'BIZARRE AND ERRATIC' ACTION, SAYS OPPOSITION
Socreds call unusual winter sitting of legislature
VICTORIA (CP) -The British Columbia legislature will prorogue Dec. 3 and begin a new session the following day.
A news release from the premier’s office today confirmed earlier news reports of the unusual winter sitting which is in sharp contrast to past Social Credit policy.
Premier Bill Bennett and his party have long been opposed to two sittings a year saying they are unnecessary and time-consuming.
The two annual sittings were advocated by the opposition New Democratic Party which instituted them during its three years in office.
The legislature is expected to recess for Christmas and resume sitting possibly in January.
The opposition is unhappy over hearing about the session through tne news media and is expected to register a complaint, saying it should have been informed first.
The NDP also has expressed concern about the health of Speaker Harvey Schroeder who suffered a heart attack earlier this year and missed most of the last session which was adjourned in August.
The
Wednesday. November 12. 1980
Prince George, British Columbia
Finance Minister Hugh Curtis is expected to present his new budget in March.
Opposition House Leader Frank Howard said Premier Bennett is “lookiiig for some kind of public relations effort” by calling a December sitting of the legislature.
Howard said Bennett is taking two runs at improving his
image — first through the throne speech which is to outline the government legislative package, and then with a budget in the spring.
He predicted the budget would be followed by six days of debate then Bennett would call an election.
He added he is not surprised to learn of the December sitting
through the media, saying it is the normal course for a premier who "doesn’t have much use for the legislature.” Opposition Leader Dave Barrett said he’s “trying to be restrained” in his reaction to the recall of the legislature. Barrett said Bennett’s action is ‘‘bizarre and erratic.” The premier, he said, is acting like a character in a comic opera, “flying off in all directions, trying to put together some semblance of order and structure in government, and not even consulting his cabinet.”
The opposition leader said Bennett’s ministers deserve public sympathy, because ‘‘they’ve all come home from trips all over the world to find that while they were away other plans were made for them.”
He said there does not seem to be any rationale behind the recall of the house for Dec. 3, and the government does not appear to have any legislative program for the new session which will open the following day.
The NDP leader said his party will use the session to continue hammering at the government for details of the B.C. Resources Investment Corp. takeover of Kaiser Resources.
Above it all
CklMB photo by Brofk Gable
Hang gliding gives Stu Cameron a bird’s eye view of the city. Cameron was one of four gliders who used the Nechako cutbanks as a jumping-off point.
SNOOPING NOTED
Ch eck disclosures, candidates warned
Disclosure forms of aldermen and civic election candidates should be carefully checked, Alderman Stuart Ross warned city council Monday.
Ross said the supplementary rules of the Disclosure Act are not provided with the disclosure forms, and some aldermen may have inadvertantly made omissions on their forms.
The supplementary rules are included on the back of the last page of the form provided aldermen.
Those rules say a candidate must disclose not only the names of companies in which he owns 30 per cent or more, but also the property the company wons, the subsidiary companies and the property the subsidiary company owns
“If we were not informed, I hope this will be taken into account by those people who feel it necessary to snoop through the disclosure forms," said Alderman Monica Becott.
While investigating the disclosure forms of candidates in the Saturday civic election, The Citizen found omissions in the disclosures of Ross and
Tot's
body
found
The body of a 14-month-old boy was found on the bank of the Nechako River Tuesday and police are still looking for a missing adult in connection with the incident.
However, RCMP would not give details and the investigation is continuing.
A police spokesman said that at present the finding of the dead child is being treated as a drowning.
Alderman Richard Godfrey.
Godfrey had failed to list his company’s ownership of the Evergreen Mall in Mackenzie.
Ross had listed his companies but not the properties owned by them. One of Ross’s companies was named incorrectly.
Two others were also apparently named incorrectly, because no record of them can be found at the Registrar of Companies in Victoria.
Saturn:
A close encounter
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -After aiming its cameras pointblank at the huge moon Titan - and taking pictures of an orange smog concealing its surface - Voyager 1 hurtled on today toward the climax of its mission — a close-up look at the ringed planet Saturn.
