Health Minister Hugh Flemming says a complete prescription and catastrophic drug program will be in place before the next election in September 2014.

Liberal Health Critic Donald Arseneault says the program could be rolled out sooner than that.

He says the government is dragging its heels to better position the program before the next election.

Flemming says that’s not true.

He says the program will be complex , and it will require time to set it up properly.

In 2002, Charline Manuel was taking her daily walk, when she was struck by a drunk driver.

“A drunk driver came on the sidewalk, hit me from behind.  I flew on top of his truck, but he never stopped.  So, I flew back on the pavement and he kept on going.  I went underneath,  and he dragged me for awhile, ran over my pelvis and my leg and arm and then kept on going.”

Since then , she has undergone 31 surgeries to repair the damage done.  Three of those surgeries were done just recently..  The pain Manuel experiences everyday serves as a constant reminder.

She hopes to help teens understand the dangers of drinking and driving, and speaks to them in schools throughout the province.

“If I can save one life, I always tell myself when I go to schools, if one kid is listening to me and really takes it seriously and I can save one life that’s all I want.”

Most of her speaking engagements have been in French schools across New Brunswick, but she is hoping she can now help in English facilities as well.  She has released an English video that shows what she has gone through since the accident.

Manuel says the students respond very emotionally to her.

“More than half the class are crying.  They’ll come up to me and tell me how they will never drink and drive again.  They even write her letters.  She has hundreds and hundreds of letters from the students.”

Manuel says those students and the letters she receives keep her going every single day.

You can find the video at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150357293096188

The Boston Bruins know nothing can take away the pain of the Boston Marathon bombings that ravaged their city. Still they know that stringing together wins in the NHL post-season is bringing a smile to their sports-crazy home town.

“I think we help it in probably a large way,” Boston coach Claude Julien said Tuesday when asked whether the Bruins’ playoff run can in some small way help heal the city. “Everybody’s looking right now for something to cheer about, to smile about.

“I guess it doesn’t fix the things or the people that’s been lost. That’ll never be fixed. At the same time you’ve got to try and heal. As much as the city itself has been touched by that, so have we as a team. I’ve known that for a long time, that’s all we talked about in the dressing room. It really hit us hard.

“Right now we got to focus on doing our job and trying to stay focused on that so that in the end you hope that you can make that happen. But right now it’s got to be about us before we can even think about that. And if we think about ourselves and the job we need to do, hopefully the rest takes care of itself.”

The April 15 bombings killed three people and injured more than 260.

Two Bruins games were rescheduled in the aftermath of the attack. Julien’s team ended up finishing the season by playing seven games in 11 days. They won just two of them, wobbling into the playoffs mentally and physically exhausted.

After surviving a first-round charge by the Maple Leafs, the Bruins really have been Boston Strong. Monday night’s win over Chicago was the Bruins’ seventh straight at home. The Bruins are 8-2 this post-season at TD Garden, outscoring their opponents 28-17.

And Boston carries a 2-1 lead into Game 4 of the best-of-seven series with the Blackhawks on Wednesday night.

Veteran forward Shawn Thornton, a gritty fourth-liner who is a fan favourite, admitted that trying to relate hockey to a real-life horror was hard.

“It’s tough to talk about,” said the Bruins tough guy. “Just to put that into the same perspective as a hockey game, I think isn’t right either. So it’s a tough question to answer. I’m not going to lie.”

But he hopes the Bruins can make a difference,

“It’s tough to speak for that, but I’m hoping, yeah,” he said. “We come to the rink every day, and we love this city. If it helps, then amazing.”

Thornton called Boston “a small, big city.”

“You get to know a lot of people around here when you stick around. There’s a few of us that live here year-round now. There are good people here. Once you get to know people, they’ll do anything for you. So that helps. Sam Adams too, Harpoon. Good beers.”

Memories of the attack are still raw. A makeshift memorial is still on display at Copley Square and Boston Strong T-shirts are omnipresent.

The Bruins have quietly honoured many whose lives were affected by the bombings.

During the playoffs, their so-called “Fan Banner Captains” have had a Boston Strong theme.

For Game 3, the captains were Rob Rogers, Jenn Rogers, and Jennifer Lemmerman, the siblings of Sean Collier, an MIT Police Officer who was killed in a firefight with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Bomb technicians, victims and their families, and first responders have similarly been honoured.

After the attacks, Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs pledged US$100,000 to The One Fund Boston, the charity established to help families affected by the bombing. The TD Garden, the NHL and the players association pledged $50,000 each.

Carr confirms that he sent an email to his department’s deputy ministers reminding them of the policy before the Trudeau event in February.

Carr says the issue is not about the Liberals or Justin Trudeau, it’s about the laws of New Brunswick. “It’s about protecting the interests of all candidates in all political parties, it’s about protecting the interest of students as well as protecting the interests of taxpayers”, says Carr.

Jody Carr says the government’s policy is clear: teachers can’t bring students to partisan political events _ regardless of which party is involved.
   
But Carr insists it was a school superintendent who made the final decision to cancel the trip in Fredericton.

The week-long visit will focus on the city’s Power Up! program as part of a project to develop an empowerment model that can be shared with women’s groups across the country. 

Janet McLaughlin, a graduate of Power Up! and the current president of the Crescent Valley Tenants Association, says the program gave her the confidence to grow as a person.

“I express it to every woman out there that if you live in one of the priority neighbourhoods, this is a group that can help you and bring you out of the shell you are in and help you speak your voice.”

Power Up! has been nationally recognized for its’ programs by the Status of Women Canada.

Dean Secord says he is pleased to see Saint John’s common council urging the Fundy Regional Service Commission to take a serious look at the policing concept.

He believes regional policing is needed in the greater Saint John area.

“When you start getting a number of police forces doing the same job, the criminals kind of go back and forth and when you look at Saint John, Grand Bay – Westfield and Rothesay Regional area, there’s no reason not to have one regional police force looking after this jurisdiction.”

On Monday, Common council approved a letter supporting regional policing to the Service Commission as the group plans priorities for its’ mandate next week.

Outgoing central bank chief Sergei Ignatiev told lawmakers Wednesday that 173 “one-day firms” smuggled at least 760 billion rubles ($23.5 billion). So-called one-day firms are shell companies that have been a favoured money-laundering technique in Russia.

He said most of the transactions took place between 2010 and 2012, although some dated back to 2008. Ignatiev said he filed a request to police in May in connection with an unspecified ongoing criminal investigation.

Ignatiev, who is to be replaced by presidential economic aide Elvira Nabiullina next month, told the Vedomosti business daily that $49 billion a year is laundered from Russia every year, half from a single criminal group he declined to name.

Police officer Abdi Hassan described the gunfire as “heavy”

A U.N. official said the attack Wednesday is against a building just outside the secure airport compound where all the U.N. agencies are based. The official said she was close to the U.N. compound when the blast occurred but is not inside. She said that U.N. security officers are battling the gunmen.

The U.N. official, who said she could not be quoted by name because she is not the official spokeswoman, said the gunmen had not yet been able to get inside the U.N. compound.

Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said Wednesday the diplomats made the appeal to him in separate recent talks.

The Filipino troops will stay in the region up to Aug. 3, when they need to be replaced by a fresh batch. But del Rosario said the Philippines may withdraw from the peacekeeping mission if no additional safeguards will be put in place to ensure the safety of the Filipinos.

Del Rosario recommended the withdrawal of the Filipinos following two separate abductions of Filipino peacekepers in the Golan Heights.