INDEX
Farcus
FRASER RIVER SOCKEYE SALMON
‘CYNICAL POLITICAL TOOU
Two quit ‘recall’ committee
by Canadian Press
VICTORIA — Two members of a legislative committee studying the concept of referendum and recall quit Tuesday, saying the NDP government isn’t serious about the idea.
Cliff Serwa, Social Credit house leader, and independent member David Mitchell said the provincial government is using the all-party committee to avoid action.
“The committee is being used by this government as a cynical political tool to prevent legislation
from coming forward,” Mitchell said.
British Columbia voters supported the reforms concept in a referendum held simultaneously with the 1991 provincial election that brought the NDP government to power.
More than 80 per cent said they supported the idea of using refer-endums to guide the government on controversial issues. The voters also supported the idea of recall — which would give dissatisfied
voters the right to remove members of the provincial legislature.
Premier Mike Harcourt said Tuesday that the government is still committed to the idea but it requires more study.
“We will do our homework,” Harcourt said in the legislature. “We will bring it back before this house.”
But Mitchell said the idea has been studied enough.
“The homework has been done and the groundwork completed,” Mitchell said. “British Columbians
are tired of this government’s deliberate foot-dragging. They want action now.”
Serwa said the Socrcds have already tabled a private member’s bill in the house that would enact referendum and recall, but the government has ignored it.
Serwa said he and Mitchell had no choice but to quit the committee, which is charged with holding public hearings on the idea and reporting back to the provincial legislature. The committee has no specific timetable.
Ann Landers .	. . . 10
Bridge		. . . 26
Business ....	. 12, 13
City, B.C. . . .	. 2, 3, 5
Classified . . .	. 23-28
Comics		. . . 18
Crossword . . .	. . . 25
Editorial ....	. . . . 4
Entertainment	. . . 18
Family		. . . 10
Horoscope . . .	. . . 26
International .	. . . . 9
Movies		. . . 18
National ....	. . . . 8
Sports		. 15-17
Television . . .	. . . 27
“Quick! Somebody turn down the air conditioner.”
The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, MAY 12,1993	51(PEg^t|S
Low tonight: 8 High tomorrow: 26
Rural doctor shortage 6
Canadians head west	8
Safety warnings ignored	9
L.A. goes home with lead	13
Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
Racism claimed in fish dispute
by ARNOLD OLSON Citizen Staff
Racism is involved in continuing claims that natives overfished sockeye in the Fraser River last year, maintain Indian chiefs who met in Prince George this week.
More racism is expected this year, they predicted Tuesday at a press conference.
“There is no doubt in my mind that racism is involved,” said Gerald Amos of the Kitimat band, one of the representatives for the B.C. Summit Chiefs conference.
“I heard it. I felt it,” he said of a meeting on the issue he attended last year.
We re going to do our utmost not to be dragged down to their level. There’s a bigger picture here that presents itself to the public.” He said Indians have been fishing for centuries without depleting fish stocks.
He referred to Wendy Grant, Assembly of First Nations vice chief, being appointed to the Salmon Treaty Commission negotiating a Canada-U.S. treaty.
“What are we going to do in that forum if we continue along the path this group has chosen to go down? This is (the Fisheries Survival) Coalition I’m speaking of.
“There’s going to be further chaos.”
The Fisheries Survival Coalition (FSC) is a group that says it represents commercial fishermen.
Amos said international fisheries are affecting Fraser River and other West Coast salmon stocks far more than the native fishery. “If we don’t begin to address those (issues) then the whole of the user groups will be the losers.” •
Grant said disruption for the sake of making political points is the thrust behind anti-Indian pressure.
“That’s exactly what they’re
doing and their campaign is very thorough — to try to turn public opinion, not only on fishing strategy but the overall treaty process in British Columbia right now.
"It’s very clear that’s what their end result is: to open up all areas of resource and have the general public turn (against Indians).”
She said to date the Canadian public favors resolving long-standing native problems, but latest surveys show B.C.’s support is waning.
She said no proof exists that natives took “the apparent 200,000”
sockeye from the Fraser River, but it is known the U.S. overfished by
400,000	sockeye, she stated.
“Nobody’s doing anything about that. I don’t see the coalition making an issue out of that.”
She maintains hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent by Ottawa to investigate the allegations Indians were responsible for the apparent loss of 200,000 sockeye.
FSC members themselves overfished by 327,000 sockeye, but ignore that, summit representatives maintain.
“If you go to their meetings you’ll find that a lot of their members aren’t fishermen at all. They
are other resource groups that are in there.
“They’re tracking us to see how they can become involved in it.”
Amos said in the next four years 15 million sockeye and 15 million pink salmon from the Fraser River system will be harvested by the U.S.
Ed John, representing the Tl’azt’en nation, said the fishery is a political issue because at recent fishery meetings political parties were visibly present. “It wasn’t simply a fisheries issue.”
Trustees to release report
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
School District 57 trustees are expected to release a report by consultant Wayne Deshamais on the district’s administration June 4, trustee Doug Walls said today.
