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                               NEW TRADE LINK SEEN BY SUPPLIERS
RAILWAY EXPANSION
( THE WEATHER )
City firms plan selling job in northern centres
TODAY
by AL IRWIN Citizen Stnff Reporter
   Prince George merchants believe the city can become a major supply centre for the north — and are doing something about it.
    Info '79, the first organized tour by city firms to attract new trade with Fort Nelson, Fort St. John, and Dawson Creek, is scheduled for the week of Feb. 12 to 16.
   “It is long overdue,” says Sandy Allen, a spokesman for Info 79.
   Allen says businessmen in northern communities are oriented to buying in Alberta, because in the past, conditions in the Pine Pass made shipping by road from Prince George unreliable. And it has only been in the past 10 years that this city has developed the potential to become a supply base, while the history of Edmonton as a supply centre for Northern B.C. was established long before Prince George had that capacity.
Business here eyes 'super-port' benefits
This week:
Killed:	0
Injured:	19
Arrested as impaired:	12 This year:
Killed:	3
Injured:	57 To same date, 1978:
Killed:	2
Injured:	-18
 Polygamist shot to death
     Polygamist John Singer of Utah, who often said he would die before allowing his children to attend public schools, was shot to death as police attempted to arrest him. Page 5.
 Fans cast their votes
     The fans have had their say about which players will start against the Soviets in next month’s hockey series. Page 7.
index
Bridge................................30
Business......................14, 15
 City, B.C..............2, 3, 13, 25
 Classified.....................27-35
Comics...............................20
Crossword........................29
Editorial..............................I
 Entertainment............17-23
Family.........................38, 39
Horoscopes.......................17
International......................5
National..............................6
Religion.............................16
Sports.............................7-11
Television.........................21
 Wenzel column................25
   The forecast for tonight calls for mainly clear skies and mild temperatures. Saturday should be cloudy with snow flurries, and Sunday is expected to be cloudy with sunny periods. Temperatures should be mild during the weekend.
   The expected high today and Saturday isO; tonight’s forecast low is -13. The high Thursday was-2, the low -10 with 3 cm of snow. On this date last year the high was -6. tlie low -8.
 town, and before departure to the next town businessmen will have time to follow up on contacts made.
   Firms wishing to take part in the tour should contact Peter Sorensen, secretary-manager of the Prince George Construction Association, before Jan. 26.
   “We know there are 10 to 20 truckloads of goods arriving in that area every day. and more by rail. And we know that Vancouver and Edmonton, particularly Edmonton, are the main suppliers."
   Allen says that upgrading of the Pine Pass in the past two years has made Highway 97 North a dependable shipping route. And expansion of warehousing and supply facilities here, and Prince George’s proximity to the northern communities, can now attract trade away from Edmonton and Vancouver, to Prince George.
   “But we have to go there,“ and a tour is a much more effective and less expensive way for businessmen to meet prospective customers than individual business trips, he says.
by TOM NIXON Citizen Stnff Reporter Civic and business spokesmen say Prince George will have to take an aggressive marketing attitude if it wants to benefit from a planned $149 million super-port development at Prince Rupert.
 “We’ll benefit from whatever expansion of the railway (Canadian National) is required, said Alderman Art Stauble, “But we’ll have to work for the rest.”
   Federal Transport Minister Otto Lang announced Thursday in Prince Rupert that a harbor board study has recommended port development and expansion on Ridley Island at the mouth of the present Prince Rupert Harbor.
   He said tlie federal government will proceed immediately with the management side of the development with British Columbia and Alberta.
   The Ridley Island Master Plan recommends a $149 million grain and coal terminal on the island.
   Lang said he wants to see grain rolling through the port in 1982. Construction is to begin within a year.
   The city’s new economic development officer, Peter Oster-gaard, said Prince George can look for an economic boost in two areas — rail expansion and service industry expansion.
   He said Prince Rupert suffers from a lack of development land. There is little flat area available and any industrial land is worth much more than similar land here.
'Aggressive attitude' needed
   “To get service industry here for increased business in the west will require a very aggressive attitude on our parts,” he said.
