I
today in brief
WHAT MAKES an editor blush? A collection of items that editors would like to forget is presented as part of our Saturday Forum. Page
THE ANTI-HUNGER song We Are the World has received six nominations for the 28th Grammy Awards Page
A WELL-KNOWN Prince George businessman is leaving town. See Business Notebook. Page
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23
MM-y,
* * f'
”... to have and to hold ..."
Index
Ann Landers............11
Bridge..................19
Business.............22,23
City, B.C.................3
Classified ............16-21
Comics .................10
Crossword..........18, P2
Editorial...............4,5
Entertainment..........10
Family .................11
Gardening..............P2
Horoscopes.............19
Movies............P12.P13
New Adventure ........P4
Religion.................8
Sports................13-15
Travel..................14
*P—Plus Magazine
The
Prince George
JO # J #
tyitizen
Tough page 13
Sadrack says
It should be cloudy today with a few sunny periods, while Sunday it should be windy with snow showers expected.
The forecast high today is 5, the expected low is 0 and the high Sunday should reach 4.
The high Friday was 9, the low 1, and 0.8 mm rain was recorded with 3.4 hours of sunshine.
This day last year the high was -1, the low was -11, it was dry
and there were less than 10 minutes of sunshine.
Sun sets today at 4:13 p.m. and rises Sunday at 8:23 a.m.
Details page 3
40c
Saturday, January 11, 1986
PLUS!
TABLOID INCLUDED
LUXURY CARS
WCB bosses rapped
VANCOUVER (CP) - Politicians, businessmen and unionists are united in criticism of three British Columbia Workers’ Compensation Board commissioners who chose $25,000 imported luxury sports sedans as their company cars.
“I find the actions of the Workers’ Compensation Board in this case totally inappropriate and I will be discussing the matter with the chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Board at the earliest opportunity,” Labor Minister Terry Segarty said Friday.
The chairman, Walter Flesh-er — long a target of union hostility — and two other commissioners voted to buy Audi 5000s.
The West German-made Audis are equipped with interior climate control, digital-dis-play instrumentation, heated drivers’ seats with computer-memory adjustment, cruise control and retractable ski storage compartments.
“It’s certainly not the type of car I would buy to carry out business,” said Segarty, who drives a 1977 Buick.
Tex Enemark. president of the Mining Association of B.C. which has called for lower WCB assessments on employers. also was critical of Flesh-er and commissioners Glen Hall and Bev Korman.
“You can get perfectly adequate cars on the market for $12.000-$13.000,’’ Enemark said. “The example being set here is not particularly admirable. A car of this category is somewhat extravagant.”
Board spokesman Alastair Gordon defended the decision. He said an Audi 5000 normally sells for about $28,900, but the board paid a fleet price of $25,000. thus saving $3,900 on each vehicle.
He said the board has provided its chairman and commissioners with cars, usually Oldsmobiles. for years. The board members pay a per-ki-lometre rate for personal use of the vehicles.
Gordon suggested the Audis were a smart buy. better than the Oldsmobiles.
A well-equipped Oldsmobile costs about $7,000 less than the Audi 5000. with a further $1,000 reduction for a fleet purchase, and a Cadillac Coupe de Ville would cost about the same as the Audi. Vancouver-area General Motors dealers said.
“I guess they'll have to cut three or four workers' pensions to pay for them,” said Larry Stoffman, a health and safety specialist with the Retail Clerks Union. “It's typical.”
Flesher — never accessible to the news media — was unavailable for comment, as was Hall
Libya
MEECH LAKE, Que. (CP) -Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, saying he was not acting to “satisfy Mr. Reagan.” announced Friday limited trade sanctions against Libya.
Canada joins Italy as the only U.S. allies to answer President Ronald Reagan’s call for economic reprisals against Moammar Khadafy’s government for the deadly terrorist attacks on Rome and Vienna airports two weeks ago.
“All government financial assistance to Canadian companies pursuing business in Libya will cease immediately,” Mulroney said in a statement.
The announcement said Ottawa will no longer provide insurance coverage from the federal Export Development Corp. to countries seeking business in the North African country.
It said Libya will be added to an export control list, prohibiting “any new contracts for the export of oil drilling equipment containing unique Western technology. It will not affect . . . humanitarian and food exports.
“Other products to be affected will be determined in consultation with our allies.”
However, a government source indicated the value of lost business could be as high as $40 million a year.
The new export rules lump Libya together with Soviet bloc countries and Taiwan on what is known as the “area control list.” Any Canadian exporter must seek a federal permit to sell any goods to those countries.
The source said only current exports such as wheat and powdered milk, valued at a total of $33 million a year to Libya, will automatically be approved. There is no guarantee that non-oil industry equipment will escape the ban, he said.
Cuts in aid to firms seeking business in Libya involve federal funds for such things as trade presentations.
External Affairs Minister Joe Clark estimated the moves could cost Canada $20 million worth of Libyan business. He said he did not know how many companies would be affected.
In 1984, Canada exported about $72 million worth of goods and services to Libya, mostly for its oil industry.
Earlier this week, Ottawa received a list from the U.S. government of the measures it wanted its allies to take in retaliation for the Dec. 27 airport attacks which left nineteen dead, including five Americans.
Washington has alleged a link between the terrorists and Libya. Khadafy has denied the charge.
Mulroney, saying “Canada has been deeply concerned about the support the Libyan regime has given to extremists.” insisted he was not acting simply to please the U.S. president.
“It was not done to satisfy Mr. Reagan.” Mulroney told reporters as he emerged from a Conservative cabinet meeting. “They were done because there’s a moral issue and Canada must do its share. We’ve spoken out on this issue and it’s appropriate and timely that it be done . . . that we take some action.”
