June 18, 1989

—
> i

SIGNED AND SEALED . jan

oO" (left), p
Club, hands over control of the ski hill to Eric Skat P

of the Red Ski

of Red
Resorts Inc. The ceremony took place on top of the T-bar run overlooking the hill.

CasNews Photo by Guy

Red Mountain

All of which makes Skat Peterson's
task more formidable.

“The big return the directors are
uécess,"’ said Skat

continued from Front poge
“One of the highlights was the
World Cup races we held here,!” said

looking for is our s

Peterson.

The mountain hosted the women’s

downhill and super **G"’ races in 1988.

In 1968, the first World Cup race ever

held in Canada was hosted by Red
Mountain

O’ Flanagan said he was happy to see
a ‘normal sale"’ of the ski hill rather

He listed some of the short-term
goals he'd like to see at the hill

“One of my pet peeves is to
somehow put washrooms facilities at
the top of Granite Mountain at least
better than what we have,’ he said

He also spoke of increasing the base lodge extension

but we have to grow with the city,”
said Skat Peterson.

He spoke of enhancing the com
munity’s use of the ski hill by making it
easier for youngsters from families in
tight financial situations to come out
to the ski hill as part of ski school
packages and other incentives.

In respect to other expansions of the
ski hill, a news release said government
permits are being pursued for a bottom
Two new

than one forced by the banks
However, he did admit that the group
had a hard time running the ski hill as a
“viable operation.””

region.

of Red

“For every $25 spent here, there is
$100 spent each day in the community
The potential is pretty incredible here

have been added to the
hill’s equipment. In addition, ex
cavation and landscape equipment is
being purchased to groom all runs this
summer

in the

Bridge.

continued from front page
one of the listed alternatives to finding a new route is ‘‘do
nothing.”

She also pointed out that the report has factual errors,
such as listing the population of Robson at 400. Allam said
the population of the area is much higher. The combination
of factors leaves her pessimistic, Allam said.

“I’m not going to celebrate until I ride across on the
ferry or drive across that new bridge,” she said.

Terry Dalton, lawyer for the ferry users committee,
said the high priority rating is ‘very encouraging” as is the
discussion of a bridge or alternate route. An alternative was
not mentioned when the ferry was first closed down last
year, he said

But until there is a ‘direct commitment” to a par-
ticular proposal he will recommend'to the committee mem-
bers that they continue their work, he said.

“While greatly encouraged, there is no real alternative
but to pursue the request that ‘the ferry be reinstated,” he
said, referring to the lawsuit the committee is currently
preparing to take before the B.C. Court of Appeal.

Dalton also said that while the committee considers
truck traffic in Castlegar to be a hazard, the committee's
main focus is on the need for quick, easy access to Castlegar
for Robson residents, especially seniors and the disabled

*‘When as many needs are met as possible — that’s the
best basis for doing anything,” he said :

The task force report also gives priority to a number of
proposals for Highway 3, including improvements to the
Highway 3-Highway 22 interchange in Castlegar. An access
road between Castlegar and Fauquier along the Lower

RDCK

Arrow Lake was given a proposed rating of 17

The suggested recommendations come after task force
hearings were held in April under the provincial gover-
nment’s Freedom to Move program

Transportation task forces in the eight economic
development regions of B.C.-have been asked to compile
lists of the top transportation concerns of their areas which
will become part of an over-all provincial plan on transpor-
tation in the future.

The Castlegar hearing was attended by 30 people and
14 briefs were presented, many with a focus or emphasis on
the ferry or an alternative tothe ferry

More than 65 per cent of the submissions to all of the
hearings concerning Highway 3, which is an important
route to the U.S. and is recognized as a major truck route
by the Canadian Trucker’s Association, the report says

The overriding concern is industrial traffic on High-
way 3, the report says

Wally Penner, regional development liaision officer
for the Kootenays, said the report will be finalized at 4 task
force meeting June 23. On June 30 in Cranbrook, the final
report will be given to the Regional Advisory Council, the
task force's parent body, and then the plan will be ap-
proved by Minister of State for the Kootenays Howard
Dirks and taken to the government for incorporation into
the B.C. plan ©

The final priorities in the report should not be con-
sidered the **be-all and end-all” for the area, Penner said
The list will be reviewed and revised each year as changing
circumstances make proposals more and less urgent, he
said

continued from front page

“These are items we have to look af-
ter in the community right now,’
Barkley said. ‘‘1 wouldn’t want to be
responsible if there’s an injury or death
down there.””

