The Prince &eorge
Citizen
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13,1991
70 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: 6 High tomorrow: 18
Included nside
TV
times
New interest in lowly yew 5
Swaggart sued for $10M 14
Canada going to cup final 17
Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
VANDER ZALM AFFAIR
Late-summer swinger
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Dave Andreschefski, 15, reluctantly releases the rope while keeping his eye on Cluculz Lake 20 feet below. Summer water sports have ended for most of us, but Dave and a few friends managed a few late-summer dips in the lake recently.
No progress in PSAC strike
by The Canadian Press
The president of Treasury Board and the leader of more than 70,000 1 angry public servants met one-on-one today — but there was no progress in ending a five-day-old suike that is disrupting the economy.
Daryl Bean, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said after the meeting he asked Gilles Loiselle to resume negotiations without preconditions with the help of a mutually acceptable mediator.
Loiselle “categorically refused” the request, Bean said after public servants — joined by computer operators from another union — tied up rush-hour traffic in Ottawa on several blocks.
“He simply indicated we had to accept the zero, three and three,” Bean said, referring to the government’s ultimatum of no pay in-
crease this year and three per cent in the following years. “He attempted to give me an economic lecture.
“I cut him off.”
As the clamor for a back-to-work order continued, Treasury
SEE ALSO PAGES 3, 11
Board spokesman Denis Boucher said the minister asked for a 45-minute meeting to sound out Bean on issues blocking a settlment. But he said Ottawa isn’t discussing the wage limits.
“We turned down the mediator because Mr. Bean refused to accept the zero, three and three,” Boucher said.
“We won’t move from the zero, three and three. It’s what we’re able to pay and that’s it We would have to borrow the money.”
Ottawa has threatened several
times to legislate public servants back to work. But Boucher said today Loiselle has made no decision about a back-to-work order and is looking for possible alternatives to legislation to end the suike. Bean said alliance members may defy a back-to-work order, but the minister shrugged it off.
Alliance officials said more government offices in Ottawa were shut down this morning after the headquarters of the Energy Department was reduced to a standstill Thursday because management and public servants defying the strike couldn’t cross a picket line.
The union said branches of National Defence and Health and Welfare in midtown Ottawa were slowed to a standstill after scuffling on a picket line between alliance members and Armed Forces personnel trying to enter the building.
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"His family flew in for a visit.'
VANCOUVER (CP) — Members of British Columbia’s two pulp unions have voted to accept a 10-month contract extension with no wage increase, a union spokesman said today.
The economic slowdown in the industry, along with high pulp and paper inventories in North America and Scandinavia persuaded members it would be better to delay a fight for a new deal, said Norm McClelland of the Canadian Paperworkers Union.
But the 12,000 workers voted only 59.4 per cent to approve the extension, he said, so negotiation will be serious next time.
Charge skirted by Socred party
by GERARD YOUNG VICTORIA (CP) — With an election looming, B.C. Premier Rita Johnston’s Social Credit party is moving quickly to distance itseLf from former premier Bill Vander Zalm who was charged Thursday with breach of trust.
“As the matter is presently before the courts, it would be highly inappropriate for the Social Credit party to have any comment,” said a statement from Socred president Hope Rust.
Johnston has said repeatedly her election call, expected in a matter of days, won’t be affected.
“The people of this province are going to judge those of us who are
CHRONOLOGY, PAGE 2 EDITORIAL, PAGE 4
running and the former premier of the province is not one of our candidates,” she said Thursday in Vancouver.
But Vander Zalm hinted politics were involved.
“It’s very curious that it should take six months to come up with this and then on the eve of an election,” he said.
The charge involves the $16-million sale of the former premier’s Fantasy Gardens biblical theme park. It follows a report and recommendations from Victoria lawyer Peter Freeman, appointed March 8 to oversee an investigation into Vander Zalm’s role in the sale.
“I have not seen the report,” Attorney General Russ Fraser told a news conference to announce the charge. “The premier has not seen the report nor have I advised her of the recommendations.
University program plan ‘not political’
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Citizen Staff
The academic plan for the University of Northern B.C. is within a few weeks of being completed, UNBC president Geoff Weller said today.
A spokesman for Advanced Education Minister Peter Dueck approved the general direction of the 75-page document Thursday. Weller said the plan will require a few minor modifications before it can be released.
The plan outlines the programs which will be offered at the university, which is expected to open in 1993.
Weller said from Vancouver he is concerned with attempts to make plans for the university into a political issue. *
Paul Ramsey, Prince George North NDP candidate, charged earlier this week that UNBC was withholding the release of the academic and master plans for the university until after an election is called.
Weller said the plan was delivered to the provincial government on schedule in July and requires final approval before it can be released.
