today in brief
POLICE and the B. C. government do little to combat racism, a NDP committee hearing has been told. Page
BOBBY ORR has company in the record books — Denis Potvin tied his career goal-scoring record Tuesday. Page
A LABOR LAW which is used to impose a first contract when a union and employer can’t agree is under fire in Manitoba. Page
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30
HERMAN
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‘That's the laundry chute."
Index
City, B.C...... .3,7,11,12,25
Entertainment
International.. ..........2
Winning smile page 2
The
Prince George
C itiz en
Sadrack says
Today is expected to be cloudy with occasional light snowshowers, clouds tonight broken by clear periods and a few evening snowshowers. Tonight’s low is expected to be near -6.
Thursday’s forecast calls for cloudy skies with sunny periods, a few snowshowers, and a high near zero.
The probability of snow is 90 per cent today, 70 per cent tonight and 60 per cent tomorrow.
Tuesday’s high was zero, the low was -7,
there was 0.8 cm of snow and 24 minutes of sunshine.
Last year on this date the high was 0, the low was -2, there was a trace of snow and no sunshine.
Details page 7
40c
Wednesday, January 22, 1986
IN A 'FEW MONTHS'
wer gasoline rice promised
OIL PRODUCTION
Saudis hold cards
MANAMA, Bahrain (Reuter) — As producers across the world nervously watched the price of North Sea oil slide below $20 U.S. a barrel this week, Saudi Arabia continued preparing for victory
in a price war.
Oil industry specialists say the strategy is being guided by Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, who warned last year that if oil producers failed to co-operate in cutting output, a price war would result.
His strategic weapon has been agreements ensuring that buyers of Saudi oil make a profit when they refine it. Assured of profits, customers are lining up to sign these deals.
“Right now, the Saudis have dozens of proposals from all over the world from people who want to refine Saudi crude,” said an industry specialist. “Refineries which haven’t run for years are being dusted off and readied to run Saudi oil.”
Yamani, who approves every such deal, is thus in a position to determine exactly how much oil Saudi Arabia exports and to ensure his country preserves its market share.
Yamani’s calls last year for restraint by other oil exporters, both inside and outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, fell on deaf ears.
Now, with North Sea crudes being displaced in European refineries with Saudi crude, prices of British crudes are falling sharply.
'CONFLICT' ISSUE
Cabinet huddles
by Canadian Press
VICTORIA — Stephen Rogers, the second British Columbia cabinet minister embroiled in conflict-of-interest allegations in what could be an election year, was hanging on to his job Tuesday.
Rogers, 43. minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, was besieged by reporters over the growing demands for his resignation, but his secretary said he would be in meetings all day.
The minister briefly came to the door and said, ‘if you don't mind. I’d like to be left alone so I can do my other business.” He had on a loosened necktie and looked tired.
Rogers has a $100,000 personal investment in the Western Pulp Partnership Ltd., a tax shelter which needs timber from proposed logging of the southern portion of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Environmentalists want the government to preserve the islands, located 700 kilometres north of Vancouver, as a wilderness park for its unique and abundant wildlife.
In addition, Rogers is director of B.C. Hydro, which granted an electricity discount to one of the mills
partially owned by the partnership.
Publicity over a $20,000 investment in the same tax shelter partnership forced Tom Waterland to resign last Friday as forests minister after 10 years in the portfolio.
Premier Bill Bennett previously defended Rogers, saying he did not view his circumstances as Waterland. He said Tuesday he had nothing to say until after a cabinet meeting today, when he expects ministers to report to him on their investments and discuss establishing clear conflict of interest guidelines.
The political storm over two cabinet ministers came at a time when Bennett appeared to be gearing up for a provincial election amid the optimism generated by Expo 86, which opens in Vancouver in May.
Bennett admitted last week that Waterland was in a direct conflict of interest but said Rogers had no conflict because his pulp investment was not directly under his cabinet responsibilities.
The B.C. Hydro connection was not noticed at the time.
by Canadian Press OTTAWA — Prices at gasoline pumps will drop in the spring to reflect the drop in world oil prices, Energy Minister Pat Carney said Tuesday.
Carney faced off against Liberal Leader John Turner in the Commons as he demanded to know why gasoline prices are rising when world oil prices are dropping.
World oil prices have fallen $8 (U.S.) a barrel since Carney signed an energy deal with Alberta last year when she predicted lower gasoline prices as a result of declining oil prices, Turner said. The price for future deliveries of North Sea crude in March is down to less than $20 a barrel.
Exactly the opposite has happened, Turner said, noting that motorists in Carney’s Vancouver riding pay 20 per cent more to fill their tanks than in March.
But Carney said oil prices only began to fall in the last few weeks and the decrease “will not show up at the pumps until a few months from now when oil has moved to the pumps.”
Turner suggested the real reason gasoline prices went up is because the Conservative government has jacked up taxes at the pumps by 58 per cent in the past year.
Why do Canadians have to pay so much to fill their car tanks when Americans are paying about 20 per cent less, Turner asked.
“The answer is that the Americans were lucky enough not to have a Liberal administration such as the one which left this government with such a massive deficit that we need those taxes as revenues to pay it down,” Carney said as Tory MPs howled and banged their desks.
Later Carney blamed higher gasoline taxes on the need to pay for social programs.
