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245 THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2008 nationalpost.com Residents, councillor spar near blast site Augimeri tells local activist to 'shut up' BY ZOSIA BIELSKI TORONTO Tensions boiled over in the neighbourhood devastated by Sunday's propane depot explosion after the local councillor told one of her constituents to "shut up" on live television, a block away from the disaster site. Maria Augimeri reacted angrily after she was confronted by Tony Di Santo, a local ratepayers' association chief who demanded to know why the councillor had scheduled a public information meeting at the same time as his planned before the councillor's for this evening at a local church. "If people have problems of a partisan nature they should not use a death of a firefighter or anything associated with the disaster to deal with it!" she yelled. "So shut up!" "You're trying to split the community," Mr. Di Santo snapped back, later saying, "I felt like slapping her, but I wouldn't do that." Ms.

Augimeri later said she has a long history of conflict with Mr. Di Santo. The news conference intended to update the media on the latest developments was the city's first briefing in the neighbourhood. Until now, officials had only held meetings at City Hall that featured much praise of the government response to the explosions. The incident yesterday was the culmination of days frustration for local residents: Some have yet to return to their homes, and all have seen the city and provincial governments deflect blame on the question of why a propane plant was permitted in their residential neighbourhood.

Locals surrounded the media huddle as officials calmly announced that like shards of asbestos had "spewed out into the community" in the explosion's massive plume. Associate medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe instructed residents to wash their homegrown fruits and vegetables with soap and water and be "proactive" about "looking on their own" for the crumbly asbestos. Along with an asbestos expert, Dr. Yaffe reassured residents that only long-term exposure to asbestos could cause cancer.

But the assurances only angered attendees, who demanded to know why a nearby daycare had reopened on Tuesday, and how it was that their children were allowed in the playground. See RESIDENTS on Page A8 Class action in works, A8 'HEINOUS ATTACK' CANADIAN AID WORKERS Jackie Kirk of Outremont, was her return home this fall. She and the dead in a Taliban strike on two set to secure a professorship at Shirley Case of Williams Lake, B.C., International Rescue Committee FOUR DEAD IN AMBUSH Targeted women devoted to humanitarian aid BY SCOTT DEVEAU at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan AND LINDA NGUYEN Three female foreign aid workers, including two Canadians, were slain in a "senseless, heinous attack" by Taliban insurgents south of Kabul, a senior official of the aid agency said yesterday. The women and their Afghan driver died in a hail of bullets around 10:30 a.m. local time in a brazen attack in Logar province, southeast of Kabul.

A second Afghan driver was critically wounded and remains in hospital. The province's deputy police chief, Abdul Majid Latifi, said Taliban insurgents ambushed the two clearly marked vehicles that were carrying the workers on a metre stretch of road between Lean green enviro machines. It's create simple. bee You pollinator buy any habitats Vespa, to and Improve we the environment. We'll also offset the estimated greenhousa gas emissions that your Vespa produces in its first three years.

envirovespa.com COMMENT You get what you pay for But be patient, Canada it gets better from here MARK SPECTOR in Beijing A in re a we knot going over to get this our again, shirts Canada? We know that back home, Canadians aren't expecting miracles. But some medals would be nice, wouldn't they? But tell me that, back home, we're not asking each other again, "Why are we so bad at the Olympics?" If we are, then here's something else you may have heard before: You get what you pay for at the Olympics. Medals don't fall out of trees not at the Summer Games. They come through sheer volume of legitimate medal chances, and the countries with the most darts come away with the most hardware. Here's the deal: We could be the New York Yankees, and show up here with a far greater percentage of athletes who are capable of winning not just competing at this level.

But it will come out of your tax dollars. Or we can be the Vancouver Canucks. It's a cheaper alternative, when you consider all that money you're going to save on champagne and tickertape. "I've been cheering the Vancouver Canucks for how long? And they still have never won a Stanley Cup," said swimmer Brent Hayden, whose team had been shut out heading into last night, with breaststroker Mike Brown the best hope to end the drought. "I still love them, and I hope Canadians can still think of us the same way." You have to buy the right to have high expectations of your Olympic athletes, and right now Canadians are paying Stubby Clapp dollars and expecting Alex Rodriguez production.

The early results? After 1 five days of competition, our batting average was still .000. See DROUGHT on Page A6 The elusive Olympic medal. COURTESY ANDREW KIRK McGill University on below, were among vehicles yesterday. Totally committed to the workin Afghanistan' FRIENDS MOURN LOSS BY KATIE ROOK Gardez and Kabul. He said the attackers broke the windows of the vehicles and then shot the workers at close range.

"There were signs of about 10 bullets on the vehicle but more bullets on the body of the victims. They were hit by dozens of bullets," he said. "We don't know yet how many men carried out the attack." Jackie Kirk, 40, of Outremont, and Shirley Case, 30, of Williams Lake, B.C., were killed in the ambush. Andrew Kirk learned of his wife's death early yesterday. See TALIBAN on Page A4 FACEBOOK The papers appointing Jackie Kirk as an adjunct professor at McGill University were waiting to be signed when school officials yesterday learned the research fellow had been killed in an ambush in Afghanistan.

Jamshid Beheshti, an interim dean with the faculty of education, said he expects the school will posthumously award Ms. Kirk the professorship that would have allowed her to lecture and teach in the fall. "It is a great loss, of course. It's a tragedy. We all feel very, very sorry about this," Mr.

Beheshti said. Ms. Kirk had been working with the aid organization International Rescue Committee since 2004, and was one of three aid workers fatally wounded by armed gunmen who poured dozens of bullets into two clearly marked vehicles yesterday. See WORKERS on Page A4.