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1891-2011
Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • F R I D AY, A P R I L 1 5 , 2 0 1 1
Crime-fighting election issue: punishment or prevention? Robert Freeman The Progress
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Ian Sparkes has to drain pooling rainwater from a field on the south side of Luckakuck Way before he can plant early sweet corn for the season. Corn farmers are about two weeks behind in planting because of the constant rain. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
April showers complicate planting Jennifer Feinberg The Progress A cool, rainy spring can stop some local farmers in their tracks. Ian Sparkes of Sparkes Corn Barns has been looking to the skies for drier weather so he can get his early sweet corn planted in Chilliwack. “I can’t plow the field this way,” Sparkes told The Progress, with more than a hint of frustration in his voice. “So we’re trying to pump out this swale.” The low-lying field on Luckakuck Way that he’s been trying to plant, is normally dry this time of year. It’s been quite a cool and wet
spring, so it’s understandable that most of the south coast is a little “waterlogged” right now, said Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist. “We had a wetter than normal March, and in April so far we’ve had half our rainfall total in the first 12 days or so,” he told The Progress. About 70 mm had fallen in the month of April by Wednesday, where a typical April would see 120 mm in total. But the real culprit was likely the 44 millimetres that soaked on the region on April 4 and April 5 alone. “It came all at once over those two very wet days,” Lundquist said.
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“We’ll have close to normal daytime high temperatures next week, but no sun to dry things out, unfortunately. There could always be a few sunny breaks.” It’s the La Niña effect with its colder than normal winter, as opposed to an El Niño system, that’s still impacting coastal weather systems, Lundquist pointed out. “It’s one of the main factors in spring remaining on the cool and wet side,” he said. “That’s why it might seem a little severe.” Sparkes specializes in sweet corn these days, but he is also a custom planter for field corn. Normally he’d take a cover crop off the field before planting, but
not this year. “It’s late so we’ll plow them under early and all the field corn will go in at the same time.” Organic farmer Mar y Forstbauer said this year they’re putting in more greenhouse structures so they can get started earlier. They rarely plant this early in open fields since the soil is still pretty cold, but sometimes they plant peas or broad beans if they can manage. But not this spring. “The fields are flooded,” she said. “There is no way a tractor could effectively drive over the fields.” Continued: WEATHER/ p21
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Crime-fighting is a top priority for each of the federal election candidates running in the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon riding. But each differ on how they would tackle the issue. City of Chilliwack officials - and the RCMP - have both complained about the lack of resources to fight back against crime here. But Conservative candidate Mark Strahl points out that it’s the provincial government that decides how much federal funding goes to B.C. municipalities, and negotiates the contract with the RCMP for police services. “Our job is more on the recruitment side,” he said, about the federal government’s role. He said the Conservative government created a $400-million recruitment fund in the last budget to add 2,500 front-line police officers, but the fund died when the budget was defeated by the opposition. The Conservative government’s crimefighting strategy is to make sure crime doesn’t pay, by toughening up Canada’s laws, and the sentences meted out by courts. “It’s important that when people commit criminal acts that there are significant penalties for that,” Strahl said. But he said a majority government is needed to get the “crack-down on crime” legislation passed over the opposition in parliament. “We’re tired of waiting for the opposition to get on board,” he said. Liberal candidate Diane Janzen, a Chilliwack city councillor before she resigned to run for the federal election, said Chilliwack is paying 90 per cent of the bill for policing. Only 10 per cent is paid by the federal government. “We (city council) don’t even sit at the table when people are carving up the resources,” she said, referring to contract negotiations between the province and the RCMP.
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