today in brief
AN INDIAN judicial panel has concluded that a bomb caused the deaths of the 329 people aboard an Air-India jetliner that went down over the North Atlantic in June. Page
CANADA POST’S image is suffering because of news about labor strife. Management believes the problem could be solved by merging unions. Page
CANADIAN SKIERS appear to be in good shape for a World Cup women’s race Saturday.
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HERMAN
"We honeymooned aboard his 7-foot canoe.''
Index
Ann Landers............35
Bridge..................31
Business.............36-38
City, B.C.............3,6,7
Classified............25-33
Comics .................18
Crossword..............27
Editorial.................4
Entertainment.......18-23
Family...............34,35
Horoscopes.............30
International.............2
Movies...............18,19
National.................5
Sports................13-16
Surrounded Page 14
Sadrack says
Skies will be sunny with afternoon cloudy periods and isolated showers today and Saturday. Highs should be near 10 today, near 10 on Saturday with an overnight tonight near -5.
There is a 20-per-cent chance of precipitation today, tonight and Saturday.
Thursday’s high was 10, the low was -5, there was no precipitation and 9.7 hours of sunshine.
A year ago today the high was 5, the low was zero, there was no pre-
cipitation and 6.6 hours of sunshine.
Sunset today is at 6:12 p.m. and sunrise Saturday is at 6:25 a.m.
The
Prince George
Citizen
50c Including
Friday, March 14, 1986
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TV
TIMES
GOV'T WORKERS OFFERED TRADE-OFF
Job security tied to
hikes
by PAUL LOONG Canadian Press VICTORIA - Public servants can trade pay increases for job security under new changes to the Social Credit government’s public-sector wage control program.
Finance Minister Hugh Curtis said Thursday that more than
200,000 public employees in British Columbia can be assured of job security — if they accept a three-year wage package offering annual increases of zero, one and two per cent.
Thursday’s announced changes to the Compensation Stabilization Program provide new options, Curtis told a news conference.
“It’s not intended to be forced on anyone,” he said.
Under the CSP, all pay settlements in the B.C. public sector must be approved by commissioner Ed Peck, the provincially appointed watchdog on wages.
Peck’s jurisdiction covers not only the 40,000 provincial government employees but other public-sector workers in such areas as hospitals, schools, transit, municipal governments and Crown corporations.
Curtis told reporters that in future Peck will be empowered to consider private-sector pay comparisons, traditional pay disparities and labor-market conditions before approving or rejecting a contract settlement.
The new options give Peck more grounds for approving settlement packages that contain increases, but seem more restrictive than Premier Bill Bennett’s flat assurance last fall that the jobs of public servants are safe and the large-scale layoffs of recent years are over.
“If the parties involved are willing to hold the line and to offer and accept wage increases that relate to economic conditions, jobs can and will be preserved,” Curtis said.
The government’s priority is to preserve and create jobs — not to increase wages, the minister stressed.
The British Columbia Government Employees Union reserved comment on Thursday’s announcement.
When Bennett hinted in February of impending changes, the BCGEU abruptly suspended contract negotiations to await details.
“What we are doing is bringing the plan up to date, making it more in tune with 1986-87,” the finance minister said.
Introduced in 1982, the Compensation Stabilization Program was one of the major first steps in Bennett’s tough restraint measures.
Last PWA union to vote on pact
VANCOUVER (CP) - After almost four months, a bitter strike against Pacific Western Airlines may soon be over.
The Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Association reached a tentative agreement with PWA Thursday afternoon after a long bargaining session under federal mediators.
CALFAA, one of three unions representing a total of 1,800 people who went on strike Nov. 20, was the last of the unions to settle.
“We’re relieved that it’s all over, and are recommending the agreement to the membership,” CALFAA president Larry LeBlanc said in a news release.
The results of the attendants’ ratification vote and a parallel vote by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers will be announced Tuesday at midnight.
Photo page 5
Prince George’s Expo 86 sign at junction of Highway 16 and Highway 97 is pretty hard to miss.
Coal workers
Quesnel hall packed as gold fever strikes
'Concrete7 evidence of Expo found here
by DAVE PAULSON Staff reporter
Just in case anyone in B.C. doesn’t know there is an international exposition being held this year in Vancouver, the provincial government is reminding everyone by erecting concrete Expo signs in 52 communities.
Prince George’s sign, consisting of the words “Expo 86” and the government’s stylized “BC” and provincial flag logo, was installed Thursday at the tourist information centre at the junction of Highways 16 and 97.
Paul Erickson, roadside development manager for the Highways Ministry in Victoria, said today each site costs an average of $21,000, giving the entire project a price tag of almost $1.1 million.
“We don’t believe Expo belongs only to the False Creek area of Vancouver,” explained Erickson.
The signs, about 15 by 10 metres
Senator's hunger strike no joke
of Expo found
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
QUESNEL — Prince George stock broker Wayne Ward warned against excessive enthusiasm about gold exploration near this Cariboo city at a meeting held here Thursday night.
“I’d really like to caution you about a lot of what you’ve heard,” Ward, of Canarim Investment Corp., told more than 250 people who crammed into the Canadian Legion hall to hear presentations from half a dozen mining companies.
“Sometimes as promoters we say things we don’t really mean,” he said.
However, he also said the companies are engaged in serious exploration in an area known as the Quesnel Trough, running north from Quesnel to Hixon.
“This isn’t a hit and miss kind of venture.”
Ward said the meeting was called to let Quesnel residents know “what’s going on in your own back yard,” but as company maps and share information circulated around the hall, there appeared to be an element of stock promotion.
