PC Party to take stand against drugs

Caption: From left, Myles MacKinnon, Shirley Anne Campbell, Leader Olive Crane and Merlin Cormier of the P.E.I. Progressive Conservative party stand outside Three Oaks Senior High school Friday afternoon before a press conference where the Conservatives announce programs for youth addiction.

Island Progressive Conservatives say yes to addiction treatment

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

The Progressive Conservative Party in P.E.I. is committed to battling youth addictions, said Party Leader Olive Crane Friday at a press conference in Summerside at Three Oaks Senior High School.

The party announced a three-part platform aimed to help families with kids struggling with addictions.

The three programs in the party’s stand to address youth addictions including establishing a residential youth addictions facility on P.E.I., reinstating and investing drug prevention programs such as DARE, SAVE and Peer Education and creating a community fund to enhance community addictions treatments and prevention programming.

Provincial PC Candidates Myles MacKinnon, Shirley Anne Cameron and Merlin Cormier were also there for the event.

Crane said talking to families, drug prevention and rehabilitation is a big concern.

“For the last several weeks and months we’ve had our candidates out on the door step listening to Islanders,” she said. “One of the big issues that continually come up is the issue with youth addictions and how it’s impacting on the individual and their family and our entire communities.”

She said the province has been lacking a youth rehabilitation facility for too long.

“Right now what we’re committed to is a residential treatment facility. There’s a lot of work to be done to determine the best location, the best model of treatment.”

Crane used the Portage Residential Centre in Cassidy Lake, N.B., which offers up to a year for treatment, as an example of what she would like to see.

“Right now in the province we do have a day treatment program for young people, but this is a 24-hour seven days a week residential program many addicts themselves and their families have been asking for,” she said. “When you get to do this, we have to do it right.”

Shirley Anne Cameron, who’s teaching resume includes Athena Consolidated School and Three Oaks Senior High school, said the approach is critical in her experiences.

“They deserve this and we really need to make this happen for them to give them a fighting chance against addictions.”

STRONG MAN

CAPTION: John MacDonald lifts a Honda Civic Thursday night at the new Evangeline Recreation Centre during the P.E.I. Men’s 230-Pound Strongman Competition. MacDonald eventually won the event.

CAPTION: Ashley Profitt picks up two gas cans on her way to the finish line at the P.E.I. Ladies Strength and Fitness Championships Thursday night at the new Evangeline Recreation Centre. Profitt eventually won the event.

John MacDonald wins P.E.I. Men’s 230-Pound Strongman Champshionship

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

John MacDonald defeated Terry MacKay in a tie-breaker tug-of-war competition to become the P.E.I. Men’s Under 230- Pound Strongman Championship winner Thursday night at the new Evangeline Recreation Centre.

MacDonald, of York P.E.I. and MacKay, of Bridgewater, N.S. and reigning two time champion of the competition, were tied on the leader board after four events that seen them pulling tractors 50 feet, flipping tractor tires, lifting a car and a medley race lifting a log, a large rock, a keg and a cement weighted lobster trap.

The men then faced off in a tug of war to determine the winner, something MacDonald says he was intimidated by.

“‘I suck at tug-of-war,’ that’s what was going through my head,” he said. “I was kind of hoping we’d go for a pose down or a push-up competition, but tug-of-war it was.”

Third place finisher for the event was Summerside resident Allie Gallant.

MacDonald felt pretty good about his win Thursday night.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen. I don’t really train the strongman that often. I was just hoping to come out and have some fun and winning was a big plus.”

The natural power lifter said the dead lifting the car was the hardest event of the night for him.

“I got in the wrong position, kind of on my toes for it and hanging on for dear life,” he said. “(Dead lifting) is something I train everyday but it’s totally different when you’re lifting those kinds of implements and holding it there all day long.”

MacDonald wasn’t the only winner of the night.

Ashley Profitt took home the P.E.I. Ladies Strength and Fitness Championships crown, beating out her closest competitor by only a few tenths of a second.

“It was pretty intense, I knew I was going to be close,” she said. “It was scary too, I knew I was going to do not bad but I wasn’t expecting to be first, that’s for sure.”

The 23-year old Lot 16 native said she was happy to have won.

“I worked hard to get here and stuff. I did a major weight loss since last August so it was kind of a, ‘Good job Ashley, you’re going in the right direction,’” she said. “It tells me I can do whatever I want if I put my mind to it.”

Profitt beat out second place finisher Rachelle Arsenault and third place finisher for the title.

Evangeline Rec Centre set to host first event

Evangeline Recreational Centre set to host first event

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

In April 2010, the Evangeline community was struck hard as the Evangeline Recreational Centre burned down.

Thursday will help repair it, as only five months since construction began the first event in the newly built Evangeline Recreational Centre will be held as a part of the community’s Acadian festival.