Celia Gunn, the coordinator of the
Vallican Archaeological Park Society
who had hoped to enlist the RDCK’s
support, was obviously disappointed
with the board’s decjsion and said the
direct acted without sufficient and
accurate information

She said Barkley, who told the board
most of the heritage site had been iden
tified and that there would not be any
more diggin at the site, was incorrect.

Gunn said the society, if it could
delay the project, had hoped to enlist
the help of a consulting archeologist
who would continue to take samples
from the site

She added that there is evidence

the heritage site is larger than has so far
been identified, saying it’s ‘‘con
ceivable’”” the new road may run
through additional burial sites which

the Arrow Lakes Bank built in terraces
along the banks of the Slocan River

“Nobody can say at this point how
far back or how much higher these
burials go,’ Gunn told reporters after
the meeting.

Gunnn said a fence along the
property will not stop the vandalism
the society fears will take place at the
site if the road goes through. But
regardless of the fence, Gunn said the
road will destroy the ‘‘ambiance and
integrity of thesite."*

“The society has been trying to keep
it low profile,” she said. The road, she
added, will open the site to “direct and
easy access.’*

Anderson, in speaking against’ the
motion, said the board was con
sidering the decision without much
local knowledge of the area

“I'm a little upset about this,” he
said. ‘This could be one of the most
important aspects of the whole
(Slocan) valley.””

Highways Ministry officials say
there are no suitable alternatives to the
proposed location of the road. The

project is scheduled to go to tender
June 26 with construction expected to
start in early August for completion in
the fall.

But Gunn indicated she and the
society will not give up.

‘It’s just been suggested to me that I
get in contact, with (Minister of
Municipal Affairs, Recreation and
Culture) Rita Johnston’? who has ex-
pressed support of the society, she
said.

In a letter to Gunn dated June 2,
Johnston said she looks forward to the
Vallican site ‘becoming an important
asset to the people of British Colum:
bia.””

“The Vallican site provides us with
he opportunity to preserve and
present a very important aspect of our
province's heritage,’” Johnson writes.
In order to ensure that the site is
properly treated, a management plan
has to be in place, commitment from
local governments and organizations
must be secured, and the support of
residents and heritage societies should
be demonstrated.”

Waste

continued from front poge

**I don’t believe we should be getting
into special waste building programs,”
Creston director Bill Herchmer said
“'m dead against the two proposals
they made to us. I don’t think that’s
our job as a regional district to be
responsible for hazardous waste
materials."’

Area I director John Voykin agreed,
saying that until the provincial gover-
nment sets up a permanent facility to
dispose of the hazardous waste ‘‘we
don’t know how long we're going to be
storing it."*

“Once we start storing it, God
knows how long we’ll be storing i
Voykin added.

Castlegar Ald. Dorren Smecher, sit-

ting as an alternate director for Mayor
Audrey Moore and Ald. Albert
Calderbank, neither of whom could at
tend Saturday because of other com
mitments, noted the numerous sites in
the Kootneays that are already storing
small quantities of hazardous waste
and said it is an issue that must be ad-
dressed.

But, ‘‘I don’t think it is the respon-
sibility of the regional district,”
Smecher said

The board also voted to invite
representatives from the Waste
Management Branch back for another
meeting with the directors.

“There's a lot of questions asked
last time that haven't been answered,”
Herchmer said

The Waste Management Branch’s

Exercise planned

By CasNewsStaff -

Sometime later this month, major
dam operators on the Columbia, Pend
d’Oreille and Clarke Fork rivers will
test their contingency plans during an
emergency exercise.

The exercise, “‘Highwater 89," will
simulate dam -failures and increased
river flows. It will test,plans for safely
passing these flows through dams in
the Columbia system.

Daye Cattanach, assistant to the
direvtor of dam safety for B.C. Hydro,
said all major agencies with dams on
the Columbia system will be involved.

“If we increase the flow at the

Grand Coulee Dam (in Washington),
the ensuing reactions and actions by its
operators will set off a chain reaction
down the line testing each dam."*

Cattanach said a core of engineers at
three. meetings in Portland, Ore.,
developed a master. scenario for the
testing.

** Although nothing at the dams will
actually be opened or adjusted, it will

thquakes pave the biggest threats to the
dams

Cattanach would not reveal when or
where the exercise will begin, saying,
“It would be like knowing the answers
before the test.””

