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Citizen
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1986 -*©*■ 40 CENTS ___/
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he urged citizens to stay away from damaged buildings and appealed for calm. He said damage was confined to the capital area.
In Ottawa, a spokesman for External Affairs said about 36 Canadians are listed as being in El Salvador, but the department is still awaiting word on the situation there.
Radio station YSU said more than 150 people were killed in the collapse of the 10-storey Ruben Dario building and Radio Cuscatlan said about 45 people were known dead, including at least 30 students whose bodies were found in two schools.
The Costa Rican ambassador in San Salvador, Jesus Fernandez, said in a radio interview that the bodies of at least 30 young people were taken from two schools.
Ernesto Ferreiro, spokesman for the Salvadoran Red Cross, said about 200 people sought shelter or
.. .and in Tuesday's Citizen. ..
There will be no paper Monday, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
In Tuesday’s issue of The Prince George Citizen you’ll find an interview with former forests minister and NDP MLA Bob Williams.
Also planned:
■ The story of “a modern Helen Keller”.
■ A report on week six in the NFL and the big game of the day, Washington Redskns versus the Dallas Cowboys.
treatment at the organization’s headquarters,
Peter McPherson, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International .Development, said in Washington a disaster assistance team was on its way to El Salvador. He said the United States also will send tents, blankets and a 12-person medical team from Panama.
Two vacationing Americans, Robert Annadle and his wife Pam Ascanio, were inside a pizza parlor when the initial jolt hit. They said the tremor damaged Bloom Children’s Hospital across the street.
“They were digging out kids, babies,” said Ascanio, a resident of Rockledge, Fla. “We were the only ones who got out (of the pizza parlor) when it was happening.” she said. “The roof fell.”
Reuters news agency said San Salvador was without electricity and troops patrolled streets late Friday to guard against looting. It said hospitals broadcast appeals for blood, although they lacked electric lights to operate by.
A maternity hospital asked people to bring lamps and bottles of purified water.
The U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale and centred about 16 kilometres northwest of San Salvador, struck at 1:49 p.m. EDT (11:49 a.m. Salvadoran time). At least seven or eight aftershocks were felt in San Salvador over the next three hours.
An earthquake of magnitude four is considered capable of causing moderate damage in populated areas. A quake of magnitude five can cause considerable damage in populated areas.
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LAW TO SNARE POLLUTERS
OTTAWA (CP) — Canadian environmental laws are so weak that they virtually constitute a licence to pollute, but that situation is about to change, Environment Minister Tom McMillan said Friday.
“We’re going to bring in an environmental protection act which will be the most progressive in the western hemisphere,” the minister promised.
“It’s going to be backed up by a compliance and enforcement schedule that will demonstrate to Canadians that this government means business when it says it’s going to take on polluters in all their forms.”
The proposed act will consolidate environmental authority, making it easier
for McMillan’s department to work with the rest of the federal government and with the provinces on environmental issues.
Environmental issues now fall under the jurisdiction of "a crazy quilt” of 22 federal departments and agencies, 57 federal statutes and 97 different provincial acts.
“In such a morass, the only person who . gains is the polluter,” McMillan said.
The new federal law will include a statement of citizens’ environmental rights, new standards for toxic chemical pollution and a strict compliance and enforcement regime.
The sections referring to chemicals will control them throughout their life span, from production through use to disposal.
He also said the government plans to revamp the administrative structure of the national parks system to protect wildlife and wilderness areas from “insidious encroachment by commerce.”
New Democrat MP Steven Langdon described McMillan as “a breath of fresh air after the previous minister,” a reference to Suzanne Blais-Grenier who enraged environmentalists by the way she implemented spending cuts.
Liberal environment critic Charles Caccia, who held the environment portfolio during the last Liberal government, said McMillan was chasing shadows and ignoring the importance of using the department as a tool for economic growth.
One chance to stay alive 3
When the music stopped 5
Eskimos closer to first 1 3
Ann Landers... ..............3 Movies................P12,P13
City, B.C....... ............4,5 Travel................P14.P15
Entertainment ..........22,23 *P --- Plus Magazine
School probe
in new year, says premier
By Brian Kennedy
CRESTON, B.C. (CP) - A royal commission to investigate British Columbia’s education system, will be set up in the new year, Premier Bill Vander Zalm promised on Friday.
Vander Zalm announced the commission to reporters after being questioned about education funding at a townhall meeting in this community of 4300.
“The mandate is to find out what the strengths, what the shortcomings, what the needs and what the excesses of the educational system in British Columbia are,” Vander Zalm told reporters after being questioned about education funding at a townhall meeting in this West Kootenay community of 4,000.
The premier, campaigning for the Oct. 22 provincial general election, credited the New Democrats for being the first political party to call for the commission.
“If you are going to have a really good review of education - and I have to give the NDP marks for this because they first raised it -you should go through a proper commission which is impartial.”
NDP Leader Bob Skelly said it was good Vander Zalm had promised a commission but he said more was needed, such as committing financial and personnel resources to the education system. Skelly, interviewed while campaigning in Terracq Friday, said those resources were needed, “as a result of the cuts Mr. Vander Zalm imposed in the first place” when the premier was education minister.
