Inquest leaves family with mixed feelings

Jason Kerr
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Inquest leaves family with mixed feelings

A six-person jury has found the cause of Shauna Wolf’s death to be unknown and the means undetermined, while providing 17 recommendations for preventing similar deaths in the future.

Jurors needed less than four hours to come to their conclusions on Wednesday, as the third and final day of the Wolf inquest wrapped up at the Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench.

The decision brought mixed feelings for Wolf’s family, who were pleased with the recommendations, but saddened that jurors did not find a cause or means of death.

“Obviously the family is disappointed, but they did want me to pass on that they are very happy with the recommendations,” explained Ammy Murray, the lawyer who represented Shauna Wolf’s family at the proceedings. “They’re very happy that there is going to be some action taken within the ministry and within the correctional centre to address people withdrawing from opioids.”

While the findings weren’t exactly what they wanted, Murray said the family did get some closure from the inquiry. Family members were particularly thankful to see the time of death altered from 11:37 p.m. to between 9:15 and 10:15 p.m., when Wolf was still at Pine Grove.

“They did get some closure in the respect that there’s recognition now that Shauna was ill and not enough was done for her,” Murray said. “They also get some closure in hearing the recommendations, in knowing that while they may have lost Shauna, in the future, other women may not be lost.”

Of the 17 recommendations, the biggest involves the medical facilities at Pine Grove. The correctional centre has only two medical cells for a population of around 180 inmates, which was one of several reasons Wolf was moved to the segregation unit the night she died.

For the rest of this story, please see the May 4 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Cause of death difficult to determine

Jason Kerr
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Cause of death difficult to determine

The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Shauna Wolf said he discovered nothing abnormal, a phrase that has become quite common at the inquiry into Wolf’s death.

Dr. Shaun Ladham was one of four witnesses to testify on Tuesday, as day two of the inquiry resumed at the Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench.

Ladham said performed a complete examination, a process that includes searching for symptoms of natural disease to signs of blunt force trauma.

While there were signs of bruising and scratches on Wolf’s body, Ladham said the instances were minor, and may have simply occurred while medical personal performing life-saving measures.

“It wasn’t extensive, and it wasn’t something I thought would have caused death,” Ladham told jury members in reference to one specific bruise that were likely caused during C.P.R.

He also found no instances of natural disease, other than one sign that Wolf may have suffered from pneumonia in the past. However, he said it is unlikely it interfered with her breathing.

Wolf’s heart and other internal organs all appeared to be unaffected by disease or illness.

The entire procedure left Ladham at a loss to explain how Wolf died. When taking drug use into account, he said withdrawal could be a cause but it was difficult to say for sure.

“It was possible that her death was due to an opiate withdrawal,” he told jury members.

The cause of death became the defining issue of the day, especially after another witness testified that Wolf refused medication during a nurses round at 9 p.m.

For the rest of this story, please see the May 3 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

“She was very polite”

Jason Kerr
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“She was very polite”

Witnesses on the first day of the Shauna Wolf inquiry say there was very little out of the ordinary prior to the discovery of her body on Dec. 27, 2015 at Pine Grove Correctional Centre.

A total of seven witnesses took to the stand on Monday, as the public inquest into Wolf’s death began at the Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench. The list included correction workers and medical personnel, who all said Wolf was friendly and personable in the hours leading up to her death.

“Very polite,” said Lisa Nazar, one of four corrections officers to testify on Monday. “(Saying) please and thank you. She was very polite.”

Nazar and co-worker Heidi Huziek were the two corrections officers on duty in the segregation unit, where Wolf was being held that day.

Huziek also took the stand, and said she spoke to and checked in on Wolf on multiple occasions just before her death, but did not notice anything unusual.

Wolf was sitting upright and looked to be breathing, so Huziek took no further precautions.

“In my experience, I’ve seen inmates sleep in some pretty different positions,” she told the inquest.

Both witnesses were very quiet on the stand, with Nazar testifying that she felt “awful” after Wolf was sent to hospital. Shortly after paramedics left, Nazar began cleaning the empty cell, saying she was “on autopilot” at the time. Both testified to receiving counseling to help deal with the incident.

Prior to her death, Wolf was moved to the segregation unit after spending a night under observation in a medical cell. There was some concern she was suffering heroin withdrawal symptoms, although nurse Patricia Marshall, who attended to Wolf on Dec. 25-26, told jurors those symptoms were minimal.

Jurors also heard from Lori Jacobson, a deputy director of operations at Pine Grove at that time. Jacobson said Wolf had confessed to smuggling drugs into the facility, and was facing a penalty of 10 days in segregation.

However, Jacobson also agreed with previous witnesses, saying Wolf was polite and in good spirits prior to her death.

For the rest of this story, please see the May 2 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Focus on the future

Jason Kerr
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Focus on the future

For the last two days Prince Albert has been overflowing with firefighters as the Saskatchewan Association of Fire Chiefs (SAFC) kicked off their annual conference on Thursday.

The event provides a venue for the province’s fire chiefs to network, learn new skills and discuss common issues that crop up in their communities.

Prince Albert Fire Chief Jason Everitt said more than 500 of the province’s fire departments are staffed and run by volunteers, and the conference helps provide them with the skills and technical knowledge they need to be successful.

“We’ve got a lot of new fire chiefs in the province, and the common question is ‘what do I do, where do I go?’” Everitt explained. “That’s the focus of this conference, to try and give them those basic tools where they can go back and hit the ground running in their communities.”

The theme of this year’s conference is “The fire service starts today. Are you ready?” It’s specifically designed to target the grassroots level of training and fire department management that those smaller departments need.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 29 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

City eyes next budget hurdle

Jason Kerr
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City eyes next budget hurdle

With the 2017 Prince Albert city budget officially put to rest, city councillors can now turn their attention to an even bigger monster that needs slaying.

