Gros Morne, with its glacier-carved fjords, waterfalls, sandy beaches and spectacular cliffs, is a hiker’s paradise that was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1987.

But there are growing concerns about a proposal by Shoal Point Energy Ltd. (CNSX:SPE) and Black Spruce Exploration, a subsidiary of Foothills Capital Corp., to hunt for oil in shale rock layers in enclaves surrounded by the park.

The plan involves using hydraulic fracturing — the contentious so-called fracking process — to drill several exploration wells on Newfoundland’s west coast in the Green Point shale near Gros Morne.

Fracking injects a blend of water, sand and chemicals underground to crack the rock. The process has coaxed massive amounts of oil and natural gas from shales across North America but has also raised environmental red flags, particularly over its effects on crucial groundwater.

The world heritage committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — or UNESCO — is meeting this week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where Gros Morne was discussed. At stake is the coveted designation reserved for the globe’s most extraordinary treasures.

The committee approved a draft decision late Wednesday which urged the completion of an Environmental Impact Assessment process to review the potential impact of the fracking plan on the park, and asked that a copy of that assessment be submitted to UNESCO.

It also requested Canada to invite a “joint World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission to the property to assess these risks.”

Additionally, the committee also wants, by Feb 1, 2014, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property.

Potential fracking plans have not yet been filed for environmental assessment, but even the prospect of industrialization along one of the world’s most celebrated coastlines has some people worried.

“I’m certainly not anti-development,” said Sue Rendell, owner and operator of Gros Morne Adventures in Norris Point. But she said it’s vital that any new industry be well researched and understood, environmentally safe, and that it blend well with other businesses to benefit the whole region.

“We’ve spent our lives here trying to help build the tourism industry and build a business in this area,” she said. “I recognize that the oil and gas industry has been tremendous for the province.

“I think it’s also very important to have a diversified economy. And we certainly can’t have one industry that’s going to be in direct opposition to another industry.”

Premier Kathy Dunderdale earlier this week acknowledged concerns about the safety of fracking and a lack of specific provincial regulations. She said the environment, along with health and safety, are top priorities for her Progressive Conservative government.

“As a government we don’t have a hard and fast position on it at this point,” she told reporters outside an oil and gas industry conference Tuesday. “We’re learning the same as everybody else is learning, and prepared to have an open dialogue on that.”

Regulatory changes could come later even as the government considers fracking proposals such as the one near Gros Morne, Dunderdale said. Investors want certainty and clarity, she acknowledged.

“But that doesn’t trump the interests or the concerns of the people of the province. So that has to be addressed first.”

Robert Cadigan, president and CEO of the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association, said it’s important to separate fact from fear.

“There have been tens of thousands of wells fracked in Western Canada, just as an example — successfully — with no environmental damage.”

Cadigan said the industry’s track record should be fairly assessed to see what precautions for well design and other safeguards would be needed.

Alison Woodley, of the watchdog group Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said UN world heritage designation for Gros Morne can’t be taken for granted.

“It’s a very strict test that you have to go through to become a world heritage site. It recognizes the outstanding universal value of a place.”

Gros Morne, honoured for its geological importance and pristine beauty, is on par with other UNESCO sites such as the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, Woodley said. It could be de-listed if the world heritage committee ultimately decides that its unique qualities are threatened, she added.

Fracking would pose environmental hazards while increasing truck traffic on the park’s only major road, Woodley said.

“For 30 years people have worked really hard to build a sustainable tourism industry around Gros Morne, based on Gros Morne. And this proposal would put that existing economy at risk.”

North Pacific right whales were once abundant between B.C. and the Bering Sea before they were hunted to near extinction before the 20th century.

They are now listed as endangered in Canada and scientists believe only a few hundred may remain alive, mainly in the western north Pacific.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada says biologist James Pilkington spotted one of the whales west of Haida Gwaii on June 9 while aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Arrow Post.

Pilkington and his fellow biologists John Ford and Graeme Eliis then observed the animal for a total of 17 hours over the next few days as it foraged for zooplankton on the ocean’s surface.

The federal agency says sightings of the whale are rare, and the animal has been recorded in Canadian waters only six times during the past century.

“This is a very exciting discovery. Our research group has conducted over 50,000 kilometres of whale surveys off the B.C. coast over the past 10 years and have sighted thousands of whales, but this is the first North Pacific right whale,” Ford said in a statement.

“It was wonderful to see it and to confirm that the species still exists in Canadian waters.”

The federal government has paid nearly $700,000 at an auction in England to acquire what’s know as the Sherbrooke Collection.

Sir John Coape Sherbrooke served as the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia from 1811 to 1816 and then as governor general of British North America until 1818.

His records from the time have been in his family’s hands almost ever since, though Canadian researchers have had access in the past.

The government says the collection is a remarkable record of political, economic, and military geography and operations in wartime.

