12-MONTH RATE NOW 8.6 PER CENT
Living cost drops for first time in seven years
OTTAWA (CP) — The cost of living dropped during September for the first time in seven years, Statistics Canada reported today.
The 12-month inflation rate fell to 8.6 per cent from the August rate of 9.4 per cent.
The federal agency attributed the decline to lower prices for fresh fruit and vegetables, which dropped by 12.1 per cent and 30.9 per cent respectively from one month earlier.
Food prices decreased by 2.4 per cent in September from their August level; but prices for all other items included by Statistics Canada in its consumer price index increased by 0.7 per cent.
Higher home heating costs, gasoline prices, shelter costs and clothing prices were mainly responsible for the increase in non-food prices.
The last time the national price level, measured by the index, decreased was in September 1971.
The over-all consumer price index, which measures a basket of goods and services the average Canadian is likely to
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Wednesday, October 11, 1978
Vol. 22; No. 197 Prince George, British Columbia
consume, stood at 177.5 in September, compared with 177.8 in August.
This means that a standard basket of goods and services which cost $177.80 in August, would have cost $177.50 in September. In September, 1977, that same basket would have cost $163.40.
With the September drop in prices, Canada now has an
inflation rate below that of the United States which increased at an annual rate of 9.5 per cent for the first eight months of the year.
The September price decrease follows a moderate August increase of less than one-tenth of one per cent.
Statistics Canada said the buying power of a 1971 dollar
to a consumer now is 56 cents. Last year at this time it bought 61 cents worth of goods and services.
Last month’s brief respite from the inflation, which has plagued the economy this year, is not expected to last. Sales tax reductions which have been in effect since last April expire this month in six provinces.
The government’s centre for the study of inflation and productivity, the successor to the anti-inflation board has warned the national price level will jump by 0.4 per cent in October in response to the expiry of the sales tax cuts contained in last spring’s federal budget.
The inflation rate now stands at its lowest level since April’s 8.4-per-cent annual rate.
The dramatic drop in the price of fresh fruits and vegetables in last month’s price index reflects the coming onto the market of seasonally-available home-grown produce.
The effect of the price decline for these products was dampened somewhat by increases in the price of pork, which showed the largest increase among food items, and poultry, which showed a smaller but significant increase.
THRONE SPEECH
Citizen photo by'
Young captain
Robin Lamson is only seven years old, but she knows when you’re the captain you’re the boss. David Pratt, 6, however, wasn’t too much impressed with Robin’s status — he was far more interested in seeing how a fire truck works. The youngsters visited the fire department’s display in the Pine Centre, set up to observe Fire Prevention Week.
'MIDSUMMER MADNESS'
Burning of slash linked to chronic lung disease
VANCOUVER (CP) - A United States report that links fallout from forest slash burning with chronic lung disease has caused the British Columbia Forest Service to take a closer look at the dangers of burning as the usual method of disposing of forest waste.
“That haze you used to see around the province used to be passed off as the forest service’s midsummer madness, but this new study has really set us on our heels,” said Peter Bell, a forest service fire-weather technician, in a recent interview.
“It’s not the smoke that gets in your eyes, the stuff that people used to complain about, that causes problems. It’s the tiny dust you can’t see that’s apparently settling in your lungs.
“Until last year we didn’t really take that health hazard from slash burning seriously, but now you can bet we do.”
The forest service has recently announced a joint study of slash burning with the provincial pollution control branch, but will also rely on U.S. studies such as the one now being finished by the Seattle office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
EPA scientist David Bray said in a telephone interview
from Seattle that the final report will say death rates for chronic obstructive lung disease are higher in fire-burning areas of Montana and that the state receives fire fallout from several U.S. states and Canada.
Tiny particles less than three microns in diameter (about one thousandth of a millimetre) travel “fantastic distances’’, are not necessarily visible as a cloud of smoke and
“have been conclusively linked to cancer”, he said.
As well, he said, the particles can combine over a city with industrial and urban contaminants to cause “extremely dangerous effects to human health.”
