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Thursday, August 28, 2014
The Agassiz Y Harrison
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Hobie Cat Rigatta
MUSIC Harrison Craft Market and Bands on the Beach this weekend
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Graham Osborne Photo
Harrison Lake was alive with colour on the weekend as the resort community hosted a Hobie Cat Rigatta. Competitors from throughout the region took advantage of sunny skies and great sailing weather to take part in the event.
WEST NILE Cache Creek tests oɈer Ärst sign of virus this year
Teachers strike threatens to delay school start Wednesday meeting a glimmer of hope to end dispute
2 Jeff Nagel
INSIDE opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 mailbag . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 back to school . . . . . . . 8 early years . . . . . . . . . 11 sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 classiÄeds . . . . . . . . . 14
BLACK PRESS
B.C. students are just days away from the scheduled start of a new school year but there's little sign of a break in the teachers strike that has dragged on through the summer. The final week of summer holiday opened Sunday with a demand in Kamloops from B.C. Teachers Federation president Jim Iker for an immediate start to mediation. No formal bargaining dates are scheduled, but Iker, Education Minister Peter Fassbender and government negotiator Peter
Cameron were to meet Wednesday afternoon in Victoria, raising hopes for some movement. Teachers have also stepped up picketing as both sides prepare for the strike to stretch into September. A mass rally outside the premier's Vancouver cabinet offices is also set for Sept. 5. Veteran mediator Vince Ready is monitoring the talks and has indicated he will step into full mediation if it would be productive to do so. Both sides blame the other for a gulf between positions that's too wide for Ready to attempt to bridge.
The province says the teachers' pay and benefits demands remain far in excess of settlements reached with other public sector unions. Teachers, meanwhile, accuse the government of insisting on preconditions to talks that would unravel the union's past court victories over the province on the stripping of contract terms on class size and special needs support. The province is appealing the latest court ruling against it. Also gaining prominence in recent days has been an opt-out clause that the government has tabled that would allow either side to terminate
a new collective agreement if it dislikes the ultimate court outcome from either the B.C. Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of Canada. An education ministry spokesman said he was surprised it has become an issue now. It was disclosed in mid-June by government negotiators who pitched it as a "pragmatic and creative" way to give the union comfort it wouldn't be handed a massive defeat in court and could therefore shelve those issues and negotiate an interim agreement while the appeal proceeds. Continued on 4
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