The Chilliwack
Progress Tuesday
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3
Sports
11
News
Life
Spotlight
Panel
Mercy
Bev Hutton keeps CMS healthy and happy.
Hunting, fishing panel draws heat.
Embarking on a journey of mercy.
Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • T U E S D AY, J U N E 5 , 2 0 1 2
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Anti-bullying plan includes whistle-blowing phone app Focus of $2 million strategy on training, not legislation Jeff Nagel Black Press
be one that has caused harm to the B.C. population, as far as I know,” he said. “No one is over-using doda and breaking into homes to feed his or her habit.” But during Thursday’s court hearing, Detective-Const. Mark Haywood testified that doda has been an “ongoing concern” of the Peel Regional Police, especially since Arizona suppliers have been shut down by Canadian border agents and prices have shot up dramatically. “It’s essentially gone through the roof,” he said.
A new provincial anti-bullying strategy promises more training to improve the climate in schools and a new smartphone app that aims to make it easier for students to anonymously report tormenters. Premier Christy Clark unveiled the plan in Surrey Friday, pledging $2 million for the new initiatives she said will bring a coordinated approach to the issue in all school districts. She said the focus is on providing better tools to help teachers recognize bullying and deal with conflicts appropriately. “We’re not focusing on the hammer legislative approach,” Clark said. “You can’t make a law that gets rid of bullying.” The plan mandates dedicated safe school coordinators in every district and calls for at least one professional development day per year to be devoted to antibullying, although that depends on talks with the B.C. Teachers Federation. Anti-bullying training will focus on elementary schools initially, while threat and risk assessment training will be geared to middle and secondary schools. The strategy is dubbed ERASE – Expect Respect and a Safe Education. But Floyd Van Beek, a Grade 12 student at South Delta Secondary School, said it could have gone farther to battle homophobic bullying in schools, noting there is no specific training module set out for that issue. “It’s a step in the right direction,” he said.
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Volunteer Anne Kirkpatrick (left) helps a customer during the 15th annual Gwynne Vaughan Park Plant Sale and Garden Party on Saturday morning. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
B.C. judge weighs dangers of doda Robert Freeman The Progress Doda — an opiate commonly consumed in tea or hot water by some members of the Southeast Asian community — may earn two B.C. men criminal records for harvesting a seven-acre field of it here in Chilliwack. But because the drug is rarely seen in B.C. court cases, provincial court judge Roy Dickey will have to weigh several factors
before sentencing the two men arrested when police raided the field in rural Chilliwack back in August, 2010. Tehal Singh Bath, a 32-year-old Abbotsford man, and Mandeep Singh Dhaliwal, a 30-year-old Mission man, have pleaded guilty to production and possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking. But Crown lawyers took the unusual step last week of presenting Dickey with more information
from police witnesses to familiarize him with the production and potential street value of doda. “It’s a serious offence and we want to make sure the judge has before him all the relevant material to arrive at an appropriate sentence,” federal Crown prosecutor Brad Smith said outside the court Thursday. But defense lawyer Ian Donaldson suggested outside the courtroom that the “collateral harm” caused by doda is less than other drugs controlled by the criminal code. “This drug does not appear to
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