The lawyer for a Maple Ridge man challenging the constitu-tionality of Canada’s solicitation laws is applauding an Ontario court decision that struck down three major anti-prostitution laws on Tuesday.

“It’s going to help. It cannot

hurt,” said Ray Chouinard, who is representing Leslie Blais, a man who was arrested in an un-dercover sting targeting the sex trade in downtown Maple Ridge four years ago.

Blais, a construction foreman, believes prostitution laws con-tribute to the physical harm, abuse and murder of sex trade workers and is challenging their constitutionality under of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It is the fi rst such challenge brought forward by a john, a man

who uses the services of prosti-tutes.

Blais was arrested in May 2006 in a sting conducted by the Ridge Meadows RCMP.

The 45-year-old man tried to pick up a female RCMP offi cer who was posing as a prostitute.

He was subsequently charged with communicating for the pur-poses of prostitution.

Instead of pleading guilty or at-tending “john school” like most of the other men arrested in the sting, Blais decided to challenge the solicitation law, saying it vio-

lated prostitutes’ rights because it made their work more danger-ous.

Chouinard said his client de-cided to fi ght the case because he once worked in a downtown Van-couver restaurant frequented by sex trade workers.

“He saw all kinds of violence,” Chouinard said.

“He saw women beaten nearly to death, johns being pulled out of their car, beaten and robbed. It was just the Wild West. He’s try-ing to put an end to it.”

Longtime businesses plan for future. p39Radio Haney

Vandalism, in one form or another. p6

THE NEWS

John challenges hooking laws

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Fall harvestWorkers at a Golden Eagle Cranberry Farm on 224 Street in Maple Ridge harvest cranberries after flooding a field on Tuesday.

Child porn charges laid in rave rape

Charges have been laid against a teenage boy accused of taking pho-tographs of a sex assault at a Pitt Meadows rave.

The 16-year-old boy made his fi rst appearance in Port Coquitlam Pro-vincial Court Wednesday morning on one count each of producing child pornography and distributing child pornography.

He is accused of using his cell phone to photograph a 16-year-old girl be-ing raped by several boys at a party held on a farm at 12993 Harris Road, Sept. 10, while a group of at least 12 people stood by and watched.

The photographs were then posted on the Internet and distributed to hundreds of teens via Facebook.

Police described the photographs as “graphic” and “disgusting.”

See Charges, p12

See Prostitution, p11

Friday, October 1, 2010 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢www.mapleridgenews.com

Jobless fatherof four wins $6.5 million in Lotto 6/49.

See p5

Opinion 6

Radio Haney 6

Parenting 16

Home&gardening 19

Acts of Faith 35

Business 39

Scoreboard 42

Index

None yet though related to sexual assault

Long-gun and painful

memories for Shirley

Anderson. See story, p3

b y M o n i s h a M a r t i n sstaff repor ter

b y M o n i s h a M a r t i n sstaff repor ter

Lawyer says Ontario ruling could help

The carton of pre-rolled Players

cigarette wrappers sits on a tray next to the TV, while another plastic box contains more blank wrappers in another container on the coffee table.

Shirley Anderson knows she smokes too much and is about to try a third quit-smoking session.

But she’s opened the sun-deck door on her fi fth-fl oor apartment on 224th Street in Maple Ridge and she’s lit a candle for a visitor to make it more comfortable to listen to her story.

“You know something?” she says.

“I never smoked until it happened.

“Never had a cigarette till after it happened.”

It happened on a Grey Cup weekend in Edmonton more than three decades ago, in November 1979.

After a struggling mar-riage, Shirley had fi nally left her husband for the third and fi nal time the previous March and she had taken her 17-year-old son Erwin with her. She was tired of the mental and physical abuse from her husband and tired of seeing her eldest son smacked around.

But she had left her young-er son Ricky, 6, who had just started Grade 1, with her dad in the west Edmonton bun-galow because the two were close and dad never spent his wrath on his youngest.

“This is my little guy. He was six years old when that picture was taken, that was when he was killed,” Shirley says as she hands over an ag-ing photo of a tousle-haired boy.

“He’s my little angel – blue-eyed, blond-headed little an-gel.”

The day of the shooting, Anderson was working the 2:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. shift as a waitress at a local restau-rant. She didn’t complete her shift because police came to pick her up halfway through

and took her down to the po-lice station to tell her what happened.

Her husband had taken his .308 hunting rifl e, she thinks it was a Winchester, and shot and killed their son, who was asleep on the chesterfi eld. Then he turned the rifl e on himself.

“It was done at 5 p.m.”While she wasn’t living in

the house at the time, she frequently stopped by to pick up her son. Even the day of the killing, she had called her husband, asking if she could see Ricky. He refused.

“Thank God we didn’t walk in and fi nd him,” she says.

Despite the passage of 30 years, the pain has never, left and Anderson, now us-ing her maiden name, has been struggling.

With the recent debate over the abolition of the long-gun portion of the registry, the issue has resurfaced again and pushed Anderson to

speak about any form of its dismantling. The issue was settled two weeks ago when the Liberals and NDP com-bined to keep the registry in place and defeat a Conserva-tive bill to disband it.

For Anderson, registration of rifl es is just a common sense step that could reduce the number of shootings and spare others what she went through, although she rec-ognizes, it can’t stop all trag-edies.

The outcry against the long-gun registry and the de-mands to have it dismantled bother her. “It just appalled me.”

People argue that a gun registry doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of crimi-nals and prevent them from shooting people.

Anderson agrees. What it does, though, is make ordi-nary families with rifl es in the house a bit safer.

While people maintain that

hunting rifl es are for hunting and not killing people and for peaceful purposes only, Anderson says they can be turned against loved ones.

“We had fi rearms in the house and he was using them for hunting too, and look what happened. These, too, can kill people if you’re in the wrong state of mind.”

She points out that her hus-band had two hunting rifl es, a .22 and the .308.

“They both had scopes,” she says.

He used to hunt deer and moose around Whitecourt, about an hour northwest of Edmonton.

After the investigation, Ed-monton police even returned the weapons to her, a move that today still puzzles her.

According to a story in the now defunct magazine Al-berta Report, her husband’s serious problems started after a fall from scaffolding on a construction site. That shattered his legs and in-creased his depression.

After the funeral, Ander-son says doctors told her that air bubbles in the veins had damaged her husband’s brain.

She says he was never the same after that accident, a

detail a friend agreed on at the funeral.

But the marriage wasn’t perfect before that either.

She never loved him – only married him because she thought she could fi nd no one else, though he was a good provider.

“The only thing that was good out of that marriage was my two children.”

One night, before she left her husband, he had put one of his rifl es at their bedside as a warning, but it never dawned on her that he would use them against her son. In fact, during the fi ve or six calls police made in re-sponse to arguments in the house, they were never once told there were rifl es in the house.

“With no registry, they didn’t know about it.”

That was years before the Canadian Firearms Registry was created in 2001. With the registry in place, police now would know before they even knocked on the door.

“How many families have died with a hunting rifl e? I just want to voice my opinion about it and get it out there to these people. I wish I could get it clear across Canada.

Long-gun and painful memories

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Shirley Anderson keeps a photo on her youngest son’s last school photo in her apartment living room.

Registry helps women’s safety The work of the people who try to help women escape violent marriages is easier thanks to the Canadian Firearms Registry.Because having access to fi rearms is the fi fth most-important risk factor coun-sellors use when assessing the potential for violence.When a woman leaves a violent relationship, police are usually involved and they can tell workers at Cythera Transition House Society whether the ex has access to guns, said society executive-director Teresa Green.“I believe access to guns is one of the fi fth highest risk factors.”The top fi ve factors used in assessing the danger a woman is in:• abuser’s prior criminal record and previous domestic incidents;• abuser’s substance abuse;• abuser’s mental health; • is the abuser actively look-ing for her and does he know the location of the transition house?• access to weapons.Often, because the woman still loves her partner, or because she’s afraid for her life, she won’t always tell police or staff if her abuser has a handgun or rifl e. So the registry would provide that information – assuming the husband registered the gun.“It is an important thing.”The registry seems to be working, Green added. Though she couldn’t imme-diately cite sources, statistics show that domestic shoot-ings have dropped since the registry was implemented in 2001.“There has been a drop down. The stats are down with the registry.”People often argue that a gun registry won’t aff ect criminals who use unregistered weapons when committing an off ence. But domestic violence is also criminal, she pointed out.In Canada, 75 per cent of all domestic shooting deaths are done with rifl es.

S t o r y b y P h i l M e l n y c h u k

See Registry, p4

“With no registry, they didn’t know about it.” Shirley Anderson

Ridge Meadows Mountie not guilty of assault

“Please, register your guns. Please don’t feel like a criminal because you’ve got to register your guns.”

“I just want to voice my opin-ion and get it out. This is what I want to fi ght.”

•••After the shooting, Shirley

went into shock. The couple had been married in Ontar-io and there was no family around to help. Friends and counsellors tried to shield her from the worst. And standing like a rock to protect his mom was her 17-year-old son Erwin.

“I was crying 24/7 – and he was the one holding me.”

She worries, though, that despite counselling sessions and grieving courses she’s at-tended over the years, that her son hasn’t yet personally come to terms with it and that he hasn’t had time to grieve. He

had to grow up quickly.After the deaths, Anderson

met another man and moved to Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories. He too had rifl es, but Anderson told him to keep them out of sight.

That marriage ended after 14 years and Anderson moved to Maple Ridge to be closer to her son, who was by then in the Lower Mainland. She sees him when possible, but she fi gures anytime the two are together he’s reminded of the past.

“When I’m around him, he’s always hugging and kissing me and I treasure those.”

Anderson says she man-aged to overcome most of the trauma – except for the night-mares.

Those would occur regularly, usually involving a scene in which her son is being taken away from her. Every time that happened, they’d set her back

a few days with depression and grief.

A few months ago, she had a different kind of a dream.

In that dream, she confronted her husband and told him that the problem wasn’t her.

“It’s you, not me,” she says, recounting the dream, with an-ger in her voice and a clenched jaw.

In the dream, she has her fi ngers wrapped around his throat until they dig into his fl esh.

“I felt I got even with him in that nightmare for what he did to us and I haven’t had a night-mare since.

“I felt like a big weight had been lifted off me because I got even with him.”

••• There are few reminders of

the tragedy inside her apart-ment.

She has the 8X10 colour

school photo of her son Ricky, taken about a month before he was killed. Other photos and mementoes are packed away in storage. She thought of getting copies of the newspaper cover-age of the incident, but never got around to it. At the time, friends sheltered her from that coverage as much as possible.

And in the dining room, there’s another photo, it too showing its age, of her and her older son Erwin. She’ll have to get that one replaced and up-dated, she notes.

