FIRST PHASE OF 10-YEAR DEVELOPMENT
lift is start of big-league
for Tabor
Ski
by RON ALLERTON Citizen Sports Editor Tabor Mountain is getting its long-planned triple chairlift.
The $600,000 installation of the only triple chair north of Kamloops was announced Thursday night by Ken O’Neill, Tabor Mountain Ski Development vice-president and general-manager, and president Cecelia O’Neill.
The triple chair will be one of only a half-dozen in the interior of B.C. and should be operational by the start of next ski season.
The lift is just the first sec-
tion of a five-phase, 10-year, multi-million dollar development at Tabor, 24 km east of Prince George on the Yel-lowhead Highway.
The second phase, next year, involves another $600,000 and includes $450,000 for an alpine slide, $100,000 for lodge expansion and $50,000 to light three more runs for night skiing.
Alpine slides were introduced to Canada two years ago and are a tremendous source of summer revenue. The only ones in Western Canada are in Calgary and Vernon.
Phase three, in 1981, in-
cludes a year-around fully-serviced campground and fun pi ay land.
The fourth phase, in 1984, includes an 18-hole regulationsized golf course, tennis courts and swimming pools.
The fifth phase, in 1990, calls for accommodation facilities and a condominium development.
While most Canadian ski areas have chairlifts of foreign design and manufacture, Tabor’s is coming from Skyway Engineering Inc., of Waterloo, Ont.
Skyway supplies the basic lift, but everything else will be bought in Prince George.
The lift will be 2,447 feet long, with an initial capacity of 1,500 skiers per hour and a maximum of 1,800.
Tabor’s current T-bar is 2,700 feet long, with a maximum per hour capacity of 714.
The O’Neills have been working on obtaining a chair for five years and the hill was engineered for the lift in 1974.
"There have been growing recreation demands in this
area,” Ken O’Neill said Thursday "and the uphill capacity in the north has been inadequate.”
He mentioned 45-minute waits in lift lines and people turning away from skiing.
The new lift will triple Tabor’s uphill capacity.
O’Neill said there will beday and night operation during the ski season, seven days a week.
He said if the projected development stays on schedule, "in five years there could be a staff of 30 to 40 year round.”
plans
Preliminary work at the mountain began Thursday and lift installation is expected to start early in July.
O’Neill is aiming for an early December completion, contingent on weather and no unfor-seen delays.
The Federal Business Development Bank is handling the bulk of financing.
The lift’s lower terminal will be 100 feet left of the lodge. The lift crosses the Trainor and Oh My Gawd runs and unloads 50
feet left of the upper ski patrol hut.
O’Neill, saying "we’re buying as much as possible in Prince George,” said local firms will supply parts of the lift, the main drive system, the Diesel power unit, concrete foundations, electrical and survey work and helicopters to install towers.
O'Neill has extensive experience in lift engineering and was superintendent on construction of the Hell’s Gate air tram in the Fraser Canyon.
Tabor Mountain’s ski history goes back 20 years.
The first ski hill in the area, it was operated by the Hickory Wing Ski Club with a rope tow and A-frame lodge in the early 1960s.
Major development, including installation of the present T-bar, began in 1965 through the work of Earl Wilder of Fairmont Hot Springs in the East Kootenay and his daughter Ceal.
The hill has 800 vertical feet, with 10 runs, mostly for beginning and intermediate skiers.
The
Friday, June 15,1979 Vol. 23; No. 117
Citizen
20‘ Copy
Prince George. British Columbia
This week:
Killed: 1 Injured:39
Arrested as impaired: 16
This year:
Killed: 9 Injured: 383
To same date 1978: Killed: 7 Injured: 353
FEATURED INSIDE)
Index
Bridge............. Horoscopes.........
Business.......... ................5
City, B.C......... Movies.................
National............... ................6
Comics............. 20
Sports...................
Editorial.......... .....................4 . 19
Family............
c
THE WEATHER
J
The forecast for tonight calls for cloudy skies and rain.
Saturday should be cloudy with showers in the morning with thundershowers and gusty winds in the afternoon. Sunday should be sunny-in the morning, showers in the afternoon.
The expected high today was 15, the low 5. Saturday’s forecast high is 15. The high Thursday was 16, the low 7. On this date last year the high was 22, the low 8.