She was then responding to NDP energy critic Ian Waddell, who said the oil giants —• not the government — are the main culprits responsible for higher gasoline prices.
“Taxes have gone up 2.8 cents per litre over the period the Conservatives have been in power and pump prices have gone up 3.4 cents a litre,” Waddell said.
Carney said Ottawa can’t set prices and added the “extra taxes imposed on gasoline were put on by this administration to help pay for some of the social services that Canadians want.”
insurance crisis tackled
OTTAWA (CP) — The federal
■ivcrnment and the insurance industry are co-operating to investigate the liability insurance crisis, junior finance minister Barbara McDougall told the Commons on Tuesday.
“What we’re trying to do is roll up our sleeves and deal with the very specific problem and come up with ,i quick solution,” McDougall said.
The investigation, being conducted by the federal superintendent of insurance and the industry, is being spearheaded by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, she said.
Municipalities, however, are only one of many groups — including businesses, sports organizations, hospitals and others — who say they can’t cope with skyrocketing liability insurance premiums.
In a meeting with the minister
earlier Tuesday, the municipal federation had warned that rising premiums, and in some cases the inability to obtain any liability coverage at any price, may result in the closing of playgrounds and other
recreational facilities — and even sidewalks and roads.
They blamed the industry and asked Ottawa and the provinces to launch an inquiry or royal commission to investigate.
Liability worries board
School District 57’s concern about rising liability settlements and insurance costs resulting from community use of school facilities will be referred to the annual meeting of the B.C. School Trustees’ Association.
At their Tuesday meeting, trustees of School District 57 agreed to forward a motion to the meeting recommending that the minister of education develop legislation or directives for districts to help minimize liability when people are in-
jured while involved in activities sponsored by community associations or other organizations.
“If these trends continue, the ministry of education may soon find, as many municipalities have, that insurance premiums skyrocket or certain protection may not even be available and this will result in districts having to curtail community use of the facilities," said Trustee Gordon Ingalls in presenting the motion.
Province eyes appeal of shop law decision
The province will likely appeal a judge’s decision that struck down the law banning Sunday shopping, but Overwaitea Foods has already decided to open some stores this Sunday.
A Chilliwack provincial court judge last week ruled the Holiday Shopping Regulation Act as unconstitutional in throwing out the case against four Overwaitea stores that stayed open on a Sunday late in 1984.
The Crowr. is expected to launch an appeal of the case, Hal Yacow-ar, director of policy for the attor-ney-general’s department, said Tuesday.
Yacowar was unable to say whether stores that open on Sundays will be charged while the appeal is pending.
However, Overwaitea vice-president Doug Townsend said the chain plans to open its Chilliwack and Clearbrook stores in the Lower Mainland this Sunday.
“We believe we are now legally allowed to have Sunday shopping.” Townsend said, in an interview from the store’s Langley headquarters today.
He said the store, owned by the Jim Pattison Group, will watch what competing supermarkets do in the rest of the province and will consider opening the Prince George store on Sundays.
“Sunday shopping is inevitable,” said acting mayor Aid. John Backhouse.
“I think from what I’ve observed there’s a growing tide across the country.”
Supermarket managers in Prince George refused to speculate whether Sunday openings are in the offing for the city.
“We’ve been instructed not to comment on that, we don’t want to start any waves.” said Ray Andrews. assistant manager of the Canada Safeway store on Massey.
Gandhi killing: Trio convicted
by Associated Press
NEW DELHI - A Sikh bodyguard was convicted today of mur-aering Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October 1984. and his two co-defendants were convicted of conspiracy. All three were sentenced to death by a special judge.
Earlier, defence lawyer Rupind-er Sodhi told reporters as he left a New Delhi courtroom that “All three persons were pronounced guilty.”
Judge Mahesh Chandra pronounced the verdicts in the eight-month trial of the three Sikhs accused of involvement in the Oct. 31, 1984 assassination of Mrs. Gandhi.
Bank seeks emergency credit
Citizen news services TORONTO — Continental Bank of Canada is negotiating an emergency credit agreement with the six largest banks to bolster its deposit base, president and chief executive officer David Lewis said today at the bank’s annual meeting.
Lewis, who was named chairman to succeed Stan Melloy, who is retiring, told shareholders he does not know how long it will take to restore confidence in Continental. But he was optimistic about the future.
Later he told reporters the bank expects its first-quarter earnings will be better than in the same period last year. For the three months that ended Jan. 31, 1985, Continental reported net income of $3.39 million.
He added that a standby credit agreement should be completed with the six banks by the end of the month.
(William Book, manager of the Continental branch in Prince George, said the bank is negotiating an extension of an exisiting agreement, rather than asking for additional dollars.)
Lewis revealed that the bank has used up between $2.3 billion and $2.4 billion of the $2.9 billion in standby credit negotiated last October with the six largest banks and the Bank of Canada.
Homespun
friends
Carol Peebles sits surrounded by the friends she’s made — literally. She built each doll, now on display at the Prince George public library, from head to toe and has given each a name. The hair alone is an example of painstaking care, needing 200 tiny bundles of wool which are tied on a miniature loom and then sewn onto the head, five centimetres apart. The faces are embroidered and the hands and feet soft-sculptured. Peebles will conduct a course on doll making in February. Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch