Role reversal.

A special report on Telus
managers and locked
out workers in Terrace
\NEWS AS. |

Wiping the tears

Weekend event looks to
heal the pain and ease the

fears on the Highway of Tears

\COMMUNITY B1

Reinedin
Visiting western riding

= judge is impressed with
[

ocal horse people
\SPORTS B4

$1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST
($1.10 plus 8¢ GST
outside of the Terrace area)

. ByDUS TIN QUEZADA ;
LES WATMOUGH says the long pro-

cess involved in incorporating Thornhill .

is about to start but it could be shot down
at its first stage. ©

The first step is to determine what :
. happens to the incorporation motion ta-

bled by Watmough when it comes up at
the next Kitimat-Stikine regional district
board meeting this Friday.

Watmough represents Thornhill on the
regional district board and has at times
been dubbed the community’s unofficial
mayor.

. If the motion were to be approved by
the board, the plan would then go to the’
provincial Ministry of Community Ser-
vices, which would undertake a financial .
assessment and study.

If the incorporation was deemed to
‘bea prudent move, officials from both

Bus cuts ©
| pondered

- By SARAH A.
ZIMMERMAN
GREYHOUND . RIDERS
will have ‘a chance to tell
.the provincial passenger -
transportation board what
‘they think of plans to slash
its schedule between Prince
Rupert and Smithers-in half. :

If approved, the sched- jf
ule will affect Terrace riders : :--im
who will see departures east

‘and west leaving just once.
daily instead of twice.

Greyhound applied to
the board, which regulates
intercity transportation pro-
viders, this spring to cut the
schedule, citing low rider-
ship numbers.

The schedule cut must
be approved by the board
before the bus company can

» make any changes.

And though it’s not re-
quired to, the board may
hold public hearings before

_ making a decision.

“We are probably going:
to be having some public
meetings in the area in Oc-

- tober before a decision is _
made,” says Greyhound of-
ficial Brad Shepherd.

The. Greyhound bus
leaves Terrace eastbound for
Prince George at 12:50 p.m.
and 11] p.m.

The company would
slash the nighttime bus and
keep the daytime schedule,
Shepherd says.

Going west to Prince
Rupert, the bus currently
leaves at 7:50 a.m. and 6:15
p.m. Greyhound intends to
eliminate the early morning
schedule.

_ Transportation board of-
ficial Jan Broocke says. a.
hearing date with time and
location will likely be set for

later this fall.

2

_. the province and the regional district in
. Thornhill would have to agree on which

duties. would be assumed by the new mu-
nicipality ; and how much money it would

‘receive with which to build the basis of a

municipality. ;

. Watmough said he’s hesitant to fix a
number to what a typical payment would
be, but he said if it were up to him, he’d.

seek $10 million.

A proposed amalgamation of Thornhill

with the City of Terrace went to a refer-

endum in 1996 and both communities
rejected it.

Watmough says voters weren’t prop-
erly informed then...

“The regional district and the city did
a restructuring study to decide the best
method of. governing,” said Watmough.
“It’s regrettable because it wasn’t re-
ally a restructuring study, but a financial

a Little butterfly -

ITALIA TAYLOR plays with her butterfly balloon made for her by one of the
vendors at the farmer's market Sept..10. The toddler and her mom were two of
the many people who came out to enjoy the market under a bright, sunny sky

and warm temperatures.

,terracestandard.com

study.”
The. longtime ‘regional district board

member said residents found out how
their taxes would: be affected but -not -

what services, like infrastructure and rec-
reational facilities, would be needed. :
Amalgamation back then would have

‘ resulted in provincial monies to help buf-
fer the costs of bringing the two commu- -

nities together.

One upgrade identified in the study
was: the Queensway sewer and while
Watmough said that has been completed,
the community is still in political limbo.

' “We’ve been drifting along since (the |

referendum) and the regional district con-
tinues: to provide services,’ * Watmough

‘added. © ” ;
The pressure to incorporate Thornhill

has grown since 1999 when the City of

oe”

hornhill incorporation looms -

“surrounding the

‘tered voters in
-1998, said Ron -

‘administrative

Wedne

regional
ports, —~ J
‘A - counter
petition. was
put to regis-

air-

late December ©

Poole, chief,

Les Watmough

officer with the
City of Ter-
race. Under the
local government act at the time, if five
per,cent of the electorate had opposed
Terrace’s expansion, the move would’ ve

"gone to a referendum:

The petition didn’t materialize.
“It was done while everyone was

5

sday, September 14, 2005

ber holidays. “(The process) basically
surrendered Thombill with Thornhill’s
consent.”

~The other community need. that. re- _
mains in limbo, said Watmough, iS ae |

sewer for the commercial district.”

“Two grant scenarios (for the sewer) _

have come and gone,” ‘said Watmough,
adding a new application i is still before

_ the board,

‘Incorporation will allow Thornhill to”

“Manage its own destiny, said ‘Watmough,
who cited Wal-Mart’s landing i in Terrace
as a prime example,

“Wal-Mart should’ ve

been in

Thornhill, ” he said. “Tt defies logic w where -

- it is now.’

