The Prince George
Citizen
THURSDAY, JUNE 15,1989
50 CENTS
Low tonight: 6 High Friday: 20
Ann Landers.. .......35
Bridge........
Business...... ....30,31
City, B.C...... .2,3,10,12
Classified..... ... .20-26
Comics....... .......38
Crossword____ .......21
Editorial...... ........4
Entertainment ....38,39
Family....... .......35
Horoscope ____ .......24
International . ........7
Lifestyles..... .......35
Lotteries...... ........2
Movies ....... .......38
National ...... ......5,6
Sports......... _____17-19
Salmon run 'good' 2 China film scrubbed 6 Jays stretch streak 17 Niagara challenge 27 Seeds of disaster 36
TELEPHONE: 562-2441
SUPPORT WORKERS ALSO READY TO WALK OUT
Nurses escalate strike action
POST OFFICE HAS PROFIT
OTTAWA (CP) — Canada Post announced a $96-million profit today and said it expects to make $802 million more over the next five years.
About two-thirds of the money will go toward a $2.5-billion program to modernize postal plants and equipment.
The remaining amount, just over $300 million, will be turned over to the government in the form of dividends for general government purposes.
The agency said the 1988-89 profit of $96 million is the first for the post office in 30 years and represents a turnaround from a deficit of about $600 million when it was converted to a Crown corporation in 1981.
Canada Post president Donald Lander attributed the profit to a 40-per-cent increase in mail volume — mainly advertising mail — and a 31-per-cent improvement in efficiency.
Rate increases accounted for only 29 per cent of the overall turnaround, he said.
The agency delivers 8.3 billion pieces of mail annually to 10.7 million addresses. It reported 1988-89 revenues of $3.4 billion, up from $3.1 billion in the previous year.
Mail volume, up 5.9 per cent during the year, included 4.4 billion addressed letters, three billion pieces of addressed and unaddressed advertising mail and about 600 million publications.
$3 MILLION
College Heights golf course set
by PAUL SMITH Citizen staff
A $3-million golf course for Prince George is in the works that could be ready as early as 1991.
Dale McDermid, owner-operator of the par-three Pine Valley golf course and adjacent driving range and batting cages, told The Citizen on Wednesday that he and brother Barry plan to build an 18-hole, championship-style course on an 81-hectare (200 acres) parcel of land adjacent to the Fraser River in lower College Heights.
McDermid said plans also call for hotel and condominium complex to be phased in over eight to 10 years. The initial project, scheduled for completion in tne spring of 1991, is to include the course and a modest clubhouse.
“We’re going to build a destina-tion-resort golf course,” said Dale McDermid. “We’ll be starting on it within the next two weeks.”
“It will be a first-class, international course,” he added. “It will match anything in B.C. or Canada.”
McDermid said the architect’s plans should arrive early next week and land clearing will begin between June 20 and the end of the month.
He said full financing isn’t in place yet, but the land has been secured and the partners are committed to cutting the holes and starting the tees and greens with their own funds.
Initial work is scheduled to be finished before winter and once that’s done McDermid said he’ll secure the remainder of the financing.
McDermid said he already has foreign investors lined up to back the course through contacts he’s
Bank rate
OTTAWA (CP) — The Bank of Canada’s trend-setting rate remained steady at 12.31 per cent today, one day before the federal government makes public the country’s inflation rate for May.
made in several trips to Pacific Rim countries. All he has to do is show them the project is a reality.
“You have to have some the work done for them (foreign investors) to come in,” said McDermid. “They’re not going to go in if you haven’t done anything.”
McDermid said a Pacific Rim hotel chain, which he didn’t name, has already expressed an interest in financing the project. He’ll also be seeking government financing.
McDermid said he’s convinced there is more than just a local market for the course and he’s hoping to tap into the lucrative Japanese and Pacific Rim golf explosion.
Golf tours from Japan are currently run through courses in Banff, Jasper and Vancouver and McDermid said Prince George could be added to that list.
