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The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1987	40 CENTS
Thatcher's waiting game 5 Nation of road warriors 11
Canadiens stay alive                      13          
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City, B.C...........2,3,12,26,27          .........28 
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  . . .and in tomorrow's Citizen. . .
Reindeer ranching for B.C.?
Citizen news services
  VANCOUVER - Some of Sweden’s Lapps are considering a proposal from a rancher in northern British Columbia to emigrate to Canada with scores of reindeer after their herds were depleted because of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
   David Kuntz, a Smithers-area rancher, is trying to arrange the move by asking the B.C. Wildlife Branch for a licence for a commercial game ranch. Although provincial policy forbids game ranching the provincial government is reviewing its policy and a decision by cabinet is expected soon.
   Branch director Jim Walker had not heard of the reindeer proposal, but said the government must consider the impact introducing exotic species would have on species that are native to the province.
   Kuntz, owner of Northwind Game Ranch, has contacted Swedish Lapps who want to ship reindeer herds to British Columbia in Canadian Armed Forces Hercules cargo airplanes in an attempt to preserve their reindeer-herding way of life.
   “My proposal is to bring the breeding stock — pregnant females — over, fly them over by Hercules to the Smithers airport,” said Kuntz, who lives in the Kispiox Valley near the Skeena River, about 100 kilometres southeast of the airport.
  Kuntz said the proposal would not only benefit the Lapps, but would help the provincial economy by creating a new industry with spinoffs such as tanneries and reindeer meat-packing plants.
   Kuntz approached the Swedish and Norwegian consulates earlier this year, but only the Swedish Lapps have expressed public interest in the proposal. Kuntz said he has no idea how many Lapps or reindeer would come.
  Of the 90,000 reindeer slaughtered last fall in Sweden, about 75 per cent were sold as animal feed or buried in mass graves after they did not meet radiation safety limits.
here
      by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter Trade union executives in Prince George have unanimously endorsed a plan to protest provincial labor legislation, beginning with a mass noon-hour rally next Wednesday.
   “Clearly we are not requesting members lose time at work, in other words walk off the job, to do this,” said Prince George and District Labor Council president Donn Stanley.
    “We believe our fight is with the provincial government, not with our employers.”
   But he added that if individual unions choose to have members leave work to attend the rally, it is their decision.
    Results of votes opposing the legislation, conducted among unions affiliated to the B.C. Federation, will be announced at the rally. It will also mark the beginning of a work-to-rule campaign and a ban on overtime.
   The Vancouver Labor Council had planned an afternoon rally for next Wednesday and encouraged people to leave work to attend. But it backed away from that after the federation said it did not want a general strike.
   However, B.C. Government Employees Union spokesman Shiela Fruman said Tuesday that members would still be encouraged to leave work to attend the Vancouver rally.
   Tuesday evening in Prince George, federation officers Art Gruntman and John Shields outlined a plan of action to the 175 executive members who attended the special meeting at the Inn of the North.
    Stanley said the plan calls for a “reasoned, logical approach that escalates gradually.”
   He said if “substantial” amendments are not made to Bill 19 when it is brought back to the floor of the legislature, the federation will recall its executive board to discuss job action.
   “At that meeting recommendations will be made regarding 24-hour shutdowns. But that is only if absolutely necessary,” Stanley said.
   How those shutdowns will proceed will be decided then.
   “We are playing it day by day because things are changing day by day.”
   The government has postponed debate on the proposed industrial relations reform act while Labor Minister Lyall Hanson considers amendments.
    Stanley said if the bill progresses to third reading, there are provisions in the plan for a provincial walkout.
    If the bill becomes law, a total boycott of the legislation would begin.
   Wednesday’s rally will begin at noon at the government buildings on Third Avenue and wind up about 1 p.m.
    Other rallies are also being planned across the province, including one outside the B.C. legislature, which federation president Ken Georgetti plans to attend.
   Meanwhile, the Hospital Employees Union says its members voted 97 per cent to reject Bill 19 and to support the union’s plan to boycott the legislation.
    In a prepared statement released Tuesday, union spokesman Jack Gerow said members in some areas of the province voted 100 per cent against the legislation.
    The bill is the first major rewriting of labor legislation in the province since 1973.
Firefighters vote on pact
    Firefighters reached a tentative agreement with the -city for a new contract on Tuesday, city manager Chester Jeffery said today.
   The 84 members of the International Association of Firefighters will vote Thursday on the two-year pact which covers this year and last year.
   They have been working without a contract since Dec. 31,1985.
    Jeffery declined to give details of the agreement until firemen have voted on it.
JOB WALKOUTS DISCOURAGED
Labor plans noon protest
Extra room
 Judy Russell’s Enchainement Dance Studio performers, presenting the Pinocchio and Mother Goose spring ballet at Prince George Playhouse, must gather in this tent or wander about outside because the basement and back stage areas of the city-owned building don’t come up to building code
 safety standards. Russell had to spend $1,000 to rent this tent, erected Tuesday, because she was told only 20 of her 255 people may wait backstage or in the basement, because only one fire exit is provided. The patrons’ seating area is safe, however.
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
Every
footstep
sounts
   Eleven giant footsteps, each representing $2,000, show the people of Prince George are digging down to help the Salvation Army walk that extra mile to help the sick, hungry and needy in this area.
   Total funds collected to date during the annual Red Shield Campaign is $23,000 — almost half way to the $50,000 goal.
  “These funds come mainly from the May 4 residential door-to-door campaign and we’re really counting on the business letter campaign to take us over the top,” said publicity chairman Dan Dennis.
   “If Prince George businesses come through for us like they have in the past, we should reach our goal.”
