Prince George, British Columbia
Wednesday, March 21,1979 Vol. 23; No. 57
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CURLING
City misses its share of provincial lottery fund
by TOM NIXON Citizen Staff Reporter
 Prince George has missed a bet on the provincial lottery fund.
 Projects here have received only $131,000 from the special fund, from its beginnings in 1975 to 1979, out of a total $23.2 million handed out, or a little more than $10 per capita in B.C.
 On a population basis, that means Prince George is short $586,000.
 It seems we’ve simply not applied for the special grants. People who could have benefitted from grants didn’t know they were available.
 "People here didn’t know,” says Alderman Monica Becott, the city’s cultural funds watcher.
 “I only found out by accident when (Municipal Affairs Minister Bill) Vander Zalm was here (in late January),” she said in an interview.
 “I asked him where Vanderhoof got the $75,000 for the senior citizens’ centre and he said the ‘lottery fund’.
 ‘‘I was stunned. I asked him what that was.
 “I’m very surprised the Community Arts Council didn’t know about it, because they are usually in the know about any source of money.”
 Bill Woycik, manager of the city’s civic properties and re-
 creation commission and also usually knowledgeable on sources of grants, said he was unaware that the lottery money was available for so wide a range of projects.
 “Maybe we’re remiss in not following it up,” he said, ‘‘but we didn’t know there was anything to follow up.”
 Fort George MLA Howard Lloyd, the man most say should know most about the fund, said people were applying in the beginning but the fund wasn’t as free with money as it has lately become.
 ‘‘I tried to get money for different groups and was told the projects weren’t eligible,” he said.
 ‘‘I didn’t know grants were being made to similar things in other ridings until the list came out.”
 Provincial Secretary Hugh Curtis published a complete list of grants made from the fund since its beginnings, after opposition NDP members revealed that a grant had been made to Education Minister Pat McGeer’s wife for medical research at the University of B.C.
 The 59-page list includes money given to cultural, recreational and health care research. The lotteries branch has, according to Curtis, earned more than $31 million since 1975.
 Most of the money comes from The Provincial and Winsday lotteries.
 The provincial secretary and his deputy have been unavail-
 able to explain how the availability of the lottery funds is advertised and what projects and groups specifically are eligible.
  Four separate inquests from The Citizen for return calls to the minister’s office during the past week have gone unanswered.
  MLA Lloyd said as soon as he was aware that other areas were getting large grants, he started pressing for a share for Fort George.
  Recently, a $4,000 grant was given to Blackburn Secondary School Band for travel to a music festival in Italy. Lloyd presented the cheque earlier this month.
  Alderman Becott, who is heavily involved in cultural groups and federal politics and usually knows where government money is available for such activities, says she’s spread the lottery fund word to cultural groups locally, and knows of three groups which have now applied.
  Applications are made to Provincial Secretary Curtis in Victoria, with copies of the appeal to the local MLA so he can press for the grant.
  ‘‘I wonder how much money we can get for the new library,” Becott said, ‘‘and for some of the other things that need grants.”
  By far the greatest share of the fund has been granted to
projects and groups in the lower mainland area.
 The Vancouver Museum and Planetarium Association alone, out of more than 70 other cultural groups listed in the greater Vancouver area, got $1 million for an "endowment” fund.
 The others, ranging from the Axis Mime Theatre Society ($18,500) through the Green Thumb Players ($20,000) to the Surrey Art Gallery ($65,000) got a wide variety of cultural grants annually since 1975.
 Prince George, in the same categories, got $8,600 for the New Caledonia Chamber Orchestra and $12,000 for the Prince George Art Gallery, in the same period.
 A spokesman for the provincial secretary’s office said one of the reasons the grants in the cultural area are lop-sided in favor of the Vancouver area is that most “professional” arts groups, the only ones eligible for the grants, are located in that area.
 The only groups in Prince George considered "professional” that applied are the art gallery and the orchestra. None of the theatre groups here are considered to be professional.
 A check of lottery grants to Kamloops shows that city, similarly-sized to Prince George, got almost three times as
See LOTTERY page 2
                                 WE'RE SHORT BY HALF A MILLION
LEGISLATURE OPENS
i
Gov't to increase
homeowner grant
  VICTORIA (CP) — An across-the-board increase in the provincial homeowners grant will be introduced during the fourth session of the 31st British Columbia parliament which begins Thursday.
   Premier Bill Bennett, who refused to disclose further details, said the grant provides a basic exemption which will give the greatest relief for those in medium-priced homes.
