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stouffville saturday jan 1 7 2003 serving the community of whitchurchstouffville 32 pagess1 including gst 1ff diveraions chinese celebrate y new year with lucky menu letters 6 total home 9 sports 14 classified 18 markham ers unhappy with merger pc supporters may run own candidate battletown over deal cant compare to cops town says by martin derbyshire staff writer working withbuta contract for more than a year markham firefighters say the town is treating them like adversaries instead of heroes and valued employees youve heard of engage markham a public consultation on the towns future said john brassard president of the markham professional firefigh ters association well its more like engage markham employees in battle binding arbitration mr brassard a markham fire fighter for 17 years said all the union wants is what it has always had comparable pay to that of york regional police yrp instead he says what it has received is a oneway ticket to costly binding arbitration in 2002 a first class firefight er took home 62155 leaving them only 30 behind york cops in the meantime york police have signed a collective agreement giving officers a 387 per cent pay raise the first year 35 percent for the next two arid recognition pay for senior staff that is what markham firefight ers are after the frustrating thing is that were not asking for any more than yrp which is exactly what see firefighters page 11 by patrick mangion staff writer refusing to watch their party die without a fight local tory hardlin ers plan to run a candidate under the pc banner in an anticipated spring federal election but conservative party of canada officials are dismissing any reincarnation of the former federal tories as little more than a rogue insurgence within a single riding sinclair stevens was named president of the resurrected progressive conservative associa tion of york north at the inaugural executive meeting thursday the former tory industry minis ter during the brian mulroney aoministration of the 1980s mr stevens along with newmarket res ident and association vicepresi dent john dowson ardently opposed last months alliancepc merger a candidate search committee has been formed and a prominent member of the community is under consideration said a media release issued by the new association friday a nomination meeting for the new riding of newmarketaurora is planned for late february mr dowsonsaid electoral boundary changes will divide me current york north riding to create newmarketaurora and yorksimcoe w we have our party constitution it certainly has not been dissolved mr stevens said in an interview friday see tory page 13 kmhb wwmmk spirited skaters staff photomike barrett owen brown 5 and james lovett 9 are joined by stouffville spirit captain michael lombardo fleft and assistant captain michael commisso during the annual skate with spirit thursday at the stouffville arena the event ben efitted james mother janice lovett and luke anderson the spirit hosts die st mikes buzzers tonight at 730 pm town and country reahyljd 6400888