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Mayor seeks funding for new bridge
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff The federal and provincial governments have reached an agreement to supply $102 million for infrastructure projects across the province, and Mayor Colin Kinsley says the city will be seeking some of the cash for the Cameron Street Bridge. Engineers are currently assessing whether the existing piers can support a new superstructure or should be replaced. Depending on the outcome, the bill could total $12 million to $22 million. Under the agreement, Ottawa and Victoria will each commit $51 million, with participating local governments matching that amount for a total benefit of over $150 million worth of work. Details on how B.C. communities can apply for funding are expected to be made available later this summer and Kinsley believes the city's application will be ready. "We have people working on and have ready to go, except for the numbers, pretty much an application for the Cameron Street bridge replacement under this program," Kinsley said Thursday. Kinsley said he understands the engineers' study is progressing and should be completed shortly and believes the project should meet the program's criteria, which includes a so-called "green infrastructure" requirement. "The environmental impact of having that bridge closed has been substantive in the city," he said. Prince George North MLA Pat Bell noted that 80 per cent of the total will be reserved for communities with less than 250,000 people. And like Kinsley, he said the Cameron Street Bridge would be a good candidate for a share of the money. "This is a very real opportunity for the city to apply for funding for the Cameron Street Bridge," he said. "This is the type of fund that type of project would qualify for. "And it's not going to be competing with the major centres around British Columbia or the Olympics, so I think it's certainly good news for the city." Meanwhile, Kinsley expressed support for a Federation of Canadian Municipalities report released Wednesday that calls for a more equitable distribution of tax revenues. -- See DISTRIBUTE on page 3

Canfor closing three sawmills for two weeks
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff Canfor Corp. announced Thursday it is temporarily shutting down three of its sawmills in B.C. in order to cut costs in the face of sliding lumber prices and the increasing value of the Canadian dollar. The company said the closures will last two weeks at each mill. Two of the sawmills are in northern B.C. -- in Mackenzie and Fort St. John -- but Prince George mills were spared. The other sawmill is Radium in the southern Interior. In addition, Canfor's Houston sawmill is dropping to two shifts from three. "The announcement today is in response to some pretty unique market conditions we haven't seen in quite some time -- the combination of the dollar and lumber prices together," said Canfor spokesman Lee Coonfer. "It's strictly a matter of not incurring any unnecessary costs, or operating at a time when our margins will be severely eroded," said Coonfer. "This is just prudent management." The temporary shutdowns will reduce Canfor's lumber production by 50 million board feet, less than one per cent of the company's 5.1 billion board feet of production in 2005. The two-week downtime periods will be rotated through the sawmills, said Coonfer. "No one particular mill will take the burden of this," he said. One Mackenzie resident, who didn't want to be identified, said the temporary closure will hit the community hard, including loggers and log truckers. Workers had been told to prepare for a two-week shutdown in August, but this announcement, delivered to workers during a coffee break Thursday morning, came as a surprise, said the resident. It will impact loggers and truckers because the shutdown -- which workers were told starts immediately and runs until July 17, when it will be re-assessed -- also delays the start-up of logging and hauling, said the Mackenzie resident. -- See SHUTDOWNS on page 3

Citizen photo by David Mah

CULTURAL PRIDE -- Alec Plasway of the Old For t Traditional Dancers moves to the voices of the Louis Singers during a performance Thursday night at the Royal Canadian Legion. The Revitalizing Cultural Pride event was organized by singer/writer Doris Munger. This was the fourth year the event was held.

Study projects rise in senior population
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff Prince George's population is going to get significantly greyer over the next 25 years, a B.C. Stats report on the province's seniors is predicting. By 2031 the proportion of people aged 65 and over living in the Northern Interior health region, which covers Prince George, the Robson Valley, Quesnel and Burns Lake, will amount to 20.9 per cent, well up from the current 9.2 per cent, the report says. And while the provincial average will be higher by that time, at 23.5 per cent, the proportion will have grown by only 1.67 times the current level while it will be 2.27 times greater in the Northern Interior. Those numbers come as no surprise to Dawn Hemingway, a professor in the University of Northern B.C.'s school of social work, who keeps an eye on such trends. Several other studies also predict the same outcome, she said. "But I think it's important that it's out there because we do need to keep that on our agenda for planning purposes," she said. And while it will present challenges, particularly in terms of health care and housing, Hemingway said there are also upsides. "It could actually have quite a positive impact on the community in the sense that we get experienced people from all sorts of sectors staying here, potentially being able to mentor others and also having the incredible base of volunteers," she said. Coun. Don Bassermann, known as an advocate for seniors on city council, also stressed the positives. They not only boost the base of volunteers in the community, he said, but will also add to the economy. They're a source of temporary and part-time employees who have experience and knowledge as well as a good work ethic. Indeed, Bassermann likened attracting seniors to drawing a new business to the city. "A business that's going to open its doors with 10 new employees has got to be considered a decent entry into the community in terms of the workforce," he said. "If I can convince 10 people to come here and stay as retirees, that has a similar value in terms of economic contribution to the community. "Their homes, by and large, are taxable and their incomes are generally spent in the community. So making our community seniors friendly is really important." -- See DEMAND on page 3

High : 20 Low : 12 page 2

INDEX
Ann Landers . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Business . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-24 City, B.C. . . . . . . . . . . 3,5,6,13 Classifi ed . . . . . . . . . . .16-20 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Coming Events . . . . . . . . . . 42 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 Entertainment . . . . . . . 35-37 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36,37 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14,15

Police endorse Highway of Tears report
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff The police like what they see in the Highway of Tears symposium report. North District Superintendent Barry Clark and B.C. Solicitor General John Les each expressed their confidence that the recommendations made from the symposium are either achievable or worthy of high-level discussions. "I was struck by the fact the recommendations were bite-sized and in some cases should be doable without too much effort. This report is practical," said Les. "They (the report's authors) resisted, if they ever had any temptation, lashing out at anyone. I think that is admirable." There was lashing out at the RCMP at the symposium by a number of people involved in the Highway of Tears issue, the most powerful criticisms coming from the families of the missing and murdered women who have come to define the Highway 16 West corridor. Most of that bitterness was centred on cultural insensitivity toward First Nations and on painful lack of communication with the families of the many victims. "We have seen improvements with the RCMP even since the symposium. I do believe that has already started," said Don Sabo, the report's author, as to why more recommendations did not target the police. "None of these recommendations come across as being problematic, in my opinion," said Clark. "In fact I think the authors did a terrific job at pulling together a plethora of information and putting their fingers on the salient points and getting that out there." Clark is the officer in charge of all communities through which Highway 16 West runs. He said officers on highway patrol are already advised to carry out one of the report's recommendations: stopping to visit with hitchhikers along the road, to get information from them (if they are willing) for their protection and give them the warning that hitchhiking is dangerous in very real terms in this region. Clark warns, though, that this directive does not apply when an officer is in the process of carrying out an urgent duty. -- See MORE on page 3

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