   Homeowners now get an annual grant of $280, but those over 65 get $480.
   The third session was prorogued this morning.
   It began March 30 and was one of the shortest in recent years with 64 sitting days.
   A special session was held Dec. 7 to legislate an end to a labor dispute involving four West Kootenay school districts and to expand the provisions of the Essential Services Disputes Act
 to include virtually all public employees.
   The New Democratic Party opposition and organized labor see this as the first step toward right-to-work legislation, and the B.C. Federation of Labor has been holding rallies throughout the province in protest. The next rally is to take place here tonight.
   Bennett has denied rumors that he will call a spring election for May 17, but the government is expected to bring down a goodie-filled budget of nearly $4.5 billion — an increase of about five per cent over the $4.28 billion budget for the current year.
   Bennett said he is working on “exciting legislation and a tremendous budget.”
   In fact the budget, which probably will be presented by Finance Minister Evan Wolfe on April 2, is so good it will make
    the minister look “more like a sheep than a wolf,” said Bennett.
      Legislation planned for the new session will include bills authorizing the distribution of five free shares in a Crown holding corporation to each eligible person in B.C. and one enabling the sale of Crown land at below-market prices.
     Other signs fanning the election speculation include the governing Social Credit party’s two-day mini-convention to be held April 6 and 7 in Kamloops, x and an eight-page tabloid-size flyer in praise of the government that the party is sending to every household in B.C.
      Bennett said Tuesday that the mail-out has nothing to do with a general election.
       He said it is traditional that at about the end of the fiscal year, MLAs report to their constituents.
SAUDI ARABIAN REACTION
War against Israel urged
'Sell
senior
  JIDDA (AP) - The Saudi Arabian press, which invariably reflects government thinking, called today for an all-out Arab war against Israel to regain Jerusalem and other occupied Arab territory.
   The outburst of editorial wrath followed a forceful statement in the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on Tuesday by Prime Minister Menachem Begin as he Opened debate on
  Prince George Teamsters have so far been shut out of a strike vote by other members in their B.C. Local 31, but face losing their jobs in a lockout.
  Teamster representative John Page said today the Prince George workers were not included in the member vote, which approved strike action by a majority of 93 per cent, because it was conducted only among employees of federally-certified trucking firms.
  No vote was held by employees of firms certified
 the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
   Begin said Israel will never accept the re-division of Jerusalem or relinquish its statusas “Israel’s eternal capital,” never withdraw to its pre-1967 borders or ever allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.
   A front-page editorial in Al Jezira called on all Arab states to prepare for a long and con-
 under the B.C. Labor Code. Most firms in Prince George are under that code.
   However, the Transport Labor Relations Association, which acts as bargaining agent for some 90 trucking firms in B.C. including those in Prince George, has threatened to lock out all employees if any of its individual members are struck.
   Should the Teamsters take action against any firm, the Prince George workers would then face a lockout, despite not
 tinuous war and to allow the Palestinian resistance to fight on all fronts “until they turn the occupied lands into a blazing inferno for the enemy.”
   “We should convert all our resources into rifles, guns, tanks and fighter aircraft and turn every able bodied man into a good soldier or a commando willing to die for this cause,” the paper added.
  Another newspaper, Al
a vote
  having a vote on the strike.
  Page said talks are still being held between the Teamsters and the TLRA.
  There are between 50 and 100 local members in the Prince George area, employed by such firms as 97 Transfer, Trimac, Lomac, Rempel Trucking and others.
  Teamster officials in Vancouver could not be reached for comment today. The telephones were unanswered because the office employees of 'the Teamsters are on strike.
 Riyadh, wondered why “anybody should want to sign a treaty with Israel after what Begin said.”
    “With the West Bank (of the River Jordan) and Gaza gone and with the exclusion of Jerusalem and the denial of Palestinian rights, why bother to go to Washington, Tel Aviv and Cairo to sign anything?” the paper asked.
   In Washington, House Speaker Thomas O’Neill said President Carter informed him that Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Carter will sign the treaty at 2 p.m. EST Monday in the U.S. capital.
   Begin’s declaration was seen as a move to placate right-wing hawks demanding assurances that the autonomy promised by the treaty to the Palestinians in the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip will not lead to Palestinian statehood or to the weakening of Israel’s military presence in the territories it seized in the 1967 war.
   Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Hussein is travelling to Saudi Arabia today to discuss what to do when the treaty is signed.
