The Chilliwack
Progress Wednesday
13 Scene
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News
Sports
Stage
Marijuana
Chiefs
Anne of Green Gables comes to life.
Medical pot rules unleash ‘bedlam’.
Chilliwack kid chooses the Chiefs.
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 • W E D N E S D AY, A P R I L 2 3 , 2 0 1 4
Little local impact expected from teacher job action Katie Bartel The Progress Today is the first day of the most recent run of teacher job action. What does that mean? For students and parents, not much. According to Clint Johnston, Chilliwack Teachers’ Association president, Chilliwack students and parents will not be affected by the limited job action. Report card preparation and parent meetings will continue, as will pre-arranged extra-curricular activities such as coaching. However, phase one of job action does include refusing written and electronic communication with school principals and other such officials, arriving no more than an hour before and leaving an hour after school hours, and refusing supervision of students outside class time, including recess and lunch supervision. That means school principals and other staff will be responsible for those extra tasks. “It’s purely a move to increase pressure on administration and make it less comfortable for them and hope their grumblings move upwards to motivate the provincial table to get a deal done,” said Johnston. After a year of bargaining, union members voted 89 per cent in favour of a three-stage strike plan in March. “A move like this shows we don’t want to inconvenience students, and we don’t want to inconvenience parents,” said Johnston. “This is as mild as we can be while still trying to prove a point that a year of bargaining with no Continued: BCTF/ p7
Chilliwack MP Mark Strahl announces $19-million in federal funding for a new state-of-the-art RCMP indoor firing range on Tuesday at Pacific Region Training Centre. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Funding confirmed for new gun range The Federal government wrote a big cheque Tuesday morning, handing over $19 million for the construction of an indoor firing range in Chilliwack. “Construction of a new firing range is an important investment into the City of Chilliwack’s economy that will have positive impacts for many years to come,” said Mark Strahl, MP for ChilliwackFraser Canyon, announcing the funding. “I am very pleased that our government continues to make the safety and security of Canadians a priority.” Plans have been in the works for a long time to have a new firing range built in the Canada Education Park.
The existing range is outdoors, and is notorious for being noisy and disruptive to its neighbours. It will be shut down before its lease expires in March, 2016.
The University of the Fraser Valley will re-purpose the building, and the land surrounding it, blending it into the school’s agricultural program.
Site preparation work has already begun on the one-acre facility, which will be located at Keith Wilson and Tyson roads, north of the current facility. Construction of the new range begins in June or July, with CEPCO (Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation) managing the process. The new building is expected to be complete by December of 2015. Described as ‘state-of-the-art,’ the new firing range will be used by the RCMP and CBSA (Canadian Border Services Agency). Up to 32 officers will be able to train at any given time, firing over a distance of
Artist rendering of the new RCMP firing range at Tyson and Keith Wilson.
Continued: PRTC/ p6
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