The money to buy it came from Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Canadian Heritage department and a private group known as the Friends of Library and Archives Canada.

The Conservative government spent millions promoting and celebrating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 last year, saying it was a cornerstone moment of Canadian history that’s fallen by the wayside in people’s minds.

Heritage Minister James Moore called the acquisition of the collection an example of how the government is investing in making history more accessible to Canadians.

The lot, which includes 80 manuscript and printed maps, 37 letterbooks, original correspondence, one portrait and other unique artifacts, had been for sale via British auction house Bonhams.

The auction catalogue set a price for the collection at between $160,000 to $240,000.

Surrounded by his two sons and daughter, as well as the CEO of Vancouver-based developer Holborn Group, Trump says the $360-million Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver will be an architectural wonder and worth the hefty price.

The 63-storey twisting tower will be built by Holborn Group on city property that was once slated to become a Ritz-Carlton Hotel with residential condos above.

The Trump Tower will have luxury residences and guest rooms, as well as a night club, a champagne lounge, and a boutique spa.

The Trump family will be lending its brand, and will be operating the hotel, but the family will not be investing in the project’s development.

This will be the second Trump International Hotel and Tower to be built in Canada, following the one in Toronto, which opened last April.

Manitoba Family Services confirms that children from the community have been taken into care and are being placed in “culturally sensitive” locations, but would not say how many or reveal any other details.

Two adults have been charged with assault and assault with a weapon against a combined 12 children.

That is in addition to similar charges laid in March against two other adults in the community.

All four are accused of hitting children with objects such as cattle prods and leather whips.

Defence lawyer Scott Newman, who represents the first two people charged, says the case is still in its early stages and he is awaiting more disclosure from the Crown.

Steyer and a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be in the U.S. capital to step up their efforts against Calgary-based TransCanada, a company they accuse of wanting “to reap billions in profits by getting the United States to allow the shipping of dirty tarsands oil across America’s heartland for export to China and beyond while the United States will get very little in return.”

At a news conference at D.C.’s downtown National Press Building, the groups will assert that most of the arguments in favour of constructing the pipeline are no longer valid.

The increasingly toxic relations between TransCanada officials and Steyer were laid bare in a media advisory announcing the event and that Organizing For America, the activist pro-Obama group, had joined their efforts.

“TransCanada lobbyists and PR people must remain in the hall outside,” the release said in capital letters.

Chris LeHane, a spokesman for Steyer, said Wednesday that the atmosphere “has become toxic because we want to stop the toxins from coming into our country.”

Steyer wrote an open letter to Obama earlier this month, just two months after hosting the president at his San Francisco home for a Democratic party fundraiser, urging him to reject the pipeline.

The former hedge fund manager turned climate-change activist warned that his political action committee, NextGen Action, planned to “intensify our efforts in communicating what is the right policy choice to your administration.”

Steyer argued that the B.C. provincial government’s recent decision to oppose Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline had “demolished” a critical argument held up by Keystone supporters, including the U.S. State Department, that Alberta’s oilsands will find a market with or without the controversial TransCanada project.

Enbridge has said it’s working on addressing the B.C. government’s environmental concerns about its pipeline, which would carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to the Pacific Coast, and intends to meet the conditions laid out by provincial officials.

Steyer’s letter, meantime, has resulted in an ongoing war of words with TransCanada.

“Mr. Steyer continues to peddle the false dichotomy between fossil fuels and renewable energy in an attempt to stifle a pragmatic, fact-based debate,” TransCanada blogger Matthew John, a recent hire for the energy giant, wrote shortly after Steyer made his dispatch to Obama public.

“Fortunately the majority of Americans, including President Barack Obama, know that a diverse and robust energy mix leads to greater energy security.”

Steyer fired back last week with a hard-hitting letter to TransCanada CEO Russ Girling taking issue with many of the company’s public proclamations about the benefits of the pipeline while questioning why he’s been so publicly confident that Keystone will be approved.

“I remain extremely confident that we’ll get the green light to build this pipeline,” Girling said late last month.

Steyer said he found that assertion particularly suspicious given it was made in the midst of an increasingly expensive, multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign by TransCanada. He urged Girling to divulge details of the company’s recent lobbying efforts.

“Isn’t it important for the public to understand whether you know something the American people don’t?” Steyer asked in his letter.

Steyer, worth an estimated $1.4 billion, isn’t worried that a rejection of the pipeline will sour diplomatic relations between Canada and the U.S. for years to come, said LeHane.

“Our issue is with TransCanada, a foreign company trying to advance a project we think is bad for our country; it’s certainly not with the Canadian people, and we know that a lot of Canadian citizens themselves are opposed to the tar sands,” he said.

“Let’s put it this way, if we’re watching Canada play the Russians in World Cup hockey, we’re still cheering for the Canadians.”