She recalls shortly before his death, she explained to Ricky that she was splitting up with her husband. Her son then said he’d always love her. She pulled the car over and told him no matter what happens, she would always love him.

“He’s in my heart, 24 hours a day,” she says matter of factly. “I know he’s around me.”

Registry from p3

‘Don’t feel like a criminal, please register your guns’

A Mountie accused punching a handcuffed suspect in Maple Ridge was acquitted of criminal charges Thursday in Port Co-quitlam Provincial Court.

Judge Pedro de Couto found that Const. Ed Fox used “no more force than necessary” to subdue Matthew Gregg, while taking him into custody for causing a disturbance on Sept. 13, 2006 outside the Villa Torni Apartments on 222nd Street.

“He was justifi ed in escalating the force he applied,” De Couto said.

The verdict drew applause from the RCMP offi cer’s col-

leagues and family outside court.

Fox was charged with assault causing bodily harm, 28 months after Gregg’s arrest, following a RCMP internal investigation.

The court heard Fox and Const. Aaron Lloyd were called to the apartment to a domestic dispute.

Gregg’s ex-girlfriend testifi ed she was moving out that morn-ing, a decision spurred on by a fi ght that took place in the parking lot of a local shopping mall, where Gregg grabbed her ponytail and dragged her to the fl oor.

She had asked Gregg to stay away while she and her best friend packed up and moved her belongings to a storage fa-

cility. Gregg, however, showed up

at the apartment and began pounding the door, kicking it with his feet, swearing and threatening the women inside.

Afraid, the women called 911.Gregg did not calm down after

police arrived and continued to pace outside the apartment, while directing his anger at the offi cers.

His behaviour prompted po-lice to arrest him for causing a disturbance.

The court heard Gregg was punched while handcuffed, his upper body bent over the trunk of a police car. The smack re-sulted in the loss of two teeth.

Gregg, however, did not fi le a complaint with police until six

months after the incident. Police accused Gregg of resist-

ing arrest and kicking at their legs, aiming for their knees.

Judge De Couto accepted the testimony of both offi cers and noted their evidence was cor-roborated by other witnesses.

Const. Fox, the judge said, did not exaggerate or try to present himself in a favourable like.

On the other hand, De Couto dismissed Gregg’s account of his arrest.

“Mr. Gregg exaggerated at times when it suited his pur-pose and tried to excuse his conduct by blaming the police.”

Gregg, who has an extensive criminal record, is currently wanted on a warrant by Ridge Meadows RCMP.

b y M o n i s h a M a r t i n sstaff repor ter

An unemployed Maple Ridge father of four won $6.5 million in last week’s Lotto 6/49 draw.

Richard Batitis guessed all six numbers in the Sept. 15 draw cor-rectly - three were num-bers played by his late father.

“I’m trying to be re-laxed,” said the 47-year-old as he waited to pick up his cheque Wednes-day from the B.C. Lot-tery Corporation head-quarters.

A shipper-receiver, Ba-titis has been jobless for the past year and cur-rently rents a basement suite from his inlaws where he lives with his wife and kids aged 14, 11, 10 and six. His wife only works part-time.

“I’m a full-time house wife now,” Batitis said with a chuckle.

“It’s more of a job for me since I got laid off.”

Batitis has been play-ing the lotto every week since he moved to Cana-da from the Philippines 20 years ago, always picking his dad’s lucky digits or variations of them.

Batitis, who purchased his lucky ticket at the Mac’s convenience store

on Dewdney Trunk Road, had a feeling his luck was about to turn.

“I opened a fortune cookie the other day that said ‘You will go through a big life change’,” he said. “I al-

ways play the lottery using my father’s lucky numbers. He passed away in 1997, so I feel that my dad has sent me this blessing.”

Now, he can give his kids a dream house

with a swimming pool and buy himself a fancy car.

“We haven’t decided yet,” Batitis said.

“We have debt that we can now fi nish [pay-ing] off.”

Jobless dad of four wins $6.5 millionPlans to buy a house and car

BCLC

Richard Batitis picked all six numbers in the Sept. 15 Lotto 6/49 draw.

b y M o n i s h a M a r t i n sstaff repor ter

$10,000 to ID arts and culture

Under the Creative Communities pro-gram, 2010 Legacies Now and the Province of British Columbia are providing $10,000 to Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Leisure Services to document the region’s arts and cultural resources.

The cultural map-ping process will out-line existing cultural assets, using commu-nity input, and assess strengths and gaps in the arts community. It will provide a foun-dation to prepare a community-based strategic arts and cul-tural plan in future.

“Arts and heritage groups enrich our communities and pro-vide visitors a win-dow into our vibrant local culture,” says Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Marc Dalton. “This funding will help identify areas of arts and culture within Maple Ridge that can be used to showcase local talent and build successful programs.”

Vandalism, in one form or another

THE NEWS/opinion

On Sept. 22, C.A. Stone wrote in this newspa-

per: “As a taxpayer in Maple Ridge, I got van-dalized Friday night. I do not like it, but I can understand people stealing stuff. But to just ruin some one’s possessions, what kind of lunacy is that? I hope the person who did this would have the decency, when he has a lucid moment, to come and pay for the damage [to a vandalized truck], which is considerable.”

One can sympathize with: “As a taxpayer, I got vandalized Friday night.” Some 85 per cent of us feel mugged daily by the HST.

Stone shows near-Christian restraint with: “I can understand people stealing stuff.” Certain judges in B.C. should be heartened by that comment.

Regarding the mental state of the vandals, this is the lunacy of witless youth. Given vandals cannot or do not read, it is unlikely they browse the letters page while sip-ping lattés, overcome as it were with lucid nanoseconds of decency. Expecting them to pay for the damage is a longshot. Less likely is that these accursed pests have even once experienced a lucid moment, or a sense of decency, between them. Were that the case, the incident would never have taken place.

Let us rid Maple Ridge and Pitt Mead-ows of vandalism before our community becomes synonymous for it.

The word vandalism or vandal does not get the gravity it deserves. Why is a

vandal not regarded as a criminal? He or she should be. And parents are materially accountable.

Where there is vandalism, politics cannot be far away.

In daily chats with friends and neighbors, we may espouse views that contradict and make many of us politically ‘hard to read.’ So, vandals read this: I would recommend that you be shot at dawn, without a priest or last request and defi nitely no fi nal puff on a cigarette.

Sounds a little right-wing, no? Perhaps, but I understand that there are many good folk in Maple Ridge willing to cheerfully pull the trigger on the vandals.

Switching to the opposite side of political persuasion, we come to another vandal whom I hold in low esteem.

In a separate letter to the editor in The News, Lesley Shields of Maple Ridge wrote, concerning a form of vandalism seen by many as more serious than the daily B&E or nightly graffi ti, vandalism frequently described as rape. Lesley writes about a proposed development in Kanaka.

“Why is there even an ongoing discussion between Genstar and council to change the setback rules on this development? The 30-metre setback was put in place for the simple fact that it protects our watercours-es and the habitat surrounding them.

“The provincial government gave our municipal government the power to protect and enforce this.

“If the federal government recognizes this issue, so too should our municipal council, without hesitation.”

Rick Cook, consultant for Genstar is quoted as saying, “following a 30-metre set-back would require expensive re-grading of

the terrain.”So what? Genstar must have known this

when it fi rst walked onto the property. Genstar has been around since 1950. Genstar, I’m confi dent, has the means

fi nancially to deal with this. The cost of protection may have to be passed on to the folks who choose, of their own will, to buy homes in such delicate locations.

“Does council have the conscience and backbone to enforce these protection rules?”

Council, of course, does not have a col-lective conscience and I am confi dent it does not share a backbone. We vote for six of them so we get six consciences and six backbones. The results are seen plainly when their votes amount to six of one and half a dozen of the other.

So wipe away your tears for Genstar. Expensive terrain re-grading? Oh dear, whatever next?

Developer naughtiness in Maple Ridge may be found in New Westminster’s court records. This could be attributed to the fact that the Corporation of Maple Ridge occasionally is tempted to aid and abet developer misdemeanors, contravening the Offi cial Community Plan.

Will the district now dance with the devil in the Albion, happy to forgo its mantra on environmental setbacks? And is this a greenish-leftish question? To quote Stephen Colbert, the ‘truthiness’ will soon be known.

Claus Andrup is a former member of the Maple Ridge Community Heritage

Commission, Maple Ridge Economic Advisory Commission, and Maple Ridge

Historical Society.

Clean slateIngrid RiceNews Views

Published and printed by Black Press at 22328 – 119th Avenue, Maple Ridge, B.C., V2X 2Z3

Question of theweek:

Would you support the recall of local

MLA Marc Dalton?

Yes: 65% – No: 35%

This week’s question: Should prostitution be decriminalized in B.C.?

@ Online poll: cast your vote at www.mapleridgenews.com, or e-mail your vote and comments to editor@mapleridgenews.com

The cause of a Maple Ridge john who is challeng-ing the constitutionality of Canada’s solicitation laws could be helped by an Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling this past week.

The Ontario court decision struck down three major anti-prostitution laws in the Criminal Code on Tuesday, although it is not binding in B.C. or other provinces.

Still, the lawyer for Leslie Blais, who was arrested in an undercover sting targeting the sex trade in downtown Maple Ridge four years ago, says the ruling may be suffi cient to strike down the Cana-dian law.

“The Criminal Code in Canada can not be inappli-cable in Ontario and applicable everywhere else,” he said.

Which is why the federal government may now appeal the prostitution ruling, because it feels pros-titution harms individuals and communities.

But the court ruling found that the Criminal Code prohibitions against brothels, living on the avails of prostitution and communicating for the purposes of the trade contribute to the danger faced by sex-trade workers

And they do.The federal government needs a new policy on

prostitution. In Sweden, the number of female prostitutes

dropped dramatically after legislation was passed, criminalizing the buying of sex and decriminalizing the selling of sex. There, prostitution is regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and chil-dren.

Here, prostitutes are arrested and treated like criminals, although prostitution isn’t illegal in Can-ada. Attempting to fi nd customers is, though, so sex trade workers patrol dark streets and hide in alleys and empty lots.

It’s not like the current laws have been able to stop them. At least the government could try to protect them. It has a clean slate to do so.

– The News

Jim Coulter, publisherpublisher@mapleridgenews.com

Michael Hall, editoreditor@mapleridgenews.com

Carly Ferguson, advertising, creative services manageradmanager@mapleridgenews.com

Kathy Blore, circulation managercirculation@mapleridgenews.com

Editorial

Reporters: Phil Melnychuk, Monisha Martins,Robert Mangelsdorf

Photographer: Colleen Flanagan

Advertising

Sales representatives: Karen Derosia, Glenda Dressler, Rina Varley, Michelle Baniulis

Ad control: Mel OnodiCreative services: Kristine Pierlot, Cary Blackburn

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CCAB audited circulation: (as of September 2009): Wednesday - 30,221; Friday – 30,197.

