The study said acts or omissions by the two unnamed
officials were pr ly to warrant
under the Criminal Code. It alse draws similar conclusions
about companies involved with the foam.

The 225-page report, written by lawyer Clare
MacLellan, was obtained by The Canadian Press under the
Access to Information Act.

Urea f foam ii was appr for
use in Canada in the summer of 1977 and banned under the
Hazardous Products Act as a possible health hazard on Dec.
22, 1980.

Some 60,000 homeowners had the insulation pumped
into their homes prior to the ban — many with the help of
federal grants under the Canadian Home Insulation
Program.

The complicated series of events that led to the foam's
approval and later to the ban have already been documented
by a federal board of review and the Commons health
committee.

MacLellan is the first to single out two individuals who
supposedly could have spared homeowners from the health
and financial problems linked to the foam.

One of the individuals is identified as an employee of a
government standard-writing body, presumably the Cana
dian General Standars Board.

REJECTS CONCERNS

The study said he refused to take concerns about health
hazards seriously and bowed to pressure from the insulation
industry.

The other individual is identified as an employee of
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the federal housing
agency.

The report said he failed to stop false advertising by
companies in the industry and describes his approach to

hazards of the foam, given the state of knowledgé in 1977.

The Health Department wasn't directly involved with
the foam until the fall of 1979 and took more than a year to
come out in favor of a ban.

Earlier this summer, Monique Begin described the foam
as her one regret about her years as health minister and said
the government's involvment was “badly handled from
beginning to end.” é

The Department of Consumer and Corporate-Affairs
was another department with a late start on foam problems.

The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources was
criticized for not pursuing its misgivings about the foam as
an insulating material and not making those concerns known
to the public. :

“They never issued a warning about UFFI because they
felt the product would never pass the standards tests and no
acceptance numbers (to allow the foam to qualify for federal
grants) would be issued.”

MacLellan said the department also felt consumers
wouldn't be attracted to the foam because of its relatively
poor insulating properties.

During the years the committee spent studying the
foam, the first concerns of the government representatives
centred on the foam’s shor as an i i
material.

Health concerns about formaldehyde vapor emitted by
the foam came to the fore relatively late in the process.

Yet MacLellan said the possible hazards of formalde-
hyde — irritation of the eyes and nose and respiratory
problems, for example — were recognized by the Health
Department as early as 1949.

ation defined as “a threat of
injury to your safety or
health which is likely to hap-
pen at any moment wihout
warning.”

Now the word “imminent”
has Been deleted and “dan-
ger” has been redefined as
“any hazard or condition that
could reasonably be expected
to cause injury or illness to a
person exposed thereto.”

The code applies only to
workers in federal jurisdic
tion but it often influences
the thinking of legislators in

other juri

_ Bernie D'Eon, president of
the Non-Smokers Association

door, another way to come at
the problem. There's no
doubt about it.”

like

“Everything this

type of thing. It isn't strong
enough by itself. You'll find
much the same wording on

there’s been too much im
pact.”

One of the changes made
by Parliament in June was to

helps. People are frightened extend the code’s occupa

now — even smokers — they
believe this is a problem af.
fecting them directly.”

The Canadian Labor Con
gress has taken no official
position on the touchy issue
and has not commented on
the potential impacty of the

tional health and safety pro-
visions to public servants for
the first time. Previously,
public servants were pro
tected only by federal health
and safety guides.

Other workers covered by
the code include those em-

new legislation in this area. » ployed in interprovincial or

But at least one congress
expert believes privately
that it will aid the cause of
non-smokers.

international transportation
and communications, broad-
casting, banks, certain agri
cultural jobs and Crown cor-

“But certainly if they think
it will serve their case, I
expect them to make a trial
case of it.”

The legislation provides
for a series of internal pro
cedures to handle complaints
about one-the-job health and
safety, leading ultimately to
a decision by the Canada
Labor Relations Board.
Board decisions can be ap-
pealed in turn to the courts.

Some of labor code changes
made in June were health
and safety provisions are ex-
pected to be proclaimed in
early 1985 after accompany
ing regulations have been
drafted and affected groups
have been briefed by gov
ernment officials.

