today in brief
THE CALGARY Stampeders will be back in the Canadian Football League in 1986. Page
DRUG SMUGGLING is being taken over by middle-aged ana elderly “ordinary” people, police say.	Page
EMPLOYMENT in Canada’s shipyards is expected to drop by about 50 per cent this year and managers are blaming the problem on federal government inaction.	Page
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  LOTTERY NUMBERS PAGE 2
 "I'm sorry. Harold, but I'm not losing you on the subway during rush hour."
Index
Ann Landers............22
Bridge..................19
 Business ..!..........26,27
City, B.C.............2,6,7
 Classified............16-21
Comics.................30
Crossword..............18
Editorial.................4
 Entertainment.......30,31
Family.................22
Horoscopes.............19
International.............2
Movies..................36
National.................5
Sports................13-15
Television ..............19 _ .	0
Puppies, anyone? page 25
Sadrack says
  The weather forecast for today and Friday calls for cold, clear weather with highs both days near -5 and lows dipping to -15.
   The wind-chill factor in unsheltered areas may result in -30 degree temperatures and snow is expected Saturday followed by further snow and a warming trend Sunday.
  Wednesday’s high was -3, the low was *15, there was no precipitation and 1.2 hours of sunshine.
Details page 7
   Last year on this date the high was 3, the low was -5, there was 1 cm of snow and 1.2 hours of sunshine.
   Sunset today is at 5:15 p.m. and sunrise Friday is at 7:32 a.m.
The
Prince George
Criminals could face surcharge
  HART AREA
PHARMACY FEE WAR ERUPTS
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Staff reporter
   A drug dispensing fee price war has broken out on the Hart Highway with consumers racking up savings of more than $3 in the fee charged by two competing pharmacies.
   The dispensing fee is the amount pharmacists charge for filling doctors’ prescriptions in addition to the cost of the drugs.
   Wednesday, dispensing fees in the Bowl area of the city ranged from $6.29 to $6.75, while at the two pharmacies in the Hart Shopping Centre they were charging $3.98 for the same service.
  The fee war began when Overwaitea opened a large pharmacy in its store in the Hart Shopping Centre and began charging $3.98 to dispense drugs.
   Corky Simmie, owner-man-ager of Hart Drugs, which has been operating in the centre for many years, then lowered his dispensing fee to $3.98 from $6.50.
He said he’d been charging the $6.50 dispensing fee be
 cause that’s what the provincial government will pay througn Pharmacare for dis-
 pensing drugs to senior citizens and those on welfare.
   But Gordon Richman, director of pharmacy operations for Overwaitea, says reducing dispensing fees by $3 to $4 would save consumers and the provincial government from $36 to $56 million annually on the cost of despensing the 12 to 14 million prescriptions filled in B.C. each year.
   There are no regulations governing the fees pharmacists can charge and, in the past, there’s been little fee competition between pharmacies. The provincial average has been slightly more than $6, Richman said.
   “The issue is not the fee,” Simmie says.
   “The issue is why Overwaitea is opening a pharmacy on the Hart Highway when there’s already a pharmacy of the same size serving a limited market.”
   He believes once Overwaitea has control of the market it will raise the fee.
   Richman says there are no plans to open pharmacies in any other Overwaitea stores in the area.
   In December, Overwaitea was charged with contravening the regulations of the College of Pharmacists of B.C. when the company began advertising the dispensing fees charged by the pnarmacy located in their Richmond store.
   That charge was dismissed on a technicality and Overwaitea has not been recharged, Richman said.
   Instead the college set up a task force to hear submissions from pharmacists and consumers on the issue.
by Canadian Press
   VANCOUVER — Federal and provincial lawmakers are discussing the possibility of a surcharge assessed against convicted criminals to assist victims of the crime, federal Justice Minister John Cros-bie says.
    Crosbie and his provincial counterparts agreed Wednesday to a consultation process regarding victims of crime, including possible amendments to the Criminal Code required to implement the victim surcharge.
