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Cycle of Hope
Local cyclists raising money and awareness of ALS, page 4
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
NEWS REVIEW
Ready for inspection
Peninsula air cadets were in step during their 56th annual Inspection and Review, page 3 Watch for breaking news at www.vicnews.com
Teachers on strike Talks broke down on Monday; schools behind picket lines Tom Fletcher Black Press
An exchange of proposals between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and government negotiators on the weekend dissolved in acrimony Monday, with a full-scale strike in public schools already underway. Negotiators for the BCTF and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association met until midnight Sunday, as the union moved from rotating strikes to a full walkout with a “study session” on Monday. The two sides contradicted each other on the substance of the wage offers and each said the next move is up to the other if a deal is to be reached. BCTF president Jim Iker said Monday a complete strike is “imminent,” after union members endorsed the move in their second province-wide strike vote. Education Minister Peter Fassbender said Monday he is waiting for a response from the union to the latest offer from BCPSEA, which represents the province’s 60 school districts. BCPSEA chief negotiator Peter Cameron said Monday he still does not have a full position from the BCTF that clarifies the status of the union’s “truckload of benefit proposals.” Cameron said the union’s latest wage offer is a reduction from its previous position, but when increased benefit costs are factored in, it is still more than twice as much compensation as other public sector union settlements. BCPSEA posted a comparison of the two wage offers Monday. It describes the BCTF proposal as a $5,000 signing bonus. Please see: Exams under services order, page 9
Devon MacKenzie/News staff
From left, the snorkel relay team made up of Alisa Preston, Maryann Watson, Darienne Lancaster, Françoise Gervais, Kylee Pawluk and Shawna Cheyne (not pictured are Jamie McDevitt-Irwin and Karen Cram). The relay team will snorkel across the Saanich Inlet on June 21 to help raise funds for Gervais who has been selected to be part of the 2014-16 SEDNA Expedition in the Arctic starting this summer.
Snorkeling in support of a friend Devon MacKenzie News staff
A group of eight women will hit the water this weekend for a snorkeling relay across the Saanich Inlet. Alisa Preston (owner of Rockfish Divers in Brentwood Bay), Maryann Watson, Darienne Lancaster, Françoise Gervais, Kylee Pawluk,
Shawna Cheyne, Jamie McDevitt-Irwin and Karen Cram will snorkel across the Saanich Inlet on Saturday, June 21 to help raise funds for Gervais who has been selected to be part of the 2014-16 SEDNA Expedition in the Arctic starting this summer. “We’ll all start in the water around 9 a.m. in Mill Bay and then we will pair down to two in the water and we will switch out between us
to make sure we always have two swimmers in the water at all times,” explained Preston, who added the group estimates the swim to be about 13 kilometers in length. “It will be really dependant on the weather that day as to how quickly we’ll be able to do it,” said Preston. Please see: Relay ends at the Brentwood, page 10