The Prince George
Citizen
 FRIDAY, AUGUST 16,1991
                                                                             70 CENTS
                                                                                (Plus GST)
                                                                                           Low tonight: 12 High tomorrow: 30
 Included nside
TV
times
 Media gets big chill
 Lions fumble victory
 13
 Just for the squeamish 24
 Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
                                                                              Replacement
                                                                                   workers
                                                                                   sought?
   VANCOUVER (CP) — The Canadian Union of Postal Workers claims Canada Post is hiring replacement workers in anticipation of a strike, but the Crown corporation says it has nothing to do with an advertisement in a Vancouver paper this week.
   Vancouver local president Brian Charlton said a classified ad that ran in the Vancouver Sun on Wednesday calling for file clerks was actually a bid for mail sorters who could work in the event of a national postal strike.
   The ad reads: “File clerks to sequence large volume of materials alphabetically and numerically. Many Lower Mainland locations. Day and afternoon shifts, 4-8 hours. Requires some lifting and standing. Some customer contact. S10 an hour.”
   “Staff at the phone number advertised confirmed they were recruiting for Canada Post and that these file clerks would be sorting mail in various malls during a strike by postal workers,” Charlton said in a news release.
   Charlton also said the union had reports that Admail helpers, who deliver advertising flyers, were being offered nearly double their $6.25-an-hour wage to pick up mail during a possible strike.
   The union said the move would contribute to a volatile atmosphere on the potential upcoming picket lines.
   “Postal workers can only conclude that Canada Post even at this late date, is still not serious about achieving a new collective agreement,” Charlton said.
     OTTAWA (CP) — The seven-day countdown to what could be the largest ever Canadian postal strike began today — with Ottawa appealing to both sides to resolve two years of bitterness.
     Labor Minister Marcel Danis released a conciliation board which concluded Canada Post and the 45,000-member Canadian Union of Postal Workers are still “headed in opposite directions” after 60 meetings since January.
     Under the Canada Labor Code, this report was the last step Ottawa could take to move the Crown corporation and its largest union towards a negotiated agreement.
     “It is now time for the parties themselves to seriously address these differences and outstanding issues,” Danis told a news conference.
     CUPW will be legally able to strike after midnight next Friday night. The same deadline is available to Canada Post to lock out CUPW members.
     Despite the differences, Danis told a news conference he believes a negotiated agreement will be reached. At least, he noted, 360 unresolved issues on the table have been whittled down to 29 in this final stage of conciliation.
     But the minister joined the conciliation board, chaired by Marc Lapointe, former head of the Canadian Labor Relations Board, in expressing exasperation with a running feud between the union and management which the conciliators believe has shown no improvement since the postal strike of 1987.
     Last week Danis said he would try to use the seven-day countdown to avoid a strike. But today he said the initiative will have to come from Canada Post and the union.
     “I am prepared to have my department offer further mediation assistance,” Danis said.
‘No concessions’ to keep Quebec
    VICTORIA (CP) — British Columbians want Quebec to remain in Canada but won’t give special concessions to achieve that, says Bruce Strachan, chairman of the provincial government’s allparty constitutional committee.
    “We have a very strong feeling that we want to stay united, but that all provinces have to be equal,” Health Minister Strachan said in an interview.
    He said the preliminary finding was based on 1,000 submissions but deputy chairman Colin Gabel-mann of the NDP said in an interview the committee heard less than 200 real submissions and it is too early to draw any conclusions.
    “We haven’t heard from enough people yet,” Gabelmann said. “We were required to report by today but we’ve had effectively six weeks to hold hearings.”
    Gabelmann said Strachan’s figures are misleading because some of the so-called submissions included people telephoning to inquire about where hearings were being held.
    Strachan, MLA for Prince George South, said the messages delivered to the committee were consistent enough to make some generalizations.
    He said the two key themes of unity and no special deal's could cause problems if Quebec’s demands for special status are perceived as giving them more than other provinces.
    “There is no question that the current government are passionate Quebecers,” he said. “They have some considerable political pressure on them.
Ann Landers .     ... 36    
Bridge.....       ... 31    
Business . . . .  . 22,23   
City, B.C. . . .  . 2r3.ll  
Classified . . .  . 25-33   
Comic.....        ... 20    
Commentary .      . . . .5  
Crossword . . .   ... 24    
Editorial . . . . . . . . 4 
Entertainment     . 20,21   
Family.....       . 35,36   
Horoscope . . .   . . . 31  
International .   ... 7,9   
Lotteries ....    . . . 16  
Movies.....       . . . 21  
National ....     . . . . 8 
Sports.....       . 13-16   
Television . . .  ... 30    
 "That's what you pointed at in the tank!
    “But I will only consider such action if the parties show movement and a greater appetite for settlement than is apparent in the report I have just released.”
    The protracted bitterness between the two sides is exactly the situation the labor relations board wanted to avoid in 1989 when it forced the merger of most inside and outside workers into one union.
    But the conciliation board concluded that folding seven bargaining units into one set of talks between Canada Post and a union that was doubled in size has not worked.
    The board borrowed a line from Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to describe current labor relations at Canada Post as “the mother of all battles in this field.”
    CUPW was legislated back to work in its last strike against Canada Post, but Danis wouldn’t discuss that likelihood if a strike occurs again, saying it is premature.
    “Now it is time for both parties to accept their responsibilities to their respective members, customers and the Canadian public they serve,” he said.
    Canada Post has acknowledged its contractors have been advertising for replacement workers. But the post office has not said what kind of service it will be able to provide in the event of a strike.
