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T. JOHNSTON/Soulham News Graphics
by JULIAN BELTRAME Southam News
VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Brian Mulroney kicked off his referendum campaign Monday with a dire warning of economic catastrophe should Quebec separate.
“Without the glue that binds the country together all of us will suffer great and probably irreparable economic damage,” he told high school students in Vancouver.
"Without unity we’ve got nothing — all the prosperity we have is split in two.”
The prediction came at the end of a hectic day of campaigning that was full of contradictions, some heated exchanges and an eloquent defence of aboriginal rights.
While warning of the consequences of the country splitting
COLUMNS, PAGE 4 TRUDEAU, PAGE 8
up, Mulroney said "people will have to make up their own minds without terrorism and intimidation.”
Using the backdrop of a swearing in ceremony for 125 new Canadians and a solemn native ceremony, Mulroney painted the Charlottetown Accord as the concrete manifestation of the aspirations of Canada’s newest and oldest citizens, of French, English, native and ethnic cultures.
Pouncing on a Quebec reporter, who referred to him as an anglophone Quebecer, Mulroney pressed home his point.
"I am a pure Quebecer, you are an immigrant,” he said. "There is no distinction, we arc all citizens of Canada.”
And dogged by protesters throughout day, Mulroney waded into the crowds to confront heck-
Salmon appointment ‘joke’
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Citizen Staff
Commercial fishermen oppose the appointment of Dr. Peter Pearse to head an inquiry into the loss of sockeye salmon from the Fraser River, but natives support it
The B.C. Fishermen’s Survival Coalition say commercial fishermen do not believe Pearse can provide and objective decision independent of Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s (DFO) policy.
“It’s a joke. He has a reputation for parroting DFO’s position,” Mae Burrows of the United Fisher-
men and Allied Workers’ Union said Monday from Vancouver.
On the other hand, aboriginal leaders, including Lheit-Lit’en Nations chief Peter Quaw of Prince George, are applauding Pearse’s appointment because of the work he did on the 1981 inquiry into Canada’s Fisheries policy on the Pacific Coast which has resulted in establishing of a native fishery in B.C.
Ernie Crey, head of the Lower Fraser Fishing Authority that organized the native fishery on the Lower Fraser River this year, also welcomed Pearse’s appointment.
Farcus
Both sides are uncomfortable because Pearse is a director of Alcan.
Native leaders and environmental groups have pointed to the low water levels and resulting higher water temperatures when the fish were moving through the Nechako River as one of the reasons the sockeye failed to reach the spawning grounds.
A 1987 agreement which enabled Alcan to begin construction of its $l-billion Kemano Completion Project, turned the management of the water levels in the Nechako over to a nongovernmental committee.
Fishermen are also disappointed Fisheries Minister John Crosbie has established a public inquiry and not a judicial inquiry into DFO’s inability to explain what happened to the 150,000 sockeye who failed to reach the spawning grounds in the Stuart Lake chain this year.
A judicial inquiry would give the public access to information about the Alcan project which, until now, has been hidden, she said.
A judicial inquiry would take too long and be too costly, Crosbie is quoted as saying in a report Friday in the Vancouver Sun.
The Cheslatta Indian Band is joining the fishermen in opposing Pearse’s appointment “We have serious questions about Kemano One (the first phase of the project, that happened in the 1950s) that have never been addressed,” band spokesman Dana Wagg said.
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‘Maybe it was the red and black ones I wasn’t supposed to cross.”
Expos fading fast 13
Yukon \ \ &5jMorthWMl
Territories^ \ ^ Territories
Explosion In UVellowknife mine kills at least seven
Great
Slave Lake
BODIES REMOVED FROM MINE
A nuclear nightmare 5
Perot return hinted 9
Yellowknife offers $20,000 reward
CANADA WITHOUT QUEBEC
PM’s crystal ball shows dire future
YELLOWKNIFE (CP) — With tears in their eyes and heads bowed in silent prayer, families of nine miners killed in an underground explosion watched Monday as the bodies of the dead men were brought to the surface.
Meanwhile, the City of Yellowknife has put up a $20,000 reward to find the person or persons responsible for the blast at the Giant Yellowknife gold mine on Friday.
"We want a real incentive for someone to come forward,” said deputy mayor Bob Findlay. "We don’t want anything like this happening in Yellowknife ever again.”
On the first sunny day since the tragedy, about 150 relatives, friends and co-workers gathered beneath the mine’s towering steel headframe.
"It was a very traumatic event today as the bodies came up,” said John Smrkc, vice-president of Vancouver-based Royal Oak Mines Inc.
"We gathered together and prayed and lent what support we could as the bodies were taken from the site.”
