The Prince €Zeerge
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, MAY 22,1991
n> 51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
High tomorrow: 15
Changes in labor market	2
—'	....
Gorbachev needs support	6
IMAX eyes brass ring________________13
Penguins even series________________15
Phone: 562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
FOURTH ANNUAL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL OPENS
It’s a kid’s world at Fort George Park
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
The fourth Canadian Northern Children’s Festival opened in Fort George Park today at 8:30 a.m. as school buses brought in the First of 50,000 children and adults expected to attend the event.
And for the fourth year in a row, rain threatened to dampen things.
But, if past years are any indication, the weather improves
dramatically toward the latter part of the five-day festival.
In any case, organizers arc praying for appropriate weather.
“We’re praying for no more rain today,” Jo-Ann Merkel, artistic co-ordinator for the event, said less than an hour before the show began. “But, regardless, rain or shine, it goes.”
"Things are on track,” said Helen Johnson, festival administrator. “Everything is going along smoothly.
‘But tell everyone to pray for sunshine.”
The three-day outlook through Saturday is for mostly cloudy skies and a 50-per-cent chance of showers. The weather office says we can expect a bit more sunshine for the weekend.
Most shows and activities take place inside tents, and so bad weather docs not create disaster anyway.
“It’s a go,” Johnson said. “We’re really up on this.”
“We just put up all the festival signage this moming,” Merkel said. "The food tents are geared up to serve all the thousands that are coming.
“The park looks absolutely beautiful with all the colorful tents and booths and the different signs. The park is a brilliant green and the trees are out.”
The main shows started at 9:30 in the four big tents. These included Maritime Marionettes from Nova Scotia, B.C.’s Major Conrad
Flaps, comedian David Parker from Pittsburgh and the Marang African Music and Dance Theatre of B.C.
Other scheduled first-day performers were Tctra Theatre of Switzerland, The Gizmo Guys and Vaudeville Now from the U.S. and festival headliner Charlotte Diamond iof B.C.
The first three days, focusing mainly on school children brought in by bus, begin with the park
opening at 8:30 a.m. and activities continuing to about 4 p.m.
Shows and activities continue to later times Saturday and Sunday.
The Prince George Symphony Orchestra’s Soundsokay performances take place in the Fort George Museum at 11 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. And the 1991 Esso Science Squad put on various demonstrations beginning at 11 a.m. and continuing through 4 p.m. in the museum.
SOCRED DEFICIT BUDGET
Smokers, rich to cough up
by Canadian Press VICTORIA — The Social Credit government says it can’t wait to take its $ 16.5-billion budget brought down Tuesday to B.C. voters.
But the NDP says the government is playing fast and loose with its accounting to give the appearance of fiscal responsibility.
While Finance Minister John Jansen crowed about a modest deficit, the NDP challenged him to back it up.
An upbeat Premier Rita Johnston said the Socreds can win an election with its new budget.
“I think we’re on a roll,” she said. “It’s a budget that’s responsible and will be easily explained.”
But NDP finance critic Glen Clark suggested the Socreds will have to do a lot more explaining than they anticipate.
“This is a $1.234-billion deficit, the largest deficit in the history of British Columbia,” he said. “They’ve again resorted to dishonest bookkeeping techniques to try and hide that.”
The government, recycling its familiar claim of good fiscal management, neither resorted to outrageous spending nor to oppressive restraint, but chose a modest $395-million deficit for its 1991-92 fiscal year.
The deficit would have been
more than $1 billion if not for an infusion of $839 million from the defunct Budget Stabilization Fund, an accounting device that shuffled money between the government’s general operating fund and its line of credit The fund was abolished earlier this year.
The deficit follows two straight years of balanced budgets.
REACTION, PAGE 3 ANALYSIS PAGE 4
“We have avoided the spending and debt spiral adopted by others,” Jansen said. “We will not mortgage the future to follow some bankrupt ideology.”
The government, rocked by a conflict-of-interest scandal that forced Bill Vander Zalm to resign as premier in April, must call an election this year.
And the government is making no bones about how it will reverse its fortunes.
“We are shocked by Ontario’s massive deficit,” Jansen said. “It is a fiscal horror story.
“Any economist will tell you that it’s foolish for government to react year by year to the demands” on social programs.
“This budget will not be balanced on the backs of those least able to afford it.”
Corporate taxes go up by one percentage point, to 15 per cent.
There will bc a 10 per cent surtax for higher income earners. This “temporary, deficit-fighting surtax” means someone earning $100,000 would pay $100 to $300 more a year in tax.
