Indian inland fishery losing Ottawa support
VANCOUVER (CP) - Indian Affairs Minister David Crombie has backed down on plans for an Indian-operated inland salmon fishery, the British Columbia Supreme Court was told Wednesday.
The provincial government is arguing before the court that Indian Act bylaws approved by Crombie to establish the inland fishery are unconstitutional because they violate existing regulations under the Fisheries Act.
The hearing was told Wednesday Crombie now is seeking a cabinet
order to suspend the bylaws pending full consultation with all the parties.
The Gitskan-Wet’suwet’en tribal council, which represents the four Indian bands planning the fishery on the Skeena, Bulkley, and Kis-piox rivers, contends the bylaws are legal. It says the bands will continue to fish despite Crombie’s latest action.
The Indians also refuse to recognize an interim, ex-parte injunction obtained last Friday by the B.C. Attorney General’s Ministry pre-
Flood cash promised
The first government aid cheques should go out to McBride flood victims by July 4, says Jack Baker, acting director of the Provincial Emergency Program.
Provincial estimators flew into the town, 250 km east of Prince George, after two creeks burst their banks May 26 following mountain mudslides. The initial damage estimate of $1.5 million has been cut back to $1.1 million, Baker said Wednesday in a telephone interview from Victoria.
Property damage was estimated at $500,000, road repairs at $300,000 and work to rehabilitate creek beds at $300,000, he said.
Baker said only “three or four” applications for relief have been received to date.
PEP money covers home damage beyond a deductible amount of 25 per cent up to a maximum of $10,000.
Outbuildings and sheds are not covered, while damaged vehicles should be covered by the Insurance Corporation of B.C, said Baker.
He said it takes two weeks to process damage claim applications in Victoria.
Application forms are available from McBride’s village office.
The provincial cabinet earlier this month approved up to $1.5 million in relief for the area after a sudden melting of the snowpack swelled creeks and caused mudslides forcing the evacuation of more than 20 families.
Man charged with murder
Nalin Sumonja, 58, of Prince George has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of John Jandera, 40, of Prince George.
He was scheduled to appear in provincial court today.
The shooting occurred on McPhee Road in the Chief Lake Road area on Sunday evening. RCMP report Jandera was shot in the body with a shotgun.
A funeral service for Jandera will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Assman’s Funeral Chapel.
venting implementation of the bylaws.
As the hearing continued Wednesday, Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon told a news conference he made it clear to Crombie “I would find it difficult to continue to meet my obligations under the Fisheries Act if band bylaws were allowed to be applied willy-nilly in the absence of an integrated approach to management.
“But nonetheless it was Mr. Crombie’s wish at that time to allow those bylaws to stand.”
Siddon pledged to work toward a negotiated solution that satisfies native, sport and commercial fishermen. But he emphasized that, pending an amendment to the Fisheries Act, he considers himself responsible for over-all management of the salmon fishery.
He said the bylaws would be suspended until a consultative process involving all the fisheries users can come up with an integrated management plan for B.C.’s salmon stocks.
Siddon set no time limit on when the talks might take place or when an agreement might be reached.
BULLETIN
RED DEER, Alta. (CP) — Workers at Fletcher’s Fine Foods Ltd. voted 349-1 today in favor of a tentative agreement to end the 19-day strike at the meat-packing plant.
The employees, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers, are expected to return to their jobs by Friday.
Terms of the two-year contract include an increase of almost $2 an hour in the starting rate for new workers, who now will earn $9.38.
DAUGHTER KILLED AT EXPO
Father seeks $100,000
VANCOUVER (CP) - Frank Ford said Wednesday he wants Expo 86 to pay $100,000 for his daughter’s death at the Canada pavilion theatre last month.
Karen Ford, 9, of Nanaimo, B.C., was crushed May 9 while on the theatre’s revolving turntable. The turntable carries the audience between two threatres in the pavilion.
Your menu
Thinking of dining out?
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Our “Menu” is sure to satisfy any craving and please even the strictest budget.
Bon appetit.
An interim coroner’s report issued earlier gives no explanation of how the child died. A final report was expected Wednesday, but now will be issued today.
The family also wants the Attorney General Brian Smith to order an inquest.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions in the report as we understand it — it doesn’t say who’s responsible,” Ford’s Vancouver lawyer, Carey Linde of Vancouver said Wednesday.
Linde said he was basing his comments about coroner Dianne Messier’s report on “what we believe will be its inadequacies.
“I have been instructed by the Fords to formally request an inquest,” he said.
Linde said the family does not intend to sue, but will reconsider that position if Expo refuses to settle.
The revolving turntable was shut for some time after the accident, but is back in service with a number of new safety measures.
.. .and in tomorrow's Citizen.. .
Canada’s postal system is one of the most sophisticated in the world, yet it’s also plagued with problems. Friday, you’ll read the first article in a series on the Crown corporation’s past, present and future.
