$250 MILLION PROJECT
Two pulp mills scrap expansion
TODAY
"If I had something smaller, I’d call it a flower
FEATURED INSIDE
D
A landmark decision
A landmark court decision, with possible far-reaching implications, has awarded former Vancouver Canuck Mike Robitaille more than $300,000. Page 13.
Sentenced to death
Former intelligence agency chief Kim Jae-kyu and six other persons have been sentenced to death for the assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-Hee. Page 5.
Index -
Bridge................................19
Business..........................8, 9
City, B.C....................2, 3, 10
Classified.....................16-22
Comics...............................26
Crossword........................18
Editorial..............................4
Family.........................28, 29
Food survey.......................3
Horoscopes.......................30
International......................5
Movies..........................25-27
National......,.......................7
Bolling Stone...................26
Sports................13-15, 38-40
Television.........................31
THE WEATHER
The forecast for tonight calls for cloudy skies with showers of rain or snow. Friday should be mainly cloudy with occasional sunny breaks.
The expected high today was 6, the low tonight -3. Friday’s forecast high is 5. The high Wednesday was 6, the low -3. On this date last year the high was 0, the low -4.
Sunset today is 3:49 p.m. Sunrise Friday is 8:28 a.m. and sunset is 3:50 p.m.
Details pagf* 2
NOW HEAR THIS]
• Wednesday’s front page picture of a postal employee with a mountain of parcels has resulted in several calls to local postal officials asking if hours could be extended because many people can’t get in to pick up their parcel by the normal 5:30 p.m. closing. In response to the requests, a spokesman said today the box lobbies at both the downtown and 15th Avenue post offices will be open for parcel pickup ONLY until 7 p.m. Friday and from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Saturday. And a Merry Christmas from the post office employees in Prince George. ..
• A Victoria woman visiting in Prince George says a helpful Third Avenue store clerk must be “death against liquor." While shopping at the store, the visitor asked for directions to the nearest liquor store within walking distance. She was directed to the 20th Avenue and Victoria Street putlet. The visitor learned later there is another liquor store at Sixth Avenue and Dominion, five blocks from the shop she was in.
• The lady with the small car stuck on 13th Avenue Wednesday likely wasn’t aware who she had helping give her a push. After arriving here by private jet, Chunky Woodward, chairman of the board of Woodward’s, was on his way to the store when he came across the lady in distress, and offered her a hand.
Got a news tip? Call The Citizen’s 24-hour nev/s line at 562-2441
by ARNOLD OLSON Citizen Staff Reporter
Plans for a $250 million expansion for Prince George Pulp and Paper Ltd. and Intercontinental Pulp Company Ltd. have been cancelled.
Mark Gunther, president and chief executive officer of the two companies, said studies into expansion of the affiliated companies showed increasing pulp production costs were prohibitive. There Would be too little return on investment to justify the investment.
However, he said, increased use of hog fuel for steam and power generation would remain under study.
Hugh Norman, manager of nearby B.C. Chemicals, said the announcement would make no difference to his company’s study toward a $6 million expansion. The-company sells sodium chlorate for pulp bleaching to the two mills and other mills in the district.
PGP and Intercontinental are largely controlled by Canadian Forest Products: 100 per cent for PGP and 75 per cent for the latter (25 per cent is owned by Fedmeule of Germany).
The company had been involved in a four, or five-way battle with other pulp companies for rights to chips from pulpwood area six (PA6). This area, on both sides of the Fraser River, extends from Lillooet to Williams Lake.
Gunther was not available for comment today regarding the company’s application — whether it was still active.
Other companies applying include Northwood Pulp and Timber, Cariboo Pulp and Paper Ltd. of Quesnel and Quesnel River Pulp Company (a new company partly owned by West Fraser Mills Ltd.).
Social Credit MLA Bruce Strachan, of Prince George South said today “there is no
See PULP page 2
B.C. sets
energy
targets
VICTORIA (CP) - Tapping coal to power cars, thrifty use of wood waste and selective industrial development all figure in a strategy designed to make British Columbia self-sufficient in energy by the turn of the century, says Premier Bill Bennett.
The Social Credit premier, outlining his government’s proposed energy policy in an interview Wednesday, said it will be based on developing alternative sources of energy and broadening use of the ones the province already has.
The mountain province is rich in potential sources and by the dawn of the 21st century Bennett said “B.C. probably will be one of the most secure parts of the whole world” in terms of energy supply.