The 400- seat centre, complete with a National Hockey League sized ice surface and a full work out gym, will be hosting the festival’s Strongman/ Women’s strength and fitness competition at 7:30 p.m.

Cedric Gallant, Evangeline Recreational Centre manager, was quite excited to be able to unveil it to the public Thursday.

“(It feels) unbelievable. It’s going to be so great to see people walk into this building and just look their faces saying, ‘Wow.” It’s going to be awesome, great.”

Gallant said people avoided coming in while construction was going on so they could just see the finished product.

“Definitely everybody will be pleased. Our old rink was great, but everything is brand new and that type of thing,” he said. “Their reaction is the main thing and they’re just going to love it.”

Gallant said though the old rink burning down was a “heart wrenching experience” it’ll be heartwarming to have the new one open.

“There’s always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The way the community got together with this and the fundraising that they did was just amazing. It’s their building.”

The complex is 95 per cent done with only minor details needing to be finished, like glass, boards and the ice for the ice surface and seats. Though they were on schedule, Gallant said they still had to scramble to finish a few things.

“Everything has been going smoothly but the last couple of days we may have scrambled a bit,” he said. “But everyone here has been working hard.”

Gallant said when he walks in tomorrow night with the Evangeline Recreational Centre filled he will be very emotional.

“It’s just because the old rink wasn’t supposed to burn but it did and now the new rink wasn’t supposed to be here yet, maybe another year or so, but everything went so quick and so fast,” he said. “We went from being very, very sad to being very, very oh my God type of thing. It’s going to be very emotional all weekend here.”

Elvis Burned

Police recovered a burning Elvis behind Elm Street School Thursday afternoon, said Summerside Police Service Sgt. Barry Arsenault.

At 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon police responded to a call from the janitorial staff of Elm Street school reporting a burning scarecrow behind the building in the playground area.

Upon arriving at the scene, Summerside police recovered the charred remains of who they suspected to be Elvis.

Friday morning blue suede shoes and a wig were recovered in the grass and surrounding area.

The Summerside Police Service is in the process of obtaining the video from the school’s outdoor cameras. 

GW

Summerside native spends summer cleaning city

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

Graffiti met a new enemy in mid-July. After discussing the idea with his mother, a Summerside native left his house riding a bicycle, dressed in a bike helmet, dark sweater, heavy rubber gloves, backpack to carry his tools and wireless headphones to listen to music, leaving a streak of clean signs and mailboxes behind him, five to be exact.

The Graffiti Warrior was born.

“I can get a sign done in two minutes roughly,” he said. “I’ve done a whole box, one of those grey Canada Post boxes, it usually takes me three minutes.”

The graffiti washing vigilante has been doing this since the beginning of the summer, now doing roughly 10 signs a morning, getting up at 5 a.m. to use his tools, industrial paint thinner, a plastic brush, a rubber wheel and a wireless power drill on stop signs, mailboxes and various publicly owned property littered with graffiti.

“If I see a sign, I can spot the ink just by looking at it, the ink I can take off just with thinner, and I know the thinner doesn’t hurt the sign, cosmetically or structurally,” said the Graffiti Warrior, who’s pseudonym came from close friends who know his identity.

It all began with his travels all over the world. After being impressed by one city in particular and its cleanliness he became inspired to do something about his hometown but didn’t know how.

Back at home in Summerside, one day at work, he discovered a work to have been vandalized with spray. Deciding to clean it, he grabbed the paint thinner and was shocked at how easily it came off.

That was when it came to him. How easy would it be to clean his own neighbourhood of the vandalism that covers it?

After his initial foray into the world of graffiti clean up went well, it became a regular thing, waking up at about five in the morning and working on cleaning graffiti-laden public property until six, taking on street at a time.

He estimates to have cleaned about 100 items in his work period and all the pictures of before and after are on his blog.

But with great power (or cleaning supplies) comes great responsibility.

The Graffiti Warrior has received plenty of threats, some of which can be violent.

“I’m not trying to aggravate (graffiti artists),” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll understand. They’re free thinkers, you can tell by their writing, I’m just hoping they’ll have respect for me. They’ll see what I’m doing and say, ‘Hey, the guy has got guts.’”

But not all reviews have been bad. Recently the Graffiti Warrior has spent some afternoons cleaning up and has been greeted by locals.

“They immediately know I’m cleaning signs,” he said. “They say, ‘Oh, you’re working for the city right?’ ‘No just volunteering,’ (he responds). A lot of them say ‘neighbourhood hero’ and stuff,” he laughed. “All the locals I’ve talked to have encouraged me.”

From his experiences this summer he has learned two things.

“If you’re going to start something, you got to finish it,” he said. “The second thing I learned that whatever you do, someone’s going to give you some bull over it, you know, try to push you around and give you some flak. But just take your guard and stand up.”

