Maple Ridge News, May 29, 2013

Page 1

B.C. Views Teachers’ fed digs in for endless war. p6

Old hotel in Hammond could bite dust. p8

THE NEws

Arts&life Ridge hairstylist up for daytime emmy. p13

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election results look the same Official count still shows Liberals leading in local ridings by M o ni s ha M a r tin s staff reporter

The B.C. Liberals extended their lead over the New Democrats in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows after Elections B.C. tallied the final votes. Elections B.C. officials started counting 180,000 absentee ballots Monday, an unusually high number that could be enough to change the result of some closer contests from the May 14 provincial vote. Final results will be known by Wednesday. By Tuesday afternoon, in Maple Ridge-Mission, Liberal Marc Dalton had earned an extra 919 votes, bringing his total count to 10,327. NDP’s Mike Bocking got 798 more votes for a total of 8,830. Alex Pope, who ran for the Green Party, got 1,818 up from 1,654 while Chad Thompson got 1,190, up from 1,075 after the May 14 initial count.

Tim Fitzgerald/THe newS

Rain or shine Cloudy skies and rain didn’t dampen the enthusiasm at the third annual Maple Ridge secondary Show and Shine on Sunday. More than 60 cars filled the high school parking lot in an effort to raise funds for the upcoming dry grad.

See Election, p12

Ex-inmates fighting for babies in jail Suing province over cancellation of program by M o ni s ha M a r tin s staff reporter

A battle to reinstate a program that allowed mothers to care for their babies while incarcerated in a Maple Ridge prison began Monday in B.C. Supreme Court. The constitutional challenge was filed five years ago after the program at the Alouette Correctional

Centre for Women was suddenly shut down. In his opening argument, lawyer Geoffrey Cowper noted the program’s cancellation violated his clients’ rights. “Our goal is to have the program restored,” Cowper said in an earlier interview. Cowper is representing Amanda Inglis and her son Damien, as well as Patricia Block and her daughter Amber. Both women were former inmates at Alouette, but had their children taken away from them after birth.

The mother-baby program began at the provincial prison, on Alouette Road off 249th Street, not long after it opened in April 2004. The four-year-experiment saw 12 mothers live with their children inside the prison fences. Of the 12, three mother-baby pairs were aboriginal. B.C. Corrections ended the program in 2008, citing an increase in prison population and the safety of infants for its demise. Since then, 22 inmates have given birth to babies who were placed in foster care or with relatives after they

Index

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were born. For the West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), which is intervening in the case, the issue is more than a violation of constitutional rights. “We think there are lots of benefits to the program,” said executive director Kasari Govender. The lawsuit claims the cancellation of the program deprives babies of the health benefits of breast milk and denies women incarcerTHe newS/files ated at Alouette the opportunity The pilot program originated at ACCW in to bond with their babies. See Lawsuit, p5 Maple Ridge in 2004.

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