Ser ving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows since 1978

THE NEWSRadio Haney Claus Andrup

Road construction between Haney and Vancouver leads

to thoughts of cycling to work.

But into Vancouver?That’s no problem for

Dave Rush, of the Vancou-ver Area Cycling Coalition.

For 10 years now, this civil engineer has pedaled into town. It takes him 20 minutes longer than buses and SkyTrain, or the West Coast Express.

“But I save an hour I’d spend in the fi tness centre,” he adds.

Janet Amsden, Maple Ridge envi-ronmentalist and grandmother, and I – both cycling novices – wanted to see how it’s done, but we didn’t want to bike all the way. Dave’s suggestion was to cycle part of the distance and use transit for the rest.

The journey began by buying an all-inclusive transit pass (about $8).

Ours let us access buses to New Westminster and Coquitlam, SkyTrain to Vancouver or Rich-mond, and even the Seabus to North Vancouver quay.

En route, we’d get acquainted with schedules and transfer points, mounting bikes on bus racks, SkyTrain elevators, and new bike routes.

The fi rst leg of our trip – to Braid Station in New Westminster – began at the Haney Bus Loop.

It’s 8:15 a.m. Dave makes eye con-tact with the driver of No. 791.

“Gonna practice putting bikes on

the rack.” The driver nods. Janet grasps the yellow handle on the rack, pulls it down, lifts her bike, and slips the wheels into channels.

“Looks wobbly, but it’ll stay,” assures Dave.

Janet’s bike has upturned bars, a soft seat. “Built it myself,” she says, “for comfort,” as she clamps down the front wheel.

Since racks house two bikes only, Dave will take

the No. 701 to Coquitlam Centre and transfer to Braid. Suddenly, he notices his bus pulling away and races off.

“I’ll get ahead of it,” he shouts back.

Janet and I reach Braid minutes before him. Here, we’ll board the Millennium Line SkyTrain to Com-mercial and Broadway.

Ascending to the platform is inter-esting. Bikes aren’t allowed on the escalator. The elevator is tiny. Dave balances his bike on the back wheel, rolls in and presses against a wall. “Don’t worry,” he says, “room for six bikes ... if you don’t mind getting friendly.”

It’s busy on the train. Dave shows us how to brace for sudden jolts: one hand on a rail, the other on the rear brake handle. Suddenly, a woman with baby buggy looks to exit. Dave clears a path by darting out of our car and into the next. At the follow-ing stop, he makes another Buzz Lightyear move to rejoin us.

Our plan to transfer at Commer-cial onto the Expo line to Waterfront is derailed by “debris” on its tracks. We decide to cycle from here.

Dave heads north on Woodland Drive, west on Adanac, west on Union – older houses, quiet, treed streets. Dave warns us to give parked cars a wide berth.

“Haven’t won the door prize yet,” he says as a cyclist with a blue Dairyland milk basket on back zips by.

Dunsmuir viaduct. Dave’s pleased with the bike lane built during the Olympics. The city wants to connect it to Burrard bridge, but there’s opposition. It might mean another separate bike lane on Hornby.

Cars on Dunsmuir, most with one occupant, are backed up.

“Still the car culture,” says Dave, scooping up a bike refl ector. “Found a cell phone in parts once. Put it together, dialed the one number in the address book – mom. It fell off my daughter’s roof, she told me. Your daughter can come and get it, I said. No one did. Mom must have been paying the phone bill.”

Hamilton Street. Dave has a consultation in a building under construction. “Find a place for cof-fee,” he says. “I’ll fi nd you.”

Outside a Starbucks, I watch a man in a business suit approach, smoking. “Can I buy a cigarette?”

“No.” “Well, can I have the butt then?”

“No.”Seabus. Lots of room for bikes.

View of harbor, cruise ships, con-vention centre. After lunch at the quay, we were back at Waterfront, and straight onto the Canada Line, which runs under Cambie. In 24 minutes, we’d be at the airport, but we get off at Marine Drive to use the new Arthur Lang bike path over the Fraser. From there, it’s a short bike ride to SkyTrain north on Canada Line to 41st and Oak.

Here, we follow Dave’s instincts through Shaughnessey to Kits Point. Next is the bike lane over Burrard Bridge, along False Creek to the Main Street SkyTrain, and back to Braid. We could catch the No. 791 back to Haney, but the rack is full, so Janet and I take bus No. 169 to Coquitlam, and transfer to the No. 701. Dave has hardly formed a sweat. He elects to cycle home from New West.

On the No. 701, Janet and I review our day while a group of uniformed school kids talks quietly in the back rows. As they de-bus in Haney, their chorus of “thank you” has several other drivers wondering what school they attend. Maybe, somebody will tell us, or maybe I’ll bump into them the next time I take my bike into the city.

Yep, I’m hooked, Dave. Thanks.

Jack Emberly is a director of the Centre for Education and

Environmental Development in Maple Ridge.

For maps of Lower Mainland cycling routes, visit www.vacc.

Letters to the editor should be exclusive to The News and address topics of interest to residents of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. Include full name and address, as well as daytime phone number for verification. Keep letters to 500 words or less. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

@ E-mail letters to editor@mapleridgenews.com.

Letters welcome

EDITOR, THE NEWS:Re: Charges in drunk driving death

(The News, Sept. 29); New drunk driv-ing rules hurting pub (The News, Sept. 29).

It is interesting to me that The News chose to run the story of charges being laid in Amanda Woodthorpe’s death on the front page, and a story that is almost the same length on the second page of Todd Arbuthnot bemoaning the fact that Maple Ridge residents are choosing to be responsible and not drink if they are driving.

I am particularly interested in his comment: “There is no consultation, which is upsetting ...”

I sure hope that Mr. Arbuthnot does not think that he should have been con-sulted in this new legislation. I com-pletely understand that we all need to make a living – my husband is self-employed and I can appreciate the fact that we all need to support ourselves and our families. That being said, it is very unfortunate to read an article that belittles the choices that people are making to keep all our loved ones safe on the road.

My thoughts and prayers are with both the Middelaer and Woodthorpe families, who have paid the ultimate price, and I truly hope that Mr. Ar-buthnot never has to experience what they must be going through.

NICOLE ROBINSON

MAPLE RIDGE

EDITOR, THE NEWS:It is always a pleasure to see the usual disgruntled let-

ter writers attempt to get us riled up, this time (again) about the HST, the lying Liberal government (their words), and how we must now support recall. Funny how some of these writers always show up about a year ahead of civic elections.

These people have a lot in common with all of those who want something achieved that they deem necessary, the government (us) must pay for it.

A referendum will cost $30 million, and recall will cost about $500,000 per MLA. They have pegged 18. That would be $9.5 million. For almost $40 million, I can wait the two and half years until the next election, because the whole processes will be a waste.

Look at all the squawking you do in two and a half years, whereas when your initiatives fall on their collective be-hinds, you’ll just look foolish.

May I suggest you do some research on why you are calling the government liars, and the fi nancial stability of the province before you rant any more.

LORNE RIDING

MAPLE RIDGE

I can wait two and a half more years

No consultation with pubs?

THE NEWS/files

Todd Arbuthnot claims new drunk driving restrictions are affecting business at his pub, Fox’s Reach.

THE NEWS/letters

Maple Ridge to Vancouver: combining cycling, transit

Commentary Jack Emberly

Contributed

Dave Rush talks to a bus driver about bike racks.

Schools, sports fi elds, a stadium and big stores could all be part of the Albion fl ats.

Just because one group prefers one use, doesn’t mean it comes at the ex-pense of others.

“There are 300 acres. There’s a lot of poten-tial to do a lot of differ-ent things,” consultant Mark Holland told a group of about 120 at-tending the fi rst commu-nity forum on the Albion fl ats Wednesday.

“Everything is on the table for discussion.”

But fi rst there’s the matter of the Agricul-tural Land Reserve – in which most of Al-bion fl ats sits – and the Agricultural Land Commission, which decides if any land can be removed from the reserve.

“They are a very, very important part of this,” said Holland.

“They said they’re willing to talk, but they haven’t made any prom-

ises.” Any plan has to be something the com-mission can take seri-ously, he added.

Whatever decision is made in, Albion could be a template for other areas, so the ALC wants to ensure any decisions don’t send a message that it’s open season on farmland.

“The decisions we make today need to be the ones that point us in the right direction 10, 20, 30 years from now.”

The meeting was the fi rst chance for the public to give their views for the land at Lougheed Highway and 105th Avenue as Maple Ridge council tries to write an area plan by the new year. They did that by fi lling out work-books answering ques-tions and giving writ-ten comments, all of which will be reviewed and used in the brain-storming session next Oct. 21 and 22.

When former Maple Ridge councillor Betty Levens was asked what she’d like to see in Al-bion, she had her own questions.

“If you put retail in here, it’s going to affect

our downtown area.”But what do Pitt Mead-

ows malls do to Maple Ridge’s downtown?

Where do people buy their bedsheets, their shoes? she asked.

Joyce Walker was bothered that the whole area is within the fl ood plain and wondered how much it would cost to raise the elevation.

Ruth Pare, owner of Haney Marketplace and Antique Mall, wanted to see several uses for the area. She’d like the ag land used for com-munity gardens.

On Lougheed Highway, she’d like to see small destination-type shop-ping rather than big-box stores. “I really don’t think they enhance the area.”

There could even be a

pathway connection to Albion ferries, via Ka-naka Creek and an over-pass across Lougheed Highway to connect the two sides of Albion.

Pare said downtown Maple Ridge has been good for her business in Haney Place Mall. Her annual sales have increased fi ve times to half a million dollars, in the last fi ve years. “You can do business in Maple Ridge.”

Janice Whyte wants more stores, and is not opposed to big box stores, saying she resents hav-ing to leave Maple Ridge to spend her money and do her shopping.

Andy Roy, sitting at the same table, agreed with that.

Smart!Centres owns several acres in Albion fl ats and wants to put up big box

Former mayor Gordy Robson remains con-cerned mass transpor-tation links aren’t being considered as growth is planned.

“Transit and transpor-tation are not included in this discussion … be-cause it should form the backbone of whatever we do.”

Public gets say on Albion flats120 show up to write commentsb y P h i l M e l n y c h u kstaff repor ter

“There’s a lot of potential to do a lot of different things.” Mark Hollandconsultant

Enrollment is down again in School Dis-trict No. 42, but not as

much as district staff had expected.

Although the fi-

nal numbers are still being calculated, a process made all the

more difficult thanks to problems with the province’s computer system, preliminary reports show student enrollment fell by about 100 students dis-trict-wide compared to last year.

Enrolment in the dis-trict has been steadily declining for years. Numbers for the Sep-tember 2009 head count show 15,368 stu-dents in the district, down from 15,536 in 2008.