The element of unpredictability is
what makes the exercise so valuable, he
said

“The operators really react as if it
werean I gency situation.”’

all be recorded on
Engineers will be monitoring what is
happening with each operator,"” said
Cattanach.

While disasters are difficult to
predict, Cattanach said floods and car-

Emergency dam exercises have been
carried out inB.C. before. The last one
was this year in the Peace River region
where the exercise went as far as
evacuation of schools in the area,

Speaker says assessment
| changes possible

Ihe loss of the Robson-Cas
ferry ‘‘could have the potential” to
lower property assessments in the area
and the expansion of the Celgar Pulp
Co. mill, if it proceeds, could raise
property values, the Nelson/Trail area
assessor for the B.C. Assessment
Authority told a Castlegar Chamber of
Commerce luncheon Thursday.

But assessments fluctuate with the
market, Larry Quayle said, and there
are many factors that effect whether

the market rises or falls, Assessors
don’t create the worth of a piece of
property, they only assess according to
market value, he added.

Assessments in Castlegar are down
this year from the last assessed rates
because of fluctuations in the area's
economy, he said.

Assessments are set on July | every
two years and when the last assessment
was done in 1986 the economy was ona
downturn due to the local unem-

ployment rate, he said.

The economy is picking up now and
was heading up when the last
assessment was done July 1, 1988 but
the market was still at a lower point
than when the essment was done in
1986, he said.

Quayle, who has been an assessor
since 1974 and has been area assessor
for the West Kootenay since 1987, was
speaking at the last chamber luncheon
forthe summer.

Land use reviewed

KAMLOOPS, B.C. (CP) — The
provincial government has ordered an
inquiry into the agricultural develop-
ment of Crown lands in the central and
northern Interior of British Columbia,
Crown Lands Minister Howard Dirks
has announced

been named commissioner. Gillespie’
report is due by Nov. 1

Priest
faces
charges

CALGARY (CP) — A Roman
Catholic priest facing 15 charges of in-
decent assault showed no emotion
when he appeared in court Friday

Rev. Robert Whyte is charged with
eight counts of indecent assault in
Calgary and seven in Nelson

Whyte was released on his own
recognizance under the condition he
have no social contact with anyone un-
der the age of 19.

Steering

continued from front page

Part of the reason for this gradual
process is that district staff feel the
current primary system is working well
and the board and administrators
don’t want to throw the system out and
start all over again, he said.

They want to ‘*keep what we think is
good in the old program and add what
is good in the new program to make the
system even better for the children,”’
he said.

The new primary program, based on
the new kindergarten system devised
about two years ago that puts greater
emphasis on individual learning, is still
in the draft stages, Phipps said.

Districts have until December to
make recommendations for changes,
hesaid

Dual entry kindergarten — which
allows children to-enter school in Sep-

Dirks said the inquiry will review the
current agricultural lease program,
focusing on regional development and
land-use issues as well as conflicts bet-
ween ranchers and forest companies

“The review will examine whether
Crown lands should be used for
agricultural purposes, or included in
the province’s forest inventory,”
Dirks said

Gillespie said he will call public

the province to
review current land-use policies. Most
regional agricultural development is
currently administered through 1,300
leases on 140,000 hectares of Crown
land.

Dirks said the inquiry would not in-
volve lands currently in the
Agricultural Land Reserve, and will
not address grazing policies on Crown
lands.

The Agriculture Land Reserve, in-
stituted by the NDP governinent in the
1970s, designated some farmland to be
used solely for agriculture .

Dirks, however, said some of the

Crown lands involved *‘could end up
in the ALR"’ as a result of Gillespie's
inquiry.

HOWARD DIRKS
. inquiry ordered

in memory

Sam Shukin

Sam A. Shukin of Brilliant passed away June 15 at trail Regional

Briefly

Hospital at age 78

Mr. Shukin was born Jan. 15, 1911, at Thrums and moved with his
parents to Saskatchewan where he grew up and farmed. He married Stella
Popoff in October 1939 at Langham, Sask

He returned to B.C. in 1945. From 1976 to 1982, he lived in Nelson
and moved to Brilliant in 1982 where he had since resided.