Along with other wealthy liberals, including Warren Buffet and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the 55-year-old Steyer is viewed by the left as an antidote to the conservative Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch, the billionaires behind Koch Industries, throw their financial muscle behind a range of free-market and conservative causes, and are supporters of Keystone XL.

Steyer and Obama have reportedly had several discussions about Keystone XL as Steyer becomes an increasingly vocal pipeline opponent.

The study, co-written by Toronto SARS expert Dr. Allison McGeer, also hints there may have been a superspreader in this outbreak, with one person infecting at least seven others.

The study lays out what is known about an outbreak of MERS that erupted this spring in four hospitals in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, in an area whose name translated into English can be spelled Al-Ahsa or Al-Hasa (the study uses the second version). It was reported online on Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Superspreaders played a key role amplifying SARS cases during the 2003 outbreak. That, combined with the symptoms patients manifest when they become sick and the long and varied incubation period, paint a picture that is reminiscent of SARS for the authors, several of whom, like McGeer, worked in Toronto to contain that coronavirus.

“This virus is closer to SARS than anything else,” McGeer, an infection control specialist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, said in an interview from Cairo, where she was attending a WHO meeting on MERS on Wednesday. She was also part of a team that went to Saudi Arabia to investigate the outbreak.

“If you want to think about how you’re going to prevent and manage hospital outbreaks, SARS is the place that all of us would start.”

The 2003 SARS outbreak infected more than 8,400 people in 31 countries, killing at least 916. In the main it was an outbreak of hospitals, wreaking its devastation on staff, patients and visitors of facilities in which it spread. MERS and SARS are members of the same viral family.

McGeer said there are some fortunate distinctions — few health-care workers appear to be getting infected with MERS — as well as some worrisome differences. The high attack rate among patients was “pretty unnerving,” she said, as is the fact that it appears people are infectious earlier in their illness than SARS patients were.

SARS cases were contagious mainly late in their illness, which gave health authorities a chance to diagnose and isolate patients before they could make others sick. It can take time to diagnose a disease like SARS or MERS because its symptoms are similar to a number of other illnesses. If MERS is contagious earlier in an infected person’s illness “that’s not good,” McGeer said.

“If it’s true, it’s a real challenge because identifying cases early with either SARS or MERS is really difficult.”

Others too could see similarities to SARS based on the findings of the study.

“Clearly like with SARS the health-care environment is a significant risk factor for ongoing transmission,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert who has been following MERS closely, said after reading the paper. He was not involved in the work.

“It means that unless the index of suspicion is very high and patients are immediately handled with the highest level of infection control, you could surely expect that you’re going to see additional episodes outside of the Middle East like are being seen in the Middle East.”

Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said when cases have arrived undiagnosed in European countries, hospitals there have been relatively quick to figure out what they have on their hands and take measures to protect against spread.

Still, imported cases triggered onward spread in Britain, Italy, Tunisia and France, where transmission took place in a hospital. In all those countries, transmission events ended after a generation or two of spread because of measures taken to isolate patients.

“The issue that we all worry about is what happens if this gets into a country that doesn’t have the same level of infection control capability in a health-care setting and what does that mean?” noted Osterholm.

Saudi Arabia, which is one of four countries from which MERS has spread and which has recorded the lion’s share of cases, draws millions of religious pilgrims each year from around the Muslim world. The kingdom is also host to many guest workers, people from poorer countries like the Philippines and Pakistan drawn to Saudi Arabia for work. Experts have worried both those patterns of movement could disseminate MERS to parts of the world such as Bangladesh, the Philippines and Pakistan.

The study gives details of the first 23 cases in the Al-Hasa outbreak, infections that date from April 1 to May 23. It does not say whether the outbreak in Al-Hasa has ended, and the Saudi ministry of health has been silent on that matter.

The senior author of the New England Journal paper is Dr. Ziad Memish, the kingdom’s deputy health minister. Memish has given few interviews on the topic of MERS and he did not reply to an email from The Canadian Press requesting an interview about the journal article and the Al-Hasa outbreak.

However, in the weeks since May 23, the kingdom’s health ministry has announced 16 additional cases of MERS. The ministry statements, which offer the barest of details, suggest at least 11 of the new cases were from the Eastern Province.

The statements do not say if these new infections are part of the outbreak in the hospitals. Other possibilities are that they are people who caught the virus from its still-unknown source in nature or, potentially, from other infected people outside hospital settings.

McGeer said she does not know if any of the cases reported since May 23 are part of the Al-Hasa outbreak. She also does not know if the outbreak is over, but warned with a disease that has an incubation period as long as MERS — out to nearly 15 days in some cases — it can take a long time to be confident that an outbreak has been stopped.

She could not rule out the possibility that the chains of transmission in this outbreak might now stretch beyond five generations, saying only that it is possible they extend longer. That type of sustained spread suggests the virus has no difficulty going from person to person, at least in the right circumstances.

