INDEX
PEOPLE
Ann Landers........ .. .14
Bridge............. ...35
Business ........... .30-32
City, B.C...........3,13,15
Classifieds.......... .33-38
Comics ............ ...18
Commentary ....... ....5
Community Calendar ...14
Crossword ......... ...18
Entertainment...... 18-20
Horoscope ......... ...35
Lifestyles........... . . .14
Movies............. ...20
Nation ............. .. .6,8
Sports ............. 10-12
Television.......... . . .19
World.............. ...7,9
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■ Drew Barrymore, the cherub who stole hearts in E.T. and fell into life of drugs and booze, celebrates her 21st birthday and begins to tackle her most difficult role — adulthood. Page 19
CANADA
■ The voters of Newfoundland welcomed their new premier with
open arms, re-electing the Liberal Party and providing Brian Tobin with a landslide victory. Page 8
LIVING
■ Advice columnists in Japan take a different tack than western advisers: There message is a no-nonsense, get-up-get-going one. Page 40.
ENVIRONMENT
■ A razor-thin layer of ozone is all that stands between the sun’s lethal rays and the potential obliteration of mankind, says an eminent American scientist. The good news is
that after 20 years of decline, the protective covering appears poised to make a recovery. Page 21
KU KLUX KLAN
■ Air-quality authorities plan to take the Ku Klux Klan to court, alleging cross-burnings violate pollution standards.Page 24
HEALTH
■ The painful screws, pins, plates and rods used for spinal bone fusions may soon be replaced by a protein extract that has been proven to stimulate new bone growth in monkeys, researchers say. Page 39
TRAVEL _
■ Adventure traveller Vivien Lougheed slows down a little to spend some time at one of Christianity’s unique shrines — St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai. Page 25
MORE ON SCANDAL PAGE 3
TV times
INCLUDED TODAY
CONCERT — Rhonda Warren, 14, and the rest of the trumpet section play along with the D.P. Todd Grade 9 concert band in practice for a musical evening March 3. The concert, which also includes the school's stage band, will feature international musician Don Clark on trumpet and starts at 7:30 p.m. in the school gym. Tickets are available at the school, Sight and Sound and Pine Centre.
High today: 0 Low tonight:-10 Details page 2
Clark sworn in amid scandal
Gov't puts up money to help groups fight drunk driving battle
by KEN BERNSOHN Citizen Staff
A group of organizations concerned about drunk drivers will receive $80,000 for a one-year project to reduce the number of repeat offenders, Health Minister Paul Ramsey announced here Thursday.
“I live about one mile from Highway 16 and Domano Boulevard, and every time I pass it I’m reminded of the three family members killed by an impaired driver there,” Ramsey told more than 300 people at the Building Better Workplaces meeting at the Civic Centre.
In late 1994, the Prince George Alcohol and Drug Society, local probation officers, the Electronic Monitoring Program, Families and Friends Against Drunk Drivers, the RCMP, ICBC, Crown counsels and the Salvation Army got together to try to develop a plan to stop people arrested for drunk driving from becoming repeat offenders.
They came up with a plan, but didn’t have the money for it, Ramsey said.
“We’re providing $80,000 for a pilot project to fund Driving Without Impairment.”
The program is designed to increase participants’ knowledge
about alcohol’s effect on their driving, and will help them to realize when they’ve had too much to drink to drive safely.
“We have too many people on the road driving impaired and they’re killing people,” Ramsey told people from around the world at the Action North conference.
“Some 400 people are convicted for being impaired in the Prince George area each yean
“ That’s more than one a day.
“I don’t think anyone says, ‘I’m going to get blasted and kill people,’ but we have to change their behavior”
However, impaired driving is only one of the problems we face, Ramsey said.
“Our society swims in a sea of drugs: over-the-counter drugs, prescription drugs, illegal drugs. Somehow we have to get to shore.”
That’s why, he said, the Ministry of Health has shifted how it spends its budget, so that now about a quarter of its annual money is used for preventing problems, rather than curing them.
The two-day conference at the Civic Centre ends today. The lunch speaker is native singer Susan Aglukark.
PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
Hydro investment deal casts shadow over premier on first day of job
$l-TRILLION BILL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE?
by Canadian Press
TORONTO — Young Canadians burdened by unemployment, fearful of losing a government pension plan and struggling to emulate their parents’ lifestyle have just been given another bleak forecast.
They may saddled with much of a projected $1-trillion bill to care for retirees unless Canadians get a tighter grip on health care costs, a study released Thursday suggests.
“We don’t have the money in the bank, we only have the promise from
the next generation they’ll do it,” Robert Brown, a professor at the University of Waterloo, said in an interview.
Brown and three members of the Institute of Canadian Actuaries released a report on health care financing that painted a futuristic picture of aging baby boomers taxing the system to the limit.
Canadians are living longer, baby boomers will soon retire and health care spending increases with age, says the study.
Toss in a declining birth rate, lower immigration levels, healthier lifestyles and medical advances and you could have a massive social and medical phenomenon, says the study.
“This transition from a young population to an old one will have profound consequences for our society and our institutions.”
The study estimates by the year 2031, each worker will have to produce almost 60 per cent more than they did in 1991 to provide for predominantly dependent seniors.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23,1996
$1.00 (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
by Canadian Press
VICTORIA — Glen Clark tried to put the best spin possible on a scandal that overshadowed his swearing-in as B.C. premier Thursday, insisting he’s telling all he knows about a controversial offshore investment deal.
Clark said his decision to fire two of the province’s top civil servants over a scandal touching friends and insiders of his NDP government shows he’ll be a decisive leader for the province.
“They didn’t meet my standards, so they’re gone,” he said before he was sworn in as the province’s 31st premier at a ceremony in his old working-class Vancouver neighborhood.
As he took over the job vacated by Mike Harcourt, Clark promised to turn his attention to reducing the size of government.
“That work begins immediately and I will soon be making announcements of how we are making those reductions, starting at the top,” he said.
“I am committed to doing what it takes to ensure jobs and a sustainable, growing economy — to make communities safer to live in and to protect health care and education.”
Clark’s ascension was spoiled by the Opposition Liberals, who released documents showing NDP insiders and relatives of senior B.C. Hydro executives had quietly bought into a potentially lucrative Hydro-backed project in Pakistan.
Clark fired Hydro chairman John Laxton and president John Sheehan over the scheme, saying they ignored his instructions to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest in setting up the project.
The new premier insisted he didn’t know 20 Hydro insiders and prominent New Democrats had poured more than $1 million US into the venture. He also said he didn’t know the money had been routed through the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes and regulatory scrutiny.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to look at this information and know that this is not proper and that’s why action had to be taken,” Clark said.
But the Opposition Liberals had a field day attacking the government
on a day normally reserved for pomp and ceremony.
“They’ve taken the moral high ground, spending $100,000 on TV ads attacking corporate profits,” said Liberal house leader Gary Farrell-Collins.
“Then we find out Mr. Clark is behind a deal specifically tailored to avoid corporate taxes. It’s unbelievable.”
Clark oversaw Hydro’s expansion into offshore power projects last year and obtained cabinet approval to bring private investors into the plan.
The initiative led to the creation of International Power Corp., which was supposed to attract a broad range of B.C. investors. Instead, many of the people who bought in are relatives of B.C. Hydro officials, including Laxton’s three daughters and Sheehan’s wife.
Prominent New Democrats —* including former party leader Tom Berger, former union leader Jack Munro and Don Rosenbloom, a longtime Harcourt friend — also bought IPC shares.
The deal insulated investors from any up-front risk, which was borne by Hydro. Ordinary investors had little opportunity to get in because the shares were sold privately and carried a confidentiality provision.
Harcourt refused to answer questions Thursday about whether he knew Rosenbloom had invested in the project. He emphasized his own non-involvement, however.
“I don’t have any shares — that would be totally inappropriate,” he said.
TRENDS
■ In the arid hills of tral China, women are taking over the farms. And with the help of gov-; -ernment training programs they’re-* making a go of it, improving on the; -old ways and making a better living ; at it. Page 27
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