other members of J pod Oct. 23, in Swanson Channel off Mayne Island.

“We found J42 and held the camera trigger down while waiting for J64 to pop up behind her,” said researchers in their report. “Unfortunately, J64 did not surface after J42. We hoped maybe it was nursing or something, but we kept seeing J42 surface repeatedly, and there was no calf with her.

“After a few long dives and still no calf, we had to conclude that J64 did not survive and was now gone.”

Hopes the newborn was playing with other whales, including calves J62 and J63, were also quickly dashed, notes the report.

While J64 is “most likely deceased,” researchers will continue to monitor for the calf in future encounters, as their standard protocol is to consider an individual dead after three consecutive encounters without the whale present.

“However, unlike adult whales, which may travel a significant distance from other whales for extended periods, we would not expect a newborn to be on its own for any length of time,” researchers said.

The newborn was J42’s first confirmed calf. According to the Center for Whale Research, mortality rates for young calves, especially those born to first-time mothers, are incredibly high in the southern resident population.

“Poor nutritional status and the transfer of toxins from mother to calf during gestation and lactation are key factors,” they said. “Southern residents need healthy, abundant chinook salmon populations to sustain themselves and the calves they raise if this population is to survive.”

News of the calf’s likely death comes only weeks after the Center for Whale Research released the results of its 2025 census study.

As of July 1, the southern resident population stood at 74, up just one from last year’s 73.

During the census period, one adult male known as K26 – missing since the summer of 2024 – was confirmed dead. Four births were also documented across the year – three in J pod, and one in L pod. Of those four, only two females, J62 and J63, survived to the July 1 census.

Born after the census period, J64 was not included in the count.

The low-scoring final was a nail-biter, and fourth-overall meeting on the season between UVic and UBC. The Vikes had beat the Thunderbirds in all of those occasions, including a 18-17 win in the Canada West final on Oct. 19.

But, on Nov. 2, the host Thunderbirds got the upper-hand.

In the dying seconds, Claremont Secondary School graduate Adia Pye scored the game-winning try for UBC, sealing the Vikes’ fate.

The crowd goes wild! Adia Pye scores a breathtaking try, putting UBC ahead!

La foule est en délire!Adia Pye marque un essai époustouflant, mettre @ubctbirds avant !

Watch live Regardez en direct : https://t.co/B2EnlWxShC

UBC: 15
UVic: 13#ChaseTheGlory | #ViserHaut pic.twitter.com/j2BVYfIOlR

— U SPORTS Rugby (@USPORTS_Rugby) November 3, 2025

“I want to start off by saying that UVic are an absolutely outstanding team,” said UBC head coach Dean Murten. “They’ve got some world-class players, they’re well-coached, they’re aggressive defensively and knew it was going to come down to the wire, but not the last play of the game, absolutely not.”

The Vikes entered the tournament with strong credentials, coming in as the number one ranked team in the country.

On the individual side, Olympic silver medalist, Carissa Norsten was named U Sports player of the year, while head coach Brittany Waters received U Sports coach of the year.

“She comes to practice early, she works as hard as anyone in this league,” Waters said before the tournament. “You often see the superstars get the recognition, and with this one, it really is so well-deserved. She’s a leader for our group in more ways than one.”

Norsten, along with Olivia Newsome, Justine Blatt-Janmaat, Emily Findlay and Sierra Gillis, earned spots on the tournament all-star team.

Victoria opened the U Sports Final 8 tournament with a 41-8 victory over the University of Ottawa, followed by a 42-0 semifinal win against the University of Guelph.

The federal agency announced on Facebook Nov. 3 that East Rogers — which flanks both the north and south side of the Trans-Canada Highway east of Rogers Pass — will close Thursday to Saturday, Nov. 6 to 8, as 105-millimetre artillery pieces perform a verification shoot.

This shoot, done by reserve military units dispatching six to 10 shells from each position, confirms the howitzers are hitting their targets accurately. This will ensure that the CAF will be able to strike and displace potential avalanches anywhere along the Highway 1 corridor this winter in a precise and timely fashion.

“This program protects highway and railway traffic from natural avalanches,” Parks Canada explained, emphasizing that the CAF’s avalanche control isn’t meant to make slopes safer for skiers and snowboarders. “There are 270 predetermined targets across 135 avalanche paths that can affect the transportation corridor.”

Effective this Sunday, Nov. 9, East Rogers will be available once again for backcountry users to freely explore, with the area not switching to an enforced restricted winter area for another week.

“Anyone travelling into avalanche terrain should have the proper training, skills and equipment to assess the conditions and terrain, and self-rescue,” Parks Canada added.

Glacier’s winte permit season kicks off the following Sunday, Nov. 15. New for the 2025-26 season, all backcountry users must complete a Parks Canada avalanche safety quiz and possess a free day or annual winter permit — even if parking and venturing in unrestricted zones.

