Citizen. ScuOuu/t,
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Low tonight: 8 High Tuesday: 27
The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, JULY 21, 1986
40 CENTS
Flood victims seek cash 5 Fallout from Chernobyl 7 Norman wins at Open 11
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Games boycott tally now at 27
by JAMES FERRABEE Southam News
   LONDON — It’s supposed to be a meeting of cultures and colors, but this edition of the Commonwealth Games is going to be Western and very white.
   India, Sri Lanka, the Seychelles and Cyprus have joined the growing list of countries pulling out of the Games, which open Thursday in Edinburgh, to protest Britain’s refusal to apply sanctions against the apartheid regime of South Africa.
   And there is even a hint now that the English team might withdraw if their athletes vote in favor of pulling out.
   Besides the obvious damage it will do to the competition at the quadrennial games, Britain and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have been given a diplomatic and political black eye by the 27 withdrawals — over half of the 53 Commonwealth members.
   It effectively means that the major white countries — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain (which enters four teams representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) — will compete against each other and small teams such as Bermuda, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and Singapore.
   It will also mean about 1,000 of the original 3,000 athletes scheduled to come to Edinburgh will not come, forcing organizers to reshuffle events.
   The sharpest blow on the weekend came with the news that India, the largest country in the 49-nation
 Commonwealth, was pulling its team. Not only is it the largest country in the Commonwealth but it has the most prestige in the third and non-aligned world.
   It is a considerable diplomatic rebuff to Britain, which is already reeling from its isolation within the Commonwealth and even among its European partners on the South African sanctions issue.
   On top of all the bad news, the English mile and 2,000-metre running champion, Steve Cram, said there was a move for the English team to boycott the games — in effect as a protest against their own prime minister.
  Cram said he “sympathized” with the thought although he didn’t believe boycotts achieved anything.
   “But if there was a boycott by the English athletes, and it would have to be an unanimous decision, it would be the end of the Games and at least it would be the athletes who made the decision and not the politicians,” he said.
   Ironically, Cram pointed out, it was Thatcher who requested the British athletes boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 to protest the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, and now it is Thatcher who is calling on countries not to boycott the Commonwealth Games.
Queen 'dismayed' by Thatcher policy
Southam News
  LONDON — The Queen finds herself in a constitutional controversy Monday after press reports from inside Buckingham Palace claim she is “dismayed” at many of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s policies.
  The front page report in the widely-read Sunday Times newspaper quoted “sources close to The Queen” as saying Her Majesty believes the Thatcher government lacks compassion toward the less privileged in British society, and that she had misgivings about
Teacher's criticism went too far: court
by Canadian Press
  VANCOUVER — A teacher who objected to the sex instruction her young sons received should have confined her objections to the lesson and refrained from personal criticism of the teacher, a court held Friday.
   The B.C. Court of Appeal decided Dian Cromer’s right of free expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms isn’t violated by the teaching profession’s rules concerning one teacher criticizing another.
   Justice John Lambert, supported by Justices John Taggart and John Aikins, said the charter is capable of overriding the Code of Ethics of the B.C. Teachers Federation, but not in Cromer’s case.
   The court was told the case concerned an incident in 1983 in which teacher Madeline Sauve handed out a sex questionnaire to Grade 8 children at a school in Smithers.
   Cromer, whose child attended the school, was a teacher at another school in the same town. Armed with a copy of the questionnaire, she went to discuss the matter with her child’s school principal.
   Invited to a parents’ meeting, Cromer heard Sauve defend the questionnaire in what she (Cromer) considered a provocative manner. At a subsequent meeting, Cromer criticized Sauve for her conduct at the earlier meeting
   Sauve charged that Cromer’s public criticism of her was a violation of the Code of Ethics, the relevant portion of which says a teacher may criticize a colleague’s teaching performance only in certain circumstances.
  When a disciplinary committee said Cromer couldn’t use her parental role to side-step the code, she asked the B.C. Supreme Court to decide if her right of free speech was infringed. The court decided against her.
  Rejecting her appeal Friday, Justice Lambert said Cromer went too far in her criticism of Sauve.
   “Had she confined her remarks to the teaching of human sexuality, I would have said the public interest in letting her speak overrode the Code of Ethics,” the judge said.
Tourist boom seen in area
  KAMLOOPS, B.C. (CP) - Tourism Minister Claude Richmond said today Expo 86 has created a tourist boom in southwestern British Columbia.
   He said a survey on the effects of the fair shows Prince George, Kamloops, Revelstoke and Victoria are also showing marked increases in tourism.
   Several other-areas, including Salmon Arm, 100 Mile House, Bar-kerville, Ladysmith and Chemai-nus, are doing better than last year while Williams Lake, Cranbrook, Parksville and Campbell River have kept pace with previous trends, he said.
   But tourism is down in resort areas such as Penticton, Kelowna, the Sunshine Coast, Nanaimo, Nelson, Trail and Sparwood.
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 "Do you fancy some of this leftover stew?"
 allowing the Americans to use air bases in Britain to attack Libya in April.
   The ensuing hubbub has centered around the propriety of the Queen’s advisers talking to the media with or without official approval.
   The Queen’s role is one of neutral observer on the political scene, who officially has no views on politics or political personalities.
   The huffing and puffing about the newspaper story, complete with denials from Buckingham Palace and the office of the prime minister, surfaced in the context of a possible open split between Queen Elizabeth and her British government over the South African sanctions issue.
   There were persistent reports last week that the Queen, who also has the undefined and mainly honorary title as Head of the Commonwealth, was worried about the possible breakup of the 49-member organization over the sanctions issue.
