The Prince George
Citizen
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15,1991
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Victims drop pants, cash 12 Peace conference closer? 13 Pirates gain advantage 15
Landmark hotel sold
22
Phone: 562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
NEW POLL SHOWS PARTY STILL CLIMBING
Liberal policies come under fire
by SCOTT WHITE The Canadian Press
Just a week after they virtually ignored their Liberal counterpart during the televised leaders’ debate for the B.C. election, Premier Rita Johnston and NDP Leader Mike Harcourt have suddenly taken aim at Gordon Wilson and his surging Liberal party.
During the campaign’s final weekend, both Harcourt and Johnston urged voters to take a good look at the Liberals before casting their ballots Thursday.
Harcourt warned that Liberal policies would result in higher taxes for most families. Johnston said any Socred supporters who abandon her party for the Liberals would ensure an NDP victory,
which in turn would scare away potential investors in the province.
The reason for the sudden shift in attention comes after a scries of opinion polls released over the weekend suggest Liberal momentum has been building dramatically since the Oct. 8 TV debate.
The latest survey, taken Sunday night by BCTV, showed 36 per cent of the respondents favored the NDP, while 34 backed the Liberals. The governing Social Credit party was supported by 19 per cent of the respondents in the survey, considered accurate within 4.5 percentage points when extrapolated to the entire electorate.
A similar poll taken Saturday by BCTV had the NDP at 39, the Liberals at 33 and the Socreds at
19. On Saturday, an Angus Reid poll published in the Vancouver Sun had it NDP 38, Liberals 30 and Social Credit 29.
Wilson, whose party hasn’t elected a member to the B.C. legislature since 1975, had a simple explanation for his party’s surprising showing.
‘‘I think people were desperate in a sense and they really wanted change and they saw two warring parties that had virtually eroded any confidence that the people had in government,” said Wilson, who appeared Monday on a radio phone-in show in Vancouver.
‘‘By bringing the Liberal party lo the fore now has given them real hope for positive change. I hope the trend continues and we
ORGANIZERS ANGRY
Environmental forum skipped by Socreds
by DIANE BAILEY Citizen StafT
The failure of the three local Social Credit candidates to attend a forum on environmental and health issues Sunday was an “insult,” organizers say.
“They had promised to be here, then at the last minute they started vacillating and saying they were not going to show up,” says Cecil Kelley, president of the Nechako Environmental Coalition.
“It’s a real insult to us and to everyone.”
He said NEC planned to hold the forum Oct. 7, but candidates complained they already had five forums to attend that week. NEC agreed to reschedule and Sunday was the day it could be arranged, he said.
Jim Feragen, campaign manager for Prince George North candidate Keith Thompson, said the only Socred who had agreed to go was Omenica candidate Len Fox. He changed his mind after learning Thompson and Prince George-Mount Robson candidate Bruce Strachan were not attending, said Feragen.
“It was Thanksgiving weekend and a Sunday night and most already had previous commitments with their families,” said Feragen, adding the Socreds offered to meet privately with NEC officials to discuss environmental concerns.
Forum moderator Harry Backlin was also critical, saying the issues are too important for the candidates not to attend.
“This will go down in history as a night in which there were people who shirked their responsibility as candidates in this election to voters in this area,” Backlin told the sparse audience of 15 at the College of New Caledonia.
The Socred explanation did not go over well with their NDP opponents.
“We all want to spend time with our families, but we see. this as an important forum,” said Prince George-Mount Robson candidate Lois Boone.
Boone used her opening remarks
to talk about recycling and our personal responsibility to clean up our own act in our own homes. She said an NDP government would provide seed money to set up a regional recycling collection depot as a pilot project.
Boone said government should accept the cost of recycling, just like it accepts the costs of garbage collection.
“We don’t expect it to make money. We don’t expect it to be cost-effective. Why can’t we do the same with recycling?”
Prince George North NDP candidate Paul Ramsey promised a “balanced approach” to environmental concerns. “We need job creation in this province and in the North, but not at any cost.” Ramsey said the New Democrats
MORE ON ELECTION PAGE 3
would introduce new pulp mill effluent standards that would virtually eliminate the discharge of chlorinated organics by the year 2002.
He said permits would be issued for three years, after which a mill’s performance would be reviewed.
The NDP would also introduce legislation requiring that all toxic spills be reported to the public and providing protection to employees who blow the whistle on environmental violations, Ramsey said.
Bill Kordyban, independent candidate for Prince George-Mount Robson, sparked a bit of a debate with the NDP candidates when he said it is the consumer who pays when industry has to install pollution control “gadgets.”
Kordyban, the owner of Carrier Lumber, was fielding a question about smoke emissions from sawmill beehive burners.
“Burning slabs or sawmill waste is a natural phenomenon. It is no different burning it in a burner than burning it in the forest and it is not considered pollution. The
fact that we take it as pollution is not right.”
Ramsey agreed fire may be a natural phenomenon, “but I don’t think many of us want to live downwind of a forest fire.”
Boone said if companies don’t pay for pollution controls, then taxpayers end up paying in the form of increased health and cleanup costs.
Kordyban said industry is depleting the forests too quickly.
“For very dollar we spend cutting the trees, we should be spending $2 to look after the forest.”
Kordyban advocated a system of timber auctions, which he said would give companies equal access to the resource and increase revenues to the government The extra money could be used to improve environmental monitoring.