Details page 2
( NOW HEAR THIS)
• A reader has a big "thank you” for an unknown honest person. Our reader lost Mr wallet containing cash, identification and credit cards on Monday night. She thought she’d never see it again. But on Thursday she got it back through registered mail, with everything intact. The sender did not identify himself or herself.
$ A sign in the window of the Catholic Centre’s George Street office announces: "You heard it here first. Virginity is the next fad.”
Got a news tip? Call The Citizen’s 24-hour news line at 562-2441.
inaction
VICTORIA (Staff) - Opposition leader Dave Barrett wants to know what the government is doing about an announced B.C. Railway expansion in Prince George.
He was questioning Economic Development Minister Don Phillips in the Legislature about the BCR plans for Prince George and the re-opening of the Railwest plant in Squamish.
Barrett accused the government of playing politics with the BCR. Phillips countered that the former New Democratic Party government blew money on building railway cars at Squamish at a price no railway could afford.
Phillips agreed with Barrett that there is a shortage of rail cars in North America but said it is not up to the B.C. taxpayer to build them.
He made no comment on the Prince George expansion.
The announcement of the $4.5 million expansion of BCR facilities in Prince George was made in early April by president Mac Norris.
It includes a spot repair shop, central stock supply and a new yard office.
Construction is scheduled to start in mid-July and completion is set for 1980.
As far as the re-opening of the former Railwest paint in Squamish is concerned, Norris made the announcement at the same time, but gave no date for the re-opening.
'Boat people' to be expelled
KUALA LUMPUR (AP) -The Malaysian government said today it will ship out to sea the 76,000 Vietnamese refugees now sheltered in its territory and officials vowed to enact legislation to shoot on sight any Vietnamese "boat people” entering Malaysian waters.
“We will be harsh with them,” said Deputy Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. He said eviction of the refugees will begin immediately and will be carried out in stages.
Malaysian officials previously have protested to Hanoi the exodus of boat people and demanded that Vietnam quickly launch a program assisted by the UN to facilitate their direct emigration from Vietnam to Western countries.
Citizen photo by Doug WrUer
Lineups were long this morning at places offering BCRIC shares applications.
TREASURY BOARD CHIEF
'Government is out of money7
MEACH LAKE, Que. (CP — Prime Minister Clark and Treasury Board President Sinclair Stevens expressed concern about the state of government finances Thursday after a cabinet meeting.
‘‘We were a little Bit alarmed,” said Clark, mentioning a briefing received earlier this week on the financial situation left by the former Liberal government.
He cast doubt on whether the tax and economic breaks he promised during the election
campaign would be in his first budget.
’ ‘‘Government is out of money,” Stevens said, adding that public servants must find ways to save money and fulfill the Progressive Conservative election promise to reduce the size of the civil service.
They were commenting after 26 of the 30 cabinet members met in a government-owned mansion to discuss adminstrative and housekeeping details away from inter-ruplions in Ottawa, 30 kilometres to the south.
Other responses to questions:
— Clark said an Arab suggestion that External Affairs Minister Flora MacDonald make a factfinding tour of the Middle East is worth considering. The trip would be an attempt to quiet the controversy caused by Clark’s proposal to move the Canadian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from tel Aviv.
—Senator Robert de Cotret said the government has decided to scrap the board of economic development minis-
ters. The new economic development minister said he is working on a new economic strategy that would incorporate a small bureaucracy previously attached to the Liberal board.
—Sport Minister Steve Pap-roski said the government appears to be stuck with a Liberal commitment to give financial help to arenas in Winnipeg, Edmonton and Quebec City from Loto Canada. But he added that the cabinet has not discussed the matter and no decision has been reached.
Ceremonies begin at summit
VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev joined President Carter today for a summit conference the U.S. leader said will spell “another step towards security and lasting peace."
The Soviet president walked carefully and slowly, but unaided, through an airport-arrival ceremony that was free of speech-making — a concession to Brezhnev’s uncertain health.
As was the case when Carter flew in Thursday night, the traditional 21-gun artillery salute was omitted. Austrian officials offered no explanation but the silencing of ceremonial fieldpieces was viewed
BREZHNEV
as appropriate for an arms-control conference.
In accord with protocol, the
CARTER
U.S. president was not present to greet his Soviet counterpart. Brezhnev, smiling and paus-
ing once to wave, stepped carefully, one hand on a ramp railing, as he alighted from the airplane that brought him here from Moscow.
