PENINSULA
NEWS REVIEW
Music and art helping patients
Great Teachers contest
Rotary
LAST CHANCE FOR
25
We Rage We Weep program connecting dementia patients with the arts, page 5
Black Press and Staples want to know who your Great Teachers are for 2016, page 3
Sidney by the Sea
% Your Tickets! off Go to:
sidneybythesearotary.ca May 14 • 7pm • Mary Winspear
Black Press C O M M U N I T Y
N E W S
M E D I A
Wednesday, May 4 2016
Watch for breaking news at www.peninsulanewsreview.com
Balanced budget vanishes School District 63 (Saanich) will meet with education ministry on Thursday to seek help Steven Heywood News staff
School board members and staff of School District 63 (Saanich) are scheduled to meet with the education ministry tomorrow in an attempt to balance the District’s budget. Board Chair Victoria Martin says they hope to work with the province to find a way to make up for a nearly $1 million shortfall, caused, she said, by the government’s clawback of around $700,000 in administrative savings and an annual $314,000 fee for internet access through a new provincial network. Martin said the District’s old internet access service used to cost $30,000 a year. Martin and the rest of the board last week issued a media release, calling on the government to return those funds. Without them, Martin said, the board would have to consider staff and program cuts to balance the budget. “We have just come out of funding protection,” Martin said, referring to a ministry program to provide extra dollars to districts facing declining student enrolment. “We have a solid surplus of students this year and that would have been good news. The board has done exactly what it had to do to this point, cut staff, closed schools, and here we were, hoping to get back in a balanced budget.”
Lovelorn guy Steven Heywood/News staff
Nick Massey gestures from the song Love Potion Number Nine, as Bob Fowler looks on in amazement. The performance was part of the Peninsula Singers’ spring concert on Sunday at the Mary Winspear Centre. See page 11 for more photos.
Sidney dispensary raided by police Lawyer says they will challenge arrest Steven Heywood News staff
RCMP arrested one person at Sidney’s Dispensary by the Sea after serving a search warrant there Thursday, April 28. The lawyer representing the Dispensary acknowledges the store does sell medicinal marijuana — and is therefore in contravention of current laws — but added those current laws have been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Kirk Tousaw, who represents marijuana dispensaries across the country, said should charges be filed by the Crown following the arrest of one employee, he would challenge it based on a lack of public interest in prosecution and likelihood of conviction. He said that stance has so far worked after four dispensaries in Nanaimo were raided by police in November, 2015. Steven Heywood/News staff
PLEASE SEE: Dispensary “at the heart”, page 4
The Dispensary by the Sea in Sidney was searched by police April 28.
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PLEASE SEE: Class sizes at risk, says Martin, page 3
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