PLUS!
MAGAZINE
The Prince George
Citizen
SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1986
40 CENTS
Socred frontrunners_5
Retirement planning_6
lions subdue Argos 15
Ann Landers.................6 Gardening .................P2
Bridge......................19 Horoscopes.................19
Business...................8,9 Lifestyles....................6
City, B.C.....................3 Movies................P12.P13
Classified................16-23 New Adventure
Comics.....................11 Religion.......
Crossword...............P2.18 Sports,
........P2
.........10
......13-15
Editorial...................4,5 Travel................P14.P15
Entertainment..............11 *P—Plus Magazine
alkout
fine .9 OfiO
Treasurer charges wrongful dismissa
Owen Taylor, 7, is dwarfed by the huge, 1.37-metre tractor tires on this one-ton 4x4. There aren’t many mud holes that will bog down this truck, which Mean is specially outfitted to run through muck and mire in competitions. It is
machine one truc^s ^e‘n8 displayed at the Pine Centre Mall by the Prince George Mud Boggers Association. The club is into its second year and holds its first meeting in August. Ci,izen Pho‘° fay usa Murdoch
Poll sees Tory recovery
IWA VOTE
Stage set for strike
Mill walkout draws fine
of $242,000
Low tonight: 9 High Sunday: 19
VANCOUVER (CP) - A five-day illegal walkout over work performed by supervisors will cost the militant Nanaimo local of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada $242,000.
The award was described by labor lawyer Leo McGrady as one of the largest issued by an arbitrator in British Columbia in recent years.
The union has been ordered to pay the sum plus interest to MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. as a result of the 1985 walkout at the company’s Harmac mill on Vancouver Island.
The award will total about $279,000 when interest is added, local president Jim White said Thursday.
The award could cost the 1,100-member local about $250 a member and the workers will be hard-pressed to come up with the money, said White.
“In light of the fact that we’re just a labor organization which contributes already to local charity
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
Vanderhoof district treasurer Harry Green says he is pressing a wrongful dismissal suit against the district after he was let go late last month.
Green said he was dismissed June 27 after working for the district for more than six years, but the issue has fallen under a veil of secrecy.
Neither Vanderhoof Mayor Len Fox nor district staff would say
B.C. nurses get inquiry
VICTORIA (CP) — An industrial inquiry commission has been named to deal with the contract dispute between the B.C. Nurses’ Union and the employers. Labor Minister Terry Segarty announced Friday.
No job action can take place while the commissioner — Vancouver arbitrator Vince Ready — looks into the issues of the dispute and tries to work out a settlement.
If no settlement can be reached, the commissioner is empowered to make non-binding recommendations to the minister.
.. .and in Monday's Citizen...
Rambo has been one of the most popular American movies in recent years. On Monday, you’ll read about the Soviet version of blood and guts flicks.
Also planned:
■ A restaurateur proves the right atmosphere can attract hordes of customers.
■ Coverage of the women’s U.S. Open golf tournament.
1
groups and to the community, I don’t know where the money will come from.”
PPWC national president Stan Shewaga said the award won’t cripple the union financially but called the damages high considering the company “didn’t go to the Labor Relations Board for a cease-and-desist order and instead waited in the weeds over it.
“I don’t know of any other damages award arising from an arbitration that is this big. I think it just an example of the right-wing shift in the labor relations and arbitrational community in this province in the last few years.”
The walkout began when nonunion supervisory personnel conducted maintenance work during a night shift.
MacMillan Blodel argued successfully that the walkout was an illegal strike. The PPWC contended the work performed by supervisors amounted to an illegal lockout, justifying the walkout.
why the treasurer is no longer working for the district.
Green said Friday he has hired a lawyer. When asked whether a wrongful dismissal suit is being sought, he replied, “At this point that’s what we’re going for.”
Green refused to comment further on the advice of his lawyer.
Fox, reached at a Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting in Richmond, declined to comment on the matter and wouldn’t acknowledge that Green had been fired.
“I’ve never stated that he was fired, all I can say is he’s no longer working for the municipality.”
Green’s departure is believed connected witn an error made in overcharging 400 rural homeowners a total of $17,000 in taxes this year.
Fox has admitted there was a “dramatic mistake in the tax rate.”
The taxpayers were inadvertently charged 82 cents more than what should have been on a levy of $2.81 per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value.
The mistake meant a resident with a home assessed at $100,000 was overcharged by $82, said Brian Ritchie, village clerk.
The tax rate was approved by council after a bylaw was drawn up by the clerk and the treasurer, said Ritchie.
He said the municipality is waiting for information from the Municipal Affairs Ministry on whether the municipality has the authority to refund money to the taxpayers.
If it is not possible to give refunds this year it is council’s intention to give the affected taxpayers a tax credit next year, he said.
Ritchie was appointed by council this week as acting treasurer.
Shortly before Green was let go, more than 20 angry taxpayers pe-tioned council to lower their taxes to an “acceptable level.”
Ritchie also wouldn’t say why Green is no longer working for the municipality.
“I’m not at liberty to comment until the situation is clarified by the municipality’s solicitor,” he said.
by WENDY WARBURTON For Southam News
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s summer cabinet shuffle has earned approval, but not enough for the Conservatives to catch the Liberals in voter support, according to the latest Gallup poll.
The survey, taken the week Mulroney shifted 19 ministers to new portfolios, dropped six others and added eight new faces to his cabinet, shows the Conservatives have the support of 36 per cent of committed voters.
The new level is a significant improvement on results from a poll taken a month earlier — but not released until last week — which gave the Tories only 32 per cent support, their lowest standing since the September 1984 election.
However, the Liberals are still in front with 41 per cent support, up from 40 per cent a month earlier.
