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Wheatland County sends letter of concern to Minister of Health

Wheatland 2021

A draft letter addressed to Minister of Health Jason Copping regarding concerns over a shortage of physicians in rural areas was brought before Wheatland County council for feedback and consideration during the regular Tuesday, November 1 council meeting.
Council directed administration to draft the letter to Minister Copping during the October 18 regular council meeting and requested the letter be brought back in November for further direction.
“I know the Premier has identified it as a top priority, and Minister Copping has done some engagement sessions across Alberta just in terms of recognizing this is part of the crisis in healthcare we’re hearing about,” Wheatland County Reeve Amber Link said during the October meeting.
The letter expresses concerns over the recent loss of full-time physicians in the nearby Town of Strathmore, and the impact this has had on Wheatland County ratepayers.
During the October meeting, Reeve Link acknowledged the lack of primary care and family physicians accepting new patients is pushing some rural Wheatland County residents to access medical care and other services elsewhere, incurring increased travel time and expenses.
Council authorized Reeve Link to sign the letter and for administration to send the letter to Minister Copping.


Man fined for selling uninspected meat

Copy of court

A man from the Three Hills area was fined $2,000 in provincial court in Drumheller on Friday, October 21 for charges under the provincial Meat Inspection Regulation Act.
Iftikhar Hussain appeared before the court alongside Shiraz Mir, who was sworn in as a translator and friend of the court.
The court heard how on July 10, 2022, Three Hills RCMP received a complaint about illegal butchering on Mr. Hussain’s property and some stray animals which had trespassed onto the neighbour’s property.
RCMP recommended the complainant consult with his neighbour before destroying the animals under the Stray Animals Act. The complainant then spoke with Mr. Hussain’s son and other men on the premises who consented for the bulls to be destroyed, and they would collect the remains.
During this interaction, the complainant took video on his cell phone of the slaughter operation which showed animals being slaughtered and their meat being collected in black garbage bags; a woman was also seen in the video collecting money.
Mr. Hussain was previously warned about slaughtering animals without a license and educated on the Meat Inspection Regulation Act.
Upon investigation, it was determined several animals had been slaughtered over the weekend and the meat sold without proper inspection to ensure it was safe for human consumption.
Mr. Hussain pled guilty to the charge of selling, transporting or delivering uninspected meat.
Crown prosecution noted, under the Act, the maximum fine is $10,000; a $2,000 fine was recommended as Mr. Hussain had received previous education on licensing requirements under the Act. Mr. Hussain was given time to pay until October 31, 2023.
The Crown withdrew the remaining charges.

Prisoner, liberator reunited at Newcastle post office

IMG 0400

It was an unlikely reunion around six decades ago, but it was a powerful moment for a man who fought to defend his country, and just as much so for the man he liberated, and it all happened in Newcastle.
James Treanor was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1913, and his father, John, served in World War I with the 9th Battalion Highland Light Infantry. He died on September 26, 1917, in Flanders.
At just nine years of age, James boarded the Mountlaurier, sailed from Glasgow to New Brunswick and was placed on a train on December 22, 1923. He celebrated Christmas alone on the train before he arrived in his new home in Drumheller.
At age 26, he followed in his father’s footsteps and enlisted with the 2nd Field Battery RCA in Calgary in 1939. He served in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe for the duration of the war. He was discharged with the title of Sergeant. He was decorated with the 1939-1945 STAR, the France/Germany Star, the Defense of Britain Medal, the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp and a letter of commendation from Field Marshall B.L. Montgomery.
He saw many things during his service, but one of the most horrific was the liberation of Bergen Belsen. This concentration camp was located in Northern Germany between Hamburg and Hanover. In April 1945, the allied forces entered Bergen Belsen and discovered 60,000 starving and sick prisoners and 13,000 bodies. Despite the efforts, many prisoners died.
After the war, Treanor returned to Drumheller. He married and went to work in the mines. He had two children, Bonnie and Billie, and resided in Newcastle.
His daughter, Bonnie Bellrose, said it was an interesting time growing up in Newcastle. The neighbourhood was made up of squatter homes, and there was a great mixture of different cultures. She can still smell all the cooking and the opera played by her Italian neighbour every Sunday.
“There was a whole different United Nations down there, and all these little towns were like that,” recalls Bellrose.
She recalls one particular day as a grade school student coming home from the Newcastle Cottage School, she found her parents very upset. She learned that her father had just walked to the post office to pick up the mail, and he met one of their neighbours, Walter Malenko, a fellow miner.
“Walter had approached my father and gave him a big bear hug, then with tears streaming down his face shook my father’s hand and thanked him for saving his life,” Bellrose recounts in a written biography of her father.
It turns out Malenko had been a prisoner in Bergen Belsen, and he was one of the prisoners that Treanor’s Unit had liberated.
“Walter told dad he had helped him when he couldn’t help himself and had promised himself that he would never forget his face,” wrote Bellrose.
She shared her story of her father and Malenko in a written collection that accompanies the banners the Drumheller Genealogy Club and Legion have partnered on and are hanging throughout downtown.
At that time just two doors were separating the families recalls Bellrose. Walter and his wife Marian had two children, a boy and a girl. While they were neighbours, they never became close friends. This was around the time the mines in the valley were beginning to close and many miners sought work elsewhere. While they never kept track, it’s quite possible that Malenko could have headed to the Crowsnest Pass or Canmore to continue mining or found work elsewhere.
“I think they were one of the families that went down there because basically, that was all he knew too, just like dad,” said Bellrose.
She recalls that after Bonnie married, she and her husband bought the Malenko family home to start their life.
Treanor stayed with the mine until it closed. He developed black lung and other ailments from mining. He worked as an ambulance attendant and as a gardener at the nursing home before he retired.


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