today ir» brief
Quintette seeks new coal deal
  TORONTO (CP) — Denison Mines Ltd., which recently wrote off its entire $241-million investment in the Quintette coal mine in northeastern British Columbia, has hired former Canadair president Gil Bennett to renegotiate the project.
   Denison, which operates and is half owner of the mine, has retained Bennett as an independent consultant for the mammoth job. which will include a re-examination of coal prices paid by Quintette’s Japanese customers, and loans made to the mine by 56 banks.
   Charles Parmelee, Denison’s executive vice-president, said Bennett is also expected to study wage rates paid to workers at the mine and the port where the coal is loaded. And railway shipping rates from the mine to the port will be reviewed.
   Quintette first ran into problems when it couldn't meet its production commitments, a difficulty that cost Denison president Clifford Frame his job. After production problems were ironed out, Japanese customers exercised their right under the contract to cut the coal price they were paying for one year.
   The price is scheduled to go back up April 1. but the Japanese have said they intend to cut the volume of coal they're buying by five per cent on that date.
   Under pressure from its auditors, Denison wrote off its entire $241-million investment in January, although the company has insisted the auditors were wrong and Quintette has a future.
   But “to make the thing viable in the long run. we need some shuffling around.” said Pamelee.
   Geoffrey Carter, an analyst with Midland Doherty Ltd. who has been skeptical of Quintette from its inception, predicted the new negotiations will turn on political considerations more than economic factors.
   “The whole concept of that mine as an economic unit to produce coal is distinctly questionable.” he said, adding that if the B.C. government gives Quintette any breaks to save jobs, it will come under pressure to extend the same help to Teck Corp.'s Bullmoose coal mine.
100 trapped in Singapore hotel collapse
Citizen news services
  SINGAPORE — Authorities reported one confirmed death and as many as 100 other people trapped in a giant jumble of concrete and bricks after a six-storey Singapore hotel collapsed without warning today.
   there were no reports of Canadians at the hotel, frequented mainly by Indian and Malaysian tourists. The dead man may have been Chinese, one official said.
   There were unconfirmed reports that a gas explosion may have caused the collapse of the Hotel New World in a low-income district.
   As night fell, hundreds of rescue workers aided by six cranes continued digging slowly through the debris in a frantic search for survivors.
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PLUS!
TABLOID
INCLUDED
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'Snazzy'
currency
coming
by ROB LUDLOW Southam News
   OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada will introduce snazzy new $2 and $5 bills this year with changes to higher denominations to follow in a few years.
   The bills will include new anticounterfeiting security features, a bar code that can be read by highspeed sorting machines and features to assist the visually impaired distinguish denominations.
   The $1 bill has not been updated because the government expects to mint a new $1 coin that will make life easier for transit authorities and vending machine operators.
   The size, color and cotton-fibre paper of the new notes will stay the same but portraits on the front will be larger and designs on the back will be different.
   The Queen will stay on $2, $20 and $1,000 bills, but with an updated and larger engraving. There will also be new portraits of former prime ministers who will be clearly named. Sir Wilfrid Lau-rier will gaze out from the $5 bill. Sir John A. Macdonald will stay on the $10 bill. William Lyon Mackenzie King on the $50 and Sir Robert Borden on the $100.
   The redesigned backs of the bills will feature birds of Canada as the focal point in a landscape scene and a stylized background sky depicting the word “Canada.”
   The $2 bill will feature the robin, the $5 note the belted kingfisher, the $10 note the osprey, the $20 note the common loon, the $50 note the snowy owl and the $100 note the Canada goose. No decision has been made on the $1,000 bill.
   In Alberta and Saskatchewan, where $2 bills are scarcer than Liberals, only the new $5 bill will likely be seen this year.
Hydro pays for damage to appliances
       by Canadian Press B.C. Hydro has settled claims arising from a power surge that damaged more than 100 appliances in a Prince George subdivision in January.
   The power surge was caused when a 60.000-volt line fell on a 25-volt distribution line.
    Hydro district manager Cliff Day said Friday the settlements total about $14,000
POVERTY and despair are being blamed for the deaths of six people who drank a lethal concoction of industrial fluids in the northern Alberta native settlement of Peerless Lake
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U.S. PRESIDENT Ronald Reagan will appeal directly to the American people Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to get an aid package approved for Nicaraguan guerrillas. But he probably won’t get what he wants.
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Index
Ann Landers.............8
Bridge..................19
Business.............10,11
City, B.C.................3
Classified............16-20
Comics ..................6
Crossword...........P2.18
Editorial...............4,5
Entertainment .........6,7
Family..................8
Gardening..............P2
Horoscopes.............19
Movies............P12.P13
New Adventure .......P16
Religion ................23
Sports................13-15
Travel............P14.P15
*P—Plus Magazine
Thriller page 7
 "Sure I've got a charge card! But I never leave home with it."
Sadrack says
 Skies will be mainly sunny with morning fog in some valleys today and Sunday. Monday will also be mainly sunny with cooler temperatures. Temperatures should reach highs near 9 today and Sunday with an overnight low tonight near -6. There is a 10-per-cent chance of precipitation today, dropping to zero tonight and Sunday. Friday’s high was was 9 and the low was -5. There was no precipitation and 9.7 hours of sunshine.
