Homeless man wins top honour /5

Cougars topple Lace up the high-flying Giants snowshoes for a in Vancouver /8 real workout /15

Canadian writer, director of Crash up for Oscars /16

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2006

80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 59 CENTS A DAY)

Numbers soar at St. Vincent de Paul
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff The number of hungr y people in Prince George has increased substantially, according to the St. Vincent de Paul drop-in centre. Bernie Goold said at one time last week the centre was was so busy, people almost had to eat in shifts. "During the past two weeks we've had 165 people coming in for lunch," said Goold. Prior to this numbers had peaked at about 150. The numbers are down a bit this week because of welfare cheques coming in, she noted. She said what surprises her is the number of new people accessing the centre. "Some days there are so many new faces, I don't recognize half of them. One gentleman told me he'd recently moved here because of the cost of housing in Vancouver," Goold said. The drop-in centre is in dire need of fresh fruits and vegetables such as apples, oranges, bananas, carrots and turnips. "I know most of us take fresh produce for granted, but here it's a luxury," said Goold. Families in need are given a fruit and vegetable hamper once a week. "For many families it means the difference of whether the children can have a piece of fruit in their school lunch," Goold said. St. Vincent's gave out 96 fruit and vegetable hampers plus 45 family hampers containing bread and canned goods, and staples like rice and pasta. Clients can have a family hamper once every three months. From Monday to Friday the drop-in centre provides breakfast and lunch as well as sandwiches in the evening. On Saturday and Sunday, when children are out of school, entire families show up for brunch from 9 to 11 a.m. and sandwiches at 2:30 p.m. Although the cupboards still have a small surplus of non-perishable food items from Christmas, including potatoes, Goold said all food donations, which can be dropped off at the dropin centre at 1220 Second Ave., are "greatly appreciated." Warm winter clothing like boots, jackets, gloves and toques for all ages are also needed at the St. Vincent de Paul Store, 1180 Third Ave. For more information call the drop-in centre at 564-7871.

Class size problems still an issue: union
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff The president of the Prince George District Teachers' Association says she plans on raising the issue of class sizes at every school board meeting until something is done to correct the problem. Karen MacKay gave several examples to trustees at Tuesday night's meeting. "We have one Social Studies class with 37 students," said MacKay, who would not name the schools being cited, but confirmed that the following examples are real classroom situations currently in School District 57. "We have a Grade 4/5 class, 27 students, that's not bad, but when you look at the composition, 10 are Grade 5 and of those 10, eight of them read below their grade level and one is an international student whose first language is not English. Of the Grade 4s in that class, there is another ESL student from a foreign country, one major behavioural problem that works below grade level, one student who has missed 57 days so far this school year with unexplained absences, and three math programs being run in that same classroom." MacKay told The Citizen before the meeting she has plenty of examples and she pledged her reports will continue each month until the problem is resolved. She said another situation has a Grade 6 class of 26 students but six of them are special needs (one of them overtly mentally challenged), eight others are taking medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and one severe behavioural problem that has already required the attention of the Student Conduct Review Committee. "(Such composition) takes away from the teacher's ability to focus on all the students, all their attention goes to those students. If you have eight kids in one class who are ADHD, or 13 out of 24 on IEPs, that is a lot," MacKay said. Trustee Bill Christie, chair of the school board, said MacKay's comments were certainly in place at the public meetings, as part of the PGDTA's customary five minute presentation period, but it would be no epiphany for anyone at the district table. "We already know about them and jointly we are working to address those issues," said Christie at Tuesday's board meeting. "We will be meeting with teachers and getting more input from them on that, coming up later in February I believe. That is already in the works."

Citizen photo by Dave Milne

HE'S JUST A KID WHO'S FOUR... -- Caillou performed on stage Tuesday at Vanier Hall with sister Rosie and his cat Gilbert. The show was called Caillou's Big Book Club.

