Five Pages of Sports starting on A32!

Vol. 9, No. 04 IN THE TIMES

Candidates give opinions

“RIGHT HERE, WRITE NOW” WITH THE LARGEST

CIRCULATION IN EAST CENTRAL ALBERTA

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

FOUR DIE IN ACCIDENT AT MORRIN CORNER

A2

Town Page A4

World No Tobacco Day celebrated A5

DCHS grad winners A14

Starland reviews gravel agreement A9

Drumheller grads win awards A14

Summer Sun & Fun Free Tourist Info Guide & Map Inside A16 News..............................pg A2 Town Page.....................pg A4 Editorial..........................pg A6 Big Valley News.............pg A8 Community Billboard......pg A8 Craigmyle News.............pg A8 Crime and Court............pg A9 Careers........................pg A10 Carbon News...............pg A12 Elnora News.................pg A12 Health News.................pg A13 Kids Korner..................pg A19 Lawn & Garden Time...pg A20 Agriculture News..........pg A21 Entertainment...............pg A22 Homes..........................pg A23 Morrin News.................pg A23 Delia Seniors News.....pg A23 Rockyford News...........pg A24 Standard News.............pg A24 Religion........................pg A24 Business Directory.......pg A25 Classifieds...................pg A26 Hussar News................pg A29 Sports...........................pg A32

Drumheller, Munson and Morrin firefighters responded to this accident at the intersection of Highways 9, 27 and 56 on Sunday, June 3 at 8 a.m. According to Corp. Mark Harrison of the Drumheller RCMP detachment, Drumheller RCMP and Emergency Services responded to a report of a motor vehicle collision at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 56, north of Drumheller. Upon arrival Emergency Services located a car on fire under a tractor trailer unit. The car was heavily damaged and it took emergency crews several hours to extract the car from under the trailer. Emergency Crews located an adult female and three small children in the car, all were deceased. The driver of the tractor trailer unit was taken to the Drumheller Health Centre for treatment. The RCMP Collision Reconstruction Team attended from Calgary to assist in the investigation which is ongoing at this time. A statement from the driver of the tractor trailer indicated the car was traveling south on Highway 56, heading to Drumheller, and did not stop at the intersection, colliding with the semi which was east bound on Highway 9. The car is under the semi truck in this photo. Natalie Margaret Crawford, 27, of Edmonton died at the scene along with her children aged two, five and seven. They were traveling from Edmonton to Drumheller to visit the father of one of the children who is an inmate at the Drumheller Institution. The two other children Valley Times photo by Isabell Fooks had fathers who currently reside in Nova Scotia.

Liberals show PCs lied Liberal Leader Kevin Taft releases documents obtained under FOIPP showing that PCs made commitment to give water to Balzac project By Isabell Fooks Valley Times editor Documents released by Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft in the Alberta Legislature last Tuesday contradict the Premier’s claims that the government has no secret plan to transfer water from the Red Deer River to a controversial horseracing development in Balzac. Taft released more internal government documents which were obtained through a Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPP) request which add to growing evidence that the provincial Tories made a guarantee on water transfer to the proposed mega-mall development and racetrack at Balzac. The Alberta Agriculture documents indicate that $8.3 million was approved for the Balzac mega-mall project under the Municipal Industrial Wastewater Infrastructure for Agricultural Processing Program (MIWAP). Yet official program criteria specify that funding eligibility is restricted to “confirmed agricultural processing investment” and that “projects or

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components of projects constructed in anticipation of future developments will not be funded.” “We have been asking questions all week,” Taft told The Drumheller Valley Times last week. “When you go through these documents as a package, the government has committed millions of dollars. They fully intended to provide the water for it from the Red Deer River without informing the people of the Red Deer River Basin.” Taft added that the Liberals started uncovering the documents last August and discovered that documents from Alberta Finance reveal highlevel support for funding for the Balzac Equine Centre through the new Rural Development Project Fund in July 2006. Taft added that this raises concerns due to the fact that the new fund is supposed to operate at arms-length from the government and that its funding process at the time hadn’t even been announced yet. Alberta Liberal Deputy Leader Dave Taylor questioned this funding. “Is this high-level sup-

port for funding related to the merits of the project, or is it really about, as the documents indicate, a ‘desire to acknowledge the Honourable Shirley McClellan’s past and continued commitment to both the equine industry and the outcomes delivered and planned by Olds College?” Taylor noted that an additional FOIPP request for all Alberta Environment documents relating to Balzac has been repeatedly delayed. “We submitted our FOIPP request almost four months ago and it has already been delayed twice,” Taylor said. “There are 1,700 pages of materials that are being hidden from the public. Is there something in these documents that the government doesn’t want Albertans to see? If not, why are they delaying access to this information until after the upcoming provincial by-election?” Taft added that the Liberals have been able to force the government to delay the awarding of the water license until after the Drumheller-Stettler and Calgary-Elbow by-elections. Continued on Page A2

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