However, student enrollment for the 2010/11 school year was still higher than the district’s own pro-jections, noted Laurie Meston, the district’s director of instruction for early learning.

Class size averages for both secondary and elementary schools fell within Ministry guidelines.

Average class sizes for elementary grades are smaller than last year. Average kinder-garten class sizes fell from 18.5 students to 17.7. For Grades 1 to 3, average class sizes were 20.6 students, down from 20.8 last year. Intermediate grades saw their class size averages fall from 26.2 to 25.8.

School district staff and trustees didn’t mince their words

Wednesday night in their condemnation of a provincially-mandated computer program that is creating havoc for teachers and adminis-trators.

Speaking at the school board’s regular meet-ing this week, school superintendent Jan Un-

win vented the district’s frustrations with the B.C. Enterprise Student Information System, or BCeSIS.

The program allows teachers to enter class lists, take attendance, make timetable chang-es, process student transfers, enter grades,

and publish report cards. However, with all 60 B.C. school dis-tricts now using BCeSIS as of this school year, the program has repeat-edly crashed, unable to meet the demand of teachers from across the province attempting to use the system at the same time.

“Our teachers have been run off their feet because of this prob-lem,” said Unwin.

Once a user is bumped off the system, it can take on average of an hour to get back on, said deputy superintendent Stewart Sonne.

“Many people, myself included, have had to wait until nine or 10 at night to be able to use it.”

When it is working

perfectly, BCeSIS is an excellent management system, noted Sonne.

“But we’ve lost total confi dence in the sys-tem,” he said.

Districts across the province are required to use the computer pro-gram, and are charged $10 per student, which the Ministry of Educa-tion withholds.

For the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District, that amounts to more than $150,000 annually

“When you hear the screaming, it’s warrant-ed,” said Unwin.

School board trustees voted unanimously in favour of a motion by trustee Susan Carr to send a letter to the Min-istry of Education out-lining the district’s frus-

trations with BCeSIS, and requesting immedi-ate action to remedy the problem.

“This is frustrating, time consuming, and its not good for morale,” said Carr. “[Teachers] don’t want to be stuck in front of a computer try-ing to fi gure out some-one else’s computer program.”

“It’s a waste of money and it doesn’t work.”

The B.C. Teachers Federation reported that a survey done in 2009 in Langley found 88 per cent of teachers felt BCeSIS increased their level of work-related stress.

“Asking for reports on problems with BCe-SIS is a bit like giving an engineer an abacus to calculate a moon

launch trajectory, then asking if the abacus is functioning properly,” said BCTF president Susan Lambert in a prepared statement last month. “I think BCeSIS is functioning as de-signed. It’s the design that’s fl awed.”

Both Lambert and school district staff have said they’ve received as-surances the problems will be fi xed, but so far, it hasn’t happened.

“It compromises the goals of the entire dis-trict,” said board chair Ken Clarkson. “The teachers didn’t want to use this program from the beginning. Now next time there’s a change [from the Ministry of Education] there’s go-ing to be more resis-tance.”

District vents frustrations about provincial marks systemBCeSIS a ‘waste of time and money’

b y R o b e r t M a n g e l s d o r fstaff repor ter

SD42 school enrollment down, again

Although the Ontario Supe-rior Court of Justice ruling is not binding in B.C. or other prov-inces, Chouinard said “it’s very persuasive.

“It may be that it is suffi cient to strike the law down. The Crimi-nal Code in Canada can not be inapplicable in Ontario and ap-plicable everywhere else,” he added.

Chouinard is now waiting to hear from the Crown prosecutor dealing with Blais’ case. His trial is set to continue next month.

In a 131-page ruling, Ontario court Justice Susan Himel found Criminal Code prohibitions against brothels, living on the avails of prostitution and com-municating for the purposes of the trade contribute to the dan-ger faced by sex-trade workers.

She said it now falls to parlia-ment to “fashion corrective ac-tion.”

The judge suspended her rul-ing for 30 days to give the gov-ernment time to consider how to address the ruling’s potential consequences.

The federal government is “se-riously considering an appeal.”

“The government is very con-cerned about the Superior Court’s decision,” said Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Rob Nicholson in a statement fol-lowing the landmark ruling.

“We will fi ght to ensure that the criminal law continues to ad-dress the signifi cant harms that fl ow from prostitution to both communities and the prostitutes themselves, along with other vul-nerable persons.”

Meanwhile, B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch is reviewing the ruling, but Crown spokesperson Neil Mackenzie stressed it would not affect how Crown proceeds with the charge against Blais.

“It remains to be seen what ef-

fect a decision in another prov-ince will have,” said Mackenzie.

“In a legal sense, a court deci-sion in another province is not a binding authority on a court in British Columbia. A court here may look at the principles and the reasoning that are set out in decisions made in another prov-ince. So I wouldn’t want to specu-late on what effect a decision may have on any cases here.”

Government ‘seriously considering appeal’

Drug dealer gets conditional sentence

Prostitution from front

Sex trade in CanadaProstitution is not illegal in Canada, but many activities closely linked to the profession are penalized, including communicating for the purposes of prostitution, soliciting, keeping a com-mon bawdy house, and procuring and living off the avails of prostitution.Experts call it a Catch 22 situation - in short, it is legal to sell sex, but illegal to attempt to fi nd any customers.

A man caught in a dial-a-dope sting last year will not spend time in jail.

Julius Raymond Baguhin re-ceived an 18-month conditional sentence Tuesday for pleading guilty to four counts of drug traf-fi cking.

Several other traffi cking charges related to offences in

Coquitlam were stayed.The 23-year-old Burnaby resi-

dent will have to abide by a daily curfew, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., for the fi rst year.

He must abstain from drugs and alcohol and not possess any prohibited weapons or guns.

Baguhin is only allowed to have a cell phone for work and must

provide his sentence supervisor with his phone number as well as the phone’s model and serial number. He also has to complete 50 hours of community service.

Baguhin was among 10 people arrested last October by Ridge Meadows RCMP in an undercov-er operation that targeted the street-level drug trade.

Crown prosecutor Susan McCallum could not say how many photographs were included in evidence but stressed “they were clear enough to form child pornography.

“The process has begun,” she added. “And further investigation continues.”

Crown is now preparing particulars to disclose to defence counsel. Vancouver lawyer Mark Jette has been hired to represent the teen.

An 18-year-old man was also arrested by police for his alleged participation in the sexual assault, but charges have yet to be fi led against him.

So far, only two witnesses to the rape have come forward to speak to police.

RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Peter Thiessen said in-vestigators continue to encourage anyone who may have been present during the incident to come for-ward.

Other teens who attended the party have spoken to police and provided information that is “second and third hand.”

Thiessen said those second and third hand ac-counts make it a challenge to gather the appropriate evidence to lay a charge.

“It seems like there is a small group here that is involved in some level of a code of silence,” he added. “They don’t see the severity of what’s occurring and are not stepping up and doing the right thing.”

Other teens step upCharges from front

A man wanted by Vancouver police lost his Cadillac for 30 days Wednesday after RCMP in Maple Ridge nabbed him for driving drunk.

Ridge Meadows RCMP stopped the 34-year-old Port Moody man just after 1 p.m. in the 23200-block of River Road. He was wanted by Vancouver police for uttering threats.

Insp. Derren Lench said during the arrest, the offi cer noticed the man had consumed al-cohol. The offi cer de-manded samples of the man’s breath, which re-sulted in a ‘fail’ reading on a hand-held roadside screening device.

Under new legislation that came into effect Sept. 20, the man’s driv-ing privileges were sus-pended for 90 days and his 1999 Cadillac was impounded for 30 days.

Outdoor growopA group cleaning a lo-

cal stream stumbled on a small marijuana grow operations this past week.

Nine pot plants, vary-ing in height from two feet to four feet tall, were found in the

11600-block of 236th Street.

Police seized them and said the plants will be destroyed.

House B&EThieves made off with

a large loot Monday after breaking into a house in Maple Ridge.

The burglary took place between 9:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. An expen-sive man’s ring was sto-len, along with camer-as, video game remote controls, a jewelry box

and its contents, as well as money.

Panhandler arrestedA Maple Ridge man

was arrested by police Monday for aggres-sively panhandling at a Pitt Meadows mall.

Police took the 55-year-old into custo-dy after they received complaints about him yelling obscenities at customers in the park-ing lot of Meadowtown Shopping Centre and threatening a bus driv-

er.Insp. Derren Lench

said the man tried to resist arrest and had to be forcibly placed in the police car. The man had been just been re-leased from police custody after he dined and dashed at a Maple Ridge pub. Lench said police were called af-ter man ate a meal and was unable to pay for it.

The man was held in custody overnight due to his aggressive be-haviour.

Cadillac impounded for 30 days

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Police officers riding in the Cops for Cancer fundraiser roll out of the Edge Street RCMP detatchment in Maple Ridge on Tuesday.

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Heavy hitterElijah Crevier works out with a heavy bag while hanging out with friends outside his place at the Vall Maria Mobile Home Court on Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge Tuesday evening.

Shorelinecleanupa success

Forty volunteers with the Maple Ridge Adopt-A-Block Society helped collect 150 pounds of garbage during the annual TD Great Cana-dian Shoreline Cleanup in

Maple Ridge.The event took place Sept.

18 at Maple Ridge Park. Organizers said there

were many interesting lit-ter fi nds, including lunch

boxes, fl ip fl ops and fi re crackers. The most col-lected item of litter was once again cigarette butts. Volunteers picked up more than 325 of them.

If Justice Bruce Cohen was impressed by a tour of the Allco fi sh hatchery on a bright fall day, he wasn’t saying anything, because he couldn’t say anything owing to the nature of the Cohen Inquiry into the Disap-pearance of the Fraser River Sockeye.

But it was a good way to spend a day, hearing about the struggles of the volunteer-run Alou-ette River Management Society during a visit to the Rivers Heritage Cen-tre on Wednesday.

“People don’t under-stand the human toil that it costs to get some-thing to this stage,” said society spokesman Geoff Clayton.

“Politicians, for the most part, just do not understand the per-sonal costs,” just to get one salmon back, added Marvin Rosenau, BCIT outdoor instructor.

Cohen and a support group were treated to a luncheon in the heritage centre followed by a tour of the hatchery and the B.C. Hydro dam, which blocks the south end of the lake.

The event is one of many the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River will make as it gathers evidence, then tries to draw con-clusions about what led to the disastrous sockeye salmon run of 2009.

Rosenau’s presenta-tion before the com-mission focused on the return of the sockeye salmon to the Alouette Lake reservoir after a test release of young fi sh over the Alouette dam spillway in 2005.