“I don’t want to be accused of taking part in any political activity.
I want the university to be nonpolitical and non-partisan, so if we can’t get the modifications (proposed by Dueck) done before the writ is dropped or we are a couple of weeks into an election before they’re done and it looks like its going to be a political hot potato, I don’t think we will announce it until after the election is over.
“We are going according to our own schedule, not a political schedule. If there has been any fault here it resides with me because I have had to do some revisions and negotiate some changes. It is a complicated plan and I would rather get it right before it is released,” Weller said.
Vander Zalm talks to reporters after charge was laid Thursday.
“This is not a political matter. This is a justice matter.”
Fraser said he was briefed on Freeman’s report by senior ministry lawyers but it would not be made public because it is part of the Crown case against Vander Zalm.
The charge reads in part that Vander Zalm “did commit a breach of trust in connection with the duties of his office, to wit by accepting $20,000 US from Tan Yu and or Asia world Canada Development Corp. in relation to the acquisition of assets in the province of British Columbia.”
Vander Zalm resigned April 2 after a report by conflict-of-interest commissioner Ted Hughes found he mixed private business with public office in the Fantasy Gardens sale to Taiwanese billionaire Tan Yu.
The charge was laid Thursday before a justice of the peace in Victoria and a summons was issued.
Vander Zalm is scheduled to ap-
RCMP CRITICIZED
pear in Victoria provincial court Sept. 23. Breach of trust by a public official carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
It’s not the first time a former Socred premier faced charges soon after leaving office. Bill Bennett, who led the party for 10 years, was acquitted in Vancouver provincial court in May 1989 of insider trading charges.
The NDP plans to make cabinet’s handling of the Fantasy Gardens affair a political issue although leader Mike Harcourt said he won’t talk about matters before the courts.
He said Johnston and her cabinet still have questions to answer about how much and when they knew about the issue when it first broke last fall.
“She’s going to have to come clean about this whole matter and the role and she and her cabinet colleagues have played,” he said. “The facts point to a cabinet coverup.”
Man questioned with bullet in back
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff A Prince George man with a bullet in his back spent 30 to 40 minutes being questioned by police before being taken to hospital for treatment, says his brother.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday Don Prince, 36, was hit by a bullet fired from a handgun while he fled across Fourth Avenue toward the Croft Hotel. According to witnesses, a black and gold van pulled up and a man fired a couple of shots at Prince before driving off.
Prince George RCMP said today a 37-year-old local man is in custody. The man was apprehended at 20th Avenue and Victoria Street after the incident An investigation is continuing and charges are expected to be laid. Police are asking for any witnesses to contact them at 562-3371.
“My brother told me he ducked when he realized he was being shot at,” Vincent Prince said Thursday afternoon. “The bullet went in at about his shoulder blade and travelled 10 to 12 inches down his rib cage, ending about three or four inches from his spine.”
Prince said he received a call from his brother’s girlfriend at about 11:15 a.m. “She told me Don had been shot in the back — that was all.”
Prince said he immediately went to Prince George Regional Hospital and was told his brother had not been admitted.
“I went downtown and hung around the places he usually hangs around and didn’t see him. Then I ran into a constable and he told me Don had been taken into custody. I asked him if my brother had been shot and he said he didn’t think he had been.”
Prince, who recently returned to Prince George after living elsewhere for three years, said he went
back to the family home in South Fort George.
“I got tired of waiting to hear and I went back up to the hospital,” he said. This time he found his brother had been admitted.
He said the police guard told him his brother was doing OK and after some argument he was allowed in to see his brother, but he was told if he went in, he would have to stay in.
“I talked to him and he said the police had kept him at the station for questioning for 30 to 40 minutes before they took him to the hospital.”
He said his brother was reluctant to talk to the police without a lawyer present “He wanted to take care of it (the incident) himself. He said he told them he didn’t know anything and they arrested him for breaching the conditions of his bail since he had been drinking.
“When he got into the patrol car he said he told them, ‘Look, I’ve been shot’ and when they asked why he hadn’t told them that he said, ‘I didn’t think you were going to arrest me so I didn’t want to let you know.’ ”
Staff SgL Elies Peleskey, head of general investigations for the city detachment, said today the man’s injury was minor. “The victim didn’t realize at first he had been shot with a firearm,” said Peleskey. “It was not discovered until later that he had a minor wound.”
Prince, however, said police knew his brother had been shot. “They got him to take his shirt off and asked to take pictures of his back but my brother refused.” Prince admitted his brother was into “street stuff’ but said he was shocked that the victim in a shooting incident could be treated this way. “A little bit of compassion would have been nice,” he said.
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