Also planned:
■ The Air-India crash and related events.
■ A flashback story * about the first Canadian ship to travel through the Northwest Passage.
Twins reunited at last 7
Sikhs not understood 9
Expos good enough 13
City, B.C..........
remains mystery
Motive
by Canadian Press WILLIAMS LAKE - The motives for a triple murder in a remote Cariboo cabin last summer remained as clouded as the back-round of the instigator following a ay-long inquest Wednesday.
Joanne Mychaluk, 23, Ken Sko-moroh, 28, and a man who called himself Gaston Joseph Santerre died in a hail of bullets in a cabin at Kloakut Lake, about 90 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake in central British Columbia, sometime between the evening of July 27 and the morning of July 29,1985.
Santerre, who arrived in the Williams Lake area in the late 1960s, was known locally as Crazy Joe. He was a reclusive night person who worked sporadically at ranches until 18 months before the
killings, when he disappeared into the bush.
Through fingerprints, RCMP have identified Santerre as Nelson Francis Beauchesne, an American forces deserter.
Police have traced his back-round to Quebec and Vermont, ut have been unable to come up with a home town for him. His age also is unknown.
Dr. Jennifer Rice of Prince George, a forensic expert who conducted the autopsies on the three victims, recreated what she believes happened in the fatal moments through evidence of a blood-spatter specialist, ballistics tests, powder bums and the position and trajectory of the wounds.
Rice said it appears Santerre left his boots and a stolen shotgun out-
side the cabin, then crept inside, carrying a .357-magnum pistol.
Santerre pumped two bullets into Mychaluk’s back at point-blank range as she lay sleeping beside Skomoroh. The first snot severed Mychaluk’s spine.
Skomoroh woke up and grabbed a .223-calibre semi-automatic rifle he had beside the bed and exchanged shots with Santerre.
Skomoroh was shot once in the shoulder, likely as he was waking up, Rice said, then twice more as he rolled off the bed. Although the last two wounds were fatal, Skomoroh managed to stand and fire two shots into Santerre’s pelvis and abdomen.
Skomoroh then fired two shots into his own foot as he slumped, dying, to the floor.
Rice said Santerre died as much as an hour or so later from his wounds.
When the bodies were found, Santerre was wearing six layers of clothing, including a sweater, bib overalls, a turtleneck, mackinaw, T-shirt and long underwear.
The empty pistol he was clutching had been made in the United States, but had never been registered in Canada or with either American or Canadian customs.
Area residents Colin Bambrick and Dana Plecas both testified they believed Santerre had a crush on Mychaluk.
The jury classified the deaths as homicides, a neutral term denoting no blame, and made no recommendations.
"How am I supposed to guess the size over the phone?"
LUMBER TARIFF FIGHT
Industry inaction angers IWA boss
NANAIMO (CP) - The British Columbia forest industry is not standing up to possible U.S. countervailing duties on softwood lumber, Jack Munro, regional president of the International Woodworkers of America, said Wednesday.
He told the chamber of commerce in this Vancouver Island city the biggest problem faced by the industry is the tacit acceptance of American duties.
“Only chambers of commerce and the trade union movement have been standing up,” Munro said. “It is wrong when the water tax in B.C. is $40 per tonne while in Ontario and Quebec it is only $3. It is wrong not to spend money on forests.
“This province is in tough shape because too many people are sitting on their hands and not speaking out. You can’t be a good leader when you have to consult public opinion polls before making decisions.”
U.S. lumber producers are seeking a countervailing duty on Canadian imports, charging that the stumpage fees paid by Canadian forest companies for their timber amounts to a subsidy.
“If the stumpage rates are a weakness then they’ll have to be re-evaluated,” Munro said. “But it should be done in such a way that the money stays in British Columbia and is used for a proper silviculture program.”
He said Republicans are in the trouble in the lumber-producing states and see the attack on Canadian lumber imports as a means of getting re-elected in November.
Munro said everything is on the table in trade talks between Canada and the U.S. and this frightens him.
He said lest Canadians think such items as unemployment insurance, medicare and other social programs could not be part of negotiations, they should look at unemployment insurance aid to Nova Scotia fishermen.
Munro said that was ruled by the U.S. as being a subsidy and a tariff was instituted against Canadian fish.
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The Prince George
Citizen
THURSDAY, JUNE 19, 1986 40 CENTS
Building our bridge
Carpenter Gerry Kemmer seems to be enjoying the sunshine and the work as he wields his hammer in the construction of a form for the concrete footing at the north approach to the new Fraser River bridge. Concrete is expected to be poured Monday. Project superintendent Dave Basnett of Miller Contracting said work on the $16-million bridge is on schedule and even ahead of schedule in some areas, despite recent high water in the river. Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
CARIBOO CABIN KILLINGS
Low tonight: 4 High Friday: 20 WcttfAti dtMfa /tuff 2
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