Those fi sh had been considered kokanee, landlocked salmon, but when survivors returned to the South Alouette River, and were later confi rmed as Alouette sockeye, scientists got excited. After more than 80 years, a sockeye run was re-established in the river.

Starting with 27 return-ing sockeye in 2007, that number increased to 108 this year, although that refl ected the high overall returns for sockeye this year in the Fraser River.

Rosenau admitted that the numbers were insig-nifi cant compared to the millions of sockeye that use the Fraser River as a superhighway into the B.C. Interior.

However, it’s part of a bigger picture of what’s happening to the Fraser River, he added.

The Alouette sockeye,

though, didn’t return without some help. The lake fertilization pro-gram started in 1999, and involved dumping phos-phorus and nitrogen into the lake to replace the natural marine-driven nutrients that would have been there if fi sh had been allowed to migrate up the river, spawn and die in Alou-ette Lake.

That provided suste-nance to the kokanee population in the lake, allowing it to grow and possibly increasing num-bers by 10 times.

Ultimately, over per-haps two decades, the Alouette sockeye run could hit between 100,000 and 200,000, Rosenau

said.However, Clayton said

later that a maximum run would be closer to 75,000.

Rosenau said an Alou-ette Lake run wouldn’t be comparable to the Adams River run, which produces millions of sockeye. And while a fi shway allowing sock-eye to swim over the top of the dam into the lake isn’t necessary to rebuild the run, it would be diffi cult to trap those many numbers at the Allco fi shery, then truck them around the dam for release, as is the current practice.

“If you get those sort of numbers, it will be pretty much impossible to trap

and truck,” he said.A fi sh ladder up to the

top of the dam is the so-ciety’s main project, one that carries a $3-million price tag.

The society is looking for B.C. Hydro to fund the project, Clayton told the inquiry.

A fi sh ladder not only would help sockeye reach their lake spawn-ing grounds, it would also allow chum, coho and steelhead get to the lake, blocked since construction of the B.C. Hydro dam in 1926.

A fi sh ladder would “put a bandage or splint” on a damaged ecosystem and would restore nutri-ents back into the lake, Rosenau said.

Maple Ridge Coun. Al Hogarth wondered if the fertilization program could be jeopardized when Abbotsford and Mission, in a few years, begin tapping into Stave Lake as a source for its drinking water. Stave Lake is connected to Alouette Lake through underground pipes and there could be concerns about the fertilizer mi-grating into the Stave.

However, the amount of fertilizer added to Alouette Lake is minis-cule and is almost imme-diately absorbed into the Alouette ecosystem.

Clayton, though, said while there would be no risk to drinking water quality, “there has to be complete sign-off that our aquatic needs super-sede their water needs.”

After lunch, Cohen inspected the hatchery and the fi sh fence near-by in the South Alouette River.

“This is all inmate [Fraser Regional Correc-tional Centre] labour,” Clayton said, showing Cohen a recently con-structed native plant garden and spawning stream bed.

Clayton said the hatch-ery’s operating budget is $25,000, paid for by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, for fi sh food and electricity.

“The rest is sweat eq-uity and corrections.”

Cohen commission hears about ‘personal costs’

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

BCIT instructor Marvin Rosenau makes a presentation to the Cohen commission at the Rivers Heritage Centre on Wednesday.

b y P h i l M e l n y c h u kstaff repor ter

The latest edition of Ma-clean’s magazine, Oct. 4, 2010, had a great editorial

titled, “Don’t give students more tools of mass distraction.”

Aside from the fact that the ed-itors expressed concerns that I have had for some time, thus my assertion that this was a great editorial (we all love to read what we agree with), it was a re-inforcement to all teachers that technology has become both a gift and a challenge to students.

Subsequently, the continuous emphasis on getting more tech-nology into classrooms needs some review, perhaps even a more comprehensive plan.

At this point, at least in my experience, technology is being dumped into classrooms not by teachers and administrators, but by parents and students.

The latest smartphones and laptop technologies generally supersede what school systems can provide for every student. As a result, there are inequities. Those who have the latest tech toys have an advantage, at least in technology, over those who must rely on the school system for such tools.

Add to this the rather stealth nature of new technologies (easier to use and keep from the attention of teachers) and you understand pretty quickly the concept of distraction.

Again, some students are en-gulfed in distracting behaviours in the classroom and thus, while

they may have an advantage in one way, they are not able to benefi t from it because they are not directing their tech-nology to practical uses in the context of the school. Most of what is going on is actually taking away from the directed learning expe-rience.

Many teachers are overwhelmed by the distractibility of their students and are tired of asking students to stop using their cell phones, or stop instant messaging in class.

For some, that has led to a benign neglect: as long as the kids are not interfering with the class, the subtle distraction is al-lowed.

For others, it has resulted in a continuous level of confronta-tion as they have made a stand in their classes but not always been supported by their col-leagues or administrators. If a teacher fl ips out, you can be sure there’ll be pictures, videos and text messages sent out to parents, friends and anyone else who might get a thrill out of a teacher gone berserk. YouTube is full of them.

I’m going to speak as a parent for a moment, not as an educa-tor. My sons all went through high school without a cell phone. I knew that if they needed to contact me for an emergency,

they always had the school phones. If they were going out at night, I gave them my cell

phone for emergency purposes. They had computers at home, but limited internet ac-cess.

I’ve always felt part of my role as a par-ent was to support the school. I knew that there was no purpose for cell phones in the school setting and that computers students needed at school were provided by the school. That way, I sent my

children to school with the tools (brains and school sup-plies) they needed to participate in, but not be a distraction to the school setting.

If the school requested some specifi c technological support, I tried to provide it at home with-in the framework of my parent-ing expectations.

Schools need to develop some clear statements on technologi-cal use and parents need to sup-port these statements by limit-ing the technology that they give their children to take to school.

Without such coordination, the school setting will continue to grow, as the editorial stated, as a place of “mass distraction.”

Graham Hookey is an

educator and writer (ghookey@yahoo.com).

Schools a place of mass distraction

Parenting Graham Hookey

The City of Pitt Mead-ows has been named a fi -nalist by B.C. Hydro for a Power Smart Excellence Award.

The city’s employee green team has been taking the message of conservation from the workplace out into the community through new policies, school programs and community projects.

The Power Smart Ex-cellence Awards recog-nize B.C. businesses for their leadership in and commitment to energy management and con-servation.

“With so many organi-zations making energy

effi ciency and conserva-tion an integral part of the way they conduct business, it has become increasingly diffi cult with each passing year to narrow down fi nalists, let alone winners,” said Lisa Coltart, B.C. Hydro’s executive director of Power Smart and Cus-tomer Care.

“On behalf of B.C. Hydro I’d like to extend my congratulations to the City of Pitt Mead-ows. Your commitment to energy effi ciency will help our province reach its goal of electricity self suffi ciency by 2016.”

A fi nalist in the Work-

place Conservation Leadership category, Pitt Meadows is the fi rst municipality in B.C. to install energy-effi cient computers in all mu-nicipal buildings. In ad-dition, the city actively promoted conservation for Earth Hour 2010. This year, Pitt Meadows reduced its energy use by two per cent during Earth Hour.

Fifty-three fi nalists in 15 categories were selected by a panel of judges.

• For more information and a list of all the fi nal-ists, visit bchydro.com/awards.

City a fi nalist for green award

Every time I visit the ocean, I seem to learn more

about human nature or, to be more specifi c, how our activities, includ-ing gardening, directly affect the underwater world.

On several of my recent dives in Belize, I noticed that a few of the coral formations were exhibiting signs of bleaching. Bleaching is essentially heat stress caused by high water temperatures that damage symbiotic algae – leaving white or dead portions. Those higher ocean tempera-tures are a result of worldwide atmospheric pollution, fertilizer and sewage runoff and deforestation (causing localized silting).

Still, the reef system here (the second largest in the world) is relatively pristine and home to an incredibly rich ecosystem – on any given day you’ll see sharks, rays, sea turtles and myriad fi sh species.

But it’s only when I compare it to more affected and much less diverse reefs, like the Florida Keys (where 80% of the coral has died) that I despair to see even a hint of bleaching.

Of course, the news isn’t always bad and the recent record sockeye salmon run and the return of grey whales to our local waters gives one hope – but these are small victories in light of the big picture.

Still, every recovery has to start some-where, so here are fi ve small steps that every gardener can take to ensure that their garden does not pollute locally, or further a fi eld:

1. If you live beside a stream or river, be sure to leave the greenbelt buffer intact and avoid removing indigenous vegetation in order to squeeze in a few more ornamental shrubs on the edge of your garden. Native plants such as Salmonberry (Rubus spect-abilis), Redtwig dogwood (Cornus sericea) and False Lily-of-the Valley (Maianthemum dilatatum) may not look as pretty as most cultivated plants, but they do an effi cient job of fi ltering groundwater and preventing ero-sion in riparian zones.

2. Similarly, do not use riparian zones as compost or green waste dumping sites as many potentially invasive plants such as ornamental nettle (Lamiastrum) and English ivy (Hedera helix) can take hold and over-

whelm indigenous plants – to the detriment of the whole local ecosystem.

3. Only fertilize plants when they need it and try to avoid broadcasting granulars or spraying liquid fertilizers over large portions of your garden (except lawns and groundcov-ers) simply to get the chore of fertilizing over and done with. Plants, like people, have indi-vidual nutritional needs and indiscriminate mass applications of fertilizer will inevitably

result in nitrogen and phosphorus runoff – both of which are leading water pollutants.

4. Never use a fungicide or pesticide until

you have identifi ed the pest. One of the best examples of this was a client who was advised (by someone else) to spray his entire purple-leaf plum (Prunus cerasifera ‘Pis-sardii’) with a contact pesticide in order to alleviate his caterpillar infestation – despite the fact that no caterpillars had been seen. A casual examination of his leaf samples clearly indicated that the holes were the result of Coryneum Blight (shot-hole fungus) brought on by a very wet spring, so no pes-ticides were necessary. All he really needed to do was pick-up and dispose of his leaves in fall and prune out any cankered branches.

5. Always purchase good quality garden tools; the popular belief that using inex-pensive disposable tools actually saves you money in the long run is totally false, as it is future generations that will continue to pay for our wasteful buying habits. Every time a tool is forged – be it well designed or poor quality – energy is expended, natural resources (components of steel such as iron, manganese, chromium) are mined and refi ned, packaging is created and more fossil fuels are wasted on shipping (much of it long distance) – all of which increase greenhouse gases and accelerate global warming.

Buying a good quality tool will defi nitely cost you more initially, but it will last you a lifetime and you can go to bed at night with a good conscience.

Remember, at the edge of every garden is an ocean, and even though you may not be able to physically see it, the well-being of ev-ery living creature it holds – from the tiniest coral polyp to massive whale sharks – much depends on decisions that you and countless other gardeners make.