    At a news conference after the second of three days of meetings with provincial and territorial justice ministers and attorneys general, federal Solicitor General Perrin Beatty emphasized the initiative is still under discussion.
    He described the surcharge as “trying to create a fund to compensate victims; it would be financed through a surcharge on crimes of convicted criminals.”
   The surcharge idea “is not a commitment,” Beatty said. “There is a recognition that all too often in our criminal justice system. . .the victim gets lost in the system. The system works well to apprehend and incarcerate, but victims feel forgoten.”
    Crosbie said “these are some of the changes we’ve agreed to look at over the next three or four months, including revised cost-sharing agreement for criminal injuries compensation.”
    Crosbie said the federal and provincial governments have also reached agreement on terms and conditions of legal aid for 1985-86 and 1986-87.
   Most ministers who commented on the agreement seemed pleased with the terms that Crosbie described as interim agreements.
Conductor
questioned
   HINTON, Alta. (CP) - RCMP investigators have taken a detailed statement from conductor Wayne Smith, the only survivor from the Canadian National freight train that collided last Saturday with a Via Rail passenger train, says RCMP Sgt. Wayne Gesy.
    Since the accident, that killed an estimated 26 people, CN officials have said they have been unable to talk to Smith. They said they delayed a detailed interview of the conductor because of his emotional state.
   Gesy would not say what Smith told the RCMP.
See also page 5
 bul letin
  ST. CATHARINES, Ont. (CP) — Millionaire Helmuth Bux-baum was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison for the contract slaying of his wife as one of the most sensational trials in Ontario history came to a close.
   Earlier story, page 5.
bank rate
 OTTAWA (CP) — The Bank of Canada rate shot up almost two-thirds of a percentage point Thursday to 12.1 per cent from 11.47 last week.
 The rate is now at its highest level since October 1984.
Lumber: Here's what irks U.S.
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
   Lumberman George Cheek, senior vice-president of the San Francisco-based Potlatch Corporation, is in Prince George because he’s angry.
   “When a motel was built in Prescott, Arkansas, last year, within sight of one of our sawmills, the lumber used was from Vancouver,” Cheek said.
   “The builder could buy it for $13 a thousand (board feet) less than we could sell it for,” said Cheek, just outside the room where the U.S. Canada lumber trade talks were taking place.
   “That mill is not quite as advanced as Lakeland’s (sawmill in Prince George) but it’s the same type.”
   In another case, when Potlatch closed a sawmill their logging which supplied the mill stopped, which meant a plywood plant next door to the sawmill closed and pulp logs stopped being cut.
About 450 jobs were lost in the two mills, and 1,600 woods workers
 including loggers, truck drivers, mechanics and silvicultural workers — since privately owned land was involved — had to be laid off.
  “Since 1980 my company has closed five sawmills,” Cheek said.
   “We’ve iust been able to reopen one. We’d like to reopen the others, but we can’t compete with Canadian lumber due to your stumpage system.”
   The U.S. and Canadian systems of charging for trees cut on government-owned land are far different.
   One object of the government-to-government lumber trade talks in Prince George this week is to look at the differences and attempt to reach agreement on whether or not they’re equally fair.
   Cheek feels the B.C. government is, in effect, subsidizing employment with stumpage rates he feels are more than $40 lower than the price his firm pays for wood in northern Idaho, close to the B.C. border.
   "That’s a single forest. You can stand on one side and see the trees
 are the same on the other side.”
   That’s why Cheek is in Prince George.
   Another reason, which raises the importance of the talks in Prince George for both federal governments involved, is that under U.S. law, talks on free trade between the two countries can’t start without the approval of the U.S. Senate finance committee and House Ways and Means Committee.
   “My company operates in three states - Minnesota, Arkansas and Idaho - which has members on the senate finance committee,” Cheek said.
   “We’re being asked what’s going on in the negotiations and ‘Is it satisfactory to you?”’
