Low tonight: 1 High Thursday: 19
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The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1987 '=#&■•' 40 CENTS
Hansen tops $10 million N
2
June mail strike feared 5
Hockey reform needed? 13
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Editorial....... ..............4 .........18
The application appeared to be turned down until a group of Prince George members of the society visited China, Nelson said. After the visit, word of permission came, followed by the official letter.
Since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first climbed the mountain from the Nepal side in 1953, it has been climbed dozens of times, although only a few times from the Tibet side.
"Everest is booked through 1999 from the Nepal side,” said Dick McGowen of Mountain Travel, an expedition specialist in Albany, California.
“There are four or five expeditions a year, two or three from the China side.”
The route local climbers will attempt, “the North Col — north east ridge of Mt. Qomolangma (Goddess Mother of the Mountains)” as the Chinese call Everest, is probably the most famous, and most mysterious in the world.
In 1924, George Mallory — who had attempted to climb Everest twice before — disappeared into a cloud high on the mountain. He was never seen again.
Last year, a special expedition spent time on the mountain searching for his remains. It failed.
It was Mallory who gave the most famous reason for climbing. After answering the same question asked dozens of times during a long day of interviews in 1924, he said he wanted to climb: “Because it’s there.”
. . .and in tomorrow's Citizen. . .
About 600,000 Canadian workers
— nearly six per cent of the total workforce — book off work for part or all of any given week. Find out what the reasons are in Thursday’s Citizen.
Also planned:
■ Sleepwalking episodes amaze
— and can kill.
■ Clear braces for teeth eliminate “tin grin.”
LOCAL RALLY PART OF B.C. PROTEST
Unions step up labor law fight
Hundreds of trade unionists from around the city converged on the Third Avenue government building at noon today, calling on the provincial government to withdraw its controversial labor legislation.
The Prince George workers are among thousands expected to gather at rallies, organized by the 250,000-member British Columbia Federation of Labor, in about 30 communities today.
The largest of the gatherings will be in front of government offices in downtown Vancouver and on the the lawns of the legislature.
The rallies, where union members’ vote against the industrial relations reform act was to be be announced, are a prelude to further protests that will include a ban on overtime and work-to-rule campaigns.
But while organized labor delivers its latest message of dissent. Premier Bill Vander Zalm says the trade unionists are wasting their time.
“Big demos won’t help their (labor’s) cause,” Vander Zalm told reporters in Vancouver Tuesday, but he said he would correct “mistakes” in the proposed legislation (Bill 19) with amendments.
The premier would not elaborate on the mistakes other than to say he hopes to reach a "compromise wording” on some contentious sections. including one that would let companies hire non-union apprentices.
The legislation is the first major rewriting of the Labor Code brought in by the NDP government in 1973. It creates an industrial relations council and commissioner with sweeping powers to recommend ends to strikes and lockouts deemed to be not in the public interest.
The legislation would also limit picketing, protect third parties in labor disputes from pickets and harassment by union members and outlaw product boycotts to support striking workers.
Today’s rallies come on the eve of a meeting scheduled for Thursday between labor federation officials, including president Ken Georgetti, Vander Zalm and Labor Minister Lyall Hanson.
Hanson has also announced there will be some amendments to the legislation but he said Tuesday the labor movement will have to wait until they are introduced for details.
The government has repeatedly said the intent of the legislation will not be changed and Vander Zalm said he will walk out of the meeting if he is asked to withdraw the legislation.
“Mr. Georgetti is a reasonable person and I think (we) could come to some reasonable agreement,” the premier said.
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Teachers' act given 3rd reading
VICTORIA (CP) - Only 10 of 69 members were in the B.C. legislature Tuesday when the contentious teaching profession act was given third reading.
Last month, 80 per cent*of the province’s 26,000 full-time teachers walked out for a day to protest the bill. The teachers are now on an instruction-only campaign.
But third reading was given quietly and no recorded vote was called. Seven of the NDP Opposition, including leader Mike Harcourt, were in Penticton holding meetings and the public accounts committee was holding an organizational meeting.
The act must still be given royal assent before it becomes law. But Government House Leader Bruce Strachan said he wasn’t sure when the act would be proclaimed.
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation, which represents 30,000 certified teachers, is opposed to the establishment of the college of teachers which would be responsible for certifying, disciplining and maintaining professional standards.
It is also opposed to elimination of mandatory membership in the federation and designating principals and vice-principals as management. That separates them from teachers for collective bargaining as well as disciplinary actions.
Porn:
Your
views
by PETER MASER
Copyright Southam News 1987
OTTAWA — Fewer than four in 10 Canadians approve of the federal government’s decision to include pictures of sexual intercourse between consenting adults in its new definition of pornography, says a survey by Angus Reid Associates.
The definition, part of a bill introduced in the Commons this month, would outlaw visual depictions of six categories of sexual activity.
The pornographic definitions of five of these — harmful sex, violent sex, degrading sex, sex with children and bestiality, incest or necrophilia — have received widespread approval.
But the sixth category — vaginal, anal or oral sex — has angered artists, women’s groups and opposition MPs, who say normal consensual sex should not be lumped in with bestiality and violent pornography.
The Reid poll, commissioned by Southam News, suggests the government is out of step with most Canadians as well.
In a survey conducted May 7-11, a few days after the bill was introduced, the polling firm found only 37 per cent of adults approve of the inclusion of sexual intercourse between consenting adults in the definition.