And effective today, it will cost 34 cents more for a pack of 25 cigarettes as the provincial tobacco tax rises lo $2. The increase is a double whammy for B.C. smokers, who also got hit by the 75-ccnts-a-pack hike in this year’s federal budget
Medical premiums are going up, by $8 a month for a family of three or more, to $70 as of July 1. The Pharmacare deductible will rise by $50 to $375 on Aug. 1.
Pharmacare is the government’s prescription drug program that covers 80 per cent of drug costs above the deductible, and 100 per cent over the first $2,000.
Reaction was mixed.
Leonard Laudadio, a University of Victoria economist, called Jansen’s effort a status quo budget clearly aimed at keeping out of trouble with an election pending by this fall.
But Al Kerfoot, B.C. president of the Certified General Accountants Association, doesn’t think the government did enough to deal with the overall projected provincial debt of almost $6 billion.
‘Year 2000’ changes feared
School District 57 trustees are concerned by statements indicating the Socred government may be having second thoughts about the changes being made to B.C.’s public education system.
“Once we start this kind of major change it is disruptive to even talk about abandoning it,” Trustee Ann McQuaid said when introducing a motion calling on the board lo write a letter to Education Minister Stan Hagen urging him to maintain provincial support for the changes outlined in the Year 2000 document.
Trustees unanimously agreed
with McQuaid’s motion and said they would look at the budget introduced Tuesday to see whether it includes additional money for introducing the educational changes.
The Year 2000 program is described as a learner-centred, con-tinuous-progress system in which students are taught the research skills they will need to survive in the 21st century when knowledge will continue to expand rapidly.
School District 57 has already committed a significant amount of time and money introducing the first stages of the Year 2000 into the primary grades and is well into
its plans for introducing the new system into the intermediate grades.
McQuaid pointed out that despite the government’s failure to provide all the money needed to introduce the new program and their “stop-and-start” approach to making the changes, the new system offers significant advantages to the children.
Hagen, named Education Minister within the past year to replace the retiring Tony Brummet, said recently said he would review the Year 2000 program.
INDEX
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Lory Brinson, Tara Paulhus and Michelle LeComte are betting College Heights Secondary School graduates will have a good time at their dry grad casino and carnival night May 31. The alcohol-free celebration will last all night and will feature carnival games and all the food that goes along with it, including popcorn, pizza, ice cream and cotton candy. As an extra incentive, door prizes will be awarded, with the big winner receiving two round-trip airline tickets to Vancouver. About 200 grads and guests are expected.
"My wife thinks I'm in the shower.'
Warm weather lowers flood risk
by DIANE BAILEY Citizen Staff
Snowpack in the Upper Fraser basin is higher than it was at this time last year, says a provincial Environment Ministry official, but recent warm and dry weather is helping the situation.
“The earlier warm weather we had was really beneficial. It is bringing down some of the snow earlier, which will lessen the flood risk later,” Glen Davidson, regional head of engineering, said today in Prince George.
But that doesn’t mean the danger has passed. At 36 per cent
above normal, the snowpack is “very high.”
“There’s still a lot of snow left up there,” Davidson said.
“We still have to get through the next three weeks. When the river is this full it doesn’t take much to put it over the top.”
The river level hit 8.11 metres today, said Davidson, and is probably over its first peak of the season. Typically, once the snowmelt starts, the Fraser levels go up and down several times.
“This is a response to the hot weather over the weekend,” said Davidson.
“People could go out and al-
most see it dropping in the next couple of days and think it’s over. That’s not the case.”
He expects the Fraser to hit its highest peak in the first or second week of June.
Last year, the mid-May snowpack was 33 per cent above normal. The Fraser peaked at 9.91 metres in early June, forcing about a dozen families from their homes. Flood stage on the Fraser here is 9.4 metres.
Residents of Farrell, Hazelton and Inlander streets in South Fort George, as well as Lansdowne Road further down the Fraser left for higher, drier ground as flood
water filled their basements and came close to covering some outbuildings. The Foreman Flats area on the east side of the Fraser was particularly hard hit.
As the Fraser receded, flash flooding caused by heavy rain swept away homes, vehicles and 100 metres of Highway 97 at Stoner and caused mudslides that severed dozens of McBride residents from town and left them without lights.
A van carrying treeplanters plunged into George Creek off a washed-out bridge approach, killing four of the eight passengers.
Dry grad
Ann Landers .... 28
Bridge.................26
Business.......10,11
City, B.C.....2,3,14
Classified ....	23-27
Comic..................12
Commentary..............5
Crossword..............24
Editorial...............4
Entertainment ... 12 Family...............28
Horoscope...............26
InternaUonal 7
Movies..................12
National.................6
Sports...............15-18
Television..............25
A
058307001008