Paper cites intervention by Trudeau
  MONTREAL (CP) - Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau is considering intervening in the constitutional discussions following the Meech Lake accord that, tentatively at least, brought Quebec into the fold, La Presse reported Wednesday.
   Citing unnamed “confidants” of Trudeau, the newspaper said the former prime minister is waiting for the right opportunity to intercede in the debate.
   Trudeau said later in the day he would make no comment on either the Constitution or the La Presse story.
   He also declined to comment on the stand taken by Quebec Liberal MP Donald Johnston, who resigned a shadow cabinet post so he could speak against the Meech Lake accord.
   “No, no and no,” a smiling Trudeau said when asked for his comments as he rushed from his office to lunch.
   La Presse said Trudeau, a proponent of strong central government during his years as prime minister, is worried that the agreement cedes too much power to the provinces.
   The agreement, reached by Canada’s 11 first ministers last month, also recognizes Quebec as a distinct society, gives the provinces new powers over immigration and lets them opt out of new national shared-cost programs with compensation.
GRIM NEWS FOR LIBERALS
NDP tops national poll
   It may have been a mild winter for most people, but not for the homeless. Their problems — including nutrition and health care — will be explored this weekend at a conference on homelessness at the University of B.C. in conjunction with the International Year of the Homeless. Thursday’s Citizen includes a closer look at the homeless.
   Also planned:
   ■	Why vaccinations fail more often than people might think.
  ■	Changing plans for Dawson Creek’s proposed ethanol plant.
   Copyright Southam News 1987
   OTTAWA — The New Democrats have made political history by surging ahead of the Liberals into first place in a national poll conducted by Angus Reid Associates for Southam News.
    In its best showing since the party was created in 1961, the NDP received the support of 37 per cent of decided voters across Canada, marginally better than the Liberals, who slipped six points to 36 per cent.
   The Conservatives, at 25 per cent, continue to trail both opposition parties but were up slightly
LAND CLAIMS CASE
 from their record low 23-per-cent showing in February and March.
  “The results suggest John Turner and his party have to get their act together very quickly or they could find themselves on a roller coaster heading down.” pollster Reid said.
   The survey of 1,677 adults was conducted over a five-day period ending Monday night. It indicates the Mulroney government has benefited only marginally from the April 30th Meech Lake constitutional accord and its relatively trouble-free record in recent weeks.
   In Quebec, the NDP is currently
Chiefs address court
        by Canadian Press SMITHERS — One of two Indian bands claiming title to a huge section of northwestern British Columbia told a B.C. Supreme Court hearing Tuesday it is the rightful owner of the land on which this town’s courthouse stands.
   In an unusual move, two hereditary chiefs of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en tribes were allowed to address Chief Justice Allan McEachern as part of the bands’ opening statement.
  Alfred Joseph of the Wet’suwet’en tribe, using his Indian name Gisday Wa, referred to the land on which the courthouse stands as an example of the territory owned by his tribe.
   Joseph told McEachern that the Wet’suwet’en and Gitksan recognize that non-Indians living on the 57,000 square kilometres land in northwestern B.C. will want to “stay on their farms and in their towns and villages.
   “But beyond the farm fences the land belongs to the chiefs,” he said.
   Fifty-four hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en (pronounced Wit-sue-iten) and Gitksan (Git-san) tribes have brought suit against the provincial ana federal governments to assert their claim on the land, an area larger than Nova Scotia. The two tribes comprise about 7.000 members.
 holding 48 per cent of decided voters, an eight-point gain since March when Ed Broadbent’s party and the Liberals were tied at 40 per cent each. The Liberals have fallen to 36 per cent in that province. The Conservatives remain a distant third, holding only 16 per cent of the decided vote.
   Although Reid said the NDP and Liberals were “statistically tied” for the lead, the survey demonstrated the continuing strength Broadbent’s party has shown for the past year.
   Nationally, the NDP’s 37-per-cent standing was up four percentage points from its previous high of 33 per cent in February and March.
   And, in a development that could foreshadow a major shakeup in Canadian politics, these gains now appear to be coming at the expense of the Liberals.
   The poll shows 23 per cent of the electorate is undecided as to how they would vote in an election today, unchanged over previous months.
   A poll of this size can be said to have 95 per cent accuracy within plus or minus 2.5 percentage points of what the results would be if the survey had covered the entire adult population of Canada.
ROLLBACK CAMPAIGN
P.O. boss makes plea
 TORONTO (CP) — Canada Post president Donald Lander has appealed to major business mailers to support his drive for contract rollbacks in bargaining with postal unions.
  “One way or another, the cost must be reduced,” Lander told the National Association of Major Mail Users on Tuesday.
  “Now is the time to influence the outcome. You have a powerful voice. You, the major providers of more than SO per cent of total mail volumes, have a vital stake in what happens to postal service in Canada.”
  Lander said he does not want a postal strike but the mail will keep moving if one occurs.
  “Let me assure you that, no matter what happens, we in the corporation are determined to continue to provide you, our customers, with service," he said.
  Canada Post has been training casual workers to keep mail moving during a strike.
  The unions say violence will result if so-called scabs try to cross picket lines.
  The first of the unions now at the bargaining table is not expected to reach a legal strike position until June. The last national postal strike occurred in 1981 and lasted 42 days.
  At issue is a controversial Canada Post plan designed to wipe out postal operating deficits by March 31, 1988.
  It would eliminate 8,700 union jobs over five years, turn over most counter services to private operators within 10 years, close hundreds of rural post officess implement slower but more reliable delivery standards, make group boxes the norm instead of home delivery in new subdivisions and boost postal rates annually.
“Two coffees, one decaffeinated."