All aboard: VIA Rail adds another rail car to its: Skeena run due to popular: demand\NEWS A10 a Don't drink and ceive SOOrts year in review: Locals are asked to support the red ribbon campaign this holiday season\COMMUNITY B1 7 Remember the. athletes, wins, losses and the accomplishments of 1999\SPORTS B10 _. WEDNESDAY December 29, 1999 - STANDARD $1, 00. PLUS 576 ¢st {$2.20 plus 8¢ GST outside of the . Terrace aren) VOL. 12 NO, 38 Teen may be tried as adult for murder THE TEENAGER accused of killing Linda Lefranc a year ago will be tried as an adult unless an application is made to send the case to youth court. The 18-year-old man was 17 when Lefranc was stabbed to death in her Braun St. townhouse Dec. 9, 1998, and therefore cannot be named until the status of the future trial is settled, If the young man is tried as-an adult and convicted of first degree murder, he would face. life: imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years — compared to 10-year parole eligibility for young offenders convicted of the same crime. Dressed in a green T-shirt and khaki cargo pants, the accused man sat sil- ently through court appearances last Monday and Tuesday. He now faces charges of both first and second degree murder in connec- tion with Lefrane’s death. Which charge proceeds depends on whether Crown counsel Michael Ful- mer decides there’s enough evidence to show there was intent to kill. First degree murder is defined as murder that is planned and deliberate. The next court appearance is sche- duled for Jan. 21. RCMP inspector Doug Wheler says local residents should rest easier now that an arrest has been made. “Tt was an extremely terrifying mur- der for citizens of Terrace,” he added. “It had people: feeling very uncasy about their security.” Wheler said the accused was one of the prime suspects from the very start. “He was one of the ones we looked al very closely,” he said. “Everyone in the inner circle to the viclim has to be looked at and elimi- nated,” he added. Wheler said the investigation took: a year to complete since there were so. many people to interview: family, close friends, Lefranc’s school males and neighbours. There were also 330 tips or leads generated by police officers and the SKEENA public to check oul. He emphasized that cases like this one are yery complicated since police need sufficient evidence to take to court te convict anyone. The accused has been in custody since he-was picked up at-the Terrace _ airport by officers’as he returned to Terrace from’a week in Vancouver. While i in’ Vancouver, the man was kept under: strict surveillance, with po- lice aware uf his his whereabouts at all times. MLA dismisses citizen health posse demand NDP MLA dence sent by the group to @ He’s 103! Granddaughter Darlene Striker helped Harvey Doll celebrate his and 103rd birthday December 21 at Terraceview Lodge. Doll was sur- rounded by friends, family members (including his son Stan Doll his great-granddaughter Jamie Sriker) and Terraceview staff. Also celebrating a birthday December 21, was Beth Evans, who turned 90 years old. For story, see Page Bt. Forestry will keep powering our economy in new century Full-time jobs increasingly rare as the season shrinks By MIKE COX FORESTRY JOBS are here to stay, but what form the industry takes is still to come as the north- west prepares to deal with the new millennium. Dave Andrews, with 16/37 Community Futures, said full-time logging jobs are a thing of the past, but forestry will remain a sta- ple in the northwest econ- omy. - “There will be a move away from mainstream’ logging, but not necessari- ly forestry,” he said. The traditional but workers can end up be- ing away from their fa- milles for up ‘to four months. “Logging jobs will be a part-time job ‘at best,” An- ten= month jogging jobs, he said, can still be’ found, drews said. And that leaves loggers looking for work in the off- season. Many loggers — espe- do have the option of go- ing into other fields, “People are poing to have to find things to do themselves,” he said. THE NEW MILLENNIUM: Forestry reflections, Page A3. cially those who have been: in the industry for 20 or more yeats — are look- ‘ing to scaled-down logging jobs, Andrews said. > SA fot of people are looking at small, one or lwo man logging business- eg,” . . ~That’s:.the case with many older people, he said, but younger people Another problem, he said, are contract workers - like fallers and logging truck drivers — who can't find twelve month employ- ment, “Anyone on a. contract basis is considered self- employed, so they can't get U.1.” The. logging ‘industry isn’t a full-time job any- Dave Andrews more, but Andrews said the future isn’t totally bleak, : “There’s always going to be a need for wood.” That need, he said, wilt just take a new form in practices. “Instead of being a har- vester of fibres, we'll have to become farmers.” That could come in the form of using wood thal has some rot in it — which tight now is only used for pulp — and laking the good wood for other purposes. By doing that, said An- drews, new, more stable markets could be devel- oped. One example of this i is finger-jointing . wood to- gether to make 2x4s, Rather than using entire Saw logs, good wood is joined together to make the lengths of 2x45. Devéloping new mar- kets like this-is on-going, and will continue lo reform the industry into the future, Andrews added. “The industry Is in the middle of forming itself now.” Helmut Giesbrecht says demands by a local group for the resignations of lo- cal health care official Tom Novak and the Ter- race Area Health Council arc “nonsense”. “They've got their facts wrong anyway,” said Giesbrecht of Térrace Health Watch, formerly Concerned Citizens for Healthcare. It was formed earlier this year after nursing shortages reduce the amount of beds at Mills Memorial Hospital, which in turned limited admis- sions. “It’s disgraceful they can write letters [ike that with misinformation,” said Giesbrecht of correspon- health minister Penny Priddy. Giesbrecht said last week he needed to hear details of specific cases involving healih care to determine exactly what happened in each. circum- stance. “Vm still waiting for an avalanche of letiers. I’ve not had any. I think there is teo much rhetoric and no facts here,” he said. “It does suggest there’s more politics than any- thing else on this,” Giesbrecht said the lo- cal health council is doing the best it can, “But there will always be a few people sniping fram the sidelines,” he ad- ded. MP’s been grilled over treaty stand Scott a lonely voice of protest By JEFF NAGEL SKEENA MP Mike Scott says history will be the final judge of whether he has been right or wrong in leading an all-out attack on the Nisga'a treaty dur- ing his years in office. The Reform Party’s aboriginal affairs critic and miin point man on the treaty says it hasn’t been easy to be. repeatedly por- trayed as a bad guy. “It certainly isn’t an en- joyable position to be in,” Scott says. “I’ve given this issue a lot of time, a lot of consid- eration and a fair amount of my life,” he says. “I am -convineed’ beyond --any shadow of a doubt that the position the Reform Party has taken isthe correct one and that it will- be shown over time thal we were right.” | “iv the future, when’ our grandchildren and nieces and ‘nephews. ask. people where they: were when this happened, [ will be able to account for. where I was and what I was doing.” The treaty passed ‘the House of Commons Dec. 13 and is expected to pass the Senate in the spring. If there was ever any chance to stop the treaty, 1999 was the year it would have happened. B.C. Liberals led ‘by Gordan Campbell mourited a steady attack in the leg- islalure’s- clause-by-clause “debate of the treaty. ‘The Mike Scoti NDP finally used closure in the spring to end B.C,’s longest debate and ratify _ the treaty. Federal Liberals tike- wise used closure to cut debate short in the House of Commons — but not be- fore: Reformers tied up Parliamentary business for two days by forcing round- the-clack voling on all 471 amendments. they’d pro- posed to the ircaty. - Anti-treaty Strategists had hoped to drum up wi- despread grassrouts oppa- sition to the treaty in B.C. ‘To some extent that has happened - privately or- ganized referendums on the treaty have been held in throughout B.C., with the peuple participating voting overwhelmingly against the treaty. But it hasn’t become -the tidal ‘wave. Reformers Continued Pg A14