    The union, meanwhile, has been holding strike stategy meetings around the country. CUPW president Jean-Claude Parrot said two weeks ago a postal strike was 100 per cent certain unless Canada Post changed its position.
    Even the three-member conciliation board couldn’t agree on how bad things are, or why.
    Board member Jacques Des-marais, the union’s nominee, refused to sign the report, saying it does not address job security or harassment of employees.
  Heat record set Thursday
    Turn up the air conditioning, close the drapes and brace yourself for another scorcher today.
    The mercury soared to a record-breaking 32.9 degrees Thursday, erasing a 49-year-old record. It’s expected to be even hotter today with 34 the forecast high.
    The previous record for Aug. 15 of 31.4 was set in 1942. Today’s record of 32.8 was also set in 1942.
    The hottest temperature on record for Prince George is 36, set in May of 1983.
                                                                                 TV Times gets bigger
   The Citizen’s TV Times now has complete listings for pay television stations carried by Shaw Cable: Family Channel, Superchannel, TBS from Atlanta and Chicago’s WGN.
   The expanded listings appear every Friday, starting today.
  Bear killed in Hart yard
    Nielsen Road residents experienced a brief flurry of excitement when a bear wandered through their back yards Thursday.
    Police and wildlife officers were called to the scene in the Hart area, but wildlife officers were out of town and unable to attend immediately.
    Police said today there was no recourse but to kill the bear because it was in a residential area and children were around.
                                                                                                        Citizen photo by Dylan Cole
                                A Prince George pedestrian crosses the Victoria Street crosswalk at Sixth Avenue, the scene of what downtown employees say are dally accidents.
                                Sixth and Victoria crossing a pedestrian’s nightmare
                by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff In the wake of yet another pedestrian accident at the Sixth Avenue and Victoria Street intersection, area employees are wondering when the sounds of squealing tires and grinding brakes will end.
    Claudette Manklow, a longtime employee at Barton Insurance at the intersection says a traffic light there is long overdue.
    While crossing Victoria Street at 12:51 p.m. Wednesday, Lorraine Dawn Desjardins, 27, was struck by a vehicle driven by Katherine Loreth, 74. Desjardins was taken to Prince George Regional Hopsital, with hip and leg injuries. Loreth has been charged with failing to yield to a pedestrian.
    “I understand this woman was thrown almost 40 feet through the air,” Manklow said, adding that the latest accident victim is a relative of a Barton’s employee. “Who is extremely upset,” she added.
    Manklow said her one-time secretary, a former registered nurse, went out and administered first-aid a number of times. “We used to keep a blanket and an old coat in the back just in case for accidents, but we were always losing them to the ambulance.” The problem intersection has been referred to the city’s traffic safety committee for a report, city engineer Emie Obst said Thursday.
    “Victoria Street is an arterial highway, and as such, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Highways,” said Obst. “Obviously, it’s becoming a problem intersection.”
    Obst said the committee is comprised of representatives from the city, ICBC, the RCMP and the Ministry of Highways. “Any recommendations they make would have to then go through the budget process.”
    A letter published in the Citizen June 13 from Barton’s called for the installation of traffic lights. Barton employees said vehicles trying to cross Victoria Street have a difficult time finding a hole in the steady traffic to cross, leading them to floor the gas to get across as quickly as possible.
    The letter also stated a crosswalk marked in years ago does not help the situation because pedestrians darting across the busy intersection are often not seen by motorists.
    A petition for traffic lights at the intersection was initiated by Royal Bank employees at the Victoria Street branch and has garnered hundreds of signatures.
    According to one bank employee, a number of bank customers took the petition back to their own businesses for signatures and then handed it back to the bank. “Because it is the downtown core, there are a lot of pedestrians and that compounds the problem,” said the employee, who asked to remain nameless.
    The Royal Bank employee agreed with Manklow’s assertion that pedestrian accidents and near-misses at the crosswalk happen daily.
    Cyclists are also dissatisfied with Victoria Street. They say a bicycle ride down the busy street means running a gauntlet of transport trucks, campers, unwary pedestrians and cars.
    “It’s particularly bad in front of the Victoria Medical Clinic for cyclists because the road is extremely narrow there,” said Norm Brielsman. The local resident said he stopped riding Victoria Street two years ago, though it is a direct route to his workplace.
    “It’s too dangerous,” he said.
Provinces won’t give up fight
                                                                                                                 by The Canadian Press
    Ontario Premier Bob Rae says he will seek “critical” constitutional changes to prevent the federal government from cutting billions of dollars in welfare payments to the provinces.
    “We have no intention of allowing this to continue in this form.,” Rae said Thursday outside the Ontario legislature.
    “It simply isn’t fair. The system has to change,
    “We are not in a posiuon, economically and financially, to ignore this issue.”
    It was a swift and stem reaction to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling Thursday that upheld a federal law imposing a five-per-cent cap on annual increases in welfare payments to Canada’s three richest provinces, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
    B.C. Premier Rita Johnston said the ruling will have serious finan-
  cial implications for her province, while Alberta Treasurer Dick Johnston said his province’s strong economy has allowed it to prepare for the cuts without cutting services.
    Saskatchewan Social Services Minister Bill Neudorf called the decision a troubling precedent. “We feel that this is probably going to open the door for further such actions on the part of the federal government.”
 Water fright
 A horde of wet youths with bared teeth and beady eyes squashed their faces over the window of an innocent Citizen photographer’s car Thursday. Billy Coffman, 10, Lesley Coffman, 14, Anna Lind-strum, 14, Christine Coffman, 12, and Jessa Fake, 11, had just engaged in a water fight.
Countdown on for mail strike
7-DAY DEADLINE SET
>
058307002005