The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8,1993
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: *13 High tomorrow: -3
Deep wounds exposed
6
Innu kids find help
8
Somaiis return home
Smale takes seniors
Phono: 562-2441 ClaMllled: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
HOCKEY.STAR LINDROS ACQUITTED
Fight heating up over Ul changes
HORSE TEAM BOLTS
Sleigh ride turns into fatal tragedy
Special to The Citizen
KAMLOOPS — A sunny afternoon sleigh ride turned to tragedy Sunday when a team of horses bolted from a trail and slammed the sleigh and its shocked passengers into a tree.
The accident happened around 2 p.m, at Cross Country Stables, southwest of Cherry Creek. One person, a woman, was killed and six others were taken to Royal Inland Hospital, four of them with serious, but undisclosed injuries.
Most of the sleigh passengers were related and had been enjoying a family outing on the warm bright winter afternoon until the horses bolted. No one knows yet what spooked the team of large Belgians.
Police said 19 people were on the bright red, hay-lined sleigh when the team of horses bolted for an unknown reason seconds before the sleigh slammed into the tree snapping the driver’s seat like kindling and throwing.
Dead is 35-year-old Leslie Ann (Lee) Campbell of Tod Road in Kamloops. Her husband, Ramey Campbell, and a 13-year-old daughter, Laura, were also on the sleigh ride.
RIH officials would not identify the four people still in hospital today or the state of their injuries. However, police said all four suffered serious injuries. The Daily News has learned that the sleigh driver Ken Glanvdle suffered two broken legs as well as a broken arm.
Other people on the sleigh ride included Fleyrette Piche, Eryn Lee Gibson, Thelma Campbell, Blair Campbell, Elizabeth Cameron, Ron Gray, Eileen Schmidt, John Schmidt, Ron Newman, Heide Neighbor, Howard Neighbor and Andrew Reid. The other names were not available.
Emergency officials had to use a helicopter to get near the accident scene on a back trail accessible by four-wheel-drivc vehicles only.
Highway work urged
A new federal committee lobbying for improvements to the Ycllo-whead Highway is being headed by Prince George-Bulkley Valley MP Brian Gardiner.
Gardiner is joined by 11 other New Democrat MPs from B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba who intend to lobby different levels of government to develop a plan for upgrading the Yellowhead Highway system, which stretches from Portage La Prairie, Man., to Prince Rupert and Hope.
Gardiner said in a press release today there is a “window of opportunity” to tap into the $300 million set aside for federal and provincial projects involving highways.
“We are disappointed that the government chose not to have a specific program for the Yellowhead but we are going to pressure both levels of government to get the improvements we need,” Gardiner said.
Other B.C. MPs in the committee are Jim Fulton (Skeena), Nelson Riis (Kamloops) and Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt).
INDEX
Farcus
Ann Lwidcrs .... 20
Bridge..................17
Business................15
City, B.C..............2,3
Classified .... 16-19
Comics...................6
Commentary 5
Crossword...............17
Entertainment .... 6
Family..................20
Horoscope...............17
International 9
Lotteries................8
Movies...................6
National.................8
Sports.................1M4
Television..............19
‘Last cigarette? They told me this was a taste test!"
by Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Employment Minister Bernard Valcourt says demogogucry and disinformation are being used to spin lies about proposed changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The minister’s comments came as thousands of Quebecers marched through Montreal to protest changes that would help the government cover part of an $8-billion deficit in its UI accounts by cutting benefits to those who voluntarily quit or who are fired for wrongdoing.
“We have demagogues out there preying on fear, preying on disinformation,’’ Valcourt said on CTV’s Question Period, which was broadcast Sunday.
“We are not trying to penalize a person who has got to quit his or her job,’’ he said, adding that his department has already listed 40 legitimate reasons for quitting.
Responding to criticism that the new legislation would penalize women who are forced to quit their jobs because of sexual harassment, Valcourt conceded that more changes were in the works.
“I understand the plight of the seually harassed,” he said. “Some, it is true, would rather just quit and be penalized, take lower benefits because of somebody else.
“We are in the process of drafting the new directives, and I have introduced in those directives to our employment agents (those who decide who get benefits) that the benefit of the doubt had to be given to the complainant.”
Valcourt has said the proposed changes will enable the government to freeze the insurance premiums paid by employers, and end abuses that cost taxpayers $200 million annually.
On Sunday, he said the stakes were even higher.
In 1991, he said, taxpayers handed about $1 billion to 225,000 “voluntary quitters.”
The minister said the “vast, silent majority” of Canadians support his plan.
The proposed changes would also lower the percentage of insurable earnings for claimants to 57 per cent from 60.
Pickets hit all schools
Schools in the Quesnel district were behind picket lines today as teachers escalated job action in the ongoing labor dispute.
Quesnel District Teachers’ Association and School District 28 are scheduled to meet Tuesday with mediator Irene Holden.
In addition to pickets at the 22 district schools, pickets were also up at the District Administration office and the Education Resource Centre in Quesnel. During the past month, teachers have picketed four or five schools each day, issuing 24-hour notice which schools will be affected.