The unmanned spacecraft, which sailed within 4,000 kilometres of the moon late Tuesday, headed into Saturn’s clouds at 60,000 kilometres an hour to take photographs of the shimmering rings and at least five other moons before leaving the planet’s realm.
Meanwhile, earthbound scientists were disappointed that only hints of Titan’s surface detail emerged through the moon’s natural smog. Computer wizardry was expected to enhance photographs of the features below the haze.
“1 don’t think there’s any evidence we are seeing the surface,” said David Morrison of the Voyager camera team.
“This near encounter is happening so fast and some of us have worked so long on it that we wish we could slow time down,” deputy project manager Esker Davis said.
Greenpeace ship safe
VANCOUVER (CP) - The Greenpeace Foundation's antiwhaling ship Rainbow Warrior arrived safely in Jersey in Great Britain’s Channel Islands Tuesday night after escaping Saturday from a northern Spanish port, Greenpeace international president David McTaggart said in a telephone interview.
The 57-metre vessel and her crew were taken into custody at El Ferrol in June for obstructing the Spanish whaling fleet and aiding the escape of a school of whales. Bail had been set at $142,000, which Greenpeace said was more than the ship was worth.
McTaggart said he was smuggled aboard the vessel along with a vital thrust bearing to replace one which was removed from the main propeller shaft by Spanish authorities.
He said the Warrior slipped past armed guards, two navy frigates and a helicopter to international waters Saturday. There was no sign of pursuit, he said.
Delay predicted in hostage deal
TEHRAN (CP) - The U.S. reply to Iran’s terms for freeing the 52 U.S. hostages was delivered to the Iranian government today, an aide to Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai reported.
Rajai’s office, reached by telephone from Beirut, gave no indication of the initial Iranian
BULLETIN
WINNIPEG (CP) — Bob Wilson, a member of the Manitoba legislature, was sentenced today to aeven yearn in prison on charges of conspiring to import and traffic in marijuana, the minimum penalty under the law.
Wilson, 46, was convicted by u Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench jury last Friday on the two conspiracy charges. The seven-year terms on both offence are to be served concurrently.
Earlier story page 7
'I DEMAND MORE RESPECT'
'Stupid' label irks mayor
by AL IRWIN Cititzen Staff Reporter
Mayor Elmer Mercier’s unauthorized expenditure of his own money caused a flurry of animosity at city council Monday.
Mercier asked council to consider reimbursing him $150 he spent from his own pocket for a brief membership of the city in The Yel-lowhead 16 Travel Association.
Mercier said he had no time to seek council authorization before a travel association meeting in Terrace to decide the location of the office of the tourist promotion organization.
Council voted five-to-four against reimbursing the mayor.
“If you are stupid enough to put out the money without asking us first, you should pay for it,” Alderman Ed Bodner said.
“Don’t you call me stupid. I demand more respect from this council," Mercier told
Bodner.
“He is saying I had no business doing things behind council’s back .... Don’t you ever say I do things behind your back.”
“You (council) are talking so penny ante,” said Mercier, who added that the logical place for the travel association to locate its office, and hold conventions was in Prince George, and the whole city would benefit from the membership in the association.
'Die travel association members did vote to locate here.
Despite Mercier’s anger, he ended the discussion on a humorous note.
"So, are we going to go into our public hearing? We are 10 minutes overdue. I didn’t think it would take so long — to get mad.”
'DON'T MEDDLE'
British warned on constitution
reaction. But U.S. officials believe it may be several days before Iran makes its next move. The governor of Iran’s central bank has said he is not optimistic about an early end to the hostage crisis after learning of the U.S. response to Tehran’s conditions for their release.
But Gov. Ali Reza Nobari said in an interview that because the Iranian government, President Carter and Presidentelect Ronald Reagan all want a solution, he believes it will be found by Jan. 20, the date of Reagan’s inauguration.
M We want to wash our hands with this matter,” said Nobari, who shares the view of Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr that the hostage issue should be solved as quickly as possible.
The U.S. response to Iran’s four conditions for the hostages’ release was delivered in Algiers by U.S. Deputy State Secretary Warren Christopher.
by NICHOLAS HILLS Southam News
LONDON — The British government has been firmly put in its place by External Affairs Minister Mark MacGuigan and now apparently accepts it could be forced to pass the Trudeau government’s controversial constitutional legislation.
