High today: -8 Low tonight: -19 Details page 2
PRINCE GEORGE
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2002
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 54 CENTS A DAY)
Transport ministry takes heaviest hit in gov’t cutbacks
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
The local Ministry of Transportation will take the biggest hit over the next three years under the B.C. government’s civil service cuts, Prince George-North MLA Pat Bell revealed TUesday.
Bell, a member of the Liberals’ core review team, provided a breakdown of his government’s projected job cuts in Prince George at the request of The Citizen.
The full-time job losses to the highways department will total 76 over the next three years — an estimated 70% cut.
Bell said he believes the job cuts will not translate directly into unemployed people in the community, as department of highways jobs will be taken up in the private sector.
“The key here is that we have to find a better way to provide services to peoole in the community, and for too long government’s been in too many people’s faces,” said Bell.
“We need to shrink the overall size of government.”
The Ministry of Sustainable Resources will take the next biggest hit, 34 jobs in the next three years.
The Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection — which along with sustainable resource comprised the old Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks under the NDP — will be cut by
13 jobs. The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General will be cut by 25 jobs with the planned closure of the Hutda Lake Correctional Centre.
The reopening of the old jail should add jobs and offset those lost at Hutda Lake, he said.
The province’s industrial apprenticeship office has been closed here, a loss of 16 jobs.
The closure of the Northern Development Office is a loss of another six jobs. Human Resources will lose 16 jobs, and the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women Services will have 13 jobs cut.
Other departments will lose one or two positions.
Job cuts to the Forest Ministry have not been worked out.
Bell stressed that the three-year plan to cut the civil service in Prince George — part BELL °f 1 h e Liberals’ plan
provincewide to cut 11,700 government jobs — is a work in progress.
For example, he said the provincial government had planned to cut 30 full-time jobs in the Ministry of Children and Family Development but decided against it.
The total local job loss figure has also dropped from 225 to 217 over the three years, he added.
The provincial government expects the job cuts to save $1.9 billion in spending, which it hopes will help it balance the budget by 2005.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
STILL NOT ENOUGH SNOW — A snowmaking machine blasts snow onto a city street Tuesday while workers smooth the new snow in preparation for filming a scene for the movie Dreamcatcher. Zircon Special Effects is creating the winter-during-winter scene rather than wait for Mother Nature to work her own magic.
Teachers reluctantly return to school
Limited job action continues in Robson Valley while BCTF ponders next move
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff
Prince George teachers were back in their classrooms instructing children Tuesday, one day after more than 46,000 provincewide walked out, said Sandra Davie, president of the Prince George District Teachers’ Association.
Teachers are now waiting to see what comes out of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s representative assembly taking place in the Lower Mainland
Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, teachers in the Robson Valley continued Phase I and Phase 11 of their job action in refusing to do administrative paperwork or participate in extracurricular activities, said Sheilagh Foster, principal of Dunster Elementary School.
“Nothing has changed,” she said. “There continues to be no reporting to parents, no meeting with administrators or taking memos from administrators and no extracurricular activities.”
Danny Holmes, president of the 62-member McBride-Valemount Teachers’ Association, said, “That will continue until we are told differently by the executive committee of the BCTF.
“All teachers went back to work with heavy hearts and are angry with a government that wouldn’t let us negotiate a collective agreement,” Holmes said from Valemount.
Recess was never discontinued in Robson Valley elementary schools, Foster said.
At Prince George Secondary School, things were normal for exam season, said principal Fred Egglestone. Grade 12 students continued writing provincial exams, while other students began writing Hiesday and will continue through the week. Parents in Prince George reported few problems as students went back to class Hiesday, said Bev Hosker, chair of the District Parent Advisory Council.
— See related story on page 6
INDEX
Ann Landers.................19
Bridge......................22
Business ................24-26
City, B.C.............3,5,6,13
Classified ..............20-23
Comics .....................18
Coming Events ...............2
Crossword ..................18
Entertainment...............19
Horoscope ..................22
Lifestyles..................19
Movies......................19
Nation......................14
Sports ...................8-12
Television..................19
World....................15,17
canada.com
Unions protest at Bond’s office
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff
More than 100 members of the Community Social Services Sector came out Tuesday to protest the government’s “dismantling” of the Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act.
Following meetings, the workers rallied in front of MLA Shirley Bond’s office where Wiho Papenbrock, B.C. Government Employees Union co-ordina-tor for northern B.C., said the rally “is the reaction to legislation that basically dismantles our collective agreement.” “I’m absolutely disgusted, and the BCGEU has lost all trust an faith in our elected representatives.”
The rally was attended by representatives of at least seven unions including health-based unions, IWA, CUPE, the Telecommunications Workers Union and the Operating Engineers Union.
“We won’t be going into Shirley Bond’s office today, but watch out for Feb. 7,” Papenbrock said, indicating
protests will be “incrementally” stepped up.
The rewriting of Bill 29’s Health and Social Services Delivery Improvement Act eliminates the provisions set out by arbitrator Don Munroe in 1999 that provided significant items like wages, benefits and job security, said Papenbrock, who pointed out the following impacts on workers and clients.
For workers, the rewrite eliminates the 12-month layoff notices, transfer of seniority to another employer and job training opportunities; reduces severance pay for those with 10 or more years service, and allows no severance pay for workers with less than 10 years employment, attacks workers’ health benefits and provides that no court action can be brought against the government because of the act.
For developmentally disabled clients, the new act means no continuity of care as services can be transferred from one employer to another with hir-
ing of all new employees, service cuts wherever the government so deems and use of lowest bidders to provide services.
MLA Shirley Bond (Prince George-Mount Robson), said from Victoria she “wants to reassure families that Bill 29 is designed to focus resources on clients and choices they want to make.
“We’ve tried to remove onerous provisions to allow more flexibility and choice for clients in the system. We said we’ll focus resources on clients and that’s what we are going to do.”
Fay Jolley, chair of BCGEU Community Services Sector, Local 311, said workers fear job losses, wage cuts, and a return to the four-day, 24-hour overnight shifts in residences and group homes.
There are about 150 disabled clients living in residences and group homes in Prince George and a greater number who receive ongoing support services.
— See related story on page 3
Liberal MLAs cut their pay
Citizen news services
Liberal members of the provincial legislature are taking a five-per-cent pay cut to help the government balance its books.
Premier Gordon Campbell said Tuesday the cut, which will cost each MLA about $3,600, won’t save much money but is an important symbol when the government is laying off thousands of civil servants to save money.
"We think it’s important that we show leadership," Campbell said. "Nobody likes a pay cut but everybody in our caucus understands the huge financial challenges that are in front of us."
The two New Democratic Party MLAs have not agreed to take the pay cut.
— See full story on page 6
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