B.C. Views Are our public schools racist? p6
Fire damages Albion furniture shop. p8
THE NEWS
Community Lynn Papp Award is a special honour. p18
www.mapleridgenews.com Wednesday, May 28, 2014 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · Delivery: 604-466-6397
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
Nancy Patrick holds up the stone that went through her front window.
Debate over off-leash park heating up Decision to close Volker Park area still stands by Phil M elnyc h u k staff reporter
Madelyn Hudson-Gibbs (front), 6, and other students support teachers during their rotating strike in front of Garibaldi secondary Tuesday.
Teachers feel strike support
The front window of a house owned by a woman who petitioned to keep open the controversial off-leash dog area in Volker Park was first smashed with a rock, then a piece of metal. “Now, it’s gotten to this, it’s insane,” said Nancy Patrick. Sometime Sunday morning, someone threw a rock through her front window. Then around 9 a.m. Monday, someone used to slingshot to fire a piece of metal through the same window. “You can’t even voice your opinion without rocks being thrown at your house, because I want a dog park?” Nancy’s husband Rob said he saw someone hanging out the window of a car holding a slingshot, then heard his front window smash.
MLA Doug Bing criticizes ‘tactics from the past’ by Ne i l Co r b e t t staff reporter
Teachers in the Maple RidgePitt Meadows School District set up picket lines in front of their schools on Tuesday, taking their turn in the escalation of provincewide job action by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation.
See Off-leash, p5
At Garibaldi secondary, a truck driver passed by, blasting his horn as the sign-toting educators responded with first pumps. The driver of the next pickup also gave them a thumbs up. Of the drivers on busy Dewdney Trunk Road, about every third or fourth vehicle game them a honk of support. They had a member of the Maple Ridge Firefighters Local IAFF 4449 come by and drop off a letter stating: “We support the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s efforts to achieve a fair deal and to deliver a
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We’re doubly serious.
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
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first-rate education to every child in B.C.” Such solidarity was also seen on other picket lines, where union members and parents of students came by with boxes of Tim Hortons’ doughnuts, home-baked goods and expressions of support. “There’s lots of public support,” said a teacher, pointing out that a recent Angus Reid poll has found 41 per cent of British Columbians support the teachers in the dispute, compared with 30 per cent who back the government. An-
other 22 per cent said they would support neither, while six per cent couldn’t say. On the picket line at Maple Ridge secondary, union picket captain Drew Parkinson was getting ready to deal with a yelling and agitated member of the public. Parkinson thought the man was angry at teachers, but soon found he was actually a supporter. “He was irate against the government – what Christy Clark is doing.” See Strike, p8
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