They didn't get
by JOHN ASLING
   Citizen Staff Reporter
   Prince George school trustee Steve Sintich has a solution for handling the declining enrolment problem at the Prince George Senior Secondary School.
   He says the school, which is only about two-thirds full, should be sold to either the College of New Caledonia or the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
   Sintich asked at Tuesday’s board meeting that management study his proposal and report back to the board.
   He said following the meeting that while PGSS has 1,400 of a possible 1.900 students, schools such as D.P. Todd could still use another 500 students.
    The problem is that while the school areas around PGSS have grown, the enrolment at that school has dropped.
    But while he admits Sintich’s suggestion is a provocative one, Gordon Ballantyne, director of administrative services, said it is not a suggestion that can be looked at while ignoring long range needs.
    If the school was closed, Ballantyne says that there would have to be a number of expansion programs undertaken at several other senior schools.
 - He says too, that PGSS, for ajl its problems, is a fine facility. “To turn our backs on it is something not to be considered too lightly,” he said.
   He admits that he has a sen-
  See SCHOOL page 2
STANDINGS
  Standing after six rounds of Canadian mixed curling championship here:
W L
Northern Ontario	5	1
Ontario	5	1
Saskatchewan	5	1
Alberta	4	2
Manitoba	3	3
New Brunswick	3	3
B.C.	2	4
Newfoundland	2	4
Nova Scotia	2	4
Quebec	2	4
Territories	2	4
P.E.I.	t	0
           TODAY AT 7:30 P.M. Alberta vs Territories P.E.I. vs. Manitoba Quebec vs. Northern Ontario Saskatchewan vs. Ontario Nova Scotia vs. B.C.
     Newfoundland vs. New Brunswick THUHSDAY AT 2 P.M. Saskatchewan vs. New Brunswick B.C. vs Quebec Alberta vs. Newfoundland Manitoba vs. Nova Scotia Ontario vs. Territories Northern Ontario vs. P.E.I.
      PEKTII, Scotland iCI’i - Canada's IJndsuy Sparkes Mole 11 points today to defeat Denmark 12-2 in tne ninth round of play at the women's world invitational curling championship.
      In an earlier game, the North Vancouver, H.C., foursome defeated a previously unbeaten United States rink skipped by Nancy Langley ol Seattle,
  The victory moved the Canadians into a second-place tie with the Americans in the round-robin tournament, both with 6-2 records. •
C Klara photo by Tim Swanky
                        Warm, sunny skies are making it a spring skier’s delight in the Prince George area. These bumps, labelled Bumpy ride moguls by the skiing fraternity, were perfect to test a person’s skill at Tabor Mountain. The moguls are purposely created on a hill to make it a little more exciting to negotiate.
TODAY
A'N.SS.kIG
P«PSoMS
“If it’s any help she was reading a book on the life of the Prime Minister of Canada.”
(featured inside)
Sweep, sweep!
Index
Bridge................................18
Business............................14
City, B.C..............2,3,13,25
Classified.....................15-21
Comics...............................34
Crossword........................17
Editorial..............................4
FamiTy.........................32, 33
Northern Ontario's Roy Lund shouts instructions to his rink. The foursome was tied for the lead with Ontario and Saskatchewan inthe Canadian mixed curling championship here. Page 7.
Horoscopes.......................36
Internationa]......................5
Morberg column.............13
Movies.........................34, 35
National..............................5
Rolling Stone...................30
Sports.............................7-10
THE WEATHER
D
 The forecast for tonight and Thursday calls for continuing clear skies.
 The expected high today was 12, the low tonight -7. The forecast high Thursday is 12. Tuesday’s high was 11, the low -8. On this date last vear the high was 7, the low -4.
Details page 2
NOW HEAR THIS
 #	It was the first day of spring Tuesday, but the sun wasn’t over the Tropic of Cancer as our front page photo caption stated. A sharp reader noted that the sun actually was just crossing the equator. Our information came from the local weather office, which still maintained today the sun was further north. But after looking it up again, the weatherman said of the error: “It’s the world that’s gone wrong.”
 #	Prince George Recycling has run into an occupational hazard. On the first recyclables pickup in the Millar Addition, a recycler had to convince the city garbageman that he was not stealing garbage and wasn’t trying to pul the garbageman out of business. Regular (every second garbage day) pickup of recyclables starts in the' Millar Addition Thursday, and the recycling people ask that recyclables be clearly marked and out on the crub (away from the regular garbage) by 7:30 or 8 a.m.