Prince George-Omenica candidate John Ricketts slammed the Socred government for failing to conduct public hearings into Alcan’s controversial Kemano II hydroelectric project.
He said a review would be his “top priority.”
"I believe a review must take place a quickly as possible because the delay is affecting people’s jobs and paycheques.”
Prince George North Liberal candidate John Mangan, who is in Ontario to attend his father’s 80th birthday celebrations, sent campaign worker Dave Belford to pinch-hit for him.
While Belford had to resort to expressing his own opinion on several specific issues, he emphasized Mangan's commitment to consultation and to putting consistency concerns first.
“He would see more co-operation among various groups in the community,” Belford said.
Judge awaits Senate verdict
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas awaited tonight’s verdict on his confirmation as the White House battled to preserve Senate support against last-minute defections by Democratic backers.
“I think the public is very mixed about it,” said one wavering Democrat, Senator Joseph Lie-berman of Connecticut.
Recent polls indicated that more Americans believed Clarence Thomas’s denial than Anita Hill’s detailed allegations of sexual harassment in the office a decade ago.
will take wliatever role the public gives us.”
Johnston tried to put a positive spin on the latest poll results, noting that 60 per cent of the electorate appears to be rejecting the NDP.
“It’s my view that when they (the voters) get through with their turkey dinner today and they give thanks for everything that’s so great in the province, that they’re going to undoubtedly talk about politics and the upcoming election,” Johnston said in an interview.
“I suspect the majority of that 60 per cent that have indicated that they will not be supporting the NDP will come home to Social Credit.”
While Harcourt spent Thanksgiving with his family, the NDP attack on the Liberals didn’t take a holiday.
NDP finance critic Glen Clark called a news conference to charge that Liberals’ tax policies would drain millions of dollars from provincial coffers.
Clark said the Liberal pledge for a three-year corporate tax holiday would cost the province $1.95 billion in lost revenue and a plan for a 25 per cent fiat-rate tax could mean middle-income families would pay $1,700 more each year.
“The Liberal party has had a free ride,’’ said Clark, a candidate in the riding of Vancouver-King-sway. “No one knows what their
platform is, no one knows who their candidates arc.”
Wilson dismissed the NDP calculations, saying the three-year tax break would only apply to small businesses starting up or expanding.
“If Mr. Clark had been interested enough to contact our office to get information on that, he would have found himself less embarrassed by giving out entirely fictional information,” Wilson said.
The Liberal campaign promises will come under scrutiny again today when Wilson holds a news conference in Vancouver to discuss his party’s platform.
Low tonight: -1 High tomorrow: 4
INDEX
Ann Landers .... 35
Bridge.................26
Business 21,22
City, B.C.............2,3
Classified .... 23-27
Comics.................33
Commentary 5
Crossword..............24
Editorial...............4
Entertainment ... 33
Family..............35,36
Horoscope..............26
International .... 13
Lotteries................10
Movies...................33
National.................12
Sports................15-19
Television...............25
"I told you not to use a rowing machine."
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
A van, top, and a pickup truck, bottom, are scarely recognizable after a collision Saturday that
claimed the life of a Bear Lake man.
Three killed in crashes
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
Police are investigating a rash of motor vehicle accidents which claimed the lives of three area residents over the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Bear Lake resident Thomas Adrian Voyer, 23, was the victim of a collision at 6:30 p.m. Saturday three kilometres north of the Salmon Valley Bridge, about 10 kilometres north of Prince
George.
A van travelling south collided with a truck travelling north. Witnesses at the scene said the force of the collision sent the van flying down a bank.
Injured in the accident were Michelle Marion, 18; Pierre Morin, 27; Dwayne Doerkscn, 18, all of Prince George, and Samuel Laflamme, 79, of Bear Lake, 74 kilometres north of Prince George.
With both vehicles writeoffs, police estimate there was $25,000 damage.
“We were going about 60 miles per hour and the van passed us. . .just before the bridge,” John Rose said today. The Prince George resident and his father-in-law were the first to happen upon the accident.
“We just got around the comer and the truck was still rolling and sliding back towards us,” he said.
Rose said he didn’t think anyone could be left alive in the pickup truck. “But then we saw someone (Laflamme) struggling out of the side of the truck and yelling ‘Get me out of here.’ ”
Meanwhile, two city men died and three others were injured after a single-vehicle accident Saturday at 10:30 p.m. The accident took place about five km north of the city. Police said a small Honda Civic was northbound when it lost control and slammed into a power pole.
Dead are Jack Stewart Butler, 23 and Jeff Richard Block, 17. Injured in the accident were Gar-
mond James Green, 18; Ian Robert Fletcher, 20 and Ronald Wayne Butler, 20.
A four-vehicle accident Friday night sent two RCMP constables and the driver of a van to hospital with minor injuries. All three were treated and later released.
The accident occurred when a 1976 Ford pickup, southbound on Victoria Street, went through a red light at 20th Avenue. It was broadsided by an eastbound 1985 Dodge van.
The impact caused the pickup to spin, and it hit a northbound unmarked police car which was approaching 20th. The second impact pushed the police vehicle back into the path of a 1990 Ford Bronco.
Police estimate damage at $16,000. An 18-year-old Prince George man was issued with a traffic ticket for failing to stop for a red light.
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