 A year ago today the
Details page 3 high .was 6, the low was -
4	with no precipitation and .7 hours of sunshine.
Sunset today is at 6:14 p m. and sunrise Sunday is at 6:23 a.m.
Saturday, March 15, 1986
Electronic bull riders hang on
Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
 While some people were home watching Dallas, Sandra Hyslop and John Cox decided to experience a little of the cowboy life for themselves. The two were participating in the electronic bull riding competition at the Westwood Pub Friday night. Competition continues today with trophies being awarded to the top cowboy and cowgirl.
The
Prince
COUPLE LOST $40,000
Man gets jail for betting scheme
George
by SHERYL THOMPSON Staff reporter
   Ronald Pilon was sentenced to 18 months in jail Friday for defrauding an elderly Mackenzie couple of $40,000 using a complicated horse racing scheme.
   Prince George Provincial Court was told that Pilon borrowed money from the couple, both 63 years old. and placed bets on horse races. He would tell them they won the bets and say the winnings were being used to buy them a race horse.
   Defence lawyer T.E. La Liberte said his client hadn't set out to defraud his friends of almost 20 years but each time he borrowed money and lost the bets, he got in deeper and deeper.
   La Liberte said Pilon intended to repay the loans but kept losing the bets.
  During summations by crown prosector Alan Bate. Judge George Stewart quipped. “They made a movie about this once didn't they?”
   Bate told the court that the scheme lasted from December 1981 to October of 1982.
   Bate said when the couple explained the story to a police officer in Vancouver, the officer looked out the window and said “See that bridge over there, would you like to buy it?”
   Court heard Pilon had often borrowed money from them and repaid them. However, he eventually asked the couple for money, saying he had an inside track on horse racing and would place bets on their behalf.
   Pilon told the couple any money won would go towards the purchase price of the horse which was between $58,000 and $68,000.
The couple were convinced to
 give him large sums of money numerous times which he told them he placed on bets, and won.
   On one occasion, after receiving a sum of money for a bet. Pilon told the couple they had won $34,000. He then induced them to give him an additional $3,480 which he said was 10 per cent of the winnings that had to be paid to the jockey.
   The money was sent to P’ort St.
 John where a man they thought was the jockey gave the money to Pilon.
 This happened on two different occasions.
  The couple went to Toronto after being told by Pilon that their horse would be racing there.
  Pilon was to go with them but at the airport, something came up and he was unable to go.
 The couple phoned Pilon from
 Toronto and asked what name the horse was racing under. Pilon asked the name of the horse that won the seventh race, they told him. and he said that was their horse. Again, thought they were winners.
   In July of 1982, the couple asked Pilon where the money or the horse was and he told them he had placed the bets with a bookie in Toronto.
See PILON, page 2
LIVES IN SUBSIDIZED HOUSE
Kempf willing to take heat
   VICTORIA iCPi — Housing Minister Jack Kempf said Friday he is willing to endure controversy over where he lives if it focuses attention on the abuse of government-subsidized social housing Kempf. who was called a hypo-crite by the Opposition and neigh- , bors for living in a subsidized T townhouse while criticizing social housing, appeared nonchalant	^
 about the attacks.
   “II it takes riding the heat I'm riding, or the comments from my neighbors, to get a proper inquiry / into social housing in British Co- ^ lumbia. I'm quite content with v doing that." he told reporters.	KEMPF
   Kempf has agreed to a call from Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Ritchie to appoint a commissioner to examine allegations of mismanagement and abuse in social housing for the needy.
   Social housing refers to programs such as rent subsidies and accommodation provided by non-profit organizations to the needy with government assistance.
   The federal government wants to shift responsibility for social housing to the provinces. The B.C. government wants to complete the inquiry into alleged abuses before signing an agreement with Ottawa
   Kempf said he will make a proposal to cabinct next week about the appointment of a commissioner.
   “It's not for us to say where Kempf should live, but he has consistently and vehemently attacked social housing despite living in public housing," said Robin Blencoe (NDP—Victoria).
   ••He is the minister of sheer hypocrisy."
   Opposition Leader Bob Skelly said the real problem is “that Kempf himself attacked the principle of co-op housing and said it was being abused by being made available to people on higher incomes.''
   Kempf. with a salary of $71,000 since his promotion to the cabinet Feb. 11. lives in a $476-a-month townhouse in the Wilderness Place co-op in Victoria.
   The townhouse was in the name of Kempfs wife, Norma. He said he moved in when they married two years ago but his wife pays the rent. The co-op, however, said he had lived there for five years.
   When he was still on the backbenches. Kempfs salary was $26,000 a year plus $13,000 in expenses.
   Hugh Creighton, whose property management firm runs the co-op’s affairs, said Kempf was paying about $75 to $100 less than he would for a similar non-subsidized townhouse.
   “No. I'm not taking advantage of a good situation," Kempf said. He said the commissioner will bc asked to look into Wilderness Place.
See page 3