Some of the companies are not publicly listed, but plan to offer shares soon.
One old-timer in the audience, when asked why he was there, said he wanted to “see if I can make a quick killing.”
Scattered through the crowd were prospectors and miners, including Terry Toop, who set up a placer gold mine in the Cottonwood area 12 years ago.
While Ward tried to dampen the gold fever that seized this town after a geologist compared nearby claims to those in lucrative Hemlo. Ont., the same geologist. Murray Roed of Mary Creek Resources, maintained that he is optimistic about having found a “mother-lode.”
Roed gave a technical presentation in which he said he believed there are substantial gold deposits in the Quesnel Trough, the site of ancient volcanic activity.
The geologist created a spasm of trading in his company’s stock earlier this week — Mary Creek shares rose $1.15 to $3.05 a share Wednesday — when he compared its claims to Hemlo.
The comparison was made on the basis of 13 core samples of which four contained gold, after hard-rock drilling by Mary Creek, which is changing its name to Pun-data Gold Corp.
“We have outlined the geology in a fair amount of detail,” he said,
but added, “We have a lot of geology to unravel.”
Also at the meeting were officials of Noranda Mines, U.S.-based Hecla Mines, Duke Resources of Vancouver, Sovereign Metals of Vancouver, Quesnel-based Masst Resources, and Gabriel Resources, a subsidiary of the Hughes-Lang group of Vancouver.
Rick Billingsley of Hughes-Lang said the company has staked claims in an area 43 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, to the north of the Mary Creek claims.
“I’m absolutely amazed that there are so many people here,” said Billingsley.
“We are very optimistic about this prospect,” he said.
“But I will tell you that it is a prospect — and until you see ore trucks coming down from the mine, treat it like a very speculative proposition.”
by Canadian Press OTTAWA (CP) - Fighting for his convictions once took Jacques Hebert to jail. This time, it could kill him.
His family and friends are worried. They know this hunger-striking senator, this life-long crusader for justice and passionate champion of youth. They know that when Hebert fights for his convictions, no amount of personal suffering will deter him from his course until the fight is won.
“People who scoff or think it’s a joke, I think are very mistaken,” said Gerard Pelletier, a former ambassador and Liberal minister and one of Hebert’s closest friends.
“He is one of the most persistent men I’ve ever met. When he starts on something, he perseveres in the direction he has chosen. It’s no joke.”
There were some snickers Monday when 62-year-old Hebert gathered up a sleeping bag and several bottles of mineral water, sat down in a red leather armchair in the marble-tiled Senate lobby and proclaimed that he would not eat or leave until Prime Minister Brian Mulroney reversed his government’s decision to cancel Katimavik, the unusual youth program founded by Hebert 10 years ago.
But nobody is laughing now.
return to job
Workers are back on the job at Quintette Coal Ltd. after the B.C. Labor Relations Board ordered them to end an illegal work stoppage.
The first shift back was the Thursday night shift, which started at 7 p.m., said public relations officer Janet Stock.
In a news release Thursday, the company said the wildcat strike was prompted by plans to change the shift schedule of 23 employees for “productivity reasons.”
Maintenance workers in the main service garage walked off the job about noon and “were subsequently followed by employees in other work areas,” the release said.
Quintette Coal, which produces metallurgical coal for export to the Japanese steel industry, is located near Tumbler Ridge and employs about 1,500 workers.
This is a deadly serious standoff between Hebert and Mulroney, a confrontation Hebert is determined to win.
“I’m amazed that Mulroney could have thought he could destroy Katimavik, a thing I think is worth fighting for. and expect that I would not make the fight of
all fights,” Hebert says.
“I think he forgot a few things about my past. Or he thought I was really getting old. ‘A senator must be contented with sleeping in the Senate, he must be quiet and nice.’
“Mulroney made a mistake.” Bruno Hebert. 27, says no one
in size, are being erected throughout the province, including such isolated communities as Stewart and Bella Coola.
The signs consist of pre-cast concrete topped with colored crushed rock. Each site will eventually be landscaped with grass and flowers and two flag poles erected for the B.C. and Expo flags.
When Expo enas, the sites will be turned over to each community.
Erickson said ideas on how to use the concrete again are being considered, “so it doesn’t just, go to waste.”
He suggested the “Expo 86” sign, with its fiat reverse side, might be used to welcome visitors.
“But the communities can alter them and maintain them as they wish,” Erickson said.
Others signs being constructed in this region are at Vanderhoof, Quesnel, Williams Lake, McBride and the Mount Terry Fox lookout.
should underestimate his father’s resolve.
“That man, when he’s alone on something, can go really far,” Bruno said. “He’s very strong when he’s like that. All his life, all the fights he had before, he was a man alone who fought something big. He’s a man who is going to go to the end, that’s for sure.”
The government cancelled the $20-million program because it decided Katimavik was not an efficient way to create jobs. Last year about 5,000 young people participated, living in groups and working for nine months on community projects in three different areas of Canada for $1 a day and $1,000 when their term is over.
Hebert says Katimavik, which means “meeting place” in Inukti-tut, can t be judged by numerical efficiency. He says it achieves things accountants can’t measure —■ teaching confused youths self-reliance and self-confidence, instilling them with a sense of community identity and national unity-
The government, he complains, is so busy crunching numbers that it has lost sight of the more important things.
“This is just a symbol of the attitude of this government, its lack of compassion,” Hebert says. “Human values cannot be counted with dollars and cents.”
Jacques Herbert bunks down for the night in senate lobby.