The Chilliwack
Progress Thursday
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Party in the Park
Leaders Meet this year’s
Scene
Faber Drive kicks off a summer of entertainment.
Special
‘Leaders of Tomorrow’.
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Sports
Alumni Tambellini top pick for Chiefs alumni game.
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 H U R S D AY, J U N E 2 8 , 2 0 1 2
Board ‘cautiously optimistic with teacher deal
■ C OINTASTIC
Katie Bartel The Progress After a year in the trenches, B.C. teachers and the ministry of education have found peace. For now. The teachers’ union is recommending its members accept a one-year temporary collective agreement that was put forth Tuesday evening. The contract is essentially a roll-over from the teachers’ last contract, which expired one year ago, with some improvements to teacher benefits, but no wage increases, or changes in class size and composition – both of which were contentious issues early on in negotiations. When outgoing CTA president Katharin Midzain was notified of the deal, she said a wave of relief washed over her. “It’s always better to come to an agreement rather than have something imposed on you – always better,” she said. “[This agreement] means that teachers, parents and the public can go into the summer knowing that next year there will be a stable base that we can work from.” For the past year the teachers’ union and the government have been butting heads, which resulted in limited job action from September to March, a three-day full-scale walkout, Continued: TEACHERS/ p12
Chilliwack artist Ardell Bourgeois (right) was at the post office on Thursday signing authentication cards enclosed with a special collector coin he designed. Bourgeois drew three figures commemorating the war of 1812 which are now depicted on a Canadian silver dollar coin. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
FVRD residents give gravel mining plan rocky ride Robert Freeman The Progress
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A public meeting on a controversial gravel mining plan nearly broke down Tuesday night as angry residents pummeled Fraser Valley Regional District directors for more than three hours. Not only were the FVRD board directors on the hot seat about the plan to locate future gravel mines in the region according to a proposed three-colour mapping scheme, they were also raked over the coals for the “secret” negotiations that led up to the Aggregate Pilot Project.
Most of the 200-plus audience that filled Evergreen Hall in Chilliwack came from the Lake Errock area in Electoral Area C where complaints about existing gravel mines and the proposed APP have festered for years. The one positive note heard during the meeting — a call for a “fresh start” to the planning process that would see the B.C. government use its purchasing power to control gravel mine locations — was almost lost in the bitterness over the lack of public input into developing the APP. At one point, an awkward silence ensued when it emerged that nei-
ther FVRD staff nor board members could explain why an area in Hatzic Prairie where gravel mining had been banned was changed to allow possible mining because the negotiations had taken place during “in camera” meetings that excluded the public. FVRD officials have argued that electoral area directors represented the public at the APP negotiations between the B.C. government, the gravel industry and the FVRD that started in 2004 under the direction of Abbotsford-Mission MLA Randy Hawes, who was then-minister of state for mining. FVRD chair Sharon Gaetz
chaired the Tuesday meeting attended by all the regional district directors. Lawyer John Conroy, a Hatzic Prairie resident, demanded to know what “evidence” was used to justify changing the APP map. “I want to know how that strip deemed unsuitable for a (gravel) pit in 2009 was deemed suitable in 2012,” he said. “If I don’t get an answer from you (Gaetz) or staff, I will go somewhere to compel you to answer,” he said, suggesting that the Supreme Court of Canada would favour constitutional rights over provincial legislation.
When Conroy persisted in his demand, Gaetz finally cut him off at the mike, and called for a fiveminute “recess” in the meeting. But in an apparent offhand remark, Gaetz then asked Conroy’s wife, who was next in the line of speakers, if her husband “always got his way at home.” Conroy and others in the audience were outraged. Resident Lea Ricketts said she was “stunned” by the “racist” remark, which she believed “made fun” of the lawyer’s gender and his marriage “and this is in a government meeting?” Continued: GRAVEL/ p10