Teachers return to rotating strikes Tuesday.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Museum curator George Phillips in the storage room containing more than 7,000 Items depicting the history of this area.
MUSEUM’S ARCHIVES
Door to the past opens
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen Staff
For the first time, residents in the Prince George area will be able to view more than 7,000 historical artifacts and items stored in the archives at the Fraser-Fort George Regional Museum.
“We feel this should be open to the public,” said new curator George Phillips, explaining that the bulging storage room has always been off-limits to visitors.
When it’s unveiled this summer, visitors will see racks and cabinets full of items ranging from stone hammers, spears and mauls (a kind of heavy hammer) dating back to prehistoric times to a bell from a steam locomotive used at Eagle Lake Sawmills to hand-fanning machines for cleaning grain to old printing equipment dating back to the early 1900s.
There’s an old telephone switchboard, agricultural items like a hand cultivator, and computers used in pulp mills 30 years ago.
New arrangements of racking and cabinets, for smaller items, will turn the archives into a categorized library of history of this area.
Upstairs, a current gallery offering travel displays will become a search and discovery room mainly depicting natural history.
Forestry, rivers, wildlife and other native aspects of this area will form an activity area for families, school classes and individuals.
Discovery boxes will contain such materials as a moose skeleton that can be reconstructed or a number of specimen bottles containing insects and other small creatures.
“Visitors will be able to Figure out which belong on land or in water through information sheets describing characteristics of specimens,” said Phillips.
A skylight will be installed above the entrance area, and the
Here are some of the things already planned for the Fraser-Fort George Regional Museum in the next few months:
■ Charting the Frontier began Saturday. It focuses on pioneer surveyors like the late Ernie Burden from this city. Public lectures, slide shows, stories and artifacts will be featured for a month.
■ Multicultural and heritage week celebrations are planned from Feb. 15 to 21.
■ A teacher’s conference March 5 will inform teachers about ways to use the museum.
■ An archival conservation workshop and guided museum tours will also be offered in March.
■ In April, visiting palaentol-ogist Dr. Paul Johnston from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta., will share his knowledge of dinosaurs.
lobby will become an action space. Visitors may have their pictures taken with two stuffed grizzly bears, watch a catalogued continuous slide presentation of the museum’s photo collection or browse in an enlarged museum sales shop.
The stuffed animals behind the glass upstairs will be relocated throughout the museum to support different ideas.
Another area on the lower floor is being made into a research area for the public, which can pursue the museum’s photograph collection and manuscript documents.
Phillips predicts it will be well-used, particularly by local high school, college and university students.
Cindy Rebman, visitor services co-ordinator, is organizing collections of educational materials for students to use, and is planning programs to the end of 1994.
The renovation plans are “coming into focus,” said Phillips, explaining the designs and drawings are in final draft form.
The cost for renovation materials for the lobby area, washrooms and upper gallery is estimated at $125,000.
Museum directors will request $40,000 from the Fraser-Fort George Regional District and the remainder will come from fundraising events, corporations and agencies like the province’s Partners in Science awareness program.
Five employees have been hired for 50 weeks to do construction, painting and rearranging as well as working with education programs and visitor services. Wages are being paid with a $100,000 grant from Employment and Immigration Canada.
The sounds of hammers and saws already echo from the lower floor, where carpenter Brent Merrier is building storage cabinets as fast as he can.
The former resident says the museum “could sure use donations of spare plywood.”
“If it’s good on one side that’s basically all we need,” he said.
Staff also need portable, battery-powered forklifts for the next few weeks to do a lot of rearranging.
Phillips, who took over curator duties six months ago, likes Prince George.
“I love this place. I’ve never had so much support in this business,” he said of museum society members and the public.
Anyone volunteering help at the museum is welcome. Call 562-1612 if you can help with time, equipment or materials.
10SHAWA, OnL (CP) — Hockey star Eric Lindros shook hands with his lawyer after being acquitted today of charges he assaulted a woman in a bar last fall.
Justice Rhys Morgan said the defence evidence raised a reasonable doubt about Lindros’s guilt.
“The dispute could have been resolved that night without criminal charges,” Morgan told a packed courtroom. “Unfortunately, the positions of both parties hardened.”
Lindros, 19, was charged with common assault after Lynn Nun-ney, a 24-year-old factory worker, alleged the Philadelphia Flyers
Koo Bananas, a bar in nearby Whitby, about 60 kilometres east of Toronto.
Nunney said Lindros repeatedly pushed her toward the edge of the dance floor and emptied a bottle of beer on her head and spat beer in her face when she tried to stop him.
Her testimony was corroborated by her sister and a friend.
But Lindros testified Nunney started the spat, pouring beer on his back without provocation.
He said he tried to retaliate by “sprinkling” beer on her.
Five defence witnesses, including three who had never met Lindros before, backed his story.
rookie spat and poured beer on her when she refused to make room for him on a packed nightclub dance floor last Nov. 29.
The verdict followed a trial in which the judge twice reminded scores of reporters and other spectators they were in a LINDROS court — not at an “entertainment facility.”
In trial testimony ending Thursday, witnesses offered sharply conflicting versions of events at Koo
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