The Prince George
Citizen
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1,1991
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: 3 High tomorrow: 13
PM touted for UN post____________6
Haitian gov’t ousted 7
What’s wrong with men? 10
Thom: Kings over UBC 11
Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
WANT ACTION FROM MP OBERLE
Public servants stage sit-in here
by KEN BERNSOHN Citizen StafT
More than a dozen Public Service Alliance of Canada members staged a sit-in at the office of Prince George-Peace River MP Frank Oberle this morning.
“We aren’t leaving until we get a chance to talk to him,” said area strike co-ordinator Christine Nicholson.
The sit-in was, in some ways, a media event. After being interviewed for television and radio,
Nicholson was asked what she expected Oberle to do about the government’s back-to-work legislation, expected to pass the House of Commons today.
“Probably nothing,” she said. “That’s what he’s done thus far.”
Other strikers had equally low expectations.
“We’re here to express our displeasure,” said one.
“Because we can’t afford to go to Ottawa to do it,” said another.
Oberle was expected to call his
office just after noon today, and Nicholson expected at least another dozen members of PSAC to bc on hand to talk with him via speakerphone.
Those waiting for the call were obviously upset at being legislated back to work with no wage increase this year, a sentiment echoed on other picket lines by federal civil servants in Prince George.
“No one’s happy about it,” Bruce Johnston said of the back-
to-work legislation as he walked the picket line at the Canada Employment Centre.
“And it won’t be over when we’re forced back to work. We’re having a meeting this week to discuss what happens next, but I know there aren’t a lot of happy campers here.”
According to Johnston and pickets at both the Oxford Building and the Goods and Services Tax office, there has been a great deal
of public support for those on strike.
“People who don’t know much about why we’re on strike are amazed the government is saying no increase in wages at all this year with inflation running what it is, plus the GST,” Johnston said.
For the second straight day the GST office at Seventh and Victoria remains completely shut down. On Monday, a member of management collected end-of-the-
month GST payments in the parking lot, in the rain.
“Can you imagine people giving money to someone they don’t know, in a parking lot?” one striker said in Oberle’s office this morning.
Just before 10 a.m. Oberle’s executive assistant, Bunty Mercier, called him in Ottawa, then told those occupying his office that Oberle had refused to speak with them.
Strikers,
police
clash
by Canadian Press
Picketing federal workers took aggressive action across the country today as the Conservative government pushed ahead with its plan to get back-to-work legislation through the Commons.
At Dorval Airport outside Montreal, police with helmets and riot sticks cleared a crowd of striking members of the Public Service Alliance who jammed roads, clogging traffic to the airport for several kilometres.
“We’re going to close down the airport,” said local strike co-ordinator Jean Morin. But the disruption ended peacefully.
In Ottawa, morning rush hour traffic was snarled as major roads were blocked by striking federal workers. Some bridges were closed, frustrating commuters who cross the Ottawa River to work.
“What have we left to do if this government is stopping us from picketing in front of their buildings?” asked union president Daryl Bean. He repeated his call for a mediator to end the strike.
The union, representing 110,000 workers eligible to strike, is protesting the government’s plan to freeze wages this year and hold increases to three per cent next year.
The back-to-work bill needs approval from the Commons and the Senate before it becomes law.
Wayne Easter, the president of the National Farmers’ Union, renewed his call for a mediator to settle the strike, saying a back-to-work order would only create further labor unrest.
Water shows contamination
Fort Fraser residents* have been warned to boil their water after recent tests showed “alarming” levels of fecal coliform bacteria, says the chief public health inspector at the Northern Interior Health Unit.
Bruce Gaunt said the warning was issued late last week after routine monitoring tests showed there was a problem. The warning will remain in effect until it is cleared up.
Gaunt said NIHU doesn’t know “exactly why” the fecal coliform counts are so high.
Crash aftermath
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
An ambulance paramedic helps one of four people sent to Prince George Regional Hospital Monday afternoon, after a van and pickup collided at the intersection of 22nd Avenue and Quinn Street. The accident occurred about 3:25 p.m. No further details were available from Prince George RCMP this morning.
IMPACT ON NECHAKO LEVELS
Rivers group plans Kemano probe
by DIANE BAILEY Citizen Staff
The Allied Rivers Commission is planning its own review of Alcan’s Kemano Completion Project, says the fledgling group’s chairman.
Arlene Galisky said it is about time some of the questions surrounding the project were answered.
“It’s been more than four months since the Federal Court decision quashed the 1987 agreement with Alcan and ordered an environmental review,” Galisky said Monday in an interview here.
“It’s been 12 years since some members of the Rivers Defense Coalition first questioned the Kemano Completion Project. It’s been 40 years since the native communities started asking questions about the devastation caused by the original Kemano project.”
Galisky said the federal government has had an environmental review process in place since 1973,
and the provincial government established its energy project review process 11 years ago.
“Why in 1991 are we still asking questions for which there are no answers?”
Alcan’s Kemano II project is a massive $1-billion hydroelectric poject which would divert more water from the Nechako to the company’s reservoir behind the Kenney Dam.
Water flows in the river near Vanderhoof would be reduced to 12 per cent of its pre-1950 level.