Joining Austrian President Rudolf Kirchschlaeger, he shook hands with welcoming dignitaries, then bowed from the waist before the colors of an army guard of honor.
Accompanying the Soviet president were his foreign and defence ministers, the chief of the general staff of the Soviet armed forces and Konstantin Chernenko, a longtime protege and member of the party polit-buro who is considered by some to be Brezhnev’s political heir.
Share
deadline
today
The government office in Prince George is open to 9 p.m. tonight to handle the last-minute rush for free shares in the B.C. Resource Investment Corp.
The bill setting up the BCRIC was approved unanimously in the Legislature Thursday.
Every resident of British Columbia who qualifies is entitled to five free shares in the corporation.
Qualifications include Canadian citizenship and residence in the province. Parents can apply for their under-age children, but anyone over 16 years old can apply on his own.
Banks, credit unions and other institutions which handled the applications were to stop taking them at the end of the regular business day.
In the Legislature second reading was given to the bill and the New Democratic Party will now ask for a clause by clause debate on it.
Local banks and the government agent’s office report that there was a heavy demand for the shares since they opened for business.
The actual shares, valued at $6 each, will be issued in August.
Food prices help slow living costs
OTTAWA (CP) — A moderation in food price increases led to a slowing in the 12-month rate of increase in the cost of living last month to 9.3 per cent.
This compared with a 12-month inflation rate in April of 9.8 per cent.
Government figures released today show food prices rose during May at an annual rate of 13.4 per cent; the previous month the rate was 16.5 per cent.
During the month of May alone, the cost of living went up by a full one per cent. Statistics Canada attributed most of the increase to higher charges for transportation, alcohol and tobacco.
Although the annual inflation rate for May was the sec-ondhighest for the year, food prices went up by only 0.6 per cent, the smallest monthly increase since December. The federal agency said the rate of increase was kept down by lower prices for fresh vegetables, beef and pork.
The consumer price index, the government’s most common yardstick for measuring inflation, rose last month to 189.7 from its April level of 187.9. The index, which measures the price of a so-called basket of goods and services designed to reflect the spending patterns of an average household, was arbitrarily set at 100 in 1971. Prices in the intervening eight years have, therefore, increased by almost 90 per cent.
In spite of last month’s easing in its rate of increase, food continued to lead all other items in the index. This makes Canada different from the United States, where energy prices are charging ahead at a faster rate than all other consumer goods.
U.S. figures show the cost of living there rose during the first quarter of the year at an annual rate of 13 per cent.
Canada’s performance is about par with most of the major industrial nations. Latest available international figures show annual inflation in France is running at about 10 per cent, Britain 10 per cent and Australia eight per cent, r I
TODAY 1
11 -DAY STRIKE ENDS
workers new pact
Dock
okay
VANCOUVER (CP) -Longshoremen at seven West Coast ports were to return to work today after agreeing to accept the latest offer by the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association.
The longshoremen voted 54 per cent in favor of the three-year contract, ending an 11-day strike that has halted vital shipments of grain, coal, potash and lumber through major British Columbia ports.
The latest offer, reached with the assistance of federal mediator Bill Kelly, calls for re-negotiation of wages and other issues if inflation exceeds 20 per cent in the first two years of the contract, which is retroactive to last Jan. 1.
Bob Peebles, president of the
International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, said Thursday night that the 3,500 workers probably would be back at work by 5 p.m. PDT today.
The longshoremen walked off the job June 4 at Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster, Nanaimo, Prince Rupert, Chemainus and Port Albemi.
The contract, which provides wage increases of 90 cents an hour in each year on a base rate of $9.10, was agreed to early Sunday after 20 hours of intenstive mediation by Kelly, federal deputy labor minister.
He had been dispatched by new federal Labor Minister Lincoln Alexander after the governments of B.C., the three Prairie provinces and business
groups all appealed to Prime Minister Joe Clark to take quick action to resolve the dispute.
During previous negotiations for the contract, three tentative agreements were rejected by either union negotiators or the membership. The last to be turned down was rejected by only one vote.
Peebles said that despite acceptance of the contract, the membership still is frustrated by the length of negotiations it has to go through every time, inflation and the labor climate in the country.
Norm Cunningham, president of the B.C. Maritime Employers’ Association, had said earlier that he too was not happy with the settlement but could live with it.
Barrett hits BCR