rrii n . s*                                '  C V   otf    Smokey ‘war’ heats up
Ihe Prince George--------------------------------------------------------------1-------------------------------------------------------------
   California kept on edge
Citizen
 Canucks extend series       13
 Housing starts take jump   17:
MONDAY. APRIL 27,1992                                                       51      CENTS                               tonight:                              2 Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
                                                           , MajefijP'        (Plus GST)                        High  tomorrow: 16
OPPOSITION HAS $1-BILLION QUESTION
    OTTAWA (CP) — Opposition MPs are planning to grill the Conservative government — specifically Defence Minister Marcel Masse — about a $1-billion contract for military helicopters awarded to a Quebec company.
    When the House returns today from the Easter break, Liberals and New Democrats say they’ll ask why the contract for up to 100 transport and utility copters was given to Bell Helicopter Textron without a call for tenders.
    And Reform MP Deborah Grey suggests the “inacceptable and shameful” handling of the contract ‘‘could make us relive the CF-18 affair,” saying there are disturbing similarities between the two contracts.
    In both cases, a Manitoba company was vying against a Quebec firm at a crucial moment in constitutional talks.
    In 1986, Canadair of Montreal was chosen over Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg to service the CF-18 fighter jets. This year another Winnipeg firm, Eurocopters, lost out to its Quebec rival.
    The Bell contract, expected to get cabinet approval this summer, has already drawn fire in English Canada.
    A recent editorial in the Toronto Globe and Mail said Masse should explain why he can find $1.8 billion to spend on “military hardware of dubious necessity” and the government cannot afford, for example, a national daycare program.
    The newspaper said that if he couldn’t answer that “perhaps Supply and Services Minister Paul Dick would care to explain why sole-source contracts are still accepted government practice — preferably before a parliamentary inquiry into defence procurement which after this and similar scandals is long overdue.”
    The editorial criticized Masse on his absenteeism from the Commons and asked the question; “Is he, as some paranoiacs at the department insist, intent on building a Quebec armed forces from within, at the helm of which he might emerge, epaulets in place, following the province’s secession?’’
Enrolment crisis squeezes CNC
                                                                                                          by BEV CHRISTENSEN Citizen Staff
    A growing enrolment crunch at the College of New Caledonia means students graduating from secondary schools in June will find it difficult to get all the courses they want in September.
    The deluge of applications to enter the college, combined with a budget crunch and lack of space in which to offer more courses, were the reasons given Saturday for what CNC directors predict will be an overwhelming enrolment problem this fall.
    If the record-setting rate of applications for admission to CNC to April 21 continues, more than 600 students will be unable lo obtain the university-transfer courses they require when they register in September, Paul Scens, *CNC’s director of planning and student records, predicted Saturday.
    By April 21, 786 students had applied for admission to CNC’s first-year university-transfer programs compared with 472 at this time last year, Seens said at the meeting of the college board.
    “We are being overwhelmed with applications and have the
  same capacity as last year. The problem is growing year by year.”
    One factor contributing to the problem is the board’s admission policy, which one board member described as “student selection Lotto CNC” in which half the students are selected by the directors of each program and the remainder are randomly selected.
    Another contributing factor is the fact that an unprecedented number of students who were unable to get all their first year university-transfer programs at CNC last year arc taking advantage of the college’s prcregistration program for returning students.
    “It’s getting so that students who can’t get all their courses one year, enrol in one course so they can preregister the next year,” Seens said.
    “That means enroling at CNC has become a two-year process and we don’t know how many students get discouraged,” said director Margaret MacDonald. “Imagine what the impact would be if this happened in the public school system.”
    Because the college has no money to hire additional counselling staff to deal with the early
 bulge of enrolment applications, there is a 26-day waiting period before students can sec a counsellor, Seens said. “And, to be honest, I don’t think the pace is going to decline.”
    Nor is the problem unique to CNC. Other B.C. colleges are facing burgeoning enrolments and a lack of space.
    The enrolment problems at CNC have got worse worsened because it received only a .48-per-cent budget increase compared with an average provincewide increase of 2.5 per cent, directors were told.
    That means there is no money to offer additional courses in rented space, CNC president Terry Weninger said in response to a question.
    College representatives will meet with Advanced Education Minister Tom Perry next month to discuss CNC’s $65-million site development plan handed to the government in August. If the plan is approved, $27.7 million would be spent immediately to increase the college’s student capacity by 600 students.
Citizen photos by Brent Braaten
 At top, an eight-year-old survivor of a boating accident Sunday on the Salmon River; at centre, two Nelson residents who were rescued downstream and bottom, log jam on the Salmon River.
 FORMER ALDERMAN
 Job action
Fraud charges laid h°1ed
    Criminal charges have been laid against a former bank operations manager and former president of the 1990 B.C. Summer Games, police said today.