All in all he has no regrets, but hopes he inspired people to help keep their city clean.

“Hopefully I’ll have a better effect on people than bad,” he said. “I was hoping other people would here what I’ve done and start doing it themselves. Start doing a little bit of cleaning.”

Safe Boxing

Former Boxer says boxing still safe

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

Boxing is no more dangerous than any other sport, says former pro boxer Joe Borden.

In a press release on Monday the Canadian Paediatric Society, along with the American Academy of Paediatrics, have advised against allowing children and teens to participate in the sport of boxing.

The release included statistics from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program listing, between 1990 and 2007, boxing as the leading all combat sports in hospitals admissions. In those admissions 58 per cent were because of facial fractures and 25 per cent were sustained closed head injuries, such as concussions.

Claire Leblanc, Canadian Paediatric Society’s chair of Healthy Active Living and Sports Medicine Committee said in the press release that they want children to participate in sports and recreation but not boxing.

“We recommend young people participate in sports where the prime focus is not deliberate blows to the head.”

Borden said that if the sport is well supervised with officials it is safe.

“It’s no more dangerous than anything else,” he said. “I mean you take football, guys end up crippled for life. I strongly belief it’s safe as long as it’s run right.”

Borden also sited boxing’s importance to some community children.

“Back in the old days a lot of kids got in to boxing to keep them off the street and give them a place to go.”

He said he can understand people being worried about the sport.

“When you have people who’ve never been involved in boxing and they’re watching and they say, ‘God, there is a shot to the head and another shot to the head’ and their heart is probably in the right place but you can’t ruin a sport because of what might happen.”

Borden said he thinks problems arise from people who unsafely and improbably run boxing programs.

“When I use to watch boxing on the Olympics, you never saw anybody getting hurt,” he said. “I haven’t seen a lot of serious injuries in boxing over the years.”

He said the sport has evolved to become safe since it’s earlier days, amateur boxing especially.

“Things have changed gloves were made bigger, I remember they use to use eight ounce gloves then they went to 10 ounce gloves, and amateurs use head gear and a special mouth piece and officials are trained better to make sure if a guy gets hit and he looks hurt, it’s up to you if you thought he was hurt you stop the fight.”

Borden said he hates to hear of injuries with kids but thinks the sport is safe.

“If it keeps a kid safe, I’m all for it. But I think the sport itself is mandated to look after the kids with the proper gear and proper officials. And if they have that, I think it’s alright.”

Golf Tourney

CAPTION: Dallas Desjardins makes a putt on the 18-hole at Summerside Golf Course Monday morning where he is the general manager. Desjardins will be taking part in the Atlantic Professional Golf Association’s Tour Championship hosted at the course Sept. 7-8.

Summerside to host Atlantic Professional Golf Association’s tour championship.

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

SUMMERSIDE- The Summerside Golf Course will be this year’s host of the Atlantic Professional Golf Association’s Tour Championship Sept. 7 and 8.

The tournament will see about 45 professional golfers from Atlantic Canada, including Kevin Dugas and Canadian Professional Golf Associations alumni Craig Taylor and Gordie Smith, competing for a purse of $15,000 over the two day stroke play event. Summerside will be represented in the tournament by Summerside Golf Course’s general manager Dallas Desjardins and its head professional Paul Bonefant.

Summerside was chosen to host the event after the original city couldn’t get settled in time. Desjardins who is tour captain volunteered Summerside for the event and received a warm reception to the idea.

“I announced it at our last three day event and everybody seemed really excited to be coming to Summerside.”

The APGA holds two major events each year including the tour championship and the Atlantic Zone challenge, held this year at Kingswood Golf Course in Fredricton, N.B.

Atlantic Region businesses will have a chance to play in the Pro-Am event on Sept. 6, which will see three amateurs paired with one professional.

Desjardins said he was excited to be able to host the tournament in Summerside.

“This is a great feather in our cap. You know, we get to show off how far this course has come in recent years, because in my opinion it is one of the better venues with positioning, playability and challenge,” he said. “People don’t realize how much of a challenge this golf course can be.”

Desjardins said he believes the tournament will be great for the city.

“Hopefully our course and the city can see a little influx of tourists coming in after (the tournament) might not be this year but hopefully next year once they realize this is one of the better places to play on the Island.”
He said though he doesn’t think the home field advantage will be working for him, it will for Bonefant.

“He’s been playing pretty well this year and having home field advantage might get him to put up some great numbers for the other guys to challenge.”

Desjardins said the amount of pros attending the event has been consistent every year.

“We only have 176 golf professionals in Atlantic Canada, so it is usual about 45.”

He said he isn’t too sure what to expect crowd wise, especially being the first week of school for most homes in Summerside.

“If there is people interested in wanting to come out and watch some great golf being played, we will have a big scoreboard up and will have signs following groups to show how well they’re doing.”