The first draft of the study says particles less than three microns in diameter “have long since been considered a factor in chronic obstructive lung disease
Library vote delayed week
The $2.15 million borrowing bylaw to finance the proposed new library came close to being shot down Tuesday when library supporters couldn’t muster a required three-quarter majority of council.
The vote was quickly tabled for a week so absent library supporters Ed Bodner and George Gibbins could cast votes.
The bylaw to borrow the $2.15 million from city land reserve accounts on a 20-year pay-back schedule requires nine supporters of the 11 council members.
The account would be paid $850,000 in interest for the loan.
Trudeau promises to tackle economy
OTTAWA (CP) - Prime Minister Trudeau’s government formally pledged Wednesday to devote the final parliamentary months before the next federal election to economic and constitutional reforms it has been struggling to achieve for more than than a decade.
In a throne speech opening the fourth and final session of the 30th Parliament, Trudeau reaffirmed what he described as his determination to “strengthen Canada through unity, to unify Canada through economic strength.”
“Seldom in the past has the seriousness of the challenge, the strength of our national will and the scope of our opportunities combined to create for Canada a moment in history so full of potential for good,” said the speech, read by Gov.-Gen. Jules Leger and his wife Gaby.
“Such a moment, if ignored, may not soon come again. That is one reason why you should approach your task with urgency.” Trudeau reminded MPs that Canadians expect Parliament “to respond to their most urgent needs with insight, with action, and with a minimum of delay.”
The speech, read in Senate chamber, listed as government priorities a host of economic and constitutional moves announced in various forms during the last year.
In it, the government prom- *
ised to follow up late-summer pledges to cut spending by $2.5 billion by April, 1980, to help private business stimulate economic growth and to shift public funds from “lower-priority” programs to industrial expansion and job creation.
On the constitutional, Trudeau reaffirmed that his government would introduce a modifiedconstitutional reform bill to replace beleaguered legislation that would transform the Senate, modify the Supreme Court and alter the formal role of the monarchy.
“With goodwill and flexibility on all sides1, and with the shape of Canada’s future at stake, the government is confident that concrete progress will be achieved in the course of this session,” the speech said.
Political reality suggests otherwise. Ten major efforts to make the 1867 British North America Act a uniquely Canadian constitution have all failed, usually because provinces and the federal government have been unable to agree on methods of dividing power between themselves.
The current attempt, started last June as Trudeau opened his latest quest for a new constitution, has drawn fire from provinces and opposition parties.
Although the throne speech promised to meet a provincial call for power-sharing discussions along with other reform action, officials from both levels of government say they have little hope for a breakthrough before Parliament dissolves for an election sometime next year.
Opposition MPs are ex: pected to point to the speech as a document devoid of new ideas to improve the country’s economic performance and cope with the challenge posed by Premier Rene Levesque’s separatist Parti Quebecois government in Quebec.
PRESSURE FROM COLLEAGUES
Hard worker pays a high price
by NICHOLAS HILLS Southam News Services
LONDON — Michael Miller is a strange kind of Englishman. He works too hard.
What is not strange — just disgusting - is that his brothers on the shop floor are deliberately trying to eliminate him by driving him round the bend.
For his energy and his output, this 42year-old machine operator is likely to lose his job, if not his sanity.
Already, he has served a three-month suspension for working too industriously.
On returning to his job last week, he was immediately sent to Coventry again by his 31 fellow workers. Yesterday, he collapsed from the mental pressure being exerted on him and had to be taken home by ambulance.
“My health won’t stand it any longer,” he says now. “I feel that eventually the management will have to give way to the majority.”
This is the most unacceptable face of worker power — a kind of inhuman anarchy which it is difficult to believe could actually exist in a so-called civilized society.
Miller, the father of two children, is
being terrorized by his colleagues because his weekly take-home pay from his work-place in Frome, Somerset, averages between $200 and $220 a week.