MacGuigan, who is fast gaining a reputation for being a tough and straightforward talker, has - in effect - told senior ministers in the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that they have no choice but to bow to the will of Ottawa — or otherwise be seen to be acting in a colonial manner.
MacGuigan’s crucial meetings Monday with Tory House Leader Norman St John Stevas and the two foreign office ministers, Lord Carrington and Sir Ian Gilmour, have not entirely laid the matter to rest. But sources at'Westminster made it clear that officially, at least, Mrs. Thatcher’s ministers now know they have to acquiesce or create a major international row.
Carrington and Gilmour, in particular, are stomaching something they do not like and their distaste for the whole matter has been reflected in the fact that neither they nor their closest advisers would talk about the lastest sessions with MacGuigan.
Indeed, the queston has become so touchy that both Canadian and British officials have tried to pretend during the last few days that MacGuigan’s visit here was primarily to deal with other matters such as the Madrid security conference and the question of North-South relations.
It was too much of a coincidence, however, when Prime Minister Trudeau’s closest aide, Michael Pitfield, also turned up in London to see the secretary to the British cabinet, Sir Robert Armstrong.
What MacGuigan, in still fairly diplomatic language, has conveyed to the British government is what his boss, Prime Minister Trudeau, said in the Commons in Ottawa the other day: ‘‘Do not meddle in any way in Canada’s internal affairs.”
Unemployment rate increases
OTTAWA (CP) - The number of persons unable to find work in October jumped to 759,000 from 757,000 in September, Statistics Canada said today.
As a result, the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate rose slightly to 7.6 per cent from a revised figure of 7.5 per cent a month before.
The rise in unemployment was caused by an increase in the number of men and women aged 15-24 unable to find work, the figures show.
A year ago, the unemployment rate was 7.4 per cent, adjusted for seasonal variations.
Alberta, still with the lowest unemployment in the country, showed a decline of 01 in its jobless rate to 3.6 per cent in October. A larger drop of 0.4 in British Columbia reduced its figure to 6.2 per cent.
TODAY
tieaftAff
"Stop him! He’s rjot your dinner."
FEATURED INSIDE ]
Rescuers beaten back
One hundred and two Haitian re'.ugees marooned on a tiny island have repelled with knives, sticks and bottles a Bahamiam landing party that woukl have returned them to their Caribbean island home. The castaways demand to be taken to Miami. Page 5.
Index
Bridge........................ ........21 Entertainment 40, It, 48, 49
Business.................... ..........8 Family................... .....32, 33
Bombeck column.... ........34 Horoscopes........... ...........10
City, B.C.........2, 3, fl. 10, 27- International........ .............5
29, 33 Movies................... ...........18
..18-24 .............7
........18 ...........40
.......20 17, 50-52
c
THE WEATHER
J
Cloudy today and cloudy Thursday, the weatherman says. For variety, we may see a few snow flurries Thursday morning, but changing to isolated showers in the afternoon as the temperature climbs.
From a high of 3 Tuesday, the temperature dropped to -6 overnight. Today’s high should be about 3 degrees, dropping to 0 to -3 overnight and up to 2 to 5 Thursday. On this date in 1979, the high was 4 and the low was -13
The sun rose today at 7:31 a.m. and will set at 4:18 p.m.
ClOikfcl...
Details Page 2
NOW HEAR THIS
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• Alderman Alan Greenwell wants better direction signs at the old CNR bridge across the Fraser River He told council Monday some confused motorists have been trying to drive down the centre rail line of the bridge, rather than taking vehicle lanes on the sides of the bridge First Avenue and the bridge are a highways department responsibility.
• A group of hunters seemed to have behaved rather badly in the Chief Lake area Tuesday. Angry residents say that a group of armed people just kept firing every which way despite the fact (hat No Hunting signs are posted. The resident said children were playing in the area and although nobody was hurl, somebody could have been injured — if not killed — by this senseless firing of guns.
Got u news tip? Call The Citizen’s 24-hour
news line at 562-2441.
1980 goal
$225,000
Today's total
$139,350
Sadrack says . . .
Unlbed Way
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