Top Stories – Mar 24 – New U.P.C.C.

Health Minister Adrian Dix was in Rutland yesterday to announce that a new urgent Primary Care Centre will open in the area this fall. It will be located on Highway 33 West by Rutland Road North, and have family doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, physiotherapists and life-skills workers. When it opens it will operate from 9:30am until 8:30pm, seven days a week.

The comeback of Canadian retail chain Zellers has started with the first 12 of 25 planned locations opening in Ontario and Quebec. They will be located in Hudson’s Bay department stores and feature an assortment of private-label products, including clothing, toys and home and living items. As it stands right now the closest Zeller’s to Kelowna will be in Kamloops.

A family member of residential school survivors says the minimum $55-million price tag for the Pope’s visit to Canada last year feels like another slap in the face for Indigenous people. Indigenous Services Canada earmarked about $30 million of that. They wonder about all the money that could have gone to survivors and healing after about 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools over a century.

The Kelowna RCMP is advising us of an increase in catalytic converter thefts in the Central Okanagan. Since January 1, there have been 78 reported thefts from Lake Country to Peachland. Removing one can be a noisy process, so if you wake up to the sound of power tools and spot a suspicious person underneath a car, call the police.

The Prime Minister’s Office says Justin Trudeau and his wife stayed in a $6,000 per night hotel suite while attending the funeral for Queen Elizabeth. The PMO says hotel prices surged significantly ahead of the funeral, and many London hotels were sold out as 500 heads of state and their delegations descended on the city.

The first four of 13 Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets that Slovakia decided to give Ukraine have been handed over. The warplanes were flown from Slovakia by Ukrainian pilots. The remaining MiGs will be handed over to the Ukrainians in the coming weeks.

Canada’s population was estimated at 39.5 million people January 1, after a growth of just over 1 Million in 2022. That marks the first 12-month period in Canada’s history where population grew by over 1 million people. Stats Can says international migration accounted for 96 percent of the growth.

The only member of the BC Conservative party sitting in the provincial legislature has announced he is running for the leadership. Nechako Lakes’ John Rustad says that he is running because the governing New Democrats won’t listen to voters and, as he puts it, “the so-called official opposition refuses to oppose.”

The provincial government says it is permanently doubling the number of subsidized seats for people who want to train to become veterinarians and practise in the province. It will provide $21.8 million over three years to help students who want to train to be vets at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatchewan. BC has been funding 20 seats… that will jump to 40.

Sports

The Kelowna Rockets wrap up their regular season with two games against the Vancouver Giants. Tonight they are in Langley with the pregame show on 104.7 The Lizard beginning at 7:05. And tomorrow they are back at home with a 7pm face off at Prospera Place.

NHL last night at Rogers Arena the Vancouver Canucks picked up a 7-2 win over San Jose. Next up is a trip to Dallas for a game tomorrow.

The New York Yankees are the most valuable Major League Baseball team at $7.1 Billion, according to Forbes. The Dodgers are next at 4.8 while the Blue Jays are 14th at 2.1 billion.