“I think the hospital exposure is troublesome because that can be a real amplifying event,” said Osterholm. “As we saw with SARS once it was in the hospital … that kind of spread can be really very dynamic.”

McGeer and her fellow authors acknowledged this outbreak may actually have been substantially larger than what it appears to be based on the confirmed cases. Nearly a dozen people were identified as probable cases, based on their exposure histories and their symptoms. They tested negative, but it has been seen elsewhere that some patients only test positive after repeated testing.

“I’m not sure that we effectively identified all of the probable cases outside of the hospital,” McGeer said. “I don’t think it was twice the size. But it was probably larger.”

The data in the study is the first large-scale revelation of what is happening in Saudi Arabia with MERS. Despite ongoing and public pressure from the World Health Organization, the country has shared little information about its MERS problem, leaving many infectious diseases experts to worry about whether a new SARS-like outbreak is brewing in a land that will be hosting millions of religious tourists over the next four or five months.

Osterholm welcomed the release of this information, but noted that the study says nothing about MERS spread in other parts of Saudi Arabia. Since the beginning of April the kingdom has recorded 40 cases, and this report deals with only 23 of them.

“We still have questions on these other cases. And so we just don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

Police say a thief partial to women’s undergarments is believed responsible for a string of burglaries that occurred in Morris-Turnberry and Huron East.

The investigation started with an initial break-in reported to the provincial police in Huron County in September 2001, and climaxed with the most recent theft in January of this year.

Police say 36-year-old Bradley Finlayson, of Huron East, has been charged with five counts of break, enter and theft, and possession of property obtained by crime.

Investigators say they’d like to speak with people in the area who may have had similar articles of clothing stolen.

(CKOT)

Maureen Baker says she has attended several high school reunions with her classmates from the 1950s but felt like an outsider because she never finished school.

Now, the 76-year-old will finally walk across a stage with two other seniors who have become like grandmothers to about a dozen teens who attend the same alternate school.

Baker says her granddaughter graduated from the same program last year and another granddaughter just got her high school diploma in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island.

Math was Baker’s toughest course and English was the easiest because she’s been a lifelong reader.

She says anyone who has regrets about not graduating high school should go for it because life is just too short to pass on something that important.

Both Canadian and American stakeholders and business representatives, many of whom will be in attendance at 501 Pennsylvania Avenue, have been complaining for months about the slow pace of progress on behalf of American officials, and have questioned the U.S. commitment to the two-year-old initiative.

“The majority of the organizational work has been handled by the Canadians, now it’s time to see if the U.S. government is ready to breathe new life into the initiative,” Maryscott Greenwood, head of the Canadian American Business Council and a moderator at the event, said Wednesday.

“The cost of not making progress on RCC is unacceptable to the business community … In this day and age, why would you test and certify products twice for one integrated the North American market?”

Two White House regulatory officials — Andrei Greenawalt and Dominic Mancini — will likely be pressed by stakeholders for reassurances that the Obama administration still considers the RCC a priority and fully backs the council’s work.

The council’s creation, along with the Beyond the Border initiatives, was announced with great fanfare in 2011 by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but White House turnover, among other issues, has hindered progress.

“We’re looking for a commitment along the lines of fully satisfying and executing all the action plans as quickly as possible because the time frames have slipped a little bit,” said Mark Nantais, president of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.

“The tyranny of small differences adds up to many inefficiencies for both government and industry; it adds to our costs and makes us a lot less competitive. The root objective of all this was to improve integrated industries in Canada and the U.S. and thereby enhance our competitiveness. That’s the key here.”

Council officials are expected to assure business representatives on Thursday that they’re taking on a bigger mandate in the weeks to come, initiating a “summer dialogue” on sectors that haven’t yet been dealt with. That’s following pressure from both the Canadian American Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among other stakeholders, to take on a bigger load.

Energy efficiency is on the council’s agenda this summer, says Warrington Ellacott, senior manager of government relations for Whirlpool Canada.

“We’re discussing some challenges facing our sector and using the current regulatory disparity between the Natural Resources Ministry in Canada and the U.S. Energy Department as an example,” he said.

“In the appliance context, both countries used to have very insulated manufacturing and marketplace initiatives but since NAFTA, the manufacturing has predominantly left Canada so that now we’re a major importer of appliances. The game has changed, but the regulatory framework has not.”

Ellacott added that RCC officials are “very interested in the disparities and they see this as an opportunity for change.”

Greenwood added that in times of austerity, cutting regulatory red tape is even more important — a point she hopes to make on Thursday to U.S. officials.

“At a time when governments don’t have enough funding, the efficiencies in Canada-U.S. collaboration can save tens of millions in government regulatory spending, while not sacrificing an iota of consumer safety or environmental protections.”