HELLO SEXY KITTY 2 ence eeeeneeceneeneneeseneenenenneneunenennensld Hello kitty has been making some new friends in the corporate world, including Playboy magazine Furry faces of the law need names Vancouver police are ask- ing students to help name their latest recruits By EDMOND LU neouver police unveiled their Ypoores inductees to the dog squad - two eight-week-old German shepherd puppies.. The police are now asking elementary school kids to come up with names for the two crime fight- ers in training. Starting April 3, the VPD will be tak- ing submissions from all Metro Van- couver elementary schools. Two police dogs were named in a similar way: po- lice dog Nitro in 1997 and Diesel in 2006. The contest runs until April 17, with the winning class to be announced on April 22. The winners of the contest will get a tour of the dog squad headquar- ters, which currently houses 18 active service dogs. The puppies will begin their train- ing, which includes agility and obedi- ence skills, when they are 12 to 18 months old. They have already begun other forms of training to get them comfortable around different people and environments. “The training starts from the time we get them.” said Sgt. Ray Wong. “Training can be as simple as going to the park and doing a little obedience routine. It’s time well invested.” According to Wong the puppies come from a breeder in Saskatchewan who has bred several of the department’s police dogs in the past. oe 4 EDMOND LU photo Const. Sandra Glendinning holds one of the new police dog inductees, an eight-week old pup. Old murder still eludes police Five-years after the body of Wendy Ladner-Beaudry was found, police say “persons of interest” have hindered their investigation By MADELYN FORSYTH ncooperative “persons of inter- est” are hampering the investi- gation of the five-year-old mur- der of Wendy Ladner-Beaudry in Pacific Spirit Park, RCMP say. “There are a high number of persons of interest in this investigation that we are still looking to identify,” Sgt. Jen- nifer Pound of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said at a press con- ference Thursday. “We have yet to lo- cate them and the problem is that when we do locate them some of them aren’t cooperative with the police.” It has been five years since 53-year- old Ladner-Beaudry was found on a popular jogging path of the park. Since & the murder in 2009 there have been hundreds of tips but still no arrests made in the killing of the 53-year-old mother of two. “T can tell you that our priority is to identify the motive, to identify sus- pects and to again, ask for the public’s help to bring information forward,” Pound said before announcing that the case file will be transferred from [HIT to the BC RCMP Major Crime, Special Projects Unit. “TThe] transition is simply because they have the capacity to deal with the enormous amount of work that is still left to be concluded on this file,” Pound said. Also in attendance was Ladner-Be- audry’s brother, Peter Ladner, who thanked IHIT for the hard work done on the investigation. “The family wants closure but we also want to make sure that no one else has to go through the pain and disrup- tion that we have suffered all because someone decided to kill Wendy,” Lad- ner said. “Now that it’s getting this ex- tra attention we are counting for this new effort to bring closure to all of us.” Acting superintendent of the Special Projects Unit Ward Lymburner said the unit is designed for cases like this and a fresh set of eyes will help move it forward. “T know that there is a least one indi- vidual out there that knows what hap- pened to Wendy here five years ago today. At least one,” Lymburner said. 66 I know that there is at least one in- dividual out there that knows what happened to Wendy here five years ago today. Pipeline hearings under fire Many applicants were denied a chance to speak at the upcoming Kinder Morgan pipeline hearings By ASH KELLY tion process for participation in the Trans Mountain Pipeline ex- pansion hearings is being criticized for denying many people the right to speak. The board accepted applications from Jan. 15 to Feb. 12. On Wednesday applicants were granted intervenor status or commentator status. Interve- nors are invited to speak at the hear- ings while commentators may submit their concerns in writing. Of the 2,118 applicants, 400 have been granted intervenor status and 452 com- mentator status. A total of 468 appli- cants have been denied participation outright. Judith Sayers, a professor of law and business at the University of Victoria and a former chief of the Hupacasath First Nation was denied intervenor sta- tus but was granted commentator sta- tus. “Tjust really see that this is all about economic development,” said Sayers. “It’s about getting these projects through as quickly as possible and that’s why they’re limiting the amount of intervenors: so the hearings don’t go on forever.” Christianne Wilhelmson, executive director of the Georgia Strait Alliance, is concerned that the process was un- democratic and denied Canadians the right to have their voices heard. “Essentially they’re telling Canadi- ans we actually don’t really care what you think about this project,” said Wil- helmson. The decisions were made by a panel of three board members. Sarah Kiley, communications officer with the NEB, said the panel looked at each applica- tion individually and made decisions based on clear criteria. If the applica- tions did not address the criteria than they were denied. “They may have addressed things like climate change or oil and tar sands development which are clearly legiti- mate issues, but they’re not issues that are under our mandate nor are they is- sues that we are identifying to be dis- cussed during the hearing,” Kiley said. Green Party MLA Andrew Weaver was accepted to speak as a scientific expert and as a representative of his constituents in Oak Bay-Gordon Head on Vancouver Island. “Some of my colleagues, very fine scientists got rejected because they fo- cused on climate,” Weaver said. Ti: National Energy Board’s selec-