He said his “government is convinced that any further steps must be broadly based and coordinated.”
Earlier in the day, Rome announced a ban on arms exports to Libya. Italy had been Libya’s third-largest source of weapons after the Soviet Union and France.
Libya’s major Western European trading partners — including such staunch U.S. allies as Britain and West Germany — have balked at Reagan's call for sanctions.
Mulroney also urged Canadians not to attempt to fill jobs vacated by Americans heeding Reagan’s order to leave Libya.
Canada joins boycott against
Workers manoeuvre a 20-tonne slab of concrete with milder temperatures work resumed Fri-Warming up to the job into place at the Cameron Street rail overpass, day.
Cold weather halted work on the project but citizen photo by usa Murdoch
ABUSES OF UIC SYSTEM
That's
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
Statements by Frank Oberle. Prince George-Peace River MP, that the unemployment insurance system is being abused to the tune of $2-billion to $3-biilion a year drew an angry response at* the hearings of the Unemployment Insurance Commision here Friday.
In an interview, Science Minister Oberle had cited “hobby workers” and others not permanently attached to the work force as examples.
“They need some additional income for the family and choose to work part of the year to supply that income,” he said.
“There is a lot of that kind of abuse with people making the practice to have an accommodation with an employer to come back for three or four months every year. That does not make sense to me.’’
“We are appalled that a minister of the Crown should loosely throw around such figures, said Steve Koerner. speaking on behalf of the Prince George and District Labor Council.
“We hope such remarks do not reflect the thinking of the government. We're not sure about that. But more likely it represents the thinking of a right-wing fringe of the Mulroney cabinet and caucus. Such statements about worker abuse simply trivialize the entire problem of unemployment We believe it is a grave insult on the part of Mr. Oberle directed at Prince George’s 10,000 unemployed,” Koerner said.
Two individuals, speaking from their own experience rather than on behalf ot groups, disagreed about the validity of Oberle's statements. Paul Birzims said, “when my wife stopped working full time and took a part time job, it was strongly recommended by all sorts of people that she should skip the
on insult, Oberle told
travelling 22,000 miles in the past year, often sleeping in his car, in an unsuccessful search for w'ork.
“At some time in the last year, one in every three working Canadians was unemployed,’’ points out the Commission’s participation guide.
“Officially 1.2 million are still unemployed.
“...many Canadians think unemployment may be long-term and structural, that the dislocated are part of the economic mainstream, and that the problem may not go away.”
Commissioner Jack Munro, president of the International Woodworkers of America Western regional Council, said he feels “we should kick around the idea of a guaranteed annual w-age.”
However, his fellow member of the commission, Roy Bennett, former president of Ford of Canada, said. “I feel as many other groups do. I’m very aprehensive of the guaranteed annual income.”
Bennett said many groups, including some anti-poverty groups in the Maritimes have come out against the idea, because it might be only be financed at a level below the poverty line. He said it could result in the elimination of other support programs such as eye care, dental care, food baskets, some people might not be as adequately provided for as they are today. If the amount is raised, Bennett worried about financing.
Munro said that after differences are settled, “the government may hear things it doesn’t want to hear" from the commission, and he feels the commission won’t be ignored.
“I don't think the government can spend in excess ot $4 million bucks on a commission that travels this country for four months and hear hundreds and hundreds of people and then ignore us. in spite of what Oberle says." said Munro.
k
part time job, take UIC. and get make more money. She didn’t do
it.
“Now don’t get me wrong, there are a heck of a lot of workers out there who need UIC.”
But he did feel there were a lot of workers who were playing what he called, “The UI game.”
Gary Blittiaux, said people who generalize about abuses to UI "want to cut holes in the safety net and let more people fall through.” He cited the 1800 applications received by the Canaspen chopstick factory in Prince George tor 80 jobs.
He suggested that more money is lost through corporations abusing the system than by UI benefit recipients.
“I can eliminate UI tomorrow.
Just stop having business pay premiums. Have them pay benefits.”
The Labor Council’s brief said if every unemployment insurance and social assistance recipient had to line up each week, as was done in the 1930s, the queue would be several wide and stretch at least a mile.
The miles traveled seeking work are much higher in the north, pointed out Howard German speaking for the Prince George and District Building Trades Council.
“There’s only a certain number of people to see in Prince George, then it’s 75 miles to Quesnel,” when looking for work, German said.
German’s point was reinforced by Milan Katalinic who told of
CALGARY (CP) - Two young victims of killer David Shearing were kept alive for days in 1982 after their parents and grandparents were shot to death because he wanted to assault them sexually, a relative of the victims has said.
Shearing is serving a life sentence for the Bentley-Johnson murders, in which six members of a family were killed in a provincial park in the British Columbia interior.
He was convicted in April 1984 for the murder of George and Edith Bentley of Port Coquitlam, B.C., their daughter Jackie Johnson, 41, her husband. Bob. 44. and their two daughters, Janet. 13 and Karen, 11.
The killer did not reveal his motive in court, but relatives say he subsequently told RCMP
that he killed the adults because he want to abduct the youngsters for sexual abuse.
Linda Bentley, sister-in-law of Jackie Johnson, said police promised her husband Brian they would reveal the motive if Shearing ever confessed one.
She said one of the original investigating detectives. Const. Gerry Dalen of Kamloops RCMP, visited her and her husband soon alter Shearing made his statement to police after his trial.
“We don’t know all the details," she said. “I don’t know that Brian wants to know either.
I think if you have the information that yes. it was an attack on the girls and he did keep them alive for days after. I don’t think there is anything else that needs to be printed ’’