He said he has tried to find local financing, but local investors haven’t shown any interest yet.
“I tried to get financing here but couldn’t,” said McDermid. “People here say no one will come to Prince George to golf.
“But I think if we build it, they’ll come.”
McDermid said he’d still prefer B.C. financing if he can find it, but if not he’ll get it offshore.
U.S. golf course architect Ron Fream is designing the course. Fream, who has worked with well-known designers Robert Trent Jones and Peter Thompson, designed the Desert Falls course in Palm Springs, as well as the Port Ludlow and Kayak Point courses in Washington State.
McDermid says Fream has also designed courses in France, Finland and the Orient.
“I think he’s one of the top three designers in the world,” said McDermid. “We were lucky to get him.”
McDermid said a 25-year lease with an option to buy has been secured from the current owners of the land, Bishop O’Grady High School (formerly Prince George College).
The land is located at the end of Domano Boulevard.
HERMAN
T’ve got to get an early start in the morning."
Cards like this one held by Roberta Trussler, a psysiotherapy clerk at Prince George Regional Hospital and a member of the Health Employees
Union, are being carried by union hospital employees who must cross the nurses’ picket line to perform essential services. Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
VIDEO PRESS CONFERENCE
Politician 'beamed' here
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
Provincial politicians may never have to stray beyond a TV studio in Victoria to make future announcements in Prince George and across B.C.
This morning Finance Minister Mel Couvelier launched the province’s Home Mortgage Assistance Program at a video press conference from the provincial capital.
The program, which aims to help home buyers who can afford to make only a small down payment, was outlined in the spring budget.
What made the announcement newsworthy was the way it was delivered.
The press conference was beamed by microwave from the
Sress theatre in the legislature to i.C. Telephone studios in Prince George and Kelowna. At the studios, reporters were able to see TV images of Couvelier and ask questions of the minister through an audio hookup.
Couvelier said the cost of the press conference was $3,000. If it is received enthusiastically he said “transmission facilities may be provided on a more permanent basis.”
The government is experimenting with video press conferences “in the interest of trying to disseminate information in a more balanced forum geographically all over the province, simultaneously," he saia.
“It became evident to us that there are members of the fourth estate (the media) in every major community in the province and it seemed only appropriate that they have a chance to talk to ministers.”
Couvelier said a high degree of interest has been shown in the idea of video news conferences outside of Victoria.
However, participation from news media in Kelowna and Prince George was limited, with several local news outlets absent from the press conference here.
In outlining the mortgage program, Couvelier said it will guarantee up to $12,000 of a mortgage for eligible home-owners purchasing a home worth up to $100,000.
Under the program an individual can borrow as much as 95 per cent of the purchase price and still qualify for mortgage insurance.
Eligible applicants must have lived in B.C. for two consecutive years, be at least 19 years old and the home being purchased must be a principal residence.
Applicants must have a down payment of at least $2,000 under the program, which is to administered by banks, credit unions and trust companies.
Couvelier said 89 per cent of homes in Prince George cost less than $100,000 and the ministry estimates 1,000 people a month across the province will take advantage of the program.
When asked how the program will help residents of Vancouver, he said there are a number of condominiums in East Vancouver that could be eligible under the program.
But he said it will be of primary benefit to communities outside the Lower Mainland.
The program replaces the B.C. Second Mortgage Program that offered $10,000 assistance on homes worth up to $85,000.
While the press conference was the first of its kind in Prince George, BC Tel spokesman Ted Moore said press studios in Victoria and Vancouver are already linked for video conferences.
Moore said the telephone company has the technology to install two-way video transmissions that could allow politicians in Victoria to see as well as hear reporters in communities like Prince George.
The cost of delivering such press conferences would be reduced once permanent facilities are installed, he said.
POLLUTION PROMPTS BAN
VANCOUVER (CP) — All of Howe Sound has been closed to commercial crab fishing because of high levels of pollutants known as dioxins and furans, Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon said Wednesday night.
He also said a closure on shrimp and prawn fishing imposed in the area last November will be extended south of Howe Sound, a 39-minute drive north of Vancouver.
