The six regular winning numbers
in Saturday's Lotto 6/49 draw were
six, 26, 28, 36, 37 and 48. The

bonus number was 23.

St. Pat's
fashions
Page A7

WEATHERCAST

Cloudy with sunny periods today
— some showers in the atter-

Cloudy with occasional
showers Monday. Highs of 10-12
degrees early this week; over-
night lows of 0 to -2

50 CENTS

fa ag

VOL. 37, No. 23

*
CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 1984

2 Sections (A & B)

FOR KEENLEYSIDE DAM
Bonner approves

of works project

By ADRIAN CHAMBERLAIN
Staff Writer
The chairman of B.C. Hydro gave

civine TAL.
rything

- College

he has in the double saw event at

OGGER SPORTS

‘logger’ gives it

the college.

Selkirk College's loggers’ sports day Friday after-

noon. Loggers events were part of forestry week at

—CasNewsPhote by Chery! Calderbonk

Pulp lockout explained

By CHERYL CALDERBANK
Stati Writer

The B.C. pulp industry locked out its
employees because it wanted to try and
have a “stable and ongoing industry,”
Celgar Pulp Division managér Wilf
Sweeney said Thursday.

Speaking to about 30 Castlegar
Chamber of Commerce membegs at a
luncheon meeting, Sweeney said it has
been nearly 10 months since the in-
dustry's collective agreement with the
Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Can-
ada and the Canadian Paperworkers
Union expired — and that is too long.

“It questions our ability to provide
needs on a long-term basis,” Sweeney
said, adding it also makes the industry
unreliable suppliers.

“It's difficult to retain old customers
with any certainty.

“We did not want to lock out (em-
ployees), we wanted union negotiators
to return to meaningful bargaining,” he
added.

Contract negotiations between the
industry and the pulp unions which had
stalled since March 2, when the com:
panies rejected a three-year coment

proposal from the pulp unions, which
included a demand for a cost-of-living
increase resumed Friday. The contract
expired last June,

The industry has offered the unions.a
three-year contract’ proposal, in whieh
there would be 4 gero per cant wage
inerease in the first year, four per cent
in the second year and 4% per cent in
the third year.

The rate under the previous
ere $12.96 an hour.

Sweeney said the pulp industry will
not give the unions a better deal than
was agreed upon with the International
Woodworkers of America, which was
basically the same as the companies
have offered the pulp unions.

“We cannot and will not play favor-
ites, even if we are in a more favorable
position,” he said. “We couldn't reach
an agreement with one union and give
more favorable terms to the smaller

one.

“It would destroy any credibility we
may have with the IWA,” Sweeney
told the chamber.

“The industry needs an agreement
now,” he said. “A new collective
agreement will help to strengthen con-
sumer confidence. We need this | to help
us all recover from the

a long contract.

Other hangups in the negotiations
include the employees’ six-day life
insurance policy as well as productivity
dealing with working on one statutory
holiday.

On the life insurance policy,
Sweeney explained pulp mill employ
ees hired before 1966 had a six-day life
insuranee policy, which had been de-
veloped by the previous corporation.

The insurance plan gave good cov-
erage, and apart from the company's

pr y approval Thursday to the
idea of a $3.8 million federal works
project that would eventually provide
160 workers with jobs on the construc.
tion of the Keenleyside dam generating
project.

Members of the Castlegar Economic
Development Committee met with
Robert Bonner in Castlegar to see if
Hydro was interested in starting work
on the Keenleyside dam in late 1984
instead of in 1986.

In return, Hydro would benefit from
the federal grant, which would go to-
wards subsidizing wages of workers

who would install generators at the
Keenleyside dam.

Bonner “did advise us to carry on,”
said committee secretary Richard
Maddocks, who attended the meeting.

“We all left with a pretty good un-
derstanding of where we were coming
from, and where we would like to go.”

Bonner was given a 17-page brief
outlining the history of hydro-electric
power in the Kootenays, unemploy-
ment statistics and forecasts for the
area (23 per cent of West Kootenay
residents are unemployed), a break-
down of the positions needed to install
the generators, and precedents of fed-
eral involvement with provincial power
companies.

Campbell ‘optimistic’
ferry will operate

By RON NORMAN

“The head of the Castlegar Downtown

signed to meet with Highways Minister
Alex Fraser over the proposed closure
of the Castlegar/Robson ferry says he’s
“optimistic” the ferry will be retained.

Burt Campbell said he had two
lengthy telephone conversations with
Fraser — one Monday and another
Thursday-

“Personally, I am optimistic that
the ferry will be retained, but on what
basis I'm not prepared to speculate,”
Campbell said.

“My gut feeling is that operation
will continue in its present form, but
perhaps other proposals, such as
operation by a local non-profit society
have been made, and it’s always
possible the Highways Ministry is
giving those alternatives considera-
tion.”

The DBA delegated Campbell and
Stedman's owner Paul Kerekes to meet
with Fraser over the proposed April 1
ferry closure.

Campbell said he presented a case
for the ferry “both from a community.
wide point of view and from the specific
concern of the downtown business
core.”

He added that he also made exten.
sive use of the facts contained in the
Robson/Castlegar Ferry Users Ad Hoc
Committee's brief to Fraser.