  The Thatcher government, almost alone among Commonwealth members, has strongly opposed any form of economic sanctions against South Africa, which Thatcher has called “immoral.”
   Added to this, the Royal Family faces acute embarrassment Thursday, the day after the royal wedding between Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, when Prince Philip officially opens the troubled Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.
   Twenty-five of the 53 countries set to participate in the games have withdrawn because of the Thatcher government’s opposition to sanctions against South Africa.
   The royals had planned a series of receptions for the athletes and officials in Scotland during the next two weeks, but they will now be on a much-reduced scale because 25 countries have pulled out of the competition.
   It is widely known in official circles that the Queen and Thatcher are not* on close terms, even though they have met nearly every week for the past seven years as part of the official duties of both. The Queen also receives all the cabinet documents and state papers.
   The Sunday Times editor, under attack for publishing the story, said he did so only after checking with the “sources” three times. He said the sources were “unimpeachable.”
   Meanwhile, the story of the story produced headlines such as Royal Crisis Storm and Rebel Tories Accused of Thatcher Plot in national newspapers Monday.
   And there was some editorial baying about the advisers, even suggestions that several should be fired.
  The Daily Mail newspaper, which strongly supports the Thatcher government and the Queen, said in an editorial Monday that the advisers who talked to the press were on “treacherous ground.”
   It added:
   “Whoever planted this trouble-making story in the Sunday Times, planted weeds which if encouraged to grow could choke the glories of our Crown and Constitution.”
    Donna McTaggart demonstrates her computer skills for a bicycle touring group who’ve come to see her off to Expo 86.	Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
EXPO 86 ASSIGNMENT
Donna shows the world
  Donna McTaggart of Prince George is one of 20 persons chosen across Canada to demonstrate word processing for the handicapped at Expo 86.
   McTaggart, physically disabled with cerebral palsy, resides at Jubilee Lodge where she learned to operate computers.
   This week she will be teaching others communication skills through print during the Neil Squire Foundation exhibition week at Expo called Communications for the Disabled.
  “The main focus, in Donna’s case, is to demonstrate that she is capable of working in an office, going to college and communicating with others,” said Rita Holdner, who is accompanying McTaggart in Vancouver.
  Since the begining of June, McTaggart has been working on an IBM computer, loaned by the company, to learn special writing and planning assistance programs.
  “Just a few weeks ago I didn’t know how what a spreadsheet was and now I know how to make one,”
 said Donna, communicating in print.
   “I know how to put everything in the proper categories and make formulas so that my figures can be calculated correctly.”
   During this training period McTaggart and other participants have been able to send messages on a modem which is tapped to their telephones.
   The modems, on loan from the Neil Squire Foundation, have allowed participants to communicate with each other and with the foundation.
   “I’m looking forward to a busy, exciting week and meeting all the people I have been communicating with on the modem,” said Donna.
   Prior to her departure Saturday, McTaggart and Holdner were guests a a small reception attended by a 20-member touring group of bicyclists from Saskatchewan enroute to Expo in aid of the Neil Squire Foundation.
   THe foundation, located in Vancouver, is a nonprofit organization established in 1984 to research and develop technical aids for the disabled.
MORE TALKS PLANNED
IWA strike postponed
Citizen news services
   Sawmills across the north are in full operation today, thanks to postponement of a strike by the International Woodworkers of America.
   “We’re meeting with the employers today,” said Frank Everitt, president of IWA local 1-424, based in Prince George.
   “They’re considering our demand for protection against contracting out and changes in pensions,” Everitt said in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
   On Friday, tensions rose when the Council on Northern Interior Forest Labor Relations (CONIFER), which represents 28 northern sawmills, didn’t show up for a meeting with the union about pensions.
   Instead the bargaining agent for coastal mills, Forest Industry Relations, said it was empowered to speak for CONIFER.
   Meetings Friday and Saturday were considered fruitless by the union.
   On Sunday, the union executive and the chief executive officers from MacMillan Bloedel, B.C. Forest Products, Canadian Forest Products and Crown Forest Industries ♦
 Ltd., among others met for several hours to discuss contracting out work to non-union firms, union spokesman Clay Perry said.
  The union protests it is losing jobs daily to non-union contractors and sub-contractors and wants a formal agreement protecting union jobs.
  Today the heads of B.C.’s major forest companies are meeting in Vancouver and IWA president Jack Munro said he is “cautiously optimistic” a strike can be avoided.
  The bargaining pattern for the forest industry is often confusing. The entire union, and representatives from management across the province bargain on pensions and some other issues as a group.
  However, most of the contracts are settled seperately for the Coast, the Northern Interior and the Southern Interior. In addition, more than a dozen mills in the north bargain independantly.
  After area agreements are worked out, there usually are local issues to be settled between each employer and the firm’s, employees.
  “This year we want to wrap up the local issues first,” Everitt said.
   Jack Munro, the union’s regional
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 council president, said Saturday his 31,000-member union was “sliding into a strike” following meetings Friday and Saturday.
   Contract talks between the union and Forest Industrial Relations, which bargains for the forest companies, resumed Saturday after breaking down Friday night.
  Munro said the industry made some concessions on union demands for pension improvements, but the companies refused to put anything in writing on contracting out, asking instead that the union rely on verbal agreements.
.. .and in tomorrow's Citizen. ..
 Thousands enyoy the annual trek to the country cottage, but there are drawbacks. In Tuesday’s Citizen, experts explain what to watch for when buying a cabin.
  Also planned:
 ■	Coverage of tonight’s city council meeting.
  ■	The effect of federal cutbacks on job training.