A warning was also issued to avoid eating the digestive glands of non-commercially caught crabs from the area. The warning was based on advice from Health and Welfare Canaba, Siddon said in a news release.
Dioxins and furans are a chemical byproduct of the chlorine used by mills in the pulp-bleaching process. Laboratory studies with them have produced cancer in test animals.
Seventeen B.C. pulp mills that use chlorine in the bleaching process have been told to build secondary waste treatment plants by the end of 1991.
by MARILYN STORIE and SHERYL THOMPSON Staff reporters A double whammy for health services in B.C. is shaping up as the Hospital Employees Union served 72-hour strike notice Wednesday in the midst of an escalating strike by nurses at 22 B.C. hospitals.
Tne HEU, which represents 29,000 workers who perform such duties as food and laundry services, maintenance and clerical work, served strike notice on 13 health care facilities Wednesday, but Prince George Regional Hospital, already unaer 24-nour pickets by the B.C. Nurses Union, was not among them. The HEU has already stated members will be respecting BCNU picket lines.
Prince George HEU members are expected to take their strike vote, sanctioned by the Industrial Relations Council, on Monday or Tuesday.
John Hurren, director of the HEU northern regional office in Prince George told the Citizen earlier this week that the contract at Simon Fraser Lodge, which bargains separately from the 500 HEU members employed at the Prince George Regional Hospital, is also up.
“What they get will be dependent on this one,” said Hurren.
The HEU is asking for improved patient care standards, a reduction in hours of work from 37Vi hours per week to 35 hours per week, a pay equity clause and quality of benefits for full and part-time workers.
Selective strike votes were called last week at health-care facilities in Prince George, Trail, Penticton, Victoria and Vancouver, but new votes were rescheduled to comply with standards laid out by the Industrial Relations Council. In Prince George members had voted 92jper-cent in favor of striking.
The health care facilities are re-
[(resented by the Health Labor Re-ations Association, the same group that is bargaining with 17,500 nurses.
“The union is taking this action because of the demonstrated lack of willingness that HLRA has shown to voluntarily negotiate a collective agreement with HEU members,” said Sean O’Flynn, sec-retary-business manager of the hospital workers’ union. The agreement expired March 31,1989.
O’Flynn said strike votes would soon be completed at all 120 health facilities covered under a master agreement with the HLRA.
IRC-sanctioned strike notices have been served at Sparwood General Hospital, Sunny Hill Hospital, Vancouver; Maple Ridge Hospital, 100 Mile House Hospital, G.F. Strong Rehabiitiation Centre, Vancouver; Kelowna General Hospital, M.S.A. General Hospital, Abbotsford; Femie District Hospital, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Vancouver; St. Mary’s Hospital, New Westminster; Chilliwack General Hospital in addition to Cariboo Memorial Hospital and Cariboo Lodge, both in Williams Lake.
O’Flynn announced more institutions would soon receive strike notices.
Meanwhile, Prince George Regional Hospital is behind pickets for a second day in the nurses strike that has hit 22 B.C. hospitals.
The HEU has already stated they will respect nurses’ picket lines at B.C. hospitals, but HEU members and nurses working shifts to supply essential services are crossing the lines.
Hospital administrator Allan Husband said there are “less staff today than yesterday” and discussions were under way between the hospital and the union to sort out hospital staffing.
As of 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, there were 175 patients in the 300-bed facility witn about 35 patients discharged Wednesday and more
expect
Occi
ccupancy in the 72-bed extended care unit has not been affected by the strike, he added.
The step-down unit, which bridges the care level between the intensive care unit and the general ward, has been closed, he said. More ward closures are expected.
Husband said there has been no difficulty with food preparation. Laundry and housekeeping services “will be put to the test today” as staffing difficulties are worked out.
“At the start of the day it’s difficult to know what the situation will be later in the day and we’re working to get it sorted out,” he said.
★ ★ ★
(A list of hospitals behind picket lines is on page 3.)