McQUARRIE – What walking the talk on the needles issue really means
(Image: Provided by Caroline King)
BEFORE WRITING this week’s column, I asked the mayor along with our eight City councillors if they could provide some perspective on a rather sensitive and fractious issue the city faces. Mayor Christian responded, as did Coun. Walsh while councillors Dhaliwal, Cavers, Dudy, Lange, Sinclair, Singh and Wallace did not.
I wanted to know where they stood on the needle buy-back program that Caroline King and Dennis Giesbrecht are leading, financing and volunteering their own time to make happen.
Details on their idea can be found in a recent story by Chad Klassen’s https://cfjctoday.com/article/627755/needle-buy-back-program-hopes-clean-sharps-around-citythat explains how Ms. King and Mr. Giesbrecht are using their own money to buy back used needles for 5 cents each.
The Interior Health Authority (IHA) provides these needles (sharps) but has done nothing about used sharps such as an exchange or buy-back programs.
Bill McQuarrie is a Kamloops entrepreneur. He can be contacted at billmcquarrie@gmail.com. He tweets @bafflegabbed.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Ian MacKenzie is dead right.I am not a twitter or facebook or skyp etc subscriber and will not be forced into it as that is what it,s all about. It,s tough to lean against the wind.
Well you and Ian can just keep writing to the Armchair Mayor. 🙂
I would very much like to comment on this important citizen run issue on a number of media. Unfortunately, if one does not want to be a Facebook or Twitter member many of the media do not allow comments. Is there any way this lack of citizen participation can be corrected, or do we always have to wait for secondary sources who are more open to non-Facebook/Twitter commenting to publish secondarily? I feel that the older generation are being short-changed.
We are only located in front of Jump on Royal st for now, thanks for the great write up.