And if that isn’t enough incentive, let me remind you that if they perish from our carelessness, the demise of the most destructive species on this planet, Homo sapiens, can’t be far behind.

Mike Lascelle is a local nursery manager and gardening author

(hebe_acer@hotmail.com).

Nicole Lascelle photos

(Clockwise from top) Elkhorn coral showing signs of bleaching at the tips; me getting ready for a dive in Belize; a Green Sea turtle eating seagrass.’

THE NEWS/home&gardening

The ocean at the edge of your garden

Gardening Mike Lascelle

“Buying a good quality tool will

definitely cost you more initially,

but it will last you a lifetime and you

can go to bed at night with a good

conscience.”

Many people who now live in Canada

have come from other countries.

Some have come because they wanted to start a new life.

Others have joined togeth-er with family members that have already immigrated, and there are those who have found it impossible to stay in their own homeland because of overwhelming hard-ships, so with great heaviness of heart have had to leave fam-ily members behind and come to a country where they have had to start life all over again.

At some point, many of these people will de-sire to become citizens and make Canada their home country.

On a personal note, my reason for coming to this country more than 17 years ago was to marry a Canadian girl who I had met and fallen in love with.

We decided that we would live in Canada, so I became a landed immigrant, and I have only just become a Canadian citizen in the past few months.

In June this year, with 96 people from 33 different nations, I stood before the judge to swear my allegiance to the queen, which made me feel re-ally at home because I originally came from the old country of England.

As you can see, this for me wasn’t an impulsive decision as I have been living here since 1993.

During that time I have enjoyed every-thing that is good about this country: its beauty, its freedom and its people.

But there is one thing I was not able to do, and that was to cast my vote so that I could have an infl uence on

who would govern our city, our prov-ince and our country.

I somehow felt that I didn’t fully belong; even my title was a ‘landed im-migrant.’

But now I feel legal and part of this wonderful

country.It’s really important

for all of us to know that we belong and that we are accepted whether it is to a fam-ily, an individual or a country.

God is also con-cerned about you and where you belong.

The Bible has a lot to say about our journey here on Earth; it says we are only pilgrims and that our time on Earth is not the end of our journey – we are just passing through for a short time. That’s why it tells us not to store up too many things and not to get too attached to things here because we can’t take it with us – it’s only a part of the journey.

He encourages us to build things that are going to last forever, rather than things that are going to perish and pass away with time.

In Philippians, chapter 3 verse 20, it says that our citizen-

ship is in heaven and that we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Heaven is the real place; it’s the place where we belong.

Don’t get me wrong, this life on Earth is worth living and we should be enjoying it to the full, but if we could only realize that it is God’s intention for us to live forever, with no restrictions of time and physical limita-tions.

There is eternal life and a home that await us.

I became a Cana-dian citizen by fi lling out some paper work over 18 months ago, stating that I wanted to be a true member of this country. My citizenship in heaven happened when I in-vited Jesus into my life many years ago.

Since that time, I realized that heaven is the place for which we were created. It’s my home and it can be yours, as well.

Rev. Rod Shearing is senior pastor of High

Way Church.

A citizen of Canada, and heaven

Acts of Faith Rod Shearing

“He encourages us to build things that are going to last forever.”

It was a graduation ceremony with a difference. Not only

were there wet eyes in the audience, but wet noses as well.

On Sunday, at the Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby 14 teams crossed the stage and were presented with a certifi cate that acknowledged the com-pletion of their training and the beginning of their life together.

Each team consisted

of a person, most often in a wheelchair, and a well-behaved, tail-wag-ging dog.

For the Pacifi c As-sistance Dogs Society (PADS), this was its largest graduating class since it originated in 1987.

Fourteen lives were changed forever.

“She’s opened doors for me,” said Zosia Ettenberg, a resident of Langley, speaking of her dog Rumor. “Not just physically, but she helps people see me as a person with a disability rather than a

disabled person.” Zosia, the valedicto-

rian, was the recipient of the 2008 Courage to Come Back Award. She will be speaking in Maple Ridge in Febru-ary at the invitation of the chamber of com-merce.

Her service dog Rumor, a yellow Lab-rador with soft brown eyes, sat patiently beside Zosia’s chair. Upon command, the dog picked up a water bottle and handed it to her. These dogs can be trained for a variety of tasks, including carry-

ing shopping bags and pulling a wheelchair.

Most service dogs are larger breeds, while hearing dogs are smaller ones such as Terriers.

Graduating Sunday was a silky-haired shel-tie by the name of Toby. She will be beginning her new career as an intervention dog. She, along with Poppy, who went to Canuck Place Hospice, will be used to help children who have suffered trauma.

Raising these dogs requires a special type of person. Able to take a puppy and devote countless hours to its training, they then have to hand them over to their new families.

Sarah and Wendy, two puppy raisers from Calgary, stood beside their newest charges. Pinned to their vests over their hearts were badges with the names of every puppy they had raised. For Sarah, it was eight and Wendy had raised six.

“Change Lives One Dog at a Time,” is the

motto of PADS, and it was never more evident than on the stage on Sunday.

Ric Egan from Mer-ritt sat in the spotlight waiting for his puppy raisers to bring his dog, Finn, to him and turn over the leash. As they approached Egan, all decorum was lost as Finn wagged his tail excitedly and smiled a big grin.

This was only possible because of dedicated volunteers and sponsors. It costs approximately $35,000 to raise and train a service dog. You can donate on line at www.pads.ca or volunteer for events. Perhaps you might even think of welcoming a puppy into your home.

Egan was clear as to what this meant to him.

“Thank you,” he said to all the volunteers and sponsors, “for giving him a second chance at life.”

Marsha Lemon is a high school teacher and

freelance writer.

The day 14 lives were changed forever

Contributed

Service dogs are generally Labradors or golden retrievers.

b y M a r s h a L e m o ncontributor

At last the heat of the summer has dissolved

into a sparkling fall and the inhabitants along the Alouette River and in the woods are thinking of winter and all it brings.

During the summer months, some of the most interesting crea-tures to be found here in the Lower Mainland are the frogs, who spent their days singing at the tops of their voices and enjoying the sun-kissed lily pads along the waterways and ponds.

There are several species here, but by far the most common to be found are the bullfrog, Pacifi c tree frog and red-legged frog, although the latter is getting quite rare.

The bullfrog is not native to British Columbia and can be found all over North America. Some measure up to 20 cm, and that is not including their legs.

They lay up to 20,000 eggs at a time and when they colonize an area, any other frogs are on the menu for lunch – the

tadpoles are also large and aggressive, living one to two years in that state before they turn into frogs and go hunting for ponds of their own.

By contrast, the Pacifi c tree frog is one of the smallest frogs here. It can be any colour from gray-green, rusty bronze, or bright emerald green, with dark stripes running the

length of its body and over its face.

This species only lays a hand-ful of eggs.

The little frogs are often found stuck to your door or window and adapt quite well to urban living, especially if there is a nice fl owerpot and a water source near by.

One of the rarest frogs we have here is the red-legged frog. It is a shy creature and is slowly being chased out of the area by the bull frog and the green frog, both imports to the Lower Mainland.

It only produces about 750 to a 1,000 eggs each year, so really doesn’t stand a chance against

its more aggressive brothers and sisters.

And, yes, as it’s name implies, it is a reddish colour, including the legs.

All frogs love to eat beetles, insects and fl ies. They are patient hunters and wait, quite still, for their pray to come in range of there swift tongue.

But soon, when the winds blow and frost nips the air, they will burrow into the mud of their favourite pond and wait for the spring to come again.

Liz Hancock is a member of the

Alouette River Management Society.

About the frogs along the Alouette

River tales Liz Hancock

Heidi Johnson, a Maple Ridge resident, Honorary Rotarian and recipient of Rotary Interna-tional’s prestigious Paul Harris Award for exemplary service, has helped raise more than $33,000 to improve the appall-ing conditions at the Muntin-dilaw Elementary School in Manila, and to provide desks, books, computers and other aids to the community.

In 2008, Johnson participated in a Rotary Group Study Ex-change, traveling with four other young business people, and Rotarian team leader Mark Kendziorek, from Washington State, to Manila in the Philip-pines.

Sponsored by the Meadow Ridge Rotary Club in Maple

Ridge, Johnson was able to tour many locations and facili-ties in the Philippines, learning about their business practices and fostering international re-lations.

While there, Johnson visited the Muntindilaw Elementary School and was overwhelmed by the warmth and passion of the more than 1,100 students and caring teachers located in one of the poorest regions.

She was shocked to see how little they had to work with, and that they had virtually no sanitation.

She immediately began to raise money, collecting more than $6,000 for teaching tools and school supplies.

She continued to work to-

wards raising funds for wash-rooms and clean water and facilitated a joint project with the Rizal Centro District 3800 Rotary Club, The Meadow Ridge and Abbotsford Sumas District 5050 Rotary Clubs and with the Rotary International Foundation.

Through fundraising and matching grants, they together raised another $20,400 U.S. to complete the washroom proj-ect.

Another $6,920 U.S. was raised last year by Johnson for immediate relief work and medical supplies in the wake of destruction left by typhoon Ketsana.

• For more information, visit www.MeadowRidgeRotary.ca.

$33,000 raised for school in Manila

“One of the rarest frogs we have here is the red-legged frog. It is a shy creature and is slowly being chased out of the area by the bull frog and the green frog, both imports to the Lower Mainland.”

There’s talk of big box malls being built in Albion fl ats, something that could make

a big change in Maple Ridge’s re-tail landscape.

But, for two long-time Maple Ridge businesses, the downtown is just fi ne, and so is the future.

Renovations are almost complete on the Fuller Watson Furniture and Appliances building, at one of the main corners of downtown Maple Ridge. New windows, doors, exte-rior fi nish and interior renovations will be ready in about a month for the business, which has operated for more than 85 years in Maple Ridge.

The renos will be fi nished at about the same time the rebuilding of Lougheed Highway, part of the district’s downtown enhancement project, will be completed.

Combined with the Westminster Savings Credit Union that opens in January, kitty corner from Fuller Watson, the new Tim Horton’s shop across the street, a new pro-fessional building underway in the same block and the new roads and sidewalks, and owner Bruce Fuller is feeling good about the area.

“Business has been good. We think we’re doing the right things. I’ve got no reason to be concerned about somebody else coming into town.”

When it comes to commenting about Albion fl ats, and how the area might develop, Fuller wants to reserve comment, saying he’s on the fence about the issue. “I’m not going to endorse or go against Al-bion fl ats.”

While many focus on the retail core area of the downtown, Fuller notes the south slope of downtown, of what used to be Haney, facing the Fraser River, will see steady improvement as older buildings are replaced by new ones. A new apart-ment block is under way at the bot-tom of 224th Street, while the site for the long-planned-yet-still-unfunded Maple Ridge Museum is about half a block up. On the west side of 224th, near the Haney bypass, a six-storey

hotel is supposed to be built, though there are no fi rm plans yet.

