Union boss slams border agency in wake of arrests at Hastings Racecourse
Renee BernardNever one to shy away from adventure, this native of Chetwynd, BC earned her BA in Political Science at SFU, before heading off to California to study acting, then living in Australia for a year. Once she set her sights on a journalism career, she enrolled at BCIT, where she won the RTNDA’s Best Student Radio Documentary. Thanks to her profession, she has worked in Trail, Nelson, Kelowna, Squamish, Kamloops and finally Vancouver, at CKNW, Fairchild Radio, and now NEWS 1130. When she tires of radio, she’s been known to cycle Ireland, take up residence in London, England, teach secondary school in Tanzania, and take up the cause for Journalists for Human Rights in Ghana. When not in the newsroom, her title is “Isaac’s mom.” Marcella BernardoMarcella's broadcasting career officially started when she graduated from BCIT in 1994. Her first radio job was in Kamloops where she spent most of her youth. She moved back to Vancouver in 2001 where she started working at NEWS 1130 in early September. Marcella remembers ending an overnight anchoring shift at 6 a.m. September 11th, then staying up all day watching and listening to coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Her first three years at NEWS 1130 included coverage of the 2003 fires in Kamloops and Kelowna which garnered an RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award. She moved over to CKNW in 2004 where she spent more than 11 years anchoring, reporting and working as a fill-in talk show host. During her time at CKNW, she was most proud of her coverage of the 2010 Olympics, the Missing Women inquiry and the Braidwood inquiry examining the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski. In July of 2015, Marcella took on a new role as the Assistant News Director at Roundhouse Radio -- a new station in Vancouver. Later that same year, she was promoted to News Director and spent more than a year building and developing that station's news team. She then left Roundhouse in March of 2017 to return to her first love of being a full-time reporter at NEWS 1130 where she gets to work with many colleagues who were co-workers in 2001-2004 and be part of the current team of award-winning journalists. When she's not working, she loves to travel, spend time with family and watch live music. In her next life, she wants to be a rock star. Bruce ClaggettBruce Claggett, is a BCIT journalism graduate and former faculty instructor who started his career as a summer announcer and feature reporter at Mountain FM in Squamish back in 1986. Since that time, he has been heard as a newscaster and reporter at CKCQ Quesnel, CFVR Abbotsford and CKNW Vancouver. He has also worked in the film industry, taught high school in Vancouver and earned degrees from UBC in Education and Geography. In 2006, he received a Jack Webster Foundation Poynter Institute Fellowship. In 2013, he became a finalist for the Jack Webster Award for Excellence in Digital Journalism.Local
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – A union president has called for a review of the Canada Border Services Agency following a targeted raid at Hastings Racecourse earlier this week.
David Black of MoveUp, which represents workers at the race track, said on Thursday that members are shaken up and disturbed by Monday’s raid, calling the workers taken into custody part of the union’s “extended family.”
“Particularly disturbing are the reports that all racialized workers, even those who were not ultimately escorted away, were harassed by the officials conducting the raid,” Black said in a statement.
“These are individuals who are no different than we are,” he added. “They want to build a good life, contribute to our society and economy, and support their families. To see them put on public display in a fashion designed to humiliate is absolutely shameful and disgraceful.”
It appears a number of workers did not have proper documentation, and the raid came as part of an investigation into a government employee with the provincial agency in charge of policing the gaming industry.
“Following a complaint received by the Attorney General in October 2018, the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch (GPEB) immediately launched an investigation,” a ministry spokesperson said. “GPEB uncovered information through its investigation that led to the referral of the matter to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) for assistance. CBSA subsequently led and directed enforcement action at Hastings Racecourse.”
Staff with Attorney General David Eby’s office have confirmed they’re working with the CBSA to secure the “integrity” of licensing and registration at the racecourse in Vancouver.
They say this stems from a complaint filed in October about a worker with the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch, who no longer has access to any GPEB offices or government systems.
However, Black is calling on the federal government to have the workers who are detained released, and to “review the practices and policies with respect to the methods in which CBSA deals with people and communities to ensure that human rights are not violated, community trust and safety is not jeopardized, and that racialized peoples are not unjustly profiled and targeted.”
He believes it’s time B.C. becomes a sanctuary province. A place is deemed a sanctuary if police forces and other agencies agree not to report people with irregular immigration status.