Watmough, soon to be 74, isn’t sure

whether he would run for mayor, which
would be a three-year commitment, ‘if

_ Terrace doubled its size, gaining the land.

Co-op here inundated
S with cheque queries _

‘MARGARET SPEIRS PHOTO

. away,”

a

TERRACE . CO- OP Asso- .
- ciation officials say they’ve
had hundreds of people stop
_ by its location to claim eq-

turned after a mass mail- out
this summer.

ruptcy proceedings, assets
were sold off making way
for more than 10,000 Co-op
members to receive equity
cheques totalling $2.1 mil-
lion.

But after those cheques
were mailed out more than
6,000 were returned to the
association because the ad-
dresses are not current.

front’ page of The Terrace
Standard \ast week, the as-

_has brought in extra people
to come in and help distrib-
ute cheques to those people
who. have moved since the
Co-op dissolved last year.

of here. |

Jobless rate at 10- -year low

THE REGIONAL unemployment rate
is the lowest in 10 years and is even
better than the rates posted for the.
lower mainland and Vancouver Island.

The August rate was 5.5 per cent, a
percentage point better than July and a
large drop from the August 2004 level
of 12.3 per cent. .

-. The rate was 6.3 per cent in the low-
er mainland, 6.4 per cent for Vancouver
itself and 5.7 per cent for Vancouver Is-
land. Victoria at 4.1 per cent, Abbots-°
ford at 4.9 per cent, the northeast at 4.1.
per cent, the Kootenays at 4.9 per cent
and the northeast at 4.2 per cent fared -
better than did the northwest.

' Local fedéral employment analyst
Patrick Blaine McIntyre cautioned that
there may not be much difference be-
tween July’s 6.5 per cent and the 5.5
per cent of August.

uity cheques, which were re-

After a story ran on the

“There's” been an .ava-.

Stewart Omineca ©
road study underway -

start. north of Kitwanga, winding its way
north and east to the Kemess mine owned by
Northgate Resources.

Portions of the road already exist but
would need tobe brought up to industrial
hauling standards and a new. section needs ©

* said Watmough of the Decem-

“The association ‘isin the” ~
process of dismantling. Af-.
ter it went through its bank-”

sociation’s president says it.

’ THE PROVINCIAL transportation ministry
has spent approximately $450,000 so far on
a $2.5-million study laying out a planned

‘route to an existing gold and copper mine |

“and to other promising properties northeast

Commonly called the Kemess Road or the
‘Stewart Omineca Resource Road, it would

lanche of people,” said as-
‘sociation. president Nirmal
Parmar last week.

“We have extra people

here to help them out — we
must have given out more
than 100 on Thursday.”

‘Not only have local resi-

dents looking for cheques’

come in to the office in per-
son, the association has been
receiving calls from all over
North America from one-
time Terrace residents.

“We've had out of town -

calls from people from Al-

‘berta and Ontario, Florida,

all around British Colum-
bia and the Yukon,” Parmar

said, adding those people

have given their new ad-

‘dresses so the money can be

sent to them.
~ The association will have

to do a Second mail-out later ©

this year to the last known
address of its members.

Any unclaimed money
will be sent to the provin-
cial government and Parmar
says he hopes more people

to be built.

incorporation does happen..

Nirmal Parmar

will come forward to claim
the money that is rightfully
theirs. “
Between Wednesday. and
Friday of last week, -Par-
mar estimates nearly. 200
people had come in to claim

cheques in person,.. while
about 50 out-of- town calls

were logged. -.,
The Co- -Op office at 2912

Molitor St. is open 10 a:m.

to 5 p.m. Monday: to Friday.

ied

CONT'D PAGE A2

“But we are definitely seeing that
downward trend continue,” he said of
an employment picture which has been
improving since laté last year between
just this side of Vanderhoof in the east
to the Queen Charlottes in the west.

MclIntyre’s
steadily increasing number of people
who are either in the labour force or
who are looking for work.

That number was 49,600 last Au

gust, rose to 52,000 this June and was
54,900 this August. The total number
of people employed either full or part
time has also been climbing and stood
at 41,300 full-time jobs and 10,600
part-time ones in August.

“That’s: the highest number of
people working since the summer of
1997,” said McIntyre. ,

“When you consider that the popu-

_ who have stayed in this area that now

impressed with the |

lation has dropped from then until r now,
it really means there are more people

found work,” he said. “There’s a better
utilization of the people living here.”

Just 3,000 people in the region were
listed as being unemployed in August,
a drop from 3,700 in June. The number
of people not considered in the labour
force is also dropping, from 19,400 in
June to 16,600 in August. Last June,
23,200 people were considered not to
be in the labour force.

McIntyre is also seeing signs of a
revived mining industry reflecting job
statistics. That’s because the number of
people with mining jobs has climbed
since Jast year and the number of
people in the primary industries in the
north has increased.

| z | ' Knotwork

ANGIE ALLEMANN of the Thornhill Fire Department and Eurocan Emergency
Rescue Team member Peter Meger tighten a rope used to pull a mock ac-
cident victim and rescue members up the river bank under the new bridge by
the Queensway rest area during a rescue training session Sept. 10.

CONT’D PAGE A2