During his life in B.C. he worked in the sawmill industry. He was a
member of the USCC, and enjoyed singing and sports, especially hockey

He is survived by his wife Stella of Brilliant; one son, Joe of Edmon-
ton; two daughters, Virginia Erdman and Marion Bergen, both of Van-
couver; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren

Funeral services will be held at the Brilliant Cultural Centre begin-
ning today and continuing Monday, June 19 at 10 a.m. with burial at |
p.m. at the Brilliant Cemetery.

Funeral arrangements are under the flirection of the Castlegar
Funeral Chapel.

Thomas Campbell

Thomas Aiken (Ken) Campbell of Castlegar beloved husband of
Anna Campbell, passed away June 16 at age 67.

Mr. Campbell was born May 17, 1922, at Moosejaw, Sask. and
moved to Ireland with his parents when he was a youngster. He returned
to Canada in 1948 to take up employment with Cominco, working there
© until his retirement in 1985

tember or January on their
age and readiness for school — is being
delayed a year in this and many other
districts as boards administrators and
teachers try to work out the details of
what impact the new system will have
on children and the schools.

prop call for the
facilities to receive hazardous, or
“‘special’’ wastes as the government
calls them, from the public and to
“‘properly sort and pack these wastes
(probably in 45-gallon drums).””

The packaged wastes would be tem:
porarily stored on site pending ship-
ment to a central storage facility

A rural location for the central
storage site ‘‘may be desirable because
of the potential size (several acres) and
possible land use conflicts,” regional
waste manager for the Kootenay
region Jim McLaren says in a letter to
the RDCK.

Properly packaged wastes would be
stored at’ the central site pending
ultimate-disposal-at 4 provincial site,
McLaren says.

Lottery numbers

The following are the winning num-
bers drawn in Thursday's lottery:

B.C. KENO — 21, 24, 25, 27, 29; 33,
42and 51.

The following are the winning num-
bers drawn in Wednesday’ lotteries:

LOTTO 6/49 — 6, 13, 24, 30, 32. and
33. The bonus number was 35. There
was no winner of the jackpot prize of
$1,848,617.00.  *

EXTRA — 2, 24,61 and 68

B.C_KENO4,11, 16,18, 21,24,
46 and 49.

These numbers, provided by The
Canadian Press, must be considered
unofficial.

He married Anna Watson in Ireland in 1963. He was a member of the
Masonic Lodge, the Fellowship Lodge No. 144 (Trail) and an elder of The
Grace Presbyterian Church

He js survived by his wife Anna and two sons, Tom and Alex, all at
the family home; two brothers, Johnathon of Edmonton and Roger of
Sacramento, Calif. and many nieces and nephews.

Funeral service will be held at the Grace Presbyterian Church on
Tuesday, June 20 at | p.m. with Rev. Jim Ferrier officiating. Interment
will be at Park Memorial Cemetery

Funeral arrangements aré under the direction of the Castlegar Funeral
Chapel.

Mabel Cherrington

Mabet Cherrington passed away June 11 in Trail Regional Hospital
atage 76.

Mrs. Cherrington was born in Fruitvale in 1912. She has been a long-
time resident of Castlegar, but resided in Kiro Manor in Trail the last year.
She was predeceased by her husband Bert Cherrington in 1983.

Sadly missed, she is survived by her two sons, Earl of Victoria, and
Keith and his wife Jean of Castlegar; six grandchildren; and one great-
grandchild.

No funeral was held by request.

A family viewing was conducted by Valley Funeral Home in Trail.
Cremation followed.

in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Alzheimers research
fund.

Pillow reduces record snore

VANCOUVER (CP) — Carol Hebbard says she’s finally getting a
good night's sleep

Her husband Mark is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records
as the world’s loudest snorer.

But the systems analyst from suburban Richmond says a new pillow
has reduced his snoring by $0 percent

*!My wife refuses to sleep in the same house as me without the
pillow," Hebbard said.

The $50 Thera-P Cushion, invented about a year ago, is made in
Markham, Ont. It prevents the snorer from sleeping on his back, thus cut-
ting down snoring

Hebbard’s snoring got him anjappearance on the Johnny Carson
Show

Clark, ambassador meet

OTTAWA (CP) — External Affairs Minister Joe Clark has met
Canada’s ambassador to China to consider what Ottawa should do to
protest China’s brutal of refor Jed

The meeting with rl Drake, who returned from Beijing on Friday, is
expected to be the first of a series of meetings involving government of-
ficials, MPs, China experts and members of the Chinese-Canadian com-
munity

**We will be giving form to the response that Canada will be taking,"’
Clark told reporters as he and Drake settled into comfortable chairs in an
office in the External Affairs Building.

