The Chilliwack
Progress Tuesday
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Chilliwack to welcome ‘Westies’ Aldergrove unit relocated to Chilliwack Alina Konevski The Progress
Chilliwack will soon have a stronger Canadian Forces reserve outfit in town, but at the heels of the Area Support Unit’s closure. The Royal Westminster Regiment’s Aldergove detachment is relocating to the 5535 Korea Road building in Chilliwack by April 1. The regiment hopes to bring a “platoon-sized element” of 30 reserve infantry units to the base. The New Westminster headquarters say the move is in line with the regiment’s historical presence at either end of the County of Westminster. “We’re maintaining that footprint in the Fraser Valley, but consolidating,” says Captain Braden Greaves, adjutant for the Royal Westminster Regiment. “Instead of having some reserve functions in Chilliwack and some in Aldergrove, we’re just going on opposite ends of the Fraser Valley.” Meanwhile, the Canadian Forces continue to reduce its dedicated support units nationwide, and Chilliwack’s ASU is no exception. The ASU will close sometime in March, before the end of its fiscal year on 31 March. Chilliwack’s service battalion will take over many of its functions. Continued: RESERVE/ p22
Royal Westminster Regiment is moving its Aldergrove detachment to Chilliwack. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Pastor Leon Throness of Chilliwack Alliance Church says he is “sad” that Gideon Bibles are being forced out of the district’s schools. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Petition calls for end to Bible distribution Alina Konevski The Progress
The Chilliwack school district is the last in the province that permits the distribution of Gideon Bibles in its schools, but the bastion is at risk of toppling, and the people of Chilliwack remain eerily silent on the issue. An influential humanist group has launched an online petition to prevent the Chilliwack school board from introducing a policy that allows the distribution of religious material in public schools. Currently, the board does not have a policy outlining materials distribution, religious or otherwise. The only exception was a note specifically permitting the Gideons to supply bibles to Grade
5 students, with parental approval. The board deleted the note at the Nov. 13, 2012, school board meeting, and agreed to draft a new materials policy by the end of March 2013. The Vancouver-based BC Humanist Association launched an online petition last week that calls on the Chilliwack school board to “abandon its plans for a new policy permitting the distribution of materials.” Since the petition went live Jan. 29 on change.org, it has garnered over 180 signatories. BCHA president Ian Bushfield says providing religious material in public schools violates Section 76 of the BC School Act, which states that all schools must operate “on strictly secular and non-
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sectarian principles.” “Our schools should be secular, and not promoting religious ideology,” argues Bushfield, who says there are approximately six BCHA members in Chilliwack. This uproar is a first for the Chilliwack school district. In the 20 years that trustee Barry Neufeld has been with the board, no one has publicly complained about the Gideons delivering bibles through schools. And so far, the Chilliwack school board has not heard from representatives of the local religious community on the issue. The board itself has not picked a side. “What we do not want is any religion trying to proselytize and convert children to their belief. Giving one faith group or ideology
preference over another is what is not allowed in the School Act,” says Neufeld. All the same, Neufeld believes it is “absolutely impossible” to fully separate religion from the school system. Banning bible distribution puts a host of other school traditions on the chopping block, such as singing Christmas carols, and renting public school space to faith groups on the weekends – a practice that hauls $200,000 in to the Chilliwack school system every year. Removing all religious affiliation from the district would cause a “major upheaval” in the community, says Neufeld. Pastor Throness from the Chilliwack Alliance Church concurs.
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Continued: BIBLE/ p21