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OTTAWA MAY MUZZLE FEDERAL FISHERIES EXPERTS
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Forest decisions tougher	3
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‘Gag flag’ riles critics of Kemano 2
by DENNIS BUECKERT
OTTAWA (CP) — The federal government warns that it may not allow its employees or former employees to testify before a B.C. inquiry studying the $1-billion Kemano 2 project, even if they arc subpoenaed.
The warning is contained in a letter from the Justice Department to the B.C. Utilities Commission, which is reviewing the controversial hydroelectric project near Kiti-mat, B.C.
Alcan Aluminium’s Kemano 2 project has sparked one of the hottest environmental disputes in Canada. The project will reduce the Nechako River, an important salmon stream, to 14 per cent of its original flow.
Ottawa exempted the project from its own environmental assessment review process in 1990. The B.C. government recently decided to conduct its own assessment after pressure from environmentalists, natives and fishermen.
In a letter dated April 30, obtained by The Canadian Press on Friday, federal Justice Department official H.J. Wruck says Ottawa will co-operate with the provincial inquiry, but adds two qualifications.
Wruck says many of the federal documents relating to the project involve confidential information relating to Alcan, and therefore cannot be released without Alcan’s permission.
And he says Ottawa reserves the right “to object to the authority of the commission to obtain disclosure of information or to subpoena past or present federal government employees in order to elicit information.’’
In Victoria, B.C. Environment Minister John Cashorc said Ottawa should come clean on the Kemano project.
“It greatly concerns me,” Cashore said of the letter. “It’s my position that the federal government should come eagerly to the review we’ve set up and demon-
FREE TRADE
strate that they have nothing to hide.”
Cashore said federal Environment Minister Jean Charest, a leading candidate for the federal Conservative leadership, should demonstrate some leadership on the Kemano issue.
“It behooves him to indicate that his vision of a government is one that participates openly in this process,” Cashore said.
New Democrat MP Brian Gardiner — whose riding includes some of the areas that will be affected by the project — said the federal government intends to gag its fisheries experts.
“In my view, it’s basically a gag flag,” he said in an interview. “If the (B.C. Utilities) Commission wants to get federal Fisheries Department officials to appear, the federal government is ready to go to court to prevent that.”
Gardiner said a number of former and current Fisheries Department employees are highly critical of the federal government’s handling of the project.
He said he has learned through Access to Information requests that the federal government has 83,000 pages of information on the Kemano 2 project, and he predicted that most of them will be withheld from the B.C. commission.
On Friday, Gardiner introduced a motion in the Commons condemning the government “for its failure to protect Canadian interests regarding the inter-basin transfer of water as exemplified by the Kemano project, the North Thompson River and both the Colombia River Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement.”
The motion will be voted on Monday. The government has the numbers to defeat it.
A Commons-Senate committee has concluded that cabinet’s exemption of the Kemano 2 project from environmental review was illegal and unconstitutional.
Deal not in bag, yet
by Southam News
OTTAWA — Parliament may have given final approval this week to the North American Free Trade Agreement, but the deal is still far from being a certainty.
Recent developments in the United States have cast doubt on NAFTA’s future.
Leon Panetta, U.S. President Bill Clinton’s budget director, has admitted the pact would be “dead” in Congress if a vote was taken today.
Critics in and outside of Congress charge that Mexico’s lax environmental standards and cheap labor will prompt a mass exodus of business and jobs south of the border.
Former presidential candidate Ross Perot is being credited with spearheading the opposition.
He has labelled NAFTA an invitation to American business to invest abroad.
And Perot has shown he’s not averse to using his enormous personal wealth to buy television
INDEX
Ann Landera	.... 17
Bridge.................31
Business.......18,19
City, B.C............2,3,9
Classified ....	25 35
Comics..................22
Commentary...............5
Crossword..............31
Editorial................4
Entertainment	... 22
Family..................17
Horoscope..............31
Movies 22, P16
Sports..........13-16
P = Plus!
time, making him a factor in the debate.
Missouri Democrat Richard Gephardt, the U.S. House of Representatives majority leader, has said that “without strong supplemental, NAFTA can’t pass.”
To soften opposition, Clinton is attempting to strike side deals for penally provisions to enforce labor and environmental safeguards, and to guard against possible import surges.
But that’s left Canada and Mexico bitter. Both countries fear a tool of protectionism will be created which could hurt their exporters.
Under one U.S. proposal, a three-member commission would be struck to oversee enforcement of environment and labor regulations. Each of the counties would have a seat on the commission.
Negotiating sessions in Ottawa in mid-May failed to resolve the impasse. A new round of talks in Washington is slated for early June.
Farcus
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‘C’mon in, Harry. I’m sure we can quickly settle this nasty little lawsuit.”
Grand entry
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
The Prince George Native Friendship Centre’s Save Our Rivers Powwow got off with a bang as drummers welcomed the Willow Point singers, White Whale Juniors, Arrows to Freedom and a company from Chiniki Lake near Mosley, Alberta for the three-day event which began Friday night. The powwow continues through the weekend.