“The minister listened sympathe-
tically and asked a lot of questions,”
Campbell said.

“He appeared quite impressed by the
fact that some 1,500 to 1,700 people live
on the Robson side of the ferry.”

BURT CAMPBELL
. gut feeling

Campbell also said that Fraser ex-
pressed the opinion that “not a great
deal more information could be con-
veyed in a personal meeting than that
covered in the telephone conver-
sation.”

Campbell said he reported on his
conversation to Kerekes and to some of
the DBA executive members.

“They concurred that a meeting with
the minister would likely cover little, if
any, new ground,” he said. Therefore,
the two-man delegation will not travel
to Victoria for a face-to-face meeting
with Fraser.

Campbell noted that Fraser prom-
ised to get back to him sometime this
week.

ZUCKERBERG ISLAND

cost, the cost to the ploy was
one-half per cent of their income. The
plan cost BC Timber hundreds of
thousands of dollars, he said.

In 1966 the unions negotiated an
pring policy at no cost to the em
said. The plans costs

“We in B.C. were among the last to
fall into the recession, we fell hardér,”
Sweeney said, adding that the industry
must be ready to take advantage of
new opportunities as they arrive.

Sweeney noted that bargaining be-
tween unions and the pulp industry in
Eastern Canada will be getting under-
way shortly.

“We should be in’a position to take
advantage of opportunities asa result
of bargaining,” he commented.

“We had little choice,” Sweeney said
of the lockout. “We were susceptible to
strike actignat any time. It i@better to
suffer t! a slowdown how, than
later,”

Sweeney said the unions maintain
that the three-year term of agreement
is too long and with the economy im-
proving, they couldn't bind themself te

Celgar pulp mill $5,000 per month.

The six-day plan was terminated in
July 1983, and the employees hired
prior to 1966, were left with the option
of applying the money from the first
plato the second one.

During the question period, chamber
member Harold Webber asked what
the chamber could do to help the
lockout situation.

‘Castlegar hasn't said anything,” re-
plied ‘sawmill manager Al Thornton,
who-was also at the meeting.

Thornton cited examples of cham
bers in. other communities who were
“out dn the picket line.”

“There's bows nothing said ~(in
Castlegar)” he said. “People are get-
ting. damin upset (in other commun-
ities),.not just the employees,” Thorn-
ton added:

Maddocks said copies of the brief and
letters were sent Friday to Senator
Jack Austin, and the provincial and
federal governments.

He said his committee has not yet
submitted a formal grant application to
the federal government.

In the first year, 43 employees will
be hired to work on the project, said
Maddocks. During the third year of
construction, this figure will reach a
maximum of 150.

One of the stipulations the devel.
opment committee has imposed on the
project is that at least 60 per cent of
the workers hired must come from the
Kootenay area.

The project will ideally begin in 1984
or early 1985, and finish in 1992, the
original proposed finishing date.

“We are not subsidizing B.C. Hydro,
because we are extending the project
for two years,” Maddocks said.

The committee would be applying for
the grant.under Section 38 of a federal
works program for unemployed.

Maddocks said there are several
precedents of the federal government

1 power
in the Maritime provinces.

Curriculum
changes get
‘F’ grade

By CasNews Staff

The Castlegar school board chairman
and the head of the local teachers’
association are critical of a new B.C.
government curriculum proposal that
compels students to make career
choices in grades 11 and 12.

A curriculum proposal released
Tuesday by Education Minister Jack
Heinrich says high school students
must choose from three study pro-

“Tm a bit floored by the proposals,”
said school board chairman Doreen
Smecher.

“They used to have ‘streaming’ of
Grade 9 students who went into either
academic or career (course programs)
in Alberta,” said Smecher.

“It didn't work then; at that age
students are too young to make that
type of decision.”

Larry Kuehn, B.C. Teachers’ Feder-
ation president, said fewer students

continued on A2

Bridge all set to go

Castlegar will get its pedestrian
suspension bridge linking Zuckerberg
Island Park with the mainland.

John Charters, Castlegar Heritage
Advisory Committee chairman, said
this week the 44th Field Engineering
Squadron in Trail has been given
approval to undertake the bridge con-

struction.

In a letter to Charters, Maj. George
Perkin, ing officer of the 44th,
said his squadron has already begun
designing the suspension bridge and

Charters said a number of firms and
organizations — including West Koot-
enay Power and Light Co., Cominco,

B.C. Hydro, Olgow's Paint and we

park, while eliminating the danger of
high water.
Last year during the first phase of
development, two residents nearly
while

coverings, the City of Castk

the Castlegar Rotary Club have erie
assistance in the form of funds and
materials.

“It is anticipated that others will
follow suit,” Charters said, adding,
“The actual construction will be carried
out entirely by the 44th

to wade
across the flooded causeway.

The bridge will also provide access to
workers and firefighters and offer the
city an added tourist attraction.

The 44th squadron has already

Squadron.”
The bridge will span 300 feet
across the Columbia River, with 73 foot

the near future how best to obtain the
necessary materials.”

appr at each end.
Charters said it is “overdesigned by
a factor of eight. That is to carry a load
eight times the expected maximum.”
He added that once built, the bridge
will permit year-round use of the island

liminary work on the bridge
oY verveying and clearing approach-

Work will continue until May 19