“What we need are concrete efforts by the government to restore quality and a royal commission alone won’t do that.”
Vander Zalm said the review couldn’t be done by the government because it might be biased.
He said the delay in announcing the commission was to allow the government to consult with educational groups as to whether it should be a one-man commission or larger.
“We wanted to know the makeup and the terms of reference,” he said, “but as far as having a commission there was no question about it.”
Vander Zalm said he preferred to have a one-man commission because a large body might end up compromising the facts.
“But until I get all of the information back from the ministry I can’t commit to one or three. A single person could gather all the facts he needs and the recommendations would come back factually with the backup to prove it.”
Price tags added up
TERRACE, B.C. (CP) — The NDP list of promises for the Oct. 22 British Columbia election may be long, but its $1.6 billion cost pales in comparison to the tally of Social Credit promises, NDP Leader Bob Skelly said Friday.
He told a partisan luncheon audience of 150 that an NDP accounting of the Socred promises shows they would cost $3.7 billion.
“We’re committed to creating opportunities for the 179,000 British Columbians who are unemployed, for the 540,000 living below the poverty line and for the 54,000 young people who are looking for work in our province.”
Among the NDP promises is $300 million for reforestation, $240 million for municipal works programs and $150 million for a program to train young people.
The NDP also has promised increases in guaranteed minimum income for seniors and a dental plan for seniors, and transportation and child-care subsidies to "employable” welfare recipients to help them find work.
Skelly criticized Social Credit proposals as extravagant, noting that the bill for a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island and the extension of rapid transit to Vancouver airport would be as much as all of the NDP proposals.
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Nurses offer: 12.2 pet.
by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter
British Columbia’s nurses will get a pay raise of 12.2 per cent over four years if they accept a proposal submitted early Friday by industrial inquiry commissioner Vince Ready.
Jerry Miller, spokesman for the British Columbia Nurses Union, said the nurses will vote Nov. 6. The union negotiating committee is recommending acceptance.
Miller said the proposal calls for a wage increase of two per cent retroactive to April 1, 1985, an additional 2.5 per cent retroactive to April this year, three per cent beginning Oct. 1, 2.7 per cent on June 1, 1987, and a final two per cent effective Nov. 1,1987.
The proposal also includes a provision for a wage reopener on April 1, 1988. The contract expires March 31,1989.
“The union recognizes if the nurses ratify this contract it must be submitted to compensation commissoner Ed Peck,” said Miller.
“We are prepared to present him with a compelling case that a contract like this is an absolute necessity to begin to deal with the nursing shortage.”
Throughout more than 18 months of negotiations, the BCNU has argued that a more competitive wage rate in British Columbia would help attract nurses to the province and help end the shortage.
But he added a wage increase will not completely solve the problem.
Miller said the province needs to train more of its own nurses, and “injection of funding” into the health care system is needed to increase the number of nurses in the hospitals.
Peter McAllister, president of the Hospital Labor Relations Association, said he plans to review the proposal with the HLRA board of directors Friday.
Member hospitals will then vote on the package in a mail ballot.
McAllister said he could not predict if the HLRA board will recommend ratification, but he said Premier Bill Vander Zalm has indicated funding is available to cover the cost of the agreement.
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Meanwhile, in Vancouver, doctors have a tentative agreement with the provincial government on increased medical fees, the B.C. Medical Association announced Friday.
Neither side is releasing details on the fee schedule until doctors have voted on the offer, said association president Dr. John O’Brien-Bell.
“It will be going out to our membership with the recommendation to accept,” said O’Brien-Bell. “Once they have received it, we will comment on the offer.’
The three-year agreement includes an increase in fees, he said. “I would not be taking a package to them that did not include an increase.”
Although negotiations took longer than usual — they usually conclude by the spring — the talks were marked by good feelings, O’Brien-Bell said.
‘The two negotiating teams and the BCMA board maintained a much healthier, cooperative attitude and stayed on track,” he said. “There was real understanding on both sides.”
San Salvador bloodied
With a helping hand from fire chief Bryant Kemble and Brian Spence, Chrys-tal Melenka and Drew Ta-kahashi, pupils at Blackburn elementary school who were chosen “fire chief for the day,” help put out a fire for the Ferndale-Tabor volunteer fire department. To make things even better, they got to miss classes early Friday to do it. The honor came as part of Fire Prevention Week and the Plan To Get Out Alive program supported by fire departments within Greater Prince George. Other chiefs for the day throughout the region were treated to lunch at McDonald’s and received a plaque.
Citizen pholo by Dave Milne
From Reuters-AP
SAN SALVADOR (CP) - A strong earthquake and jarring aftershocks toppled buildings and cracked streets in the capital of El Salvador and unconfirmed reports said more than 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured.
Wary residents spent the night in parks and plazas and some of the injured lay on matresses outside overcrowded hospitals.
As of Friday night, there was no official casualty toll from the quakes, the first of which hit shortly before noon local time. San Salvador, a city of 800,000 people, was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world.
Dazed residents wandered streets among the rubble and downed power lines.
President Jose Napoleon Duarte declared a state of emergency, the Mexican news agency Notimex said.
Speaking on Radio El Salvador,