Repairs and renovations are also well underway at Haney Builders Supplies.

And there are no plans to move from the fi ve-acre property that’s held the business since 1938.

Interior renovations are underway and there will be a new enclosed exterior showroom. Delays encoun-tered at district hall, however, have made it a frustrating experience.

But Haney Builder’s isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s an excellent location. We’re really in a position in the heart of downtown. All roads lead here, so it’s a great location,” said spokes-man Gord McBeath.

His confi dence about the busi-ness extends to confi dence about the downtown, though he does have concerns about the future retail de-

velopment in Albion fl ats.McBeath says his business can

withstand the competition from the Ronas or Home Depots that may

open down the hill, in Albion fl ats at Lougheed Highway and 105th Street, if Maple Ridge council de-cides that’s what it wants there.

Council makes that decision early next year after it pores over the in-put from the consultation process that’s currently underway.

While Haney Builders is part of the Tim-Br Mart buying group and can compete on price against the big chains, he’s worried about the smaller stores. And if push comes to shove, he’d rather council keep commercial out of Albion fl ats.

“I think the core could be a great place. They have to densify and keep shopping here.”

But he wonders how much council or anybody can do to attract devel-opment, though or force a devel-oper to do a project on the scale of what’s proposed in Albion – in the downtown core.

“I think the shear volume of land that they would need would make it impossible to do in the down-town core.”

Talk of developing the fl ats doesn’t deter renos at Fuller Watson or Haney Builders

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

(Above) Justin Fuller of Fuller Watson Furniture and Appliances stands by the newly installed storefront windows, facing Lougheed Highway in downtown Maple Ridge; (below) Gord McBeath and Colin McIntosh of Haney Builders Supplies stand before the renovation work at their store on Dewdney Trunk Road.

THE NEWS/businessSection coordinator:Phil Melnychuk 604-467-1122 ext. 215newsroom@mapleridgenews.com

Longtime businesses plan for future

b y P h i l M e l n y c h u kstaff repor ter

AcclimatizedMaple Ridge Mayor Ernie Daykin (second from

right) accepts the award for the Corporate Opera-tions category at the 2010 Energy and Climate

Action Awards on Wednesday at the Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention in Whistler.

Maple Ridge won the award for energy efficient upgrades to the Maple Ridge Leisure Centre and an

innovative approach to information services (IT). Daykin is flanked by: (left to right) Norm Connolly, executive director of the Community Energy Asso-

ciation; Bev Van Ruyven, deputy CEO and executive vice-president B.C. Hydro; and John Yap, minister

of state for climate action. Contributed

Forum on attracting more universities this week in ACTThe three communities on the north side of the Fraser River are pooling their eff orts

to try to attract a post secondary institute.

Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Mission host Education Forum 2010 in the Arts Centre

Theatre, Oct. 6, starting at 10 a.m.

The day will involve fast-pace sessions designed to introduce SFU, UBC and the Justice

Institute of B.C. to business and institutional leaders.

UBC Research Forest, BCIT and Douglas College are already operating in Maple Ridge,

while University of the Fraser Valley has a campus in Mission.

However, the natural assets of the area could attract more interest from schools, says

Maple Ridge’s department of strategic economic initiatives.

If Stirling Hart wasn’t born with an axe in his hands, it certainly wasn’t long before he was climb-

ing up trees and chopping them down. As a member of the famous Hart family, whose action-packed logging demonstrations have thrilled fair-goers for decades, Stirling was born into the life of logger sports.

“Dad got me started pretty early,” he says. His dad is Greg Hart, who along with Stirling’s grandfather, Gord, founded the Hart Family lum-berjack show. He started training with the family at the age of four, and just a few years later he was performing alongside them.

Now at the age of 21, Stirling Hart has already come to dominate the world of competitive logging sports.

Within the span of a month this past summer, Hart broke three world records for speed climbing, and now holds every record in the discipline.

In July, Hart made a successful world record attempt on a 100-foot pole in Longview, Washington.

With just a sturdy length of rope looped around him and a pair of spikes strapped to his ankles, Hart shot up the pole, barely impeded by gravity. With a fl ick of his wrist, he hit the marker at the top of the pole with his rope and fell back down towards earth in near free-fall. His descent was slowed only by the oc-casional planting of a foot-spike into the tree, sending his legs jarringly

upwards as his body plummeted un-impeded.

He landed with a thud, back fi rst, on the padding at the base of the pole.

Start-to-fi nish, it took him just 23 seconds.

“You don’t see the 100-foot too of-ten in competition any more,” he says. “It’s harder to fi nd the trees now a days.”

The pole is so high it needs to be stabilized by guy-wires.

“I’ve never really been scared of

heights,” says Hart. “But I try not to think about it.”

Hart broke the 80-foot record at the Squamish Days Logger Sports Festival later that month, in front of his whole family who came up for the competition, including his mom, Catherine.

“She still gets a little nervous I think,” he says. “It’s not easy to watch your fi rst-born fall down a tree at Mach 2.”

His performance at the Iron Jack competition in Salem, Oregon will

be televised later this month on the Outdoor Life Network.

There he competed in six different events, including the speed climb, the axe throw, the standing chop, the cross-cut, the boom run, and an obstacle race.

Spoiler alert: he won.In fact, Hart has won every contest

he competed in this year, save one.“Yeah, I got a silver,” he says, shak-

ing his head about his performance at the Stihl Timbersports Series.

“My only loss all summer.”Hart had been competing against

30- and 40-year-old men since his early teens, but that was just for fun. And even though he had been par-ticipating in the lumberjack shows his dad and grandfather had put on for years, Hart didn’t decide to take it seriously until about three years ago.

Hart sticks to a training regimen that includes four days a week at the gym and daily trail running. Of That’s in addition to the three ex-hibition logging shows he performs every day, seven days a week, atop Grouse Mountain in North Vancou-ver.

Now that he’s grown into his body, the experience he’s gained perform-ing in the lumberjack shows is pay-ing dividends.

“I don’t get nervous around crowds anymore,” he says. “I’ve been doing this since I was four, so there’s not a lot of guys who have the experience I do.”

Hart has three trips planned to Australia and New Zealand planned for this winter to take part in lumber-jack exhibitions and competitions.

This will be the ninth winter he’s spent down under, and when he’s not surfi ng, he’s honing his skills for the next season of competition.

“I’ve learned a lot down there, that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s a lot of chopping and sawing at those shows, so I’m up against some pretty big boys.

“But speed-climbing is where I make my money,” he says.

Next week Hart will be the latest inductee into the Meadow Ridge Rotary’s Hometown Heroes Hall of Fame, at a banquet ceremony Tues-day, Oct. 5.

Hart said he is honoured to be join-ing the ranks of such alumni as Lar-ry Walker, Cam Neely, Greg Moore, and even his own dad.

“We’ll be the fi rst father-son in there,” he said.

• For more information about the Hometown Heroes banquet, visit meadowridgerotary.ca

Steve Nash b-ball The Pitt Meadows

Secondary School Steve Nash League starts its 32nd year this Sunday for boys Grades 2 to 7 at Pitt Meadows Secondary School.

Grade 2 to 3 boys and Grade 4 to 5 boys go from noon to 2 p.m. Grade 6 to 7 boys go from 2 to 4 p.m. for Further information, visit http://schools.sd42.ca/pmss/athletics/basket-ball-2/

Offi cials neededWith hoops season just

a couple of months away, the Fraser Valley Basket-ball Officials Association (FVBOA) is searching for new members.

The FVBOA officiates all basketball games played between Langley and Hope, and from Maple Ridge to Agassiz on the north side of the Fraser River. The association is running education and training meetings at 7 p.m. on Monday evenings at Abbotsford Collegiate, beginning Oct. 4 and running through the end of November.

For more information, contact Paul Nivins at pnivins@shaw.ca, or call 604-613-6391.

Registration open for skating club

• The Maple Ridge Skating Club is accepting ongoing registration for CanSkate, Skate Canada’s national learn-to-skate program designed for beginners.

Registration will continue throughout the Fall/Winter season until sessions are full. For more information about rates and times, visit www.MapleRidgeSkating.com.

THE NEWS/sportsSection coordinator:Robert Mangelsdorf 604-467-1122 ext. 216newsroom@mapleridgenews.com

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Stirling Hart broke three world records this summer in the lumberjack sport of speed-climbing.

Hart attacks record booksLocal logger claims three world records in tree climb

b y R o b e r t M a n g e l s d o r fstaff repor ter

THE NEWS/scoreboard

Ridge Meadows Flames scoring

Players GP G A Pts P/G PIMDanny Brandys 7 5 6 11 1.6 2Dustin Cervo 7 5 6 11 1.6 4Ryan Stewart 7 3 5 8 1.1 6Sean Kavanagh 7 1 6 7 1.0 4Brent Fletcher 7 3 2 5 0.7 17CJ Legassic 7 2 3 5 0.7 10Shane Harle 7 2 2 4 0.6 2Tristano Falbo 6 1 3 4 0.7 2Matthew Genovese 7 0 4 4 0.6 6Matthew Bevilacqua 7 0 3 3 0.4 4Lucas Douglas 5 2 0 2 0.4 2Matthew Keller 5 2 0 2 0.4 23Felix Fiedler 4 1 1 2 0.5 2Paul Piluso 2 1 1 2 1.0 2Joey Weilmeier 7 0 2 2 0.3 4Jake Howardson 5 1 0 1 0.2 0Adam Bartsch 4 1 0 1 0.3 0Bayne Ryshak 7 0 1 1 0.1 6Reece Rivard 7 0 0 0 0.0 2