Drake was called home Monday to help Ottawa plan its response to
the recent bloodshed and repression in China that has led to several mem-
bers of the Chinese diplomatic community in Canada to seek political
asylum here.

Ottawa invites grant bids

OTTAWA (CP) — Community groups with ideas for improving the
local environment are being invited to bid for federal grants of up to
$200,000.

The $50-million Environment || Partners Fund will support projects
like cleaning up parks, organizing recycling programs or collecting
household wastes for safe disposal

But there’s.a catch; groups must raise a matching contribution from
another source, such as private industry or municipal governments

“The aim is to involve people who are concerned about the environ-
ment, but who don’t have the means to do anything tangible,’ Environ-
ment Minister Lucien Bouchard told a news conference.

Service clubs, environmental groups, schools and youth organizations
are eligible to submit proposals. Private companies, municipal and
F al can’t submit Is, but will be prime fun-
draising targets for those who do.

Travel down dramatically

NEW YORK (AP) — Travel into China has decreased so
dramatically that a United Airlines flight to Beijing on Friday didn’t even
carry one passenger
The return flight, however, had 140 passengers, said United spokesman
Rob Doughty. “We're virtually taking no one into China,"’ Doughty
said. ‘At most, we have carried in five people."
A wypical flight from Tokyo to Beijing carried about 400 passengers
into China, he said.

'
Shoppers in shorts banned

LONDON (Reuter) — The ritzy Harrods department store has ban
ned shoppers in skimpy shorts from its opulent aisles, telling those
flashing the flesh at the doors to come back after they cover up

“This is not Brighton beach after all,’ said a spokesman for the
Egyptian-owned luxury store in London's up-market Knightsbridge sec
tion

He said scores of customers have been turned away, ‘‘politely but
firmly,"’ during a current hot spell because they did not meet the dress
code of Egyptian owner Mohammed Fayed.

Bush unveils crim

WASHINGTON (Reuter) — U.S,
veiled new crime guidelines promisi
laws, more investigators and mot
crowd the criminal justice system.

‘When criminals think about reaching for a gun, they're going to
know and they’ re going to learn that they’ re going to do time, hard time,”’
Bush told U.S. attorneys gathered in the East Room of the White House.
Countrywide there are 94 U.S. attorneys.

Reiterating his familiar anti-gun theme, Bush said the new guidelines
include a 10-year prison sentence for the use of a semi-automatic weapon
in a crime. They also would bar federal prosecutors from negotiating
charges, pleas and sentences with persons charged with using firearms ina
crime

resident George Bush has un-
more federal prosecutors, tougher
prisons, but admitting the plan could

Explosion acknowledged

MOSCOW (Reuter) — The Soviet Union has officially
acknowledged for the first time that there was a powerful nuclear ex-
plosion at an atomic weapons plant in the Ural mountains in September
1957. It said there were no casualties.

The accident created a radioactive trail about 100 kilometres long
and eight to 10 kilometres wide, and forced the evacuation of more than
10,000 people, the official news agency Tass said

More than 30 years later large areas around the town of Kasli are still
contaminated and water reserves are undrinkable, it said.

Western experts have long suspected there was a serious nuclear ac
cident in the area about that time

Earthquake of 6.8 hits Tokyo

TOKYO (AP) — An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale
rocked the Tokyo area and southern Japan early Saturday but no damage
or casualties were reported, the Central Meteorological Agency said.

The quake, centred about 500 kilometres south of Tokyo in the
Pacific Ocean, struck at 8:43 a.m. (4:43 p.m. PDT Friday)

“There are not reports of damage or casualties,"’ a spokesman for
the National Police Agency said

The meteorological agency said there was no danger of tidal waves
along eastern Japan’s Pacific coast because the epicentre of the quake was
too deep.

Agency officials said the quake’s epicentre was about 370 kilometres
under the Pacific

The Richter scale is a gauge of the energy released by an earthquake,
‘as measured by the ground motion Técorded on a seismograph. Every in-
crease of one number means that the ground motion is 10 times greater

A-quake of magnitude six can cause severe damage in populated
areas, While*one measuring seven is considered a major earthquake,
capable of widespread heavy damage.