CABINET MEETS SUNDAY
Action promised in school dispute
VICTORIA (CP) — The cabinet will hold an emergency meeting Sunday to decide whether to order striking Vancouver teachers back to work.
But schools will remain closed for the 54,000 students until at least Tuesday.
Premier Mike Harcourt said Friday that the three-week dispute had to be settled by Sunday or his government would act.
Labor Minister Moe Sihota emerged from a special two-hour cabinet session Friday evening to say he had been asked by his colleagues to compile information to present at Sunday’s meeting.
He would not be specific, but earlier said that a back-to-work order was under consideration.
Sihota again criticized Vancouver school trustees, saying, “These people are acting in a childish and immature manner.”
Their morning meeting to discuss binding arbitration ended in disarray as five of nine trustees walked out, preventing the board from achieving quorum and effectively cancelling the meeting.
Liberal party labor critic Gary Farrell-Collins attacked Sihota for what he said was the minister’s refusal to take any action to end the strike, and called for his resignation.
“This absolute and total crap,” Farrell-Collins said moments after watching Sihota brief reporters.
Sihota said the government needed time to prepare legislation
— a complex matter that cannot be solved by Monday.
“We are looking at legislative solutions to this problem,” he said. “The premier has said there is a deadline and it’s Sunday and we have to find a way to solve this problem, and we’ll be finding a wayto solve this problem.”
Almost all forms of government intervention that would end the strike require some sort of new legislation, which would need at least one day to be passed into law.
Other government options include sending the dispute to binding arbitration, invoking a cooling-off period; firing the school trustees; or simply imposing some
or all of special mediator Brian Foley’s recommendations.
Sihota said it was “unlikely” the schools will open on Monday, and he also admitted there was no hope for a negotiated settlement.
He again attacked the Vancouver board for refusing to agree to Foley’s recommendations. He was especially critical of trustees who walked out of Friday’s meeting.
“Our frustration is with the trustees,” he said. “We’ve got some trustees who are behaving in an unacceptable way as democratically elected officials.”
In other developments Friday: Mediated talks between striking Surrey teachers and the board will resume Monday.
UN slams Canada for neglecting poor
GENEVA (CP) — A United Nations committee has rebuked Canada for neglecting the rights of the poor and failing to reduce poverty.
.“There seems to have been no measurable progress in alleviating poverty over the last decade, nor in alleviating the severity of poverty among a number of particularly vulnerable groups,” the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights said in its concluding report Friday.
The committee, which monitors implemention of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, released the report based on a review last week of Canada’s compliance with its treaty obligations.
The committee heard testimony from two Canadian nongovernmental anti-poverty organizations.
Real estate guide
A subdivision with large lots and larger than normal homes which provides country-style living just 15 minutes from downtown is featured inside The Citizen today.
The history and lifestyle of the Toombs subdivision is followed by current mortgage rates and a photo feature on the Parade of Homes, starting on page 25.
The committee said it is concerned “more than half of the single mothers in Canada, as well as a large number of children, live in poverty.”
The report said it is alarming “the federal government appears to have reduced the ratio of its contributions to cost-sharing agreements for social assistance,” and families are “being forced to relinquish their children to foster care because of inability to provide
adequate housing or other necessi- government lacks commitment to ties.”	those	most	in	need.
The committee also criticized Canada for its reliance on food banks operated by charitable organizations; for widespread housing discrimination against people with low incomes and children and for the government’s failure to mention it has a problem with homelessness.
In Ottawa, NDP MP Chris Axworthy said the Conservative
But Conservative MP Barbara Greene, who heads the Commons’ subcommittee on poverty, said the UN committee used Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-off, a formula she insists is not an accurate tool with which to measure poverty.
“Because their way of measuring poverty is not poverty. It’s inequality of income.”
BRITONS ASKED ABOUT QUEEN
She does good job, but bit glum
LONDON (Reuter) — Most Britons believe the cost of maintaining the Royal Family should be cut and 14 per cent think the royals should receive no public money at all, said an opinion poll released Friday.
But an overwhelming 81 per cent of those questioned for the poll in the Guardian newspaper said the Queen does a good job, even though more than two-thirds said she looks “too glum.”
The opinion poll was published as a former private secretary to the Queen revealed that pressure from the media was the main influence behind her decision last year to offer to pay income tax.
Lord Martin Charteris told BBC television’s Newsnight that the decision was reached in February last year, eight months before being announced
in the wake of a public outcry over plans for the state to Finance fire damage repairs at the Queen’s Windsor Castle.
Asked why the Queen decided to start paying tax, Charteris said: “Because there was a lot of pressure . . . from the media. It was a matter of discussion between her, her prime minister and her advisers.”
The Queen agreed at the same time to drastically reduce the number of members of the Royal Family receiving money from the state to carry out official duties.
Charteris, the Queen’s private secretary from 1972 to 1977, said he would have advised the Queen not to pay tax on her vast private wealth, implying this might detract from the grandeur of the monarchy.
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