The Prince George
Ciizeu
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1989
SUPREME COURT
Judges avoid fetus decision
                                                                                                                   by Canadian Press
    OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada refused today to decide whether the fetus has constitutional rights, saying it won’t deal with the question until there is an abortion law.
    The court, in a 7-0 ruling written by Mr. Justice John Sopinka, said it wouldn’t be in the public interest to rule if a fetus has constitutional protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms until Parliament passes legislation.
    The court said the government has to pay the legal bills of antiabortion crusader Joe Borowski because it should have moved last year to quash Borowski’s case after the court threw out the old abortion law.
    Borowski, in Winnipeg with a bottle of chilled champagne ready to celebrate, said instead he’d dump it down the toilet or spike it and send it to the judges.
    “I’m shocked and disgusted and dismayed,” he said.
    The court decision throws the issue back to the federal government. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney indicated last November he would await today’s decision and then act. But Justice Minister Doug Lewis refused on the eve of the judgment to commit himself to new legislation, promising only further consultation witnin Tory ranks.
    There has been no federal abortion law since January 1988, when the high court struck down provisions that allow abortion on grounds of physical or mental health but required the approval of three doctors and confined abortions to a limited number of hospitals.
    Pro-abortion groups say no criminal restrictions on abortion are needed, while anti-abortion groups are pressing for legislation that would ban the procedure unless the life of the mother is threatened.
    The Law Reform Commission of Canada proposed two weeks ago a compromise that would allow relatively easy access to abortions up to the 22nd week of pregnancy and much tougher restrictions later in the term.
                                                                                                            Today’s decision was widely
  expected and greeted warmly by groups that favor choice for women on the abortion question.
    Norma Scarborough of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League hopes the government “will see we can carry on the way we are and we can leave the situation the way it is.”
    But Karen Murawsky of the antiabortion Campaign Life coalition is hoping for a new law. She agreed the court didn’t protect the fetus today, but said it hasn’t ruled out such protection, either.
    Liberal MP Don Boudria said he would have preferred a ruling that
  the fetus has a right to life, but it’s not a defeat.
    “The Supreme Court has told us as a Parliament: ‘Do your job,”’ he said.
    NDP MP Svend Robinson said he was encouraged by Lewis’ statement this week a new abortion law is not a priority.
    “The court is returning it to the political forum,” said Angela Costi-gan, lawyer for REAL Women, an anti-feminist group. “And in the end it is a far healthier forum than having the justices determine the issue. Everybody knows that whatever the result today, it was not going to end the discussion.”
Home sales record predicted for city
                                                                                                                   by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter
    Prince George can expect a record year for house sales in 1989, says the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
    In its spring forecast, the Crown Corporation estimated that 1,100 homes will be sold this year, up eight per cent over 1988, when a record 1,018 houses were sold.
    House prices will also go up because of the rising demand and the stable supply, CMHC said in a news release. Prices are expected to average $68,000, an increase of 10 per cent over last year.
    CMHC predicts mortgage rates, currently at their highest levels in three years, will continue to rise for the first half of the year then start to decline.
 Bank rate
    OTTAWA (CP) — The Bank of Canada rate remained steady today at 12.12 per cent, unchanged from last week.
 Ben's coach grilled
    TORONTO (CP) - Charlie Francis stood up to a fresh barrage today as he was portrayed as a coach who cared little for the health of Ben Johnson and other athletes.
    But Francis, in his seventh day on the stand at a federal inquiry into Canada’s greatest sports scandal, insisted Johnson and other track stars had to take responsibility for the banned substances that went into their bodies.
    “The athletes themselves were aware participants — and they were making choices,” Francis replied during the second day of a relentless attack by Johnson’s lawyer, Edward Futerman, who suggested Francis cared little about the health and welfare of his athletes.
    The lawyer noted — and Francis admitted — that one batch of steroids bought in 1982 was still being used last year.
    On Wednesday, Futerman pictured Francis as a streroid-touting guru who led a naive and trusting youth into an athletic netherworld.
    In a blistering offensive, the law-
 yer took Francis to the mat over allegations the coach has made in more than 20 hours of sworn testimony at the inquiry.
                                                                                               See also page 15
 FINED $10,000
    “Housing affordability will improve as rates decline in the second half of the year.”
    Wayne Jenkins, spokesman for the Cariboo Real Estate Board, said there is a climate of “buyer confidence” in Prince George that should continue as long as interest rates stay down.
    “We in the real estate board expect sales to be brisk. December, January and February were all very good months,” he said.
    “We see no reason for that not to continue, unless the banks get right crazy.”
    Population growth, the rising number of households and heightened consumer confidence are factors in the rising demand for houses, the CMHC said.
    An estimated 700 new jobs in Prince George will be created in 1989.
    Projects such as the plant expansion at B.C. Chemicals, the hydrogen peroxide plant presently under construction in the city, the recently completed newsprint facility in Mackenzie and the B.C. Rail extension upgrade northwest of the city “reflect industry confidence in the region,” it said.
    Building permits and car sales were up in 1988 and business closures were down.
    “In 1989, these indicators are expected to continue improving.” The basic family home, with a median price of $62,000, will be affordable for about 70 per cent of Prince George households, CMHC said. An annual income of $25,855 is required to purchase a home in this price range.