                        John Last, 44, a 13-ycar employee at the Prince George Savings Credit Union, was terminated from his position in January.
                        Investigating officers at the Prince George RCMP Subdivision said the charges, laid Friday, came as a result of a complaint of theft and breach of trust.
                        The complaint was made by the Financial Institutions Commission one month earlier.
                       Last has been charged with 42 counts: 13 counts of theft under $1,000, two counts of theft over $1,000, 15 counts of criminal breach of trust and 12 counts of fraud.
    According to police investigators, the charges concern the alleged misuse of Prince George Savings Credit Union monies and B.C. Summer and Winter Games monies. Last, a longtime Prince George resident, was president of the 1990 B.C. Summer Games held in Prince George.
 at hospital
    The Hospital Employees Union has stopped job action pending a report from newly appointed conciliator Don Munroe.
    But it is not business as usual at Prince George Regional Hospital.
    “Given the size of our organization, we are gearing up in a controlled way,” executive administrator Dennis Cleaver said today. "It’s not as if the hospital can get back to a normal level just like that.”
    The hospital won’t know how long it will take to get back to a normal service level until senior hospital management meet, Cleaver said.
    To return to a normal service level, the hospital will have to clear a backlog of elective surgeries. Cleaver said about 250 had been postponed due to job action, which began March 31.
    He said the hope is that the conciliator will propose a solution that is agreeable to both sides.
    The HEU withdrew its pickets early Saturday from B.C. hospitals after the provincial government proposed a special conciliator to settle the dispute.
    Government intervention is planned if the union rejects the recommendations of Munroe, who has until May 15 to prepare his report, Labor Minister Moe Sihota said Friday.
    Munroe will bring the two sides back to the bargaining table. While his recommendations are not binding, the union will vote on them in mid-May, said Sihota. Munroe is a former Labor Relations Board president.
                          DAUGHTER SAVED FROM OVERTURNED BOAT
Man dies in river tragedy
                                                                                                     by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
    A 40-year-old Salmon Valley man who died in a boat accident Sunday may have lost his life to save his eight-year-old daughter.
    Names of five people involved in the accident have not yet been released. The 22-foot jet boat, carrying three adults and two children, overturned on the Salmon River near a log jam shortly before 5:30 p.m.
    The log jam was about one kilometre downstream from the Salmon River bridge that crosses Highway 97 about 25 km north of Prince George.
    The river is swollen with spring runoff water and rain. Police and residents arriving to help quickly discovered the river was largely unnavigablc.
    A call went out for a helicopter and rescue backup. A Mountie and a Salmon Valley resident risked their own lives to scramble through the log jam to get to the boat.
    An eight-ycar-old girl was discovered trapped in the bow of the overturned boat.
    The two men reassured the frightened girl, talking to her through the hull. An axe was used to chop a hole through the boat and free her. Her father was discovered drowned in the hull.
    One Salmon Valley resident at the scene, a former brother-in-law of the man who drowned, said he believes the father saved his daughter’s life.
    “Nobody really knows what happened,” Bill Fillion said today. “But we’ve been out in
 his boat before, with our kids, and that’s where they sleep — up in the bow. I think she might have been sieeping up there.
    “The way I see it, he had to go back and get her.”
    Fillion and others at the scene believe the girl’s father pulled or pushed her up into an air pocket, saving her life.
    Along with volunteer firemen, paramedics, police, a helicopter and Prince George Search and Rescue volunteers, area residents turned out with boats and chain-saws to aid in the. search for those still missing.
    Two survivors, a man and a woman from Nelson, were found on shore, downstream from the overturned boat. An older child was found shivering on a piece of the log jam.
Trustees boo education minister
    VANCOUVER (CP) — Education Minister Anita Hagen was booed by school trustees Saturday, after appealing for greater communication.
    The trustees were upset because she refused to take questions after
 her 30-minute speech to the annual B.C. School Trustees Association meeting in Vancouver.
    Trustee Jim Campbell, who confronted Hagen, said it was the first time in the 27 years he’s attended the meetings that an education
 minister has refused to answer questions. About 800 teachers face layoffs next year and some trustees wanted to know about funding.
    Hagen said later she’ll announce in a few weeks how •' fund ’ will be reviewed.
INDEX
   Last, who resigned as alderman in February, is scheduled to make a first appearance in provincial court here May 11.
  Ann Landers .... 16
  Bridge..................20
  Business 17,18
  City, B.C..............2,3
  Classified .... 19-23
  Comics..................10
  Commentary 5
  Crossword...............20
  Editorial................4
  Entertainment ... 10
  Family..................16
  Horoscope...............22
  International 9
  Movies..................10
  National.................8
  Sports...............13*15
  Television..............21
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