Due to provincial cuts, the city faces a $3.5 million shortfall in 2018, and with preliminary budget discussions already underway, Mayor Greg Dionne says city residents need to be prepared for any number of changes.

“Everything is on the table,” he said during an interview on Friday.

Prince Albert was one of the few Saskatchewan communities not to raise taxes in light of the recent provincial budget, but that could change next year.

Dionne said they want to hold the tax increase at 1.5 per cent for 2018, which would be the same increase city councillors agreed on for this year’s budget. However, he added that there is a possibility for more.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 29 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Down on the farm

Jason Kerr
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Down on the farm

Not every Prince Albert child has the chance to get out to a farm, so this week the Prince Albert Exhibition Association (PAEX) helped bring the farm to them.

Students from more than 20 schools were on hand to learn about everything from growing crops to milking cows to farm safety, as the 2017 Agriculture Education Showcase wrapped up on Thursday.

Nearly 700 local students from Grades 3, 4 and 5 took part in the two-day event, which is designed to help them learn a little bit more about where they get their food.

“So many of them have never been to a farm, have no exposure to any kind of farm,” PAEX Director Tara Kennedy explained. “We want to show them where their food comes from. It’s doesn’t come from a super market, it’s farmers out there working every day to provide them with meals to put on their table.”

For the rest of this story, please see the April 28 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

An unexpected passion

Jason Kerr
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An unexpected passion

Jim Ternier never intended to become a farmer.

Instead, the Humboldt native obtained a degree in Mathematics before heading off to live in Europe. He wasn’t sure what direction his life would take upon returning to Canada, so he settled on one of the things he knew he excelled at: growing vegetables.

“I came home unattached and not knowing what I could do, and a B.A. is not much use to earn a living,” Ternier remembered. “I did know how to garden because I’d been taught by my parents, so I grew vegetables and sold them. That worked fairly well and I was able to have an income.”

Ternier married and continued to grow and sell vegetables to support his family. After a while, however, he started to notice something. Vegetables sold well, but not nearly as well as seeds.

“”If you had a really good crop of say corn or cucumbers … and were looking for a market, and everyone else had good crops … you had to take it back to the garden and work it under,” he explained. “That was a lot of work for nothing, so I said, ‘well, seeds live longer, I can keep them longer, so there’s a better chance I’ll be able to sell them.”

The switch from seeds to vegetables worked out well, so well in fact that these days Ternier stopped selling produce entirely. Now he focuses solely on seeds, and he’s become a bit of a collector as a result.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 26 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Remembering the past

Jason Kerr
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Remembering the past

Nina Duffield never made the trek from Eastern Europe all the way to the Canadian prairies, but through dancing she’s trying to honour those who did.

The 14-year-old Duffield has spent seven years learning and perfecting the art of Ukrainian dancing. For her, it’s not just about doing something enjoyable. It’s about reconnecting with her heritage.

“It brings me closer to my ancestors who travelled all the way from the old country to try and give us a better life than what they had,” Duffield explained. “It’s a nice way to celebrate what they had to go through for us to live this well.”

She isn’t the only dancer celebrating that tradition either. Over the weekend, Duffield and the 51 other dancers from the Prince Albert Barveenok Ukrainian Dance Club welcomed fellow performers from 13 different Saskatchewan and Alberta dance clubs.

Together, they spent a weekend of performing and training as part of the 30th annual Prince Albert Barveenok Ukrainian Dance Festival, while also celebrating their heritage.

“Lots of the time, you have to think back to what our ancestors had to go through to really bring the character through in the dance, and to perform it well,” Duffield said.

Performers at this year’s festival ranged all the way from 17-years-old all the way down to six and under.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 26 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Parking meter rate hike leaves businesses unimpressed

Jason Kerr
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Parking meter rate hike leaves businesses unimpressed

Downtown businesses say a recent decision to raise parking rates across the city places an unfair burden on residents who shop downtown.

On Monday, councillors voted to officially approve changes to the city’s operating budget, which include a 25 cents per hour increase in parking meter rates.

The move is an unpopular one with downtown business owners, who are concerned the city is neglecting its downtown core.

“This parking meter funding is supposed to be a user fee for downtown, but downtown doesn’t see it,” Prince Albert Downtown Business Improvement District (PADBID) board chair Stacey Coburn said. “We feel it’s an unfortunate and unfair taxing of the businesses.”

Coburn and other PADBID members attended Monday’s council meeting to try and sway the city’s elected members from implementing the parking rate increase. The presentation generated more than an hour of debate in the council chambers, but was ultimately unsuccessful in reversing the budget decision.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 26 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

Protest for the planet

Jason Kerr
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Protest for the planet

For nearly 30 years, Shelley Essaunce and her family have used cloth grocery bags when shopping, cloth gift bags at Christmas, and picked up garbage all over their street.

The family efforts come from a desire to preserve the environment through responsible living, and on Saturday, Essaunce was out marching to take that message to the community.

“The Earth provides us with everything we need to live a good life,” she said. “The way we live in this capitalistic society, we’re consuming at a higher rate than the Earth can provide. We need to pause and give some thought to the Earth and what we’re doing.”

Essaunce was one of more than 20 demonstrators who came out of Earth Day to protest the lack of action on climate change. She wants to see governments and businesses give incentives for customers to be more environmentally conscious, and media and entertainment outlets promote sustainable living.

Changes needs to happen at the local level she says, and if people are given proper solutions, they can deal with the problem.

“There are lots of things we can do,” she explained. “We just need to get organized and do it.”

Those were common sentiments among protestors who showed up at the Earth Day demonstration on Saturday.

For the rest of this story, please see the April 25 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.

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