Galisky said people who live along the Nechako still don’t know what effect the reduced flows will have on their water supply, on ground water levels in agricultural and forest lands and on tourist, recreation and industrial development
“It’s long past being just an environmental issue. This is our future,” she said.
There are also still questions about the effect the project will
have on salmon spawning grounds in the river. Last year, retired fisheries biologist called Kemano II an “abandonment” of the salmon resource.
He said then that he believes that once a 1987 agreement was struck allowing the project to go ahead, biologists at the Nanaimo research station were put under “great pressure” to come up with a report to “rationalize” the decision.
Galisky said a 1983 report by the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission also documents its concerns about warm water temperatures in the Nechako and low water levels in four specific places in the Fraser Canyon. The Nechako flows into the Fraser River at Prince George.
Galisky said part of ARC’s review will be a closer look at Alcan’s board of directors and their “political connections.”
She said her group also plans to find out where the 540 megawatts
of power to be generated by Kemano II is going. Galisky said ARC wants to know how much power B.C. Hydro has bought from Alcan in the past 12 years and how much power B.C. Hydro has sold to the U.S. over the same period.
Meanwhile, an appeal of a Federal Court decision ordering an environmental reiew of the project will bc heard in Vancouver starting Dec. 16.
Both Alcan and the federal government are appealing Justice Allison Walsh’s ruling that Ottawa broke its own laws by exempting the project from the environmental review process.
Walsh ordered a review be conducted and quashed the 1987 agreement between the company and both levels of government that cleared the way for Alcan to begin work on Kemano II.
Alcan has put the project on hold pending the outcome of the appeal.
Housing
proposal
rejected
A multi-housing complex proposal in Prince George got the axe from city council Monday.
The proposal to construct a 118-unit housing development on Wiebe Road near the Fred Walls automobile dealership was defeated at third reading in a 5-3 vote.
James and Ilse Schreiner proposed to build five duplexes and two fourplexes surrounding three-storey apartments containing 100 units by requesting rezoning of the 4.8 acres to multiple-family from urban residential zoning.
Development services director Peter Bloodoff supported the request, saying there’s a low ratio of multiple-family housing in the Peden Hill area and that the University of Northern B.C. will need this type of housing. The proposal complied with the Official Community Plan, said Bloodoff, adding that in 1981 this proposed use and density was recommended in a sector plan draft.
The plan was opposed by more than 150 residents who submitted a petition to city hall.
A spokesman for the residents told council their concerns included increased traffic, overpopulated schools, and underdeveloped trailer parks which should be developed before changing single residential property into multiple housing.
Aldermen supporting the rezoning were John Last, Colin Kinsley and Don Bassermann, who felt there’s a need for this kind of development at this time.
Kempf sues own party
Citizen news services
Jack Kempf is taking his own party to court in a bid to keep wearing the Social Credit campaign colors in the riding of Bulk-ley Valley-Stikine.
“Jack is running as the Social Credit candidate and we are taking legal action to challenge his suspension,” Clarion Rogers, KempFs campaign manager, said Monday.
Premier Rita Johnston ordered the Socred provincial board to strip Kempf of the nomination after he was charged last week with breach of trust and theft of constituency office funds between March and July 1987.
INDEX
Ann Landers .... 10
Bridge.................17
Business..............8,9
City, B.C.............2,3
Classified .... 15*19
Comics.................14
Commentary 5
Crossword..............16
Editorial...............4
Entertainment ... 14
Family.................10
Horoscope..............17
International...........7
Movies.................14
National.............6,19
Sports..............11*13
Television.............18
"The doctor said sleep on your stomach tonight and he'll see you first thing tomorrow."
3,000 FEET FROM SUMMIT
Winds hold back Everest team
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen Staff
Time is beginning to run out for the Canadian Climb for Hope on Mount Everest.
High winds reaching 50 mph, blowing snow and temperatures in the -30 degree range has kept the expedition from scaling the final 3,000 feet to the top of the world.
The climbers, led by Peter Austen of Prince George, haven’t been able to make any headway for more than a week due to the
weather, his wife Kay told The Citizen today.
“On Sunday I talked to Pete and he was optimistic because the weather had improved and things looked good, but the winds have worsened since then, and the higher they go, the worse they become,” she said.
The 15-member team has been climbing the mountain via the Mallory Route since August and recently reached the fifth of seven camps located between 25,000 and 26,000 feet up.
The latest word today from the Calgary office is the expedition will make a bid for the 29,028-foot summit as soon as there’s a break in the weather.
The permit issued to the expedition runs out Oct. 10.
The Climb for Hope, which is raising money for Rett Syndrome, a neurological condition affecting young girls, included eight climbers from B.C. until about two weeks ago when Tim Rippel twisted his knee in hard snow
when he was forced to tum around.
James Nelson, a climber froni Prince George, had to abandon hi:; hopes of reaching the top whei retinal hemmoraging in both eyes reduced his sight by 30 per cent.
Austen, Timo Saukko and Alan Norquay are the remaining Prince George climbers, while Dr. Dennis Brown is from Fort Sl James.
Three climbers are from Alberta, two from Ontario and one each from the Yukon, Quebec and California.
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