Fire cause not yet known

WINNIPEG (CP) — Five investigators say it will be days before they
know what caused a massive chemical fire that forced hundred of Win:
nipeg residents to flee their homes in the middie of the night

“There's a couple of areas we want to look at but of course it’s a big
pile of rubble now, * provincial fire commissioner John Reimer said.

It will take several days to move the rubble at the Kelly Chemical
paint manufacturing plant. The blaze at the plant sent huge fireballs into
the air and rocked a residential neighborhood in the St. Boniface area of
the city late Thursday night

Noone wasinjured.and residents returned to. their homes.a few hours
later, but the fire raised fears of toxic pollution and created a storm in the
Manitoba legislature

in crews continue their work on the new Castlegar and District Aquatic

Centre. Here, a
make the walls

worker inspects the cribbing for the concrete that w'
Of the pool. — cartews proto by Guy berwond

I be poured to

Death
sentences
in China

BEIJING (CP) — A Beijing court
sentenced eight\people to death today
for taking part in ‘‘rioting’’ on June 4
and 5 when the Chinese army swept in-
to the capital to end pro-reform
demonstarions, state radio said

It said the eight included peasants,
unemployed workers, vagrants,
escaped prisoners and some with police
records

On Thursday a Shanghai court
passed death sentences on three
workers who set fire to a train after it
rammed into pro-reform demon
strators in China’s largest city

Meanwhile, leading reformist Zhao
Ziyang, ousted by hardliners as
China’s Communist party chief and
last seen a month ago pleading tear
fully with students, has been officially
accused of supporting their democracy
movement

A government spokesman indicated
in an interview broadcast on state
television that Zhao would soon be
stripped of his post but not put on trial

as was the infamous so-called Gang
of Four radicals led by the late party
chairman Mao Tse-tung’s- widow
arrested 13 years ago.

“Tc is true that a certain individual in
the top leadership made the mistakes
of supporting the turmoil,” gover-
nment spokesman Yuan Mu said
“The problem will be dealt with and
made public soon.””

Asked by NBC television anchor
man Tom Brokaw if Zhao would be
put on trial, Yuan said: ‘The problem
is one within the Communist party and
will be dealt with according to the party
constitution.”’

The Communist party’s Central
Committee is expected to meet soon to
oust Zhao. He is believed to have been
stripped of power after opposing the
decision by China's de facto leader
Deng Ziaoping and Premier Li Peng to
declare martial law in Beijing on May
20.

Zhao was last seen on May 19 when,
with tears in his eyes, he appealed to
students in Tiananmen Square to give
up amass hunger strike.

Japan's daily newspaper Sankei
Shimbun said today Zhao has been
seen playing golf ona Beijing course.

Sankei quoted Japanese gover
nment sources as saying that Zhao was
seen some time after Deng appeared in
public on June9

The sources said Zhao
be active although he is under guard of
public security authorities."*

China’s top trade official ‘criticized
foreign countries for halting loans and
aid to protest Beijing's crackdown on
dissent, saying those governments
should take a ‘farsighted view"’ of
economic relations with the world’s

‘appears to

most populous country

Zheng Tuobin, minister of foreign
economic relatioris and trade, said
Tome Countries Were Taking economic
measures against China to ‘‘put
pressure on China and interfere with

J} Chinese internal affairs

OTTAWA (CP) — The Liberal party will choose a
new leader in June 1990 at Calgary, the party’s national
executive decided.

About 50 members of the national executive voted
unanimously to hold the leadership convention in
Western Canada — which will be a first — said Andre
Tessier, the party’s director of communications

The vote will likely take place either on Saturday,
June 23, or Sunday, the 24th. Ironically it is then that
the Meech Lake constitutional accord, which has so
divided the party, is due to expire unless ratified by two
holdout provinces

While Tessier said the vote was unanimous, not
everyone was happy

Supporters of Jean Chretien, who has not declared
his intention to run yet, would have liked a fall conven-
tion

Montreal MP Alfonso Gagliano, chairman of the
Quebec parliamentary caucus, left the meeting with a
grim look, saying only that ‘‘the party has made its
decision and we have to live with it.””