To learn more or apply for an annual winter permit, visit parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/glacier/visit/hiver-winter/ski.

In an announcement on Nov. 3, the Government of British Columbia said it has appointed Megan Olson to the judiciary in Smithers.

Olson has long-standing connections to the Smithers community, with a history of collaborating with First Nations in the region and a connection to the Gitxsan First Nation.

Since 2018, Olson has been a managing lawyer at the Parents Legal Centre (PLC) in Smithers.

“In Smithers at the PLC, we focus on building strong relationships with our clients,” Olson, said. “This creates trust for them to keep moving forward and strengthen their families. The majority of our clients come to us during one of the most difficult moments of their life. Our purpose to be here is to help them through this process in a supportive, positive manner.”

Before the PLC, from 2008 to 2013, Olson practiced criminal defence law and had related experience in Indigenous law.

In 2017, she also became an accredited family mediator.

Her appointment is effective Nov. 24.

The first day of what is scheduled to be a 19-day second-degree murder trial for Brandon Davina began in Kelowna Supreme Court on Nov. 3.

Davina is accused of killing Brianna Jankauskas the evening of Aug. 21, 2023, after the pair had gone on a date. Davina has pleaded not guilty.

The trial started with opening statements from the Crown, stating that Jankauskas suffered multiple blows to the head the evening of Aug. 21, 2023 and died in hospital shortly after midnight the following day.

Crown counsel stated they would be calling 15 witnesses to the stand, the majority of whom are members of the RCMP.

The first witness to take the stand was the emergency medical calltaker, Ms. Rowell, who answered the 911 call that Davina allegedly made to report the attack on his date.

In audio played for the court, the calltaker can be heard answering the call and confirming the address of the report as 337 Hardy Road. Rowell then attempts to confirm the phone number of the caller in case they get disconnected, but the caller does not respond. The caller can be heard telling Rowell that someone was on his couch and dying before the call was dropped.

The calltaker testified she called the number back, but there was no answer. The calltaker then reached out to the service provider tied to the phone number to receive subscriber information. The dispatcher told the court the number the 911 call was made from was registered to a Brandon Davina, and the listed address on file was the same address provided by the caller.

Next to take the witness stand was the first responding RCMP officer, Const. Véronique Boudreault.

The officer testified she was called to assist Emergency Health Services at 337 Hardy Road at 9:37 p.m. on Aug. 21, 2023. Upon arrival, Boudreault said she knocked on the front door of the house multiple times with no response.

After knocking several times and trying to reach the 911 caller with the phone number provided by dispatch, and still getting no response, Boudreault stated she searched for a window to get a visual of the inside of the home. At this time, she observed a person on the couch in what appeared to be a living room.

The officer knocked again, and with no response from the individual inside, Boudreault tried the lock on the back door of the home, finding it unlocked, and gained access.

“I could see a lot of blood,” Boudreault told the court, stating she was able to determine the person on the couch was female and appeared to be bleeding from the head.

Boudreault contacted dispatch to alert them to a female in critical condition at the Hardy Road property, then pulled out her firearm to clear the house and ensure no one was hiding inside.

The officer told the court there was blood on the couch, a blood “splat” on the wall behind the female victim, and blood on the kitchen counter. Also on the counter was the driver’s license , which the officer confirmed matched the female victim. The name on the identification was that of Jankauskas.

Davina’s trial is expected to continue through the month with scheduled trial dates until Nov. 28.

None of the accusations has been proven in court.

On Thursday, Oct. 30, the two police agencies announced the seizure of 4,300 litres of precursor chemicals coming from China, found in a pair of marine containers destined for Calgary, Alberta.

The containers were examined on May 13 and 15 after being flagged and referred to border services officers by CBSA Pacific Region intelligence personnel working in the National Targeting Centre.

Within the containers, CBSA officers found 60 clear jugs and 20 blue drums containing 3,600 litre of 1,4-butanediol, a precursor for gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB, also known as the “date-rape drug”); 500 litres of popionyl chloride, a fentanyl precursor; and 200 litres of gamma butyrolactone (GBL), also a “date-rape” drug as it metabolizes into GHB once ingested.

“This seizure demonstrates the important role our border services officers and intelligence personnel play to keep our communities safe. We will continue to work closely with the RCMP to target those who attempt to smuggle fentanyl and other dangerous substances into Canada,” Nina Patel, CBSA’s regional director general for the Pacific Region, said in a press release.

RCMP assistant commissioner Lisa Moreland, regional commander of federal policing for the Northwest Region, said joint efforts like the May seizures “help reduce the risks posed by toxic drugs and support broader public safety goals.”

“Strong collaboration is key to protecting the health and well-being of Canadians.”

The investigation is ongoing, and to date no one has been arrested or charged.