Source: Statistics Canada
P. PERREAULT/Southam News Graphics
Lumber Division of Northwood Pulp and Timber. Both of Canfor’s pulp mills and Northwood’s pulp mill have access ro both CN Rail and B.C. Rail.
Lakeland Mills and The Pas Lumber ship much of their products by truck, Gunderson added.
INDEX
SIDEWALK CLEANUP BOOSTED
SWITCHBOARD:. 562-2441
CLASSIFIED: 562-6666
READER SALES: 562-3301
HARCOURT
DEFENDS
PAYMENTS
*41
• .as Fm* ^1... lJAIiSLAS$/c0OCTHA&T
Ann Landers.............12
Bridge..................22
Business.............26,27
City, B.C...............23
Classified...........21-24
Comics ..................6
Coming events 12
Commentary ..............5
Crossword ..............22
Entertainment 6,7
Horoscope...............23
Lifestyles..............12
Movies ..................6
Nation ...............8,11
Sports ..............15-20
Workplace ..............25
World.................9,10
Farcus
“You know the rules, Bizwell — no personal items on the desk!”
Identification ends desperate search
by BILL SEYMOUR Citizen Staff
Quesnel RCMP have positively identified the body found in a shallow grave last week as that of Tiffany McKinney, 19, formerly of Prince George.
The announcement officially ends a desperate search by family and friends that began last September after McKinney failed to contact relatives after leaving on a trip from Quesnel. A pair of Quesnel men charged with murdering the woman are expected to appear in court April 4.
Forensic experts used dental records and other evidence to confirm the body found last Thursday about three kilometres south of Quesnel was that of McKinney. A head injury is listed as the official cause of death.
Police are still putting together the details of how she was killed, said Sgt. Rick Kowalewich.
Members of her family are in Quesnel today making funeral arrangements. Pat Keckalo, McKinney’s mother who lives here, said she doesn’t want to say anything for fear it could jeopardize the RCMP’s investigation.
“It has been a blur,” Keckalo said today. “It’s up and down, I get a few hours when I’m normal.”
Her daughter’s disappearance has prompted Keckalo to take on the cause of other missing children. More can be. done to co-ordinate information on missing kids and getting word out quicker and wider, she added.
The experience of the past six months since McKinney’s mysterious disappearance and the provincewide search hasn’t ended for Keckalo. v • -
“It’s only the beginning,” she added. “Her death has to be good for something.
“I’m not sure exactly how much I’ll be involved but I sure know what it feels like.”
Robert Edward Copeland, 19, and Paul Charles Forknall, 18, both from Quesnel were charged last week with first-degree murder. Both men were found with McKinney’s car when the vehicle was recovered last fall near Kelowna.
They remain in custody.
Low tonight: -1 High tomorrow: 7
Details page 2
Tiffany McKinney and her mother Pat Keckalo in photo taken last summer.
History
Keen-eyed youth humbles dinosaur experts. Page 13
Workplace
Do you have hidden assets with value in the job market? Page 25
Nation
Major telephone players say it's time local rates went up. Page 8
Sports
Kings host Mustangs in Rocky Hockey playoff. Page 15
PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
NATIONAL RAIL DISPUTE
by Canadian Press
VICTORIA — Several thousand dollars of taxpayers’ money have been paid each month by the B.C. government to an U.S. politi-cal-image consultant, Premier Mike Harcourt acknowledged Monday.
It was the first time Harcourt has disclosed an estimate of how much money has been paid to Karl Struble, a Washington, D.C., communications guru.
Harcourt acknowledged a portion of a $556-a-day retainer paid to NOW Communications — an ad firm headed by the premier’s former campaign manager — has gone to Struble.
The Opposition Liberals call it a waste of money, but Harcourt defended the payments.
“It’s worth the few thousand dollars a month,” Harcourt said. “The advice that Mr. Struble offers has been very useful.”
Sources have suggested that almost all the retainer has gone to Struble, but Harcourt refused to offer a precise figure.
Harcourt is under investigation for potential conflict of interest over the more than $5 million in government contracts given to NOW Communications and its head, former NDP strategist Ron Johnson.
Documents released under free-dom-of-information laws show Struble’s firm — a consultant to the U.S. Democratic party — has written at least five of Harcourt’s major policy speeches since the 1991 election.
Johnson was Harcourt’s campaign manager in that election.
“I give hundreds of speeches every year,” Harcourt said. “For one speech out of 50 or 100, my staff may seek Mr. Struble’s very valued skills in communications.”
Harcourt said Monday that Struble has done other work for the government, but he refused to say what.
Liberal critic Gary Farrell-Collins said the government has been deliberately hiding its relationship with the U.S. consultant, who also worked on the NDP election campaign.
Pay detailed for babysitter
Citizen staff
Parents don’t have to worry about paying babysitters $6.50 an hour on New Year’s Eve, says a Prince George day-care consultant.
The new legislation is for caregivers who work in homes more than 15 hours a week, according to the Ministry of Women’s Equality, Danielle Perry told city council Monday night.
“It doesn’t apply to hiring a babysitter for New Year’s Eve — only for people regularly employed,” said Perry, who believes the legislation will protect people like nannies who often come here from other countries like the Philippines, agreeing to work for $200 a month and their room and board.
Acting mayor Dan Rogers asked Perry about the legislation during her presentation of a childcare plan for Prince George.
‘There’s some concern in the city that the impending legislation could impact the price of child care,” he said.
New Employment Standards Act regulations, which include minimum wage provisions, mean babysitters working more than 15 hours a week must be paid at least $6.50 an hour. They also get full employee benefits, including overtime, where applicable.
TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1995
65 CENTS
Prolonged strike would hurt mills
by KEN BERNSOHN Citizen Staff
At night, when River Road is shrouded in fog, it’s quiet where a half-dozen CN Rail workers maintain a picket line at the rail line’s shop parking lot.
‘The company isn’t trying to operate, so it’s quiet,” said Jamie Mould, president of the United Transportation Union, local 1271.
The UTU, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, and
Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers are on strike.
Members of the union representing dispatchers — the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers — and the Canadian Auto Workers Union have been locked out or laid off, Mould said. That means only about 150 of more than 400 rail workers not working in town are actually on strike.
“It’s frustrating,” Mould said in an interview today. “Most strikes are to force companies to negotiate, but they’re just waiting for the government to act.”
In addition, pickets are in front of the VIA station on First Avenue during the day.
The strike, which has shut down CN Rail since Saturday, will affect mills west of town before it affects sawmills here, says Dave Gunderson, executive director of the Council on Northern Interior Forest Employment Relations.
Plateau Mills in Vanderhoof, Houston Forest Products, and Babine Forest Products will feel the pinch of not being able to ship by rail to market before Prince George mills, Gunderson said Monday.
! Several of Prince George’s $awmills are on B.C. Rail including Carrier Lumber, Netherlands Overseas Division of Canfor, North Central Plywood, and Rustad Bros.
How Canada moves
The rail strike threatens to slow the economy if the dispute is not soon resolved.
Urban Interurban
transit 6.7% , bus 0.7%
pulp
ro both CN Rail
and The Pas leir prod-added.
However, he feels if the strike were to last, there would be a shortage of trucks, and mills here would have trouble supplying customers.
Northwood spokesman Bill Theessen said the company’s Upper Fraser sawmill is also on CN Rail, but if the strike is over within about a week, it won’t be much of a problem.
B.C.’s coal mines near Tumbler Ridge have been stockpiling coal since the strike started Saturday, said B.C. Rail spokesman Hillary Thompson.
B.C. Rail has made arrangements to barge railcars to where
they can connect with American railroads, which eliminates the
need to use the CN Rail interchange, so lumber can still get to midwestem and Eastern U.S. markets, she added.
However, grain shipments have stopped in Western Canada.
The strike may last until next Monday because the Bloc
Quebecois delayed back-to-work
legislation Monday.
Labor Minister Lucienne
Robillard tried to introduce a bill forcing an end to the strikes and lockouts that have shut down Canadian National Railways and Via Rail Canada Inc. and severely curtailed rail operations at
Canadian Pacific Ltd.
But Robillard couldn’t act after the Bloc and the NDP refused to ignore the usual 48-hours notice needed to introduce of a bill.
“I think the government is trigger happy,” Opposition Leader Lucien Bouchard told reporters. “They should wait a little more and give a chance for the parties to sit down and reach a settlement.”
Robillard can introduce her bill today because she officially filed notice Sunday.
Liberal House leader Herb Gray said the government will use every possible parliamentary rule to speed the legislation through to approval.
In theory, the opposition could delay full approval until next Monday.
While Bouchard defended his party’s action as a defence of basic labor rights, it flatly contradicted a request from the union that represents locomotive and rail car repair workers at all three railways.
See also page 8
Air ambulance: Time needed
by BILL SEYMOUR Citizen Staff It could be more than a year before the full complement of trained people is available to run an air ambulance base from Prince George, says the regional director of the B.C. Ambulance Service.
A pair of advanced paramedics on the ground here since March have already made an impact in shouldering the ambulance workload for northern B.C. but it could take time to find qualified people to fill two more vacancies announced last week, said Rick Hedges of Prince George.
“All positions have been posted twice now,” Hedges said today. “If it needs to be trained it will be a year or more.”
Health Minister Paul Ramsey announced Friday that Prince George and Kelowna will get new air ambulance stations in B.C. The stations replace the now-closed air ambulance station in Victoria.
Ramsey said the service will result in better health care and more efficient spending of health care dollars. Having a station based here will result in quicker response times for patients needing transport to Vancouver or Victoria.
It will also mean the aircraft will spend more time actually carrying patients, Ramsey said.
But the Liberal health critic questions why the government took so long to decide on a course of action that has been available for years. Linda Reid (Richmond East) says the decision to move the base here was good.
“The key to success in air ambulance is consistency,” Reid said Monday from Richmond. “The need is not new, it has been in existence since they have been in government three and a half years ago.
The four paramedics staffing the base will be drawn from the ranks of the ambulance service’s highest-trained crews. Advanced life support (ALS) paramedics are in short supply in B.C. and it takes time to train them.
Training people to work here could take 12 to 18 months, says Mike Bums, of the union representing paramedics. Once everything is done the city’s complement of ALS paramedics will jump to 14 from fewer than 10, said paramedic Mike Bums of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 873.
Having the extra crew here is rewarding after close to eight years of campaigning for the people, said Bums.
‘The actual push came from our local people,” he added.
Citizen staff
There will be extra sidewalk cleaning in the city of Prince George this summer, city council decided Monday.
Councillors loosened the budget purse strings to add an additional $12,241 to clean downtown sidewalks once a week from April to September.
Council considered adding $84,480 for additional main thoroughfare and residential street sweeping, but decided to look at cutting that amount by two-thirds.
Staff will bring back a report on whether or not extra residential sweeping totalling about 30 per cent or about $25,000 of the proposed extra costs can be worked out among employees.
Gary Champagne, director of public works, said it probably can be done by recalling operators in August.
058307001008