His fellow workers are so incensed by the amount he is bringing in through piecework that they want a company ceiling put on earnings in the machine shop. They usually manage to earn only about $160 a week.
Says Miller: “This is simply a conflict about the British way of working. I break no rules. If the money is there to be earned, then I earn it.”
Such is the state of work ethic in Britain today.
Pay hike
legislation
promised
OTTAWA (CP) - Despite a public service rebellion, the federal government
announced plans Wednesday to reintroduce its controversial bill to tie public service wage increases to those in the private sector.
Parliament will be asked to approve a bill to “ensure that compensation in the federal public service remains in step with the private sector and does not lead the way,” the government said in the throne ' speech that opened the fourth session of the 30th Parliament.
The announcement might have some effect on the 15 federal byelections Monday. The Public Service Alliance of Canada, with the barking of the entire labor movement, has conducted a campaign against any candidate who supports the proposal.
The bill was introduced last session and died when the session was prorogued.
Postal
decision
Thursday
OTTAWA (CP) - The federal cabinet will decide Thursday how to handle the militant Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), which has threatened to strike Monday if no progress is made toward settling their contract dispute with the post office.
Postmaster-General Gilles Lamontagne indicated in the Commons Tuesday the government will legislate a settlement if agreement cannot be negotiated.
Lamontagne signed a contract with leaders of the Letter Carriers Union of Canada Tuesday and said at a news conference he hopes for similar success with the inside workers.
But he added the sides are far apart on many issues.
Leaders of the 23,000-member inside workers’ union have asked the cabinet to appoint a new mediator in a bid to resume negotiations and a vert a national strike. Opposition members in the Commons pressed Tuesday for immediate government action.
Lamontagne said he thought the report by Louis Cour-temanche, chairman of a threemember conciliation board, could be used as a base for renewed negotiations with the inside workers’ union, which has been without a contract for more than 14 months.
TODAY
C/Vr4ADlAr4
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(featured inside]
A real-life spy story
The mysterious death of a former high-ranking CIA official has touched off a Senate investigation into possible involvement by the KGB, Russia’s secret service. Page 5.
Games spark controversy
Debate is raging at city hall over whether or not the city should make a bid to hold the B.C. Games. Page 3.
Dodgers take the lead
The Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t waste any time showing the New York Yankees who was boss in the World Series. Page 7.
Index
Bridge..........................21
Business.............16,17,38
City, B.C......2,3,11,15,34
Classified................18-25
Comics.........................48
Crossword...................20
Editorial........................4
Entertainment.......48-53
Family.....................48-53
Gardening column ....11
Horoscopes.................51
International................5
National.........................6
Rolling Stone..............49
Sports........................7-10
c
THE WEATHER
J
The forecast for Prince George today is for sunny skies with cloudy periods and winds. Thursday should be mainly sunny with some cloudy periods.
The forecast high today is 11, the low 0. Thursday’s forecast high is 14. The high Tuesday was 13, the low 3 with a trace of precipitation. On this date last year the high was 12, the low 3.
( NOW HEAR THIS)
• As if Robbie Sherrell, president of ICBC didn’t have enough trouble. While here Tuesday he related how his wife “who shouldn’t be driving,” was stopped by Vancouver city police for making an illegal turn.
• Commenting on what is sometimes poor service at Canadian hotels, one of the Hawaiian entertainers who were in town for a travel promotion Tuesday said he liked to see it because, “that drives people over to Hawaii.” His main suggestion was that hotel employers should teach their employees to smile.
• Mayor Harold Moffat told council he doesn’t want the B.C. Games here because organizers expect Olympic standards for “Clysdale plowhorses.” “Does that mean,” asked Alderman Monica Becott, “that you want us to remain a one-horse town?”
• There’s still time to register for the Y’s Operation Lifestyle testing. For $25 a trained staff will determine your fitness level and you’ll get a computer printout. The number to call to register is 562-9341 and the testing starts Thursday.
United Way
Target: $185,000 Today’s total: $52,850