   “That doesn’t even count Oregon, the lumber state Senator Bob Packwood (chairman of the finance committee) is from,” said John Ragosta from the legal firm representing The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports - the maior lobby group out to restrict Canadian lumber exports to the U.S.
   Five other American industry re-
 presentatives who share Cheek’s attitude are in Prince George as well.
   There are four representatives of the Canadian lumber industry.
   This doesn’t mean B.C. isn’t represented fully at the talks, of course.
   Al MacPherson, deputy minister of forests; chief forester John Cuthbert, plus experts ir economics, timber management and other areas are inside the Summit Room at the Coast Inn of the North where the talks are taki ig place.
  Representatives from Ontario and Quebec are at the meeting, too, which ends Friday, along with representatives from the Department of External Affairs, the Canadian Forestry Service and the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion.
   They’re across the table from a U.S. team.
  Lobbyists linger in corridors along with members of the press.
See also page 3
$5 million for cultural centre?
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
   Bruce Strachan, Prince George-South MLA, believes the province could be willing to contribute as much as $5 million toward the city’s proposed $15-million cultur-al-convention centre.
   “Provided the federal government and the city pick up the rest, I think we’re prepared to kick in a third of that,” the MLA told The Citizen.
  The money would come from the province’s $30-million Expo legacy fund, but Strachan said the fund is “open-ended” and can be expanded because it comes from lottery revenues.
   The legacy fund was set up last year to provide communities outside the Lower Mainland with projects this year.
   Strachan’s comments contrast with those of Jack Heinrich, Prince George-North MLA, who is concerned that the projected cost of the civic complex has ris-
 en from the $9 million originally estimated.
   Heinrich, while indicating he is not opposed to the complex, suggested Wednesday that some taxpayers are already mounting opposition to it.
   There has been no indication as yet what effect the proposal will have on city taxes and Mayor Elmer Mercier says he is “very encouraged” by Strachan’s remarks.
   A committee has been set up to do some “number-crunching” and estimate possible tax impacts. But Mercier said that there would be a public referendum to decide whether taxes will be raised to help pay for the centre, which would be located near the public library.
   “We have to find out what we can get,” the mayor said. “I’m optimistic we can get at least $6 million from the federal and provincial governments.”
   The provincial government has
 to be “even-handed” in its support of projects across B.C., he said. If it gives money to communities like Kelowna, it should be able to give the same help to Prince George.
   A recent study proposed an art gallery, a 1,200 to 1,500-seat theatre and convention hall connected by a glass-covered atrium to the
 existing city library. Under the proposal there would be covered parking beneath the art gallery, atrium and convention hail, similar to that already available beneath the library.
   “I don’t know if we can afford to go the whole route at one time,” said Mercier. "We may have to go in phases. How much is done will depend on how much the community is willing to pay.”
   A referendum will be held before the project goes ahead.
   "There are many variables,” the mayor said. But taking a rough "rule of thumb”, if the city decides to support a $12-milIion
  centre it will likely add $2 million a year to the city’s present total operating costs. The $2 million would include borrowing costs and an expected operating deficit.
  Stressing that these are “rough” figures. Mercier said this would add about $60 to the taxes of an average household, given that $6 million was provided by the senior governments.
   But he added that there would be "definite economic benefits” to the city that would offset costs.
    According the project study, direct and indirect benefits could total up to $6 million a year.
   Mercier said he hopes to meet Communications Minister Marcel Masse in Ottawa this April to pursue federal help.
   Rod Maides, Prince George-Peace River MP Frank Oberle’s constituency and minsisterial assistant, said Oberle has not yet seen the proposal.
Citizen
40c
Thursday, February 13, 1986
Mobile
museum
 Deer Valley in the early part of the century and is thought to be 65 to 75 million years old. The museum on wheels is sponsored by National Museums of Canada and is in Prince George until Saturday.
 Story page 11.	Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
 Grade 3 students Erin Anderlini and Tanya Lafferty from Wildwood elementary school touch the foot cast of a duck-billed dinosaur, while touring the Canada West mobile museum located at the public library parking lot. The foot was found in the Red
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