PRINCE RUPERT VOL. 9 NO. 24
Feature
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
FREE
Teachers strike could start Monday
UNSELFISH SELFIE
BY SHAUN THOMAS
Heart of our city: Judy Rea moving on Page A8
PRINCE RUPERT / The Northern View
“The two sides are like parents who are divorcing.”
Feature Touchet takes Ladies Jubilee title Page A9
Jenny Nguyen and Timmy Wei grab a picture during a recent trip to the Rotary Youth Leadership Award camp in the Lower Mainland. For more on this story, see Page A14.
Haida Gwaii Search for shipwrecks begin Page B1
Seafest Full schedule of Seafest events Pages C1-C8
SOLD 1608 7th Ave East $345,000
Prince Rupert teachers may not have been participating in rotating strikes on June 4, but there was a picket line of sorts in front of Charles Hays Secondary School throughout the morning. Students at the school joined thousands of others across the province for a walkout to raise awareness of the impacts the ongoing labour dispute between the B.C. teacher’s Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association is having on them and the future of their education. The students, - Victoria Barker brandishing handmade signs that included slogans such as ‘Strike + Lockout = Walkout”, “Education is NOT a Business” and “We’re making a point”, gathered along Prince Rupert Boulevard beginning at 9 a.m. and, much like their teacher counterparts, elicited honks of support from passing motorists. See STRIKE on Page A2
Nav Canada pulls flight service station from Rupert BY SHAUN THOMAS PRINCE RUPERT / The Northern View
As of July 24, it will be up to the pilots of the North Coast to manage air traffic in and out of Prince Rupert. Nav Canada will be shutting down its flight service station, which currently sees a staff of three provide pilots with information on everything from weather to air traffic and helps with safely landing or taking off from uncontrolled airports. According to Nav Canada spokesperson Ron Singer, the decision comes down to a matter of numbers. “There are many, many airports that don’t have Nav Canada service. It’s related to traffic ... we did an aviation study, including traffic patterns, and decided the appropriate level of service and there is not the justification for that station to
“Now there won’t be any information coming to pilots.” - Ken Cote remain open,” he said, noting pilots will now communicate with each other through mandatory frequency monitoring. “A full safety analysis was done. This type of flight management, mandatory frequency, is something that is in place at hundreds of airports across the country, many with larger traffic volumes than Prince Rupert.” While Singer said the three staff currently in place will be relocated within Nav Canada, Ken Cote of Ocean Pacific Air Services said the closure `of the flight service station is a “big loss”
for Prince Rupert. “They filled a vital role ... their main job was to give information on the location of other planes coming in because seaplanes all congregate at one point in Seal Cove. Now there won’t be any information coming to the pilots,” he said. “This float plane base is busy with planes coming and going throughout the day, every day.” While she said commercial planes landing at the airport have more advanced instrumentation for monitoring air traffic, Prince Rupert Airport Authority chair Maureen Macarenko agreed the shutdown is a loss for the community. “This has been threatened for the past few years ... along with the community, the chamber and with everyone we have tried to mitigate it,” she said, noting Nav Canada staff had previously numbered six.
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