A slim majority — 51 per cent — disapprove, while 12 per cent said they were unsure.
Disapproval exceeds approval in every region of the country, with the exception of Atlantic Canada, where opinion is almost evenly divided.
Disapproval is strongest in Quebec — 57 per cent — and almost as strong in Manitoba c and Saskatchewan — 54 per cent.
The poll also found that men are twice as likely to disapprove as approve — 60 per cent against 29 per cent — while women are almost equally divided on this aspect of the legislation — with 43 per cent against and 44 per cent in favor.
Among age groups, Canadians 18 to 34 are almost twice as likely to disapprove as approve — 58 per cent to 32 per cent — while those aged 35 to
54 disapprove by a margin of 50 per cent to 38 per cent.
Only among Canadians aged
55 and over does approval clearly exceed disapproval, 45 per cent to 38 per cent.
The age and sex differences reinforce one another when taken together.
In other words, the survey found young men are most critical of the legislation — 67 per cent disapproval against 25 per cent approval — while older women are most favorable to it — 49 per cent approval to 35 per cent disapproval.
The survey also found that Conservative supporters are divided on this aspect of the bill.
Giant bubble
A five-metre bubble wafting overhead brings screams of delight from Anna Zielke, 2, left, her sister Laura, 5, on right, and their friend Lindsay Farr. 5, as they chased it across the lawn at their home on Biernes Place. Jill Zielke is using a new
type of V-shaped bubble maker and a common dishwasher detergent to make the elongated bubbles. Under ideal conditions the device will produce bubbles which are more than 12 metres long.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
HERMAN
OFFICIAL PERMISSION RECEIVED
City group eyes Everest climb
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter The four-member Prince George Mountaineering Group has received permission to climb the world’s tallest mountain, Mt. Everest, from the Chinese side in the fall of 1991.
“It's a chance in a thousand. They receive thousands of applications to climb Everest," said Peter Austen, who received official permission from the Mountaineering Association of the People’s Republic of China.
Although team leader Austen has been working on the process for more than four years, tne approval marks the start of organizing the expedition. The group has to set up a society, raise the $200,000 to $300,000 needed, train, gather supplies and four to six other climbers, plus support staff, to organize the massive assault, which can lead to success on the 8,848 metre (29,028 ft.) peak, according to Austen and James Nelson.
Nelson, 26, an electrical draftsman, talked of the need to develop cardiovascular endurance through carrying heavy loads and weight training and to work on rock climbing skills. Nelson, with the other members of the group — Austen, a teacher; chemical worker Alan Norquay and electrician Timo Saukko — have made technical climbs on ice including the first ascent of a 100-metre (350-foot) frozen waterfall near Jasper.
“We’ll be climbing Mt. McKinley and we hope to go to Peru for some high altitude acclimatization,” Nelson said.
The group will fly into Lhasa, the capital of Tibet — the highest capital in the world at more than 11.830 feet above sea level, where some hotel rooms come with canned oxygen. After trekking from Rongbok Monastery at 16,000 feet to base camp, the climb itself will be made with oxygen.
“I have no interest in killing brain cells,” Austen said.
And that’s what happens when the brain is oxygen starved.
“Actually there are only two major technical steps,” Austen said. However, it’s the altitude and its effects which make the climb difficult.
Austen and Nelson said it was impossible to say who woud have a chance to try for the summit itself. It will depend on the condition of individual climbers, and their position on the mountain when a summit attempt can be made.
But both said the expedition itself would be the height of adventure.
“It will mean the death of ambition. It’s the ultimate,” Austen said. ,
Closed at the start of the Second World War, the Tibetan approach was opened to Western climbers a handful of years ago.
“We were only able to get this permission with the help of the Canada-China Friendship Society,” Austen said.
Food floor deal okayed
permarkets across Western Canada, has now received federal approval to buy out Woodward’s, one of its major competitors, for $55 million.
Investment Canada and the Bureau of Competition Policy have approved the purchase of 23 of 26 Woodward’s food departments in Alberta and British Columbia, Larry McLennan, Safeway’s public affairs manager, confirmed Tuesday.
The remaining three Woodward's Food Floor stores will be closed but most Woodward’s employees will keep their jobs.
However, the competition bureau also said Safeway must sell 12 stores in six markets in the next one to two years. Both the Safeway and Woodward’s stores will be kept open in Prince George, said John McGeachy, Woodward’s acting store manager.
“The customer will not see any difference," he said. “Woodward’s has it name and reputation and
customers and Safeway wants to keep that.”
McGeachy said no employees will lose their job because of the takeover.
Safeway has decided to sell 10 stores. It will decide later whether the two other stores will be Safeway or Woodward’s stores.
Canada Safeway is a subsidiary of Safeway Stores Inc. of Oakland, Calif. It owns about 245 supermarkets from Thunder Bay, Ont. to Victoria.
McLennan said the deal will go through May 25. The stores will be operated by a Canada Safeway subsidiary, but will retain the Woodward’s name.
Woodward’s Ltd., based in Vancouver, operates a group of upper-market department stores in Western Canada. The company has been looking to drop its money-losing food division for some time: it struck a deal with Canada Safeway last December.
Prince George shoppers will not see any major changes to either Woodward’s Food Floor or Safeway as a result of the buy-out of Woodward’s by the U.S.-owned chain.
Canada Safeway Ltd.. with su-
"My name or the dogs?”