It’s customary to gather at the collar of the mine when dead miners are brought out, he said.
The bodies were flown to ^Edmonton for autopsies while an investigation continues into the blast, which police say was not an accident.
The N.W.T. legislature observed a minute of silence at the beginning of the session Monday and offered prayers for the dead miners and their families.
Territorial Leader Nellie Cour-
Heavy reading
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Gerrie Green hauled away more than 60 books from the annual sale to raise money for the Prince George Public Library. Green, a teacher at Malaspina Elementary School, was among a large, literate crowd. About 600 people were ready when the doors opened Saturday at 10 a.m. Story, page 3.
Low tonight: 8 High tomorrow: 17
don’t like anything,” he said in apparent exasperation.
Asked about Reform party leader Preston Manning's challenge to debate the accord, Mulroney appeared dismissive.
"All of a sudden he now wants to debate everybody from the pope down,” he joked.
"I’d be interested to know how a Reform Party leader is against reform of the Senate, how a Reform Party leader is against reform that will benefit aboriginal peoples . .. against the reform of the division of powers and national institutions. Maybe he can answer those and then we’ll talk.”
The day was not without confusion. Early Monday, Mulroney appeared to contradict Constitutional Affairs Minister Joe Clark by maintaining a simple majority plus one vote nationally would be enough for the federal government to press ahead with constitutional reform.
But he told reporters late in the afternoon the 50 per cent plus one rule must apply to every province.
However, he confused the issue further, saying every province would have “speak for themselves” about what constituted a sufficient endorsement of the package on Oct. 26 for them to ratify the deal.
The prime minister was at his most philosophical when he spoke to 125 newly sworn in Canadians from 41 different countries.
“You have a fundamental right to make up your own mind and to make your own choice,” he told them.
“Simply put to decide whether the Charlottetown agreement... is this good for Canada? Look at it, study it, analyse it, debate it, make sure you’re on the voters list and make sure you vote.”
‘Pepper patrol’ coming here to fight crime
Starting Oct. 1, violent types in Prince George could be in for some hot times as the Prince George RCMP detachment takes part in the Great Pepper Experiment
Prince George is one of four RCMP detachments in the country selected for a pilot project program to test the effectiveness of capsicum oleo resin, a cayenne extract used in small hand-held spray cans as an aerosol-based weapon.
Officers will be equipped with small hand-held spray cans which will be used in violent situations during a three-month trial period as aerosol-based weapons, RCMP Supt Stan Wilcox said today.
"It’s expected to provide an alternative to using guns in violent and dangerous situations,” said Wilcox.
"The spray will cause swelling of mucous membranes, involuntary closing of the eyes, intense burning sensations on exposed skin, coughing, gagging, gasping for air and a loss of body co-ordination,” the RCMP said in a news release. All effects usually disappear within an hour.
Wilcox said police in some Lower Mainland municipal detachments already carry similar sprays as part of their regular gear.
Mace, stun guns and rubber bullets were recommended in a national 1989 study by police authorities investigating alternative weapons for police.
Frequent criticisms are heaped on police for killing or injuring people in the line of duty. Non-lethal weapons provide an alternative to the use of sometimes-deadly force.
k
The Prince George
Citizen
Seniors influence market 11
BRIAN MULRONEY
lers and debate the merits of the Charlottetown Accord.
“You would say No to justice to aboriginal peoples,” he told one heckler at the Squamish reserve. "The aboriginal peoples have fought for justice for 125 years, now it’s their time.”
Later, the prime minister said Canada’s first people’s had been subjected to 125 years of "bondage” that the Charlottetown accord, to be voted on Oct. 26, is designed to address.
Calling Canada a land of opportunity where a boy of working class background like himself could become prime minister, he said every Canadian child can aspire to the same ambition.
“Except for certain people,” he added. "It doesn’t happen to our natives, for example.”
Speaking temperately most of the day, Mulroney nevertheless painted opponents of the constitutional accord as malcontents who would stop all progress while they wait for perfection.
"Some people don’t like it; what else is new? Some people
noyea appealed for calm amid recriminations in the capital, which has been a hotbed of tension and confrontation.
Some residents in the city of 16,000 have accused the union of being responsible for the explosion. Labor leaders angrily deny any responsibility.
The deaths will force the federal government to resolve an often-violent strike at the mine, Coumoyea said.
Federal Labor Minister Marcel Danis has rejected calls in the past from labor leaders, the N.W.T. government and northern MPs to intervene in the labor dispute. But a spokesman for Danis in Ottawa said today the labor minister will consider personally intervening.
Meanwhile, nearly two dozen people have called with information since police announced Sunday they were treating the case as a multiple homicide, said RCMP Cpl. Dave Grundy.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22,1992
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