They will likely release at the same time a shorter report prepared by the board itself in response to Deshamais’s, Walls said.
The Deshamais report, running about 75 pages, includes a number of recommendations, Walls said.
“They’re all in the form of options, and general directions that should be taken up by the board,” he said.
The board’s report, roughly 35 pages, will contain details of the board’s actions since it received the Deshamais report Jan. 19. “It’ll say, This is what we’ve done, why we did it, what we intend to do and how we plan to do it.’ ”
Last summer the board appointed a 13-member steering committee to hire a consultant to review the district’s administrative structure and oversee his work. Walls headed that committee.
On Sept. 20 they selected Deshamais, a former deputy minister of education, from among 12 consultants who submitted bids. He began work Oct. 4, and within a month and a half he had completed his research and interviews.
The report by Deshamais, who previously worked in School District 57, was presented to the board Jan. 19.
“The board prepared a report following the conclusions to a certain extent of the Deshamais report, but also explaining what happened in the board’s relationship with the consultant, and what actions were taken.”
The board’s report does not contradict conclusions in the Deshar-nais report. “The board was pleased with his report.”
But the Deshamais report is somewhat technical, and doesn’t give the background and feedback from employee groups provided in the board’s report. In addition, the board report is more readily readable by the general public.. Walls said.
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Eva Reikort uses one-horsepower equipment to clear a Metis recreational site near Opatcho Lake, Horsing around	about	40 kilometres southeast of Prince George. The environmentally friendly equipment will leave the
area in better shape than machinery would and the exhaust will likely improve plant growth.
Welfare errors costly?
VICTORIA (CP) — An internal government report suggests administrative errors made by welfare caseworkers may be costing British Columbia taxpayers S36 million a year.
The document, leaked to reporters, said most of the errors involve paying welfare benefits to applicants who don’t actually meet qualification standards.
“Incorrect eligibility assessments by the front line are expensive, both in terms of the overpayment of benefits and the cost of post-intake detection, correction and recovery,” the report reads.
“The ongoing measurements performed by the (Social Service Ministry’s) audit services division suggests that the level of adminis-
trative error at the front line approximates three per cent of payments. This can be translated to approximately S36 million or the equivalent of 1,000 financial assistance officers.”
The report, commissioned by the ministry last November, casts serious doubts on the NDP government’s commitment to reduce waste and fraud in the welfare system, Liberal social services critic Val Anderson said Tuesday.
“I’d like to know what’s being done about it — this report is several months old,” Anderson said.
But Social Services Minister Joan Smallwood said she hadn’t read the report because her staff
told her it wasn’t complete and contained speculation and errors.
“That report is currently in a draft status,” Smallwood said. “It’s purely speculative and at this point in time I’m only dealing with facts.”
Smallwood said the government is concerned about administrative error and fraud in the system and is working to correct it.
She insists fraud only accounts for one per cent of the province’s total welfare expenses, pegged this year at more than S2 billion.
And she disputed the three per cent figure for administrative error contained in the report, but could not provide the correct figure.
“I don’t have that off the top of my head,” she said.
Woodward’s
merger
approved
VANCOUVER (CP) — The Woodward’s department store merger with Hudson’s Bay received approval today from a final group of general creditors.
A vote was held in Vancouver today by nearly 600 former employees of financially troubled Woodward’s or their proxies. Four other categories of creditors and shareholder had approved the deal last week.
A spokesman for some of the laid-off employees expressed disappointment at the results. Former employees have complained they’re being shortchanged while Woodward’s executives are given generous severance packages.
Motorcycle accident kills two
Two local young people died when the motorcycle they were on was in a collision with a truck Tuesday night.
The accident at about 8:30 p.m. at Lehman Road and Highway 97 North killed Graeme Berry Williams, 20, and his sister Kathleen, 17.
Both vehicles were demolished, with damage coming to about $21,000, police estimated.
The police are asking that anyone who saw the accident to call them at 562-3371, to provide information for their investigation of the accident.
Economic
forecast
slashed
by Southam News
OTTAWA — Brutal provincial budgets arc sapping life out of the still anemic recovery, the Conference Board of Canada said Tuesday, as it slashed its growth forecast for the national economy this year and next.
“Consumer spending will bear almost the entire brunt of the provincial deficit-cutting measures,” the private think-tank said. And the economy will only grow by just over just over three per cent this year and next, about one-halfpoint less than forecast earlier.
That means fewer than expected jobs will be created though how many fewer won’t be clear until all budgets are presented and implemented, said board economist Paul Darby.
“The restrictive nature of the provincial budget will be greater than we had predicted,” he said.
Finance Minister Don Mazankowski dismissed the board’s pessimism, saying he’s sticking with his budget projections of a modest 2.9-per-cent recovery this year, followed by a robust 4.6-per-cent expansion next year.
However, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. cut its forecast of the number of houses that will be constructed this year to 172,100 from 177,000.