“Right now, oil fills 45 per cent of our energy needs. Our goal by 1983 is to lessen that amount to 40 per cent.”
He said this will involve heavier reliance on the province’s considerable natural gas reserves and hydro-electric capacity, pointing to a planned gas pipeline and a high-voltage transmission line to Vancouver Island.
Encouraging conservation will also figure in the government’s strategy.
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CitUen photo by Tim Swanky
Kelly Road Secondary School students, Cheryl Corrie, left, and Gail Roe, almost Christmas hampers disappear behind the pile of more than 300 cans of food collected by students for the
Salvation Army’s Christmas hampers.
FLOOD DAMAGE
Pay up,
Ginter
ordered
VANCOUVER (CP) - While rock and mud slides in the Fraser Canyon severed the city’s rail link with the rest of Canada, there was some good news for Vancouver residents who have been deluged by heavy rain for about a week.
The first signs that the worst appeared to be over came when nearly all flood victims who fled their houses in southwestern British Columbia during the past few days were allowed to return Wednesday.
The victims got more good news when Provincial Secretary Evan Wolfe announced the government would guarantee
100 per cent of the cost of damage to houses and their contents - but not property surrounding damaged homes.
However, the weatherman put a damper on things when he forecast continuing rain today. It is not expected to be as heavy as the rains which caused slides and flooding in many areas of southern B.C.
In addition, Premier Bill Bennett plans to give Prime Minister Clark a first-hand look at some slide areas today when the two men take a helicopter and car tour of suburban North Vancouver and Port Moody .
VANCOUVER (CP) - Ben Ginter, the former Prince George, road contractor turned brewery owner, has been ordered by the B.C. Supreme Court to pay his lawyer $2,500.
Mr. Justice Lloyd McKenzie was told that Ginter arrived at John Taylor’s law office one morning in 1977 when only the firm's bookkeeper was present. He went straight to the office of lawyer Gordon Alte-man, a Taylor associate, picked up the files dealing with his cases, and walked out. He also did not pay for legal work done on the cases to that time.
Bennett blames party executive
VICTORIA (CP) - Premier Bill Bennett blamed the Social Credit party executive Wednesday for the so-called dirty tricks affair which has harassed his government for months, saying it was up to them to control the “political machinery.”
Bennett said in an interview that the scandal, which became public in September, and the failure of party officials to declare $246,000 in election campaign spending was the fault of the party.
Last week, Les Keen, the former party president and an unsuccesful candidate in last May’s provincial election,
UNLESS BUDGET TRIMMED
City taxpayers face increase
by AL IRWIN Citizen Staff Reporter
City treasurer Bill Kennedy says Prince George property owners face an "almost inevitable” tax rate increase to make up a shortage of $3.94 million in the 1980 provisional budget.
Kennedy said, however, it was impossible at this time to estimate the impact of the budget on the individual taxpayer.
He said the amount of any increase would depend on assessments to new construction, possible shifts between residential and business taxes, expenditure cuts by council to the provisional budget, and the provincial government’s 1980 revenue-sharing program, which has'not yet been released.
The revenue port ion of the provisional budget is calculated on last year’s mill rate, and 1980 assessments on new construction are not yet known.
Council met Wednesday for the first of eight meetings scheduled to review and
adopt the provisional budget by the Jan. 21 deadline.
The budget totals $52.4 million — including utilities — up from $46.4 million in 1979.
The general revenue budget, excluding the self-liquidating utilities of water sewer and garbage, is $46.4 million, up from $40.7 million last year, for an increase of 14 per cent.
Of this amount, $20 million is taxes collected by the city for other agencies, including school board, regional district, regional hospital, Assessment Authority and Municipal Finance Authority.
Kennedy told council the $3.94 million deficit must be eliminated by either increasing revenues, or increasing expenditures.
More than $1 million of the increase is directly attributed to amalgamation costs of rural road maintenance and policing, which the city takes over Jan. 1
from the provincial government.
The budget sets aside an extra $650,000 for road maintenance, and $479,000 for policing.
Although the city has set aside $500,000 annually for the past five years to soften the blow of amalgamation costs, Kennedy said the revenue portion of the budget already included the $500,000 taken from the fund for this year.
Council passed a motion to hold the operating budget to a 12.6-per-cent increase, based on the national inflation rate and a 3.4 per cent city growth rate in 19.79.
Aldermen also voted to request department heads to review their capital budgets, and arrange requests in order of priority.