Home construction to stay busy Fire hits hotel
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff The pace of new home construction in Prince George should continue at a slightly lower, but still torrid pace, says a Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation economist. There were 259 starts in 2005, up 43 per cent from the year before, and Carol Frketich, CMHC's regional economist for B.C., and she is expecting starts in the range of 220 to 230 in 2006. "The outlook for '06 and '07 is that we'll probably see similar to or just a little bit lower levels of construction," she said. "On the supply side, builders are facing rising costs and mortgage rates are rising through the next two years, so there's a little bit of a dampening effect there. But given strong employment growth and population growth, we should still see the demand side pushing it up. So, on balance, I'd say there is still momentum in the Prince George market." In a nationwide forecast Tuesday, CMHC predicted starts will drop 7.5 per cent in 2006 and 6.5 per cent in 2007 as demand for home ownership in Canada eases toward more sustainable levels. However, the effect in B.C. may not be as sharp as CMHC is predicting a six-per-cent drop in 2006 and four-cent in 2007. Frketich said Prince George will be in the same ballpark as the province, as long as there is land available. "I was in Prince George last June and drove around some of the new subdivisions that were going in," she said. "There's still room there for new construction, but as those are built up we will need to see more areas opening up to keep that level of activity going." After hitting 10 per cent in 2005 -- the biggest surge in 16 years -- home prices nationwide are forecast to moderate to 5.5 per cent this year and 3.8 per cent in 2007. For B.C., CMHC forecasts a 7.6-per-cent increase in 2006, on top of double-digit gains recorded during the last two years. As a result, the average price will approach $355,000 in 2006 and $375,000 in 2007. For Prince George, Frketich predicted a fiveto-seven-per-cent increase in 2006, although she qualified her statement, saying smaller markets are hard to forecast because of the low sales volume. The Coast Inn of the North was full when a fire broke out late Tuesday night. The blaze was contained to a single room on the fourth floor, but it caused the evacuation of the entire building. "Everybody is safe, nobody got hurt," hotel manager Jim Douglas told guests as they entered the lobby at around 10:30, about two hours after the alarms sounded. "The fire was put out right away. The elevators and corridors smell a little of smoke, but the rooms are comfortable." Some guests, especially those on the fourth level, had to be relocated to other hotels. Douglas told the Citizen it was still too early to speculate on the cause as fire department personnel and RCMP were still investigating. "The damage to the room I expect is fairly significant because people could see the fire from the street," he said.

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NDP questions infrastructure spending
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff B.C.'s Interior NDP MLAs are questioning whether rural residents are being left behind in the wake of the Liberals $3 billion Lower Mainland Gateway project announced Tuesday. The plan is meant to reduce congestion in the Lower Mainland, and includes building a new bridge across the Pitt River and twinning the Port Mann Bridge, as well as widening Highway 1 from Vancouver to Langley. "We've got a significant infrastructure deficit in rural B.C., and we want t o k n ow w h e r e t h a t f i t s i n t h i s grandiose scheme, because it's resource dollars from all of the commodities that we're hiving off in our neck of the woods that are paying for that," said Cariboo North MLA Bob Simpson. "Climate change and warm Interior winters have left our roads vulnerable to rapid deterioration," he said. "And the problem is exacerbated by a high volume of logging trucks on our roads due to the pine beetle epidemic." The amount of logging allowed each year has been increased 80 per cent in north-central B.C., an effort to recoup the value of pine beetle-killed timber before it rots. The increase amounts to nearly a quarter of a million additional log truck loads a year. Simpson said while British Columbians expect the province to pay attention to both urban and rural regions, it appears the rural roads have slipped down the priority list. Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n i mp r ov e m e n t promises made during the 2004 election could be threatened, he said. Those included twinning small portions of Highway 97 between Prince George and Cache Creek, twinning the Simon Fraser Bridge in Prince George and addressing safety concerns on hill to Bella Coola. "We are concerned that rural needs are taking a back seat to urban mega-projects, and that potential cost overruns may even jeopardize them," said CaribooSouth MLA Charlie Wyse. "This kind of treatment sends British Columbians a strong message -- that the Campbell government does not understand the needs of rural British Columbians." Public consultation is expected to begin this spring for the $3-billion Gateway project in the Lower Mainland. Premier Gordon Campbell said the projects could be finished by 2014. "Congestion is having an increasingly negative effect on B.C.'s economy, communities and families," said Campbell. "The Gateway program is a wideranging plan to meet the needs of our growing economy, increasing AsiaPacific trade, and a growing population." Campbell said the existing bridges and highways in the Lower Mainland are well beyond their design capacities. He noted that the Port Mann Bridge is now congested for 13 hours a day, and on a bad day, it can take two hours to go from Burnaby to Langley. Prince George-Omineca Liberal MLA John Rustad said the Gateway project will help handle an expected quadrupling in container traffic by 2020, growth which means thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in revenue. "We need to be able to meet those demands, plain and simple," he said. "Whether it's the Port of Vancouver or the Port of Prince Rupert, we need to be able to make sure we move goods efficiently and we need to make sure that shippers and suppliers can receive things in a timely and efficient manner." The project will help keep the economy growing, which is good for all of British Columbia, expanding revenues to spend on other projects, said Rustad. He noted Liberals had made the commitment to the container handling facility at the Port of Prince Rupert -- a $30 million contribution to the $160-million project. Construction is just starting on the terminal, touted as having benefits throughout nor t her n B.C., including Pr ince George. "As that expands, we're going to continue to try to meet the demands that are needed up in the North," said Rustad. "This in no way restricts out capacity to do other things around the province." Projects that the Liberals have already promised will still proceed, he said.

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INDEX
Annie's Mailbox . . . . . . . . . 16 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Business . . . . . . . . . . . .22-24 City, B.C. . . . . . . . . . . .3,5,13 Classifi ed . . . . . . . . . . . 18-20 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . 16 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,21

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