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Researchers hope to cut
costs of animated novels

BURNABY (CP) — The
writer sits at his computer,
typing his novel. As he
writes, the characters of the
novel appear on the screen,
speak their lines, and dis.
appear.

The writer is composing an
animated videotape that will
eventually be copied millions
of times and sold in the way
paperback novels now are.

The animated novel is still
science fiction, but a group of
researchers at Simon Fraser
University are working on a
“graphic ray tracing engine”
that represents the first step
down the road to animation
for the common man

The project's ultimate goal
is to create a machine that
will do the same thing — at a
fraction of the price — now
done by ultra-expensive ma
chines in avant garde movie
companies such as Califor
nia’s Lucasfilms, producer of

the Star Wars trilogy

Computer scientist Rick
Hobson, who is working on
specialized hardware for the
proposed machine, says a
combination of specially de
signed hardware and soft
ware (programs) could even
tually result in a $10,000
machine that could do the
same job as a Cray super
computer which now costs
more than $10 million.

Hobson says the smaller
machine envisioned by peo-
ple working on the project,
including software specialist
Tom Calvert and graduate
students Pradeep Chilka and
Severin Gaudet, would not be
as fast as a Cray. But he
predicts an animated frame
might eventually be pro
duced in as little as 20 min
utes

Researchers hope to pro
duce a modular machine
whose speed would increase

as processors were added.
“We might have one per

son who would have a ma-,

chine with four processors,
while another person who
required much greater speed
would have one with a hun
dred processors,” Hobson
says.

The image-generating
technique under considera
tion for the project is called
“ray tracing” and involves
calculating the paths of ima
ginary light rays from the
eye of the viewer and de
termining their impact on
each element of the scene.

The process involves a host
of software problems, as well
as some complicated mathe
matics that the team hopes to
speed up with special hard
ware.

One of the greatest prob-
lems is created by the fact
that light bounces around in a
scene, reflecting off some ob-
jects, casting shadows on

others, and sometimes being
absorbed

In high-resolution graphics
the paths of a million rays
might have to be calculated.

“Each ray might be re-
flected three or four times,”
Hobson says.

Hobson, whose team is
working along with Vertigo
Graphies of Vancouver on a
B.C. Seience Council grant,
says the eventual machine
will likely uge a minimum of
four specialized microproces-
sors.

At present software is
being written and the spec-
ialized hardware developed
as an electronic model.

“We would expect to know
by next year whether this is
a viable way to go,” Hobson
says.

At that point, he says, re-
searchers may apply for
funds to build a prototype of
the new machine.

Outside programmers used

7 3
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By MIKE FUHRMANN
The Canadian Press

Software companies have sprung up across North
America hoping to fill aneed for useful and entertaining
programs for personal computers. But many of these
companies, often widely known as a result of expensive
advertising campaigns, don't write the programs they sell

A home computer ownere may not realize it, but the $50
program that turns his video screen into a space adventure
game may have been created by an individual laboring in his
basement or by some unknown company, not the big-name
software house mentioned prominently on the package.

Logidisque Inc. of Montreal, a large publisher of
French-language software, relies on a stable of 200 to 300
freelance programmers whose work is tested and debugged
by the company’s four staff programmers.

Roger Des Roches, publishing director, says the

piece of work. We edit it, then publish it and pay the author
royalties.”

There is no shortage of unsolicited material, but only
five per cent of it has commercial potential, Des Roches says.

“Every week we get five or six people showing us new
games or other software products.” Teenagers and other
part-time programmers hope the company’s marketing skills
will turn their creations into best sellers.

PAY ROYALTIES

Logidisque pays software authors royalties of 10 per
cent of the suggested retail price for the first 3,000 copies
sold, and 12 per cent for the remaining copies. After
overhead expenses and the costs of advertising and
packaging, the company’s own profit usually amounts to
between five and 10 per cent, Des Roches says.

“We risk a lot more than the author” but the profits per

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disk are about the same, he says. The company usually has
to spend from $15,000 to $40,000 in salaries, marketing and
production costs for each program sent to market.

company operates much the same as a book publisher
“An author comes in and offers us ordinarily a finished

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