Mayor Elmer Mercier told council the city suffers from a lack of people, and might have to start “scrapping” capital works projects until the "city has the population to pay for them.
pinned the blame on Bennett, saying it was the premier who appointed the committee which started the dirty tricks affair and also the group who handled campaign spending.
Keen said then that the party would have to take action if Bennett did not move to clean up the affairs.
The dirty tricks affair arose when Social Credit researchers advised officials at an election seminar to “play dirty” to discredit the New Democratic Party.
Part of their advice included suggestions on how to send letters to newspaper editors signed with false names. Since the scandal broke, it has been established that many false letters appeared in newspapers in last spring's election.
Eight government and party workers have been fired or quit since the affair surfaced, the latest being two-time campaign manager and close Bennett aide Dan Campbell.
BULLETIN
QUEBEC (CP) — Quebecers will be asked in next spring's referendum to give the Quebec government a mandate to negotiate sovereigntyassociation with the rest of Canada.
But voters have been assured that independence will not take place until the holding of a second referendum.
The question, unveiled by Premier Rene Levesque in the national assembly Thursday, includes a three-paragraph preamble which says the Quebec government "has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada.”
GOV'T NOT READY TO ACT IN B.C. RAIL STRIKE
Pickets halt food 'mercy run' to Indian reserve
by JAN-UDO WENZEI Citizen Staff Reporter
A “mercy run” to ship food to a remote Indian reserve from , Prince George today ran afoul of B.C. Railway strikers.
Roy Liden, secretary-treasurer, Local 1923 United Transportation Union, had said early today strikers would allow BCR management to make the run to the reserve near Fort St. James, where about 300 people are living.
However, when the 10,000 pounds of groceries arrived at the train by truck, strikers refused to allow it to pass. Liden referred any further queries about the mercy run to Norm Farley, chairman of the Joint Council of Railway Unions in Vancouver.
Farley could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, the strike by 2,200 BCR employees which began Tuesday is continuing, and no meetings are set for further negotiations.
Labor Minister Jack Heinrich said in a telephone interview today from his Victoria office, that his department will not invoke the Essential Services Disputes Act to end the strike.
“ My message to both sides isclear: get back to the bargaining table and negotiate face to face,” Heinrich said.
He said he has been in constant communication with the mediation officers.
The
Single Copy 20e Outside Prince George 25‘
Citizen
Thursday, December 20, 1979 Vol. 23; No. 247 ' Prince George, British Columbia
“To intervene now would not be in the spirit of free collective bargaining, and nobody likes a third party to settle a dispute,’’ Heinrich said.
While the joint council in the beginning stressed that retroactivity wage and length of contract were the most important issues, the company’s demand for crew reduction on freight trains is becoming the biggest stumbling block in the dispute.
The BCR wants to reduce crews from three men to two men, referring to the CNR and the CPR which already have reduced crews.
The unions claim the BCR’s demand would be a safety hazard.
Farley said earlier this week the BCR had more accidents this year than it had in the last 25 years combined.
This is disputed by Al Shannon. BCR vice-president of operations and maintenance.
While Shannon admits that 1979 was a bad year for the railway with regard to accidents, he said crew size has nothing to do with it.
“In fact, we could turn this around and say that a larger crew could be a safety hazard, because the men could be relying too much on each other and thereby neglecting jobs,” he said.
Shannon said safety programs have been stepped up and
tracks are being carefully inspected and improved.
"We are constantly improving safety aspects, but we must retain the right to reduce the size of the crews,” Shannon said.
He said it is the same union, the United Transportation Union, which agreed to reduce crews on the two national railways in Canada.
About 120 other issues are still outstanding in the dispute. The unions wants a one-year contract with 30 per cent in wage increases.
The BCR has offered 14 per cent in wage increases and improvements in benefits over 29 months, effective Jan. 1.
The unions demand retroactive pay to midnight July 31, the date of the expiry of the last contract.
Effects of the strike are not as yet being felt in the communities served by the BCR.
BCR spokesman Hugh Armstrong said the railway is serving 55 communities in the Interior, but said all those areas are also served by highway, or by air, or both.
Fort Nelson Mayor Doug McPhail said today about 750 jobs in his area are directly tied to the railway and the BCR is the main supplier of construction materials and fuel. Food and other goods are usually trucked in from Edmonton.
McPhail wants the government to intervene because he feels the sawmills in his area will shut down, causing widespread unemployment.