   Keith Yorston, president of QM Industries Ltd., a major machine fabricator, said it will be difficult for Prince George’s steel fabrication companies to compete with Vancouver businesses for a share of the port construction.
   He said steel costs and transportation rates are against the local industry.
   Yorston, however, said there has to be economic spin-off for Prince George in the port expansion.
   “There’s bound to be more activity here as a result,” he said.
   Len Shuster, development
 officer for CN Railways, said the increase in grain trains alone will cause a boost to local railway requirements.
   Shuster said planning for rail yard expansion — meetings were held with council last year — and a start on yard construction in the spring were predicted on the port development.
   He said Rupert handled 40 million bushels in 1978 — a very good year for the port — but when the super port is operating that will increase to about 300 million bushels.
   The large increase in grain unit trains, which change crews at a number of points from Jasper to Rupert, including at Prince George, will result in more railway employment in crews and maintenance workers.
Coal development, too?
   “We were under a tight schedule (for yard expansion) even before Lang’s announcement,” he said, “this only adds to the schedule."
   Shuster said announcements that a coal terminal is also part of the port expansion will undoubtedly increase the impetus to develop the coal fields in the Chetwyrid-Sukunka area, which have been awaiting a better market.
'Restraint' hits RCMP training
   REGINA (CP) - Enrolment at the RCMP training depot here will be reduced by almost two-thirds as a result of federal spending restraint, a spokesman said Thursday.
   Supt. David Whyte, training academy commander, said the reduction will take place this year and next.
   "Normally we have 20 troops each with 32 men passing through the facility each year. This will be reduced now to 10 troops comprised of 24 recruits each."
   The reduction means fewer instructors will be needed, Whyte said, so 28 instructors will be transferred to active duty by next summer.
Valence jailed for six years
   MONTREAL (CP) - Claude Valence was sentenced to six years today for attempted extortion against the credit union in Sherbrooke, Que., which employed Charles Marion.
  Valence was acquitted earlier this month of several other charges, including the kidnapping of Marion, held for 82 days in 1977. The Crown is planning an appeal on the acquittal.
   Port development could also give a lift to the local modular home industry, which has been in the doldrums since 1977.
   Housing demand generally should increase, but Oster-gaard said modular homes could help satisfy the demand for homes in Prince Rupert.
  Housing spokesman Bob Flitton said recently during an interview about local housing that city leaders should take a much more |x>sitive attitude toward development of local warehousing and the service industry.
   Neither Flitton nor Mayor Elmer Mercier was available for comment today.
   Mercier has been urging the city take a more aggressive approach to service industry development. He suggested the city hire an economic development officer last year and economic development was a big part of Mercier’s successful campaign for mayor last November.
Citizen photo by Doiik Welli-r
                 Bob Valine, a shop teacher at the Kelly Road Junior Secondary School, plays the concerned shotgun-toting father of “bride” Lisa Keller, 15, during a mock wedding Next, ceremony at the school today. It was the final ceremony to a research project done by 20 divorce students in June Spilchuk’s Grade 10 Consumer Fundamentals course. The students found the average cost of a wedding in Prince George is $6,539, which includes a reception for 100 people plus all the direct and indirect costs. This is before the divorce, which the students will subject to the same cost-analysis Monday when a lawyer talks with them about the economics of it all.
'HUMANITARIAN' GROUNDS
Refugees allowed to land
  HONG KONG (CP) - Hong Kong relented on humanitarian grounds today and allowed in almost 3,400 Vietnamese refugees who had been stranded for nearly four weeks aboard a dilapidated Taiwanese freighter.
  A refugee spokesman aboard the freighter Huey Fong said by radio telephone: “All the children on board are jumping for joy and saying
 Hong Kong is very beautiful.”
   Authorities in this British colony had originally thought only 2,700 refugees were aboard. News of the increased number, coupled with fears of colder weather and illness on board, swayed the officials’ decision, a government spokesman said.
   Informed sources said police would board the vessel, take charge of it and start inter-
 viewing the Taiwanese captain and crew.