THERE ARE RISKS

Gagliano, who preferred an earlier date, said the
Liberals now run the risk of a long and divisive cam
paign -

“The longer the campaign goes on, the more risk
there is of divisions,’* he said

Although the executive decision means the leader
ship race can now begin openly, Winnipeg MP John
Harvard said he doesn’t expect any candidates to of
ficially declare their intentions until Labor Day, Sept. 4

Harvard, who said the party also decided to hold a
series of four or five regional conferences to replace a
scheduled national policy convention in Calgary in Oc:

Liberals set date
for new leader

tober, admitted that a full year without a leader is a long
time

“It’s a long time ... but we couldn’t afford two
conventions,” Harvard said of his cash-strapped party
believed to be more than $4 million in debt

Anearlier date would presumably have enabled the
Chretien forces to capitalize on his huge lead in the
public-opinion polls. Most Liberals feel Chretien would
be invincible if the convention were held today and that
the longer the campaign runs, the more strength his op-
ponents are likely to muster.

‘One organizer for potential candidate Paul Martin
Jr., when informed of the date, said, “‘We got June,
eh?” indicating that the Montreal MP prefers to have a
longer campaign

Representatives of the various camps who sat in on
the morning meetings on Parliament Hill were busily
relaying the news to their political bosses from pay
phones near the entrance of the West Block

Party leader John Turner announced May 3 he in-
tends to step down after five years in the job. He said at
that time he would officially resign sometime after the
convention date was set

The decision, by about 50 members of the national
executive from across the country, signals a defeat for
the Chretien forces and a victory for the lesser-known
potential candidates who need time to build a more
recognizable national image

The other potential candidates include Martin,
veteran MPs Lloyd Axworthy and Sheila Copps, On:
tario Premier David Peterson, former Quebec cabinet
minister Clifford Lincoln and perhaps as many.as a half
dozen others who might enter the race to make a
political statment or to represent regional interests

Nurses strike escalates

VANCOUVER (CP) — Nearly one-third of British
Columbia's health care institutions were behind picket
lines Saturday as nurses escalated a strike for better wages
and working conditions.

An additional 11 facilities including one blood donor
clinic were struck today, bringing the toal to 41 hospitals
and facilities employing 11,000 nurses, the B.C
Union confirmed. The union has 17,500 members

Nurses

Spokesman Jerry Miller said the clinics would con.
tinue to operate and deliveries would be permitted
Picketing nurses would go back on duty if there was an
emergency

But other deliveries of food anji supplies have become
more difficult at the hospitals as nutses dug in on the picket
lines and turned back trucks.

They said they agreed the supplies were essential and
should be delivered but insisted that management person
nel come to curbside and take delivery there

“The union has assured us that essential services
would be provided," said David Annis, spokesman) for
health Labor Relations Association, the bargaining agent
for 144 health care facilitiesthroughout the province

“1 don't see anything more essential than the
provision of basic food products to patients.

MAKEITHARD

Miller agreed food is essential to patients, ‘but what is
not essential is delivery so it’ easy for management .. the
strike is supposed to make lifé difficult for management

it’s not something applied to the delivery of blood
That kind of delivery

The nurses are required by law to maintain essential
services, a requiremin that has kept 70 per cent of them on
duty at hospitats behind picket tines:

And at a small Ladysmith hospital on Vancouver
Island, the nurses found that by the time the essential ser
vices requirement was met, there was nobody left to picket

the service — is essential

The provincial government continued to keep its
distance from the dispute

“What we're saying is that the negotiations and the
bargaining is taking place — although they are on hold at
this time — hopefully someone will suggest to get together
again,” said health Minister Peter Dueck

**1 still believe it can be settled without any heavy hand
from the government."

The hospital employers say their last offer would make
B-€; nurses the highest paid in Canada but the union says
federal nurses are getting more

POORLY PAID
What is so great about being the highest paid people
in a profession that is poorly paid across the country?
asked White Rock nurse Janice Buchanan

Hospital populations continued to dwindle as elective
surgery was cancelled and patients were sent home early
Management staff were delivering meals, cleaning wards
and answering telephones.

The nurses have promised to expand the strike unless
the hospitals improve their offer. Annis told a news con
ference earlier in the week that the hospitals are willing to
resume bargaining but'no talks are set

The picket lines are not being crossed by members of
the Hospital Employees Union, which represents food ser
vice. laundry and clerical staff, and the Health Sciences
Association, which represents lab technicians anphar
macists.

The 29,000-member Hospital Employees Union is also
in a labor dispute with hospitals and some of them have
received 72-hour strike notice from the union

The hospitals have offered to raise the staring tals Lor
a general-duty nurse to $17.96 an hour in the thitd year ot
the proposed contract from the current $15.07. The union
wants $20.78 an hour in the third year