Poacher sent to jail
         by Canadian Press ATLIN, B.C. — A poacher the Crown said “massacres animals” so he could hang them in his living room was sentenced Wednesday in provincial court to two months in jail and fined $10,000.
   Idalecio Mota, 49, of Vancouver pleaded guilty to nine charges of illegally killing big game animals ana 19 charges including illegal possession of wildlife, exceeding the bag limit, hunting out of season and illegal export of game.
   The charges covered the period between May and December. 1987, while Mota was living in Whitehorse, Yukon.
   “All of the province’s wildlife was a potential victim of the
 CUSTOMER
  service
"The guarantee ran out while you were on the phone."
  accused’s greed,” said Judge Dennis Overend.
    Mota, who was also placed on three year’s probation, will serve the jail sentence on weekends. Under the terms of probation, he is not allowed to hunt or own firearms.
    Mota initially faced 115 charges but the Crown withdrew the remainder after he pleaded guilty to the 28 counts.
    Among the animals seized from Mota were: a grizzly bear, a black bear, two caribou, five moose, six deer, three mountain goats, six mountain sheep, five wolves, eight foxes and 35 grouse.
    Mota still faces eight charges in the Yukon involving illegal hunting and export of wildlife. No court date has been set.
    “There is not a single count where Mota took any meat; he is a trophy hunter and takes the heads and horns,” Crown counsel Alan Blair told Overend.
    “He massacres animals. . .Mota seems to want every animal that walks in his living room.”
    Defence lawyer Mark Cacchioni said Mota is a loner who takes comfort in being around animals because he views them as friends.
    Mota had an uncanny ability to locate animals in the bush and communicate with them, Cacchioni said, and in his living room, the stuffed animals provided company.
    Mota talked to the stuffed animals, the lawyer said.
    “He failed to realize how much people in this part of the world appreciate their wildlife.”
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   Mogul
 munchers
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Citizen photo by Dave Milne
  While most Prince George residents dream of spring and no snow, these mogul munchers at Tabor Mountain take advantage of the warmer weather to enjoy the skiing. As the sun peeks over the top of the mountain, it highlights the contours of the moguls and plumes of snow left by skiers darting down the north slope.
 LABOR LEADER JOHN FRYER
Deficit solution offered
    OTTAWA (CP) — Proposing savings estimated at $34 billion, a national labor leader said Wednesday that the federal deficit could be wiped out without cutting social programs such as medicare, family allowances and unemployment insurance.
    John Fryer, head of the 300,000-member National Union of Provincial Government Employees, acknowledged that critics may question his calculations. But, he said, his recommendations could take the Conservative government in the direction it wants to go, if it has the courage.
    Fryer told a news conference that the measures he proposes would more than eliminate the deficit — currently $29 billion a year — by 1993. He said he would start with a $9-biliion single-year cut, as urged by the International Monetary Fund.
    He said he agrees with bankers and businessmen that the time has come for Finance Minister Michael Wilson to take serious action.
    But rather than mounting “neo-conservative” attacks on social programs, Fryer said, the government should look elsewhere.
    He said Wilson could generate billions of dollars in revenue by restoring corporate tax rates to levels that existed when the Conservatives came to power in 1984. *
  • And he said Ottawa could save billions in interest payments on its debt of over $300 billion by cutting interest rates by four percentage points over four years.
    Fryer said $5 billion in taxes are owed by delinquent corporations and individuals.
    He suggested that billions could be saved in unemployment insurance benefits through policies to
  cut joblessness from the current 7.6 per cent to a national maximum of four per cent. And, he said, newly employed people would pay billions more in taxes.
    Other multibillion-dollar savings, Fryer suggested, would come by forcing companies to pay for job training, by requiring the public service to perform work now contracted out to private business, and by imposing a new tax on corporate mergers.
    Finally, he said, Ottawa could trim its budget by $300 million annually by scrapping plans to buy nuclear submarines.
    Fryer conceded that government and business economists might find some of his arithmetic spongy.
    But, he added, no one could argue that billions would not become available if his proposals were taken seriously.
Campus letter analysed
    Many people in the Prince George region have received a “standard letter” in reply to letters of support for a university in the north, according to Elsie Gerdes, president of the Interior University Society.
    In his letter, Advanced Education Minister Stan Hagen committed himself to offering degree granting programs “in several additional B.C. communities and regions including programs in and for northern B.C.”
    He goes on to say the programs and institutions providing them will be under local direction and control.
    Programs will reflect regional needs for teachers, nurses, health care professionals and needs of the
  business community, Hagen said.
    When Gerdes asked Hagen specifically how many such letters have been sent out, she was told to “just say many.”
    Through the letter, Hagen has at least committed himself to degree-granting programs “although it doesn’t say exactly how,” Gerdes said.
    “The letter doesn’t tell us we will be getting a university here nor does it tell us we won’t.
    “We’U just have to wait for announcements to be made March 20 and 21 following the speech from the throne March 16,” she said.
    “In the meantime, we’re still negotiating with Hagen and staff re-
  garding our needs for a university in the north.”
    Hagen is scheduled to visit Prince George on March 21 to personally make announcements on university programs for this eniire region.
    Gerdes said the intent of the letter is to say that “communities like Kamloops, Kelowna and ourselves will be able to address the kind programs needed in our areas.
    “They don’t want the programs to be clones of University of B.C. or University of Victoria. For example, in Kamloops and Kelowna they’re now developing a nursing degree program adapted to the local region.”
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