   Under recently-passed Hong Kong laws, ships’ captains carrying unscheduled passenger.1-: face prosecution and up to four years in jail.
   The refugees will be processed over the next few days, the sources said, but it was not immediately known wfoere they will be taken.
JOHN MITCHELL LEAVES JAIL
Last Watergate prisoner freed
  MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -Former U.S. attorney-general John Mitchell left prison today-the last of 25 men convicted of Watergate crimes-to resume private life.
   He told reporters: "Henceforth, don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
   With prisoners waving goodbye and chanting “Give ’em hell, Mitchell,” he said he was “looking forward to coming back to Alabama to see all of my friends down here.”
   Mitchell, who was sent to prison 19 months ago, declined to answer questions. But in a brief statement, he expressed thanks for the “thousands and thousands" of letters he said he had received from supporters while at the
 federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base.
   Mitchell was met at the prison by former U.S. attorney Ira DeMent of Montgomery.
   Mitchell is barred from practising law. Only close associates know what he plans to do in the future.
   Today marks the first time in six years that there are no jailed participants from the scandal that brought about former president Richard Nixon’s resignation.
   Mitchell, 65, one of Nixon’s former law partners, was convicted along with White House chief of staff H. R. Halde-iiian and domestic adviser John
 Erlichman in a coverup of a 1972 break-in at the Democratic national committee headquarters in Washington.
   All three were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstructing justice and lying under oath on Jan. 1, 1975.
   Mitchell was eligible for parole last June, but the U.S. Parole Commission ruled that his Watergate crimes were of “high severity” and delayed his release for six months.
   Mitchell appealed the decision, but U.S. District Judge Frank Johnson rejected his appeal without a hearing.
   While in prison, Mitchell underwent major surgery for a heart ailment and for the replacement of a hip joint.
'Fire 500 post office
militants7
  TORONTO (CP) - The Globe and Mail quotes Postmaster-General Gilles Lamon-tagne as saying the firing of 500 inside postal workers could put Canada’s post office back in efficient working order.
   The newspaper says Lamon-tagne made the comment after he was asked by a reporter how many postal workers would have to be fired to get rid of the post office’s problems.
  The postmaster-general added that the rules and proce dures which prevent him from firing those workers are a necessary part of the democra -tic system.
   Lamontagne said Thursday that the post office’s problems revolve around a small core of militant troublemakers ■
   The post office cannot simply fire them, but must build up evidence against them to try to get them fired through cumbersome and time-consuming labor and criminal proceedings, he is quoted as saying.
   Meanwhile, a union official in Toronto says if anyone should be fired, it’s Lamon-tagne.
   Arnold Gould, the union president for Toronto’s 5,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, sug gests firing Lamontagne and getting "a responsible minis ter who will talk to the union.
 •	Former Citizen sports re|x>rter and aspiring stage director John Nolan, now living in Nanaimo, reports that he has landed not one, but two roles in the production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to be produced by Victoria’s Bastion Theatre Feb. 2-17. Nolan got his start in theatre at Prince George Secondary School.
 •	There’s been a change of command at the Prince George airport. Manager John Williams, after 30 months on the job, has been transferred to Vancouver. A competition for the position is on, but meanwhile Del Reid is in charge as acting manager.
  •	A local man says his wife’s coffee is so bad it’s probably grounds for divorce.
  •	Overheard: “I’ll be hearing the pitter patter of little feet at my house.” "You mean..“Yeah, my wife’s taken up jogging.”
‘Don’t you want to stay and watch the third quarter?”
   The tour is being organized by the Material and Supplies Division of the Prince George Construction Association. Sixteen firms have already signed up for the tour, and there is room for a total of 30, says Allen.
   Space at large centres in each town has been arranged, and companies will be able to set up booths to meet prospec-
  tive clients and dispense information on facilities and products.
  Chambers of Commerce, and service clubs in each town have been advised, and the Rotary Club at Fort Nelson will sponsor a dinner meeting for the visiting businessmen.
  The information centres will be set up for six hours in each
The
 20r Copy
Friday, January 19, 1979
Prince George. British Columbia