Times Colonist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • 6

A6 THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010 BRITISH COLUMBIA timescolonist.com TIMES COLONIST MIKE BLAKE, REUTERS Fans wave Canadian flags at February's Olympic Games. By 2036, the country's population could hit nearly 48 million people, StatsCan projects. B.C. to be fastest-growing province: report I Population could reach seven million by 2036, with one out of four a senior Drunk driver gets 5 years in fatal crash Canwest News Service SALMON ARM A 42-year-old British Columbia man with a history of drunk-driving convictions has been sentenced to five years in jail for his role in a 2007 crash that killed a Kitimat woman on her daughter's birthday. Andrew Peel was sentenced Tuesday in Salmon Arm provincial court for impaired driving causing death and impaired driving causing bodily harm for the crash that killed 53-year-old Brenda Good, a mother of four.

Peel's blood-alcohol level was four times the legal limit when his Ford Explorer crossed the centre line just outside of Salmon Arm the night of Aug. 15,2007 colliding head-on with the Honda van driven by Norman Good, Brenda's husband. Brenda was killed while Norman and their daughter Janelle, who was celebrating her 11th birthday, were seriously injured. Newfoundland and Labrador is projected to be Canada's oldest province by 2036, with a median age of 50 and 30 per cent of its population older than 65. Manitoba will be the youngest, with a median age of 42 and 22 per cent of its population older than 65.

The projection says the Canadian population will reach more than 43.8 million in 2036 up from 33.7 million in 2009 if the population continues a medium-growth trend. A high-growth scenario again depending on immigration, fertility rates and life spans, would see Canada's population could jump to nearly 47.7 million, StatsCan says. the third-largest province, behind Ontario and Quebec. But its proportion of the national population would rise slightly, from 13.2 per cent today to around 14.5 per cent in 2036. Like all provinces in the country, B.C's population will also age significantly over the next quarter century as the baby boomers enter retirement.

By 2036, senior citizens will make up roughly 25 per cent of B.C's population, up from just 14 per cent today. The province's median age will rise from 40 to 45, the report projects. That places B.C. pretty close to the national average so far as agirtg goes. ios, B.C.

would be the fastest-growing province in the country. A high-growth scenario would mean B.C's population will rise 56 per cent over the next 25 years, to seven million people. That's well ahead of both second-place Ontario at 49 per cent and the national average at 41 per cent. Under a low-growth scenario, B.C's population would rise 30 per cent to 5.8 million. But that still places it well ahead of both second-place Ontario (24 per cent) and the national average (19 per cent).

Even under the most aggressive population projections, B.C. would remain ing it the third-largest province after Ontario and Quebec. How the province, and the nation, grow over the next quarter-century will depend on such factors as immigration levels, fertility rates and life expectancy. The StatsCan report says B.C's population could rise to anywhere between 5.8 milhon and seven million residents depending on whether the country experiences low, medium or high population growth over the next two decades. Under all three scenar CHAD SKELTON Canwest News Service Vancouver B.C's population will grow faster than any other province in Canada over the next 25 years potentially reaching seven million by the year 2036 according to projections released yesterday by Statistics Canada.

And it will be a much older province than it is today, with almost a quarter of its residents older than 65. There are currently 4.5 million people in B.C., mak jMS) I.III.HII I. Mil S. 1 i'" i 1 mmk I MAY 29 MAY 27 MAY 28 HANDOUT CANWEST NEWS SERVICE James Lunney: "It's Sheila Fraser: Could be spent on serving the granted greater access people." to MPs' expenses. Island MP unapologetic about high expense bill AT ALL VANCOUVER ISLAND LOCATIONS Pysh, Pull rLAFJA lJ (TRADE VALUE) Canwest News Service NANAIMO Nanaimo-Alberni MP James Lunney makes no apologies for being among the top-spending MPs in Canada.

Lunney said the distance between his riding and Ottawa, and the large size of the constituency, were both major factors behind the $564,728 he charged in expenses in 2008-2009. That was the fifth-largest bill of the 312 MPs that year, according to the most recently available Individual Members' Expenditures report. The average annual spending for MPs for the year on office, travel and supply costs was $432,728. "My spending is well within my parliamentary budgets and it's spent on serving the people within my riding," said Lunney, a backbencher. The Conservative MP spent $169,935 on travel between the riding and Ottawa over the year.

He said he regularly flies business class because he works en route and needs the extra space to allow him to work on sometimes confidential material on his laptop computer. MPs have faced a barrage of criticism from newspaper editorials, talk shows and online blogs since a secretive all-party committee denied a request by auditor general Sheila Fraser to examine more than $500 million in spending by the House of Commons, spending which includes about $90 million in expenses claimed by MPs to operate their Parliament Hill and constituency offices, for MP travel, and for other items such as advertising and telecommunications. But the federal Conservatives say they have a new plan to allow Fraser to conduct money-for-value audits with respect to MPs' expenses. Jay Hill, the government house leader, said the plan was agreed to by the Conservative caucus yesterday morning and that he will now ask MPs from other parties to sign on to that plan. "The objective of the proposal will obviously be to ensure even greater transparency than we've had in the past and to ensure the concerns expressed by the auditor general herself," Hill said.

Hill would not provide specifics about the proposal until he discusses it with leaders of the other parties. VGQ 300 VEHICLES IN STOCK i TO SEL SEL PRICE (ySy BAD CREDIT" imwrnwiWiV Mi' Pair charged in stabbing death FORT ST. JOHN A convicted drug dealer has been charged with murdering a father from Fort. St. John.

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