Most of the Conservative gains came at the expense of the New Democratic Party, which slipped from a 10-year high of 27 per cent in June to more traditional 21 per cent.
The cabinet shuffle appears to have made the greatest impression on undecided voters, many of whom now' say they support the Conservatives. The number of undecided voters dropped to 24 per cent from 33 per cent, with the Tories making most of the gains.
The prime minister candidly admitted after the June 30 cabinet swearing-in ceremony that his government’s record had been less than stellar and said he wanted better communication, better management and a more effective selling job of the government's message.
He conceded image was part of the reason for his party’s flagging support.
The inner cabinet met in Saskatoon last week to mull over ways the government could prove it had turned over a new leaf.
The ministers came up with a commitment to reach a deal on the Constitution with Quebec, as well as promises to attack regional disparities and the problems of wo-
men in the workforce and unemployed youth.
Cabinet changes that significantly strengthened Quebec’s presence around the cabinet table seem to have benefited the prime minister but not enough to put the Tories back in front.
The poll showed the number of undecided voters in Quebec dropped to 30 per cent from 42 per cent in June, with the Conservatives making most of the gains.
WINNIPEG (CP) - A Sikh man serving a 30-day sentence for assaulting an Indian diplomat says he won’t accept a government suggestion that his confiscated metal dagger be replaced by a wooden or plastic one.
Joginder Singh, 30, turned down the offer Friday from Corrections Minister Muriel Smith, who had instructed officials at Headingley prison to talk to Singh on the issue.
“We would like to resolve it (the
The Liberals continue to lead all parties in Quebec and in Ontario by a wide margin.
The Tories boosted their lead in the Prairies and British Columbia, while the NDP lost votes everywhere except Quebec.
The poll, taken July 3-5, is based on personal, in-home interviews with 1,020 eligible voters. A sample of this size is accurate within a four percentage point margin, 19 times in 20.
kirpan issue) as sensitively as we can,” Smith said.
Singh is reported to be in the seventh day of a hunger strike to protest the removal of his kirpan, a small ceremonial dagger worn as part of the Sikh faith.
Four Sikhs at the Hamilton-Wcntworth Detention Centre in Ontario have accepted a substitute dagger, the institute superintendent said.
VANCOUVER (CP) - The British Columbia forest industry faces a strike by the 31,000-member International Woodworkers of America as early as next week, the union said Friday.
Union leader Jack Munro said the action could come by next Friday after announcing a provincew-ide strike vote favored a walkout by 89 per cent to back contract proposals.
Major demands by the woodworkers include a one-year agreement, a reduction in the pension age and protection against further job losses to contracting out. Base rate in the industry is $14.08 an hour.
Munro said the union’s negotiating committee will meet Monday and will probably decide to serve strike notice.
He said if new contract talks in the middle of the week produce no meaningful progress, a legal walkout could begin on Friday.
Munro said if forest companies were to “get rid of their demands immediately,” a collective agreement could be put together quickly*
“I think everybody was absolutely flabbergasted when in this year, 1986, the employer had the audacity to come to the negotiating table with four pages of concessions. They want back positions in the collective agreement that we got rid of in the 1950s, in the 1960s.. 1 think that the employers pulled a major goof this year. We have not seen the coast employers for close to five weeks.”
Munro also said the union cannot consider an agreement any longer than one year because of possible U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber and the uncertainty of both the market and the political climate.
A breakdown of the provincewide strike vote showed coastal members 90.1 per cent in favor of striking. Northern Interior workers voted 83 per cent to strike and southern Interior workers voted 93.1 per cent in favor.
The union bargaining council will meet with coastal employers Tuesday and northern Interior employers on Wednesday. Munro said the union had not heard from southern Interior representatives.
Irish police hurt in fights
PORTADOWN, Northern Ireland (AP) — Hundreds of Protestants clashed with police in towns across Northern Ireland today, hurling gasoline bombs and rocks. Police said 28 officers were injured and several people were arrested.
In Belfast, police said gunmen opened fire on a police Land-Rover, injuring two bystanders.
The clashes came hours before tens of thousands of Protestants were expected to take part in 18 parades around the British-governed Ulster to celebrate the anniversary of the defeat of the Roman Catholic army in the Battle of the Boyne almost 300 years ago.
Actor an AIDS victim
LOS ANGELES (AP) -Although the admission he has AIDS probably means he won't work in Hollywood again, former Dynasty actor Paul Francis Keenan says his first priority is fighting the deadly disease.
‘‘I believe that my focus is to be healed from this disease and to live; whatever else happens after that, happens,” said Keenan, who is speaking out to help victims of AIDS, which also af-
KEENAN
flicted fellow Dynasty actor Rock Hudson, who died Oct. 2.
Keenan, 30, learned he had acquired immune deficiency syndrome about seven weeks ago.
“When you have AIDS, you really have to face the fact that this could be a fatal disease,” he said Thursday in an interview from New York where he was admitted recently to St. Clare’s Hospital and Health Centre. “You’re dealing with things that are more important than the narcissistic Hollywood type of life."
Keenan, who appeared as stable hand Tony Driscoll in five episodes of Dynasty in 1982 and eight in 1984, is speaking out
strongly about the disease and the need to help victims.
In the days before Hudson died at age 59 from complications of AIDS, his spokesmen disclosed he had the disease. Keenan goes beyond that, acknowledging he contracted AIDS through sexual contact with another man.
“I don’t believe that AIDS is something to be ashamed of, something that I should have to keep a secret,” Keenan said. “I am very proud of who I am, very proud of the things I’m trying to do.”
Keenan said there is no chance he contracted AIDS from Hudson, whom he described as a friend.
JAILED SIKH WANTS DAGGER