PIJHL scoring leaders

Players Team GP G A PtsLiam Harding Ice Hawks 7 7 9 16 Michael Nardi Devils 7 8 7 15 Marko Gordic Steelers 8 7 7 14 Cody Smith Ice Hawks 6 5 8 13 Kentaro Tanaka Steelers 8 3 10 13 Danny Brandys Flames 7 5 6 11 Dustin Cervo Flames 7 5 6 11 Julius Ho Devils 7 4 7 11 Jake Roder Sockeyes 5 7 3 10 Christopher Busto Devils 7 3 6 9 Curtis Rocchetti Steelers 8 2 7 9 Robert Wilkinson Steelers 8 5 3 8 Sebastien Pare Sockeyes 5 4 4 8 Ryan Stewart Flames 7 3 5 8 Mitchell Smith Sockeyes 5 0 8 8 Eli Wiebe Sockeyes 5 2 5 7 Sean Kavanagh Flames 7 1 6 7 Adam Nathwani Devils 7 1 6 7 Konrad Sander Wolf Pack 4 0 7 7 Trevor Kang Wolf Pack 6 4 2 6 Kevin Lourens Pilots 6 3 3 6 Bradley Parker Pilots 6 3 3 6 Luke Venema Icebreakers 6 3 3 6 Steven Klips Icebreakers 7 3 3 6 Colton Precourt Kodiaks 6 2 4 6 Spencer Traher Ice Hawks 8 2 4 6 Brendan Nadolny Pilots 6 1 5 6 Marcus Chabot Wolf Pack 6 5 0 5 Riley Lamb Pilots 6 4 1 5 John Proctor Ice Hawks 8 4 1 5 Thomas Hardy Kodiaks 6 3 2 5 J. McNaughton Icebreakers 6 3 2 5 Brent Fletcher Flames 7 3 2 5 Sam Chichak Sockeyes 5 2 3 5 CJ Legassic Flames 7 2 3 5 Reily Moff at Steelers 8 2 3 5 Sean Pesut Icebreakers 7 1 4 5 Zack Henry Panthers 5 0 5 5 Ryan Cuthbert Ice Hawks 8 0 5 5 Mike Phillipson Kodiaks 6 3 1 4 Taylan Kornelsen Devils 7 3 1 4 Marco Finucci Devils 2 2 2 4 J. Hamaguchi Sockeyes 5 2 2 4 Cody Heinen Pilots 5 2 2 4 Grange Gordon Steelers 7 2 2 4 Shane Harle Flames 7 2 2 4Nicholas Gushue Steelers 8 2 2 4Scott Mackey Steelers 8 2 2 4Aaron Merrick Ice Hawks 8 2 2 4

Hockey Football

Valley Community Football LeagueRegular season standings

AtomTeam W L T % STK PF PA PTSAbbotsford 5 0 0 1.000 Won 5 202 6 10Meadow Ridge Blue 4 0 0 1.000 Won 4 94 43 8Mission 2 2 0 .500 Lost 2 71 98 4Chilliwack Blue 2 3 0 .400 Won 2 64 104 4Meadow Ridge Gold 1 2 0 .333 Lost 2 52 42 2Chilliwack Red 1 4 0 .200 Lost 2 75 138 2North Langley 0 4 0 .000 Lost 4 24 151 0

Bantam Team W L T % STK PF PA PTSChilliwack 3 1 0 .750 Won 1 122 57 6Meadow Ridge 2 1 1 .625 Won 2 59 29 5Mission-Abby 2 1 1 .625 Lost 1 85 44 5North Langley 0 4 0 .000 Lost 4 13 149 0

Junior bantamTeam W L T % STK PF PA PTSChilliwack Blue 3 0 1 .875 Won 3 162 48 7Abbotsford 3 0 1 .875 Won 3 178 76 7Chilliwack Red 2 2 0 .500 Lost 2 91 96 4North Langley 1 3 0 .250 Lost 3 62 123 2Meadow Ridge 1 3 0 .250 Lost 1 66 138 2Mission 1 3 0 .250 Won 1 106 184 2

PeeweeTeam W L T % STK PF PA PTSChilliwack Blue 4 0 0 1.000 Won 4 153 67 8Meadow Ridge 3 0 1 .875 Won 2 112 13 7Abbotsford 2 1 1 .625 Won 2 105 47 5Chilliwack Red 1 3 0 .250 Lost 2 42 96 2North Langley 1 3 0 .250 Lost 3 26 108 2Mission 0 4 0 .000 Lost 4 18 125 0

MidgetTeam W L T % STK PF PA PTSLangley 4 0 0 1.000 Won 4 122 15 8North Delta 3 0 0 1.000 Won 3 104 7 6Coquitlam 3 0 0 1.000 Won 3 67 8 6Cloverdale 3 1 0 .750 Won 3 86 59 6Nanaimo 3 1 0 .750 Won 1 105 31 6Victoria 3 1 0 .750 Won 3 60 27 6Mission 3 1 0 .750 Won 2 67 43 6Cowichan 2 2 0 .500 Lost 2 44 83 4White Rock 1 2 0 .333 Lost 1 42 38 2Chilliwack 1 2 0 .333 Lost 2 59 53 2Meadow Ridge 1 3 0 .250 Lost 3 54 60 2Richmond White 1 3 0 .250 Lost 3 50 71 2North Surrey 1 3 0 .250 Lost 1 55 79 2Richmond Black 1 3 0 .250 Lost 2 38 94 2Burnaby 1 3 0 .250 Won 1 42 112 2Westside 1 3 0 .250 Lost 1 49 117 2Vancouver 0 4 0 .000 Lost 4 14 161 0

Pacifi c International Junior Hockey League

Harold Brittain ConferenceTeam GP W L OTL PTS GF GAAbbotsford Pilots 6 4 2 0 8 21 20 Ridge Meadows Flames 7 4 3 0 8 30 26 Aldergrove Kodiaks 6 3 3 0 6 21 26 Port Moody Black Panthers 6 1 3 2 4 15 27 Mission Icebreakers 7 1 6 0 2 21 37

Tom Shaw ConferenceTeam GP W L OTL PTS GF GADelta Ice Hawks 8 6 1 1 13 34 22North Delta Devils 7 5 2 0 10 28 22Richmond Sockeyes 5 4 0 1 9 25 10Grandview Steelers 8 4 3 1 9 31 23Squamish Wolf Pack 6 1 5 0 2 15 28

PIJHL goaltending leaders

Player Team GP W L SO GAA SV% Devin Nijjer Sockeyes 4 3 1 1 1.72 .918Douglas Birks Ice Hawks 5 5 0 0 2.20 .908Brad Anderson Pilots 3 3 0 0 2.60 .930Norbert Biszczak Steelers 7 3 4 1 2.81 .894Alexander Wind Devils 4 3 0 0 2.89 .892Alexander Ahnert Devils 4 2 2 0 3.08 .889Tyler Klassen Flames 5 3 2 0 3.61 .903Pierre Voyer Panthers 5 1 4 0 3.99 .889Spencer Marro Flames 3 1 1 0 3.99 .868Cole Chreptyk Pilots 2 1 1 0 4.00 .899

Get your community sports fi rst @ www.mapleridgenews.com

B.C. Major Midget Hockey League

Name GP W L T Pts Valley West Hawks 4 4 0 0 8Vancouver NW Giants 4 3 0 1 7 Fraser Valley Bruins 4 3 1 0 6 Vancouver Canadians 4 3 1 0 6 North Island Silvertips 4 2 2 0 4 S. Island Thunderbirds 4 0 1 3 3 Cariboo Cougars 4 1 3 0 2 Okanagan Rockets 4 1 3 0 2 Vancouver NE Chiefs 2 0 0 2 2 Kootenay Ice 2 0 2 0 0 Thompson Blazers 4 0 4 0 0

BCMML scoring

Player Team GP G A PtsKerfoot, Alex Giants 4 6 3 9Schipper, Dakota Bruins 4 3 4 7Oddy, Travis Bruins 4 3 4 7Ferguson, Austin Bruins 4 5 1 6McLellan, Mark Hawks 4 1 5 6Lloyd, Seb Cougars 4 0 6 6Hannoun, Demico Canadians 4 4 2 6Fyff e, Mitch Giants 4 3 3 6Toews, Devon Bruins 4 2 4 6Gordon, Luke Cougars 4 1 4 5Krupa, Connor Thunderbirds 4 2 3 5Grobowski, Taylor Silvertips 4 1 4 5Bowen, Connor Bruins 4 1 4 5Petan, Nicolas Canadians 4 1 4 5Lange, Daniell Hawks 4 2 3 5Rostvig, Grant Hawks 4 3 2 5King, Bradley Bruins 4 0 5 5Leung, Jarryd Thunderbirds 4 4 1 5Roberts, Alex Giants 4 3 2 5Connolly, Josh Cougars 4 1 4 5Ellis, Josh Rockets 4 3 1 4 Zagrodney, Graham Rockets 4 0 4 4McDonald, Chris Thunderbirds 4 1 3 4Lawlor, Brady Bruins 4 1 3 4Burroughs, Kyle Hawks 4 1 3 4Grieve, Kolten Bruins 4 1 3 4Elford, Devon Hawks 4 2 2 4Cooke, Scott Hawks 4 3 1 4Duncan, Justin Cougars 4 3 1 4Johnson, Levon Cougars 4 3 1 4Ellison, Dayne Thunderbirds 4 1 3 4Egli, Brandon Thunderbirds 4 1 2 3Santucci, Joey Chiefs 2 3 0 3Reinhart, Sam Giants 4 0 3 3Green, Taylor Chiefs 2 1 2 3

Sports

Titans take first Alouette Bowl

The Samuel Robertson Tech-nical Titans can lay claim to the fi rst-ever victory between district’s two football programs, after beating the Pitt Meadows Marauders 26-18 at home in Ma-ple Ridge Tuesday afternoon.

The Marauders could not come up with a way to contain six-foot-four Titans running back Rashaun Simonise, who repeatedly broke free for big yardage.

Hundreds gathered for the ju-nior varsity match-up, the fi rst ever at any level between the two district rivals.

“There’s a rivalry there for sure,” said Marauders coach Curt Gowler. “There was noth-ing but chirping on the fi eld, and that’s where it belongs.You don’t want them going on Fa-cebook and calling each other names, cause that’s what kids do.”

Both teams are now tied with identical 1-1 records in AA East-ern Conference play.

Things could not have gone

worse for the Marauders, who were down seven starters by the fi nal whistle.

Mauricio Zolliker, Jabcob Cur-rie, Logan Chick, and Jacob Harinen all left the game with injuries, joining injured players AJ Gill, Joe Schuster, and Mi-chael Brain on the sideline.

To make matters worse, the Marauders had a touchdown called back on penalty.

“It was Murphy’s Law,” said Gowler.

The most gruesome injury of all was that of Chick, who broke his severly after getting gang

tackled on a kick return.“That kid is tougher than

nails,” said Gowler. “He didn’t cry, he didn’t scream, he just came back to the bench holding his arm.

“Our trainer turned white when she saw it.”

Chick will be out for the re-mainder of the season, and was to undergo surgery Thursday.

SRT faces the Robert Bate-man Timberwolves of Abbots-ford Wednesday, Oct. 6, on the road, while Pitt faces the Lang-ley Saints at home on Tuesday, Oct. 5.

James Maclennan/THE NEWS

Pitt Meadows Marauder Logan Chick winces on the sidelines after suffering a broken wrist during a game against the SRT Titans on Tuesday.

Tanner Hartley of

the SRT Titans tries

to shake off a tackle from Pitt’s

Zachary Tripp-Bu-

chanan Tuesday

afternoon.

James Maclennan/

THE NEWS

SRT beats Pitt 26-18 in fi rst meeting of rival programs

b y R o b e r t M a n g e l s d o r fstaff repor ter