Funny money -

‘Step inside

A subsidy for after-school child
care won't be of any use to
parents in Terrace\NEWS A9

Inmates at the correctional centre
play host to local seniors and
elders\COMMUNITY B1

In swim trim

A former Blueback swimmer
dives onto the national .
stage\SPORTS B6

WEDNESDAY.

$1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST-
($2.40 plus 4¢ GST outsida ofthe

Torrnce area)

July 5,'2000 °

ANDARD

Locals back gay pride day request

VOL. 13 NO. 13

City council urged to

reverse its decision

By JEFF NAGEL
CITY COUNCIL may have provoked
much more uproar by refusing to pro-
claim a gay pride day this summer than
if it had simply complied.

Local gays, lesbians and their suppor-
ters are ressurrecling a dormant-commit-
(ce that had formed to encourage toler-
ance of homosexuality, and there’s talk
about entering a gay pride float in the Ri-
verboat Days parade.

“Gays and lesbians work and live in
the community,” said local lesbian Etiza-
beth Snyder. “We're business people,
we're moms and dads, we're sons and
daughters, we’re ptominent peaple and

we're on welfare.”

“We are this community, and for that
not to be taken into account by this town
council is troubling.”

Snyder said the local tolerance com-
mittee will come to city hall and ask city
council to reverse its Fune 26th decision
and proclaim a gay pride day.

Council had voted 5-1 to defeat coun-
cillor David Hull’s motion to proclaim
Aug. 5 as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgendered Pride Day” in the City of
Terrace.

The request for the proclamation came
from Rainbow B.C., a provincial coalition
of gay and affiliated groups.

Some councillors based their decision
to oppose the motion on the fact the re-
quest wasn’t initiated by a local group.

Snyder said the newly revived toler-

ance committee, which met last Wednes-
day and plans another mecting at the li-
brary this Friday at 6:30 p.m., hopes by
coming to council directly next Monday
they’ ll eliminate that objection.

“The plan is also over the summer to
plan some celebrations,” she said, adding
that could involve participating in River-
hoal Days, a rally or other events. “We
haven’t pinned down yet what that would
fook like.”

Snyder said the group felt they
couldn’t allow the decision to go unan-
swered, even though making it a public
issue lerrifies some gay people who aren't
open about their orientation.

“It has such a negative ripple effect in
the community when something like this
happens,” she said. “It would be negli-

“It’s often a shame when a decision
like this occurs there’s an immediate re-
action that has to take place, but I guess
that’s how change has to occur.”

The debate at council on the procla-'
mation almost never even happened.

After Hull moved the proclamation,
mayor Jack Talstra twice called for a
seconder and was met with silence both
times.

But just when it appeared the motion
would die a‘ quick death councillor Olga
Power seconded the motion for discussion
purposes.

Power said she opposed the proclama-
tion because the day to be proclaimed is
during Riverboat Days celebrations.

“I see this as a conflict with an event

Continued Pg A11

gent on our part not to respond.”

Olga Power

mine

A SUPREME Court ruling
last week thal the province
failed to address Tlingit
natives’ environmental
concerns is a major set-
back for a proposed mine
in northwestern B.C.

B.C, Supreme Court
Justice Pamela Kirkpatrick
teleased her ruling June 28
after critics warned that
the mines ministry fast-
tracked ,the Tulsequah
Chief mine’s enviran-
mental approval despite
concerns raised by scien-
tifists.

“The failure goes to the
heart of the environmental
process and, as such, ren-
ders the ministry’s deci-
sion unreasonable,” she
said in her judgment.

Taku River Tlingit First
Nation spokesman John
Ward calls the decision a
“clear sign that First Na-
tion concerns will not be
overlooked any longer by
the B.C. government.”

The Tlingit worried that
the road proposed by the
mine’s developers, Red-
fern Resources Lid. of
Vancouver, would seriaus-
ly damage the Taku River
wilderness,

The Tlingit argued their
concerns regarding the
sustainability of the water-
shed’s lands, which houses
a rich selection of wildlife,
were nat addressed by the
government,

They were backed by
studies that found the
mine’s potential acid
drainage posed a threat to
salmon and grizzly bears
in the area,

Redfern Resources is
calling the judgment an
“extreme disappointment”
but stresses the ruling
found the company in
compliance with .environ-
mental standards and it
was the ministry that
didn't address Tlingit fears.

The ministry has 30
days to appeal the ruling,
but what steps it chooses
io take is still “up in the
air’, said ministry. spokes-
man Kerry Readshaw.

Up until now. the big-
gest hurdle facing the
mine had been opposition
from Alaska.

Mines minister Dan
Miller had been making
progress in meetings last
month towards easing the
state’s concerns.

WEST FRASER employees Craig Jennings and Max Dasilva strike 5 outside of the timber company’s lum-
ber yard in Terrace June 28. They both are members of the Industrial Wood and Allied Workers of Cana-
da union (!WA). The strike began after negotiations between the company and the union failed.

Strike closes sawmills

MORE THAN 600 Terrace-area saw-
mill workers and loggers walked off
the job fast Wednesday as part of a
coast-wide forest industry strike.

They're among 12,000 Industrial
Wood and Allied Workers of Canada
(IWA) on strike around the province,

Work ground to a halt at the
Skeena Cellulose and West Fraser
sawmills here as picket lines sprang
up around the plants.

“There’s absolutely nothing com-
ing into our yard at all,” said West
Fraser gencral manager Lou Poulin.

Most if not all logging contractors
working for both mills have also
been affected,

Skeena Cellulose sawmills in
Carnaby and in Smithers were not

immediately affected, but could be
shut down if interiors workers also
strike.

Both West Fraser and Skeena
Celiulose, however, were confident
their pulp mills in Kitimat and
Prince Rupert would. continue to
operate despite a reduced flow of
chips.

Skeena Cellulose’s pulp mill,
presently in the midst of a partial
shutdown for major capital improve-
ments, is to resume full production
by the second week of July. -

“IVs not expected to affect the
pulp mill,” said SCI spokesman Don
McDonald.

At issue in the labour dispute are
what workers say are employer de-

mands for concessions on job flex-
ibility, vacation scheduling and pen-
sions.

The industry says it needs the
same contract language on the coast
already agreed to by IWA members
in the interior,

“We'll stand our. ground for as
long.as it takes,” sald Mike Dougall,
a package press operator at SCI.

Other IWA members are hopeful
the strike doesn’t last long,

“The sharter the ‘strike the
better,” said Laudo Botelho, a fork-
lift driver for West Fraser for the
past 23 years,

“This is going to affect everyone
in town,” he said. “I mean, it’s not
good for Terrace.”

Mr. Music is
latest health
care victim

Jim Ryan faces lengthy stay
in P.G. for kidney dialysis

By JENNIFER LANG
THESE ARE dark days for Terrace’s celebrated
music man, Jim Ryan.

The 65-year-old founder and conductor of the Ter-
race Symphony Orchestra has suffered kidney failure.

That means he needs kidney dialysis three times a
week, for up to six hours al a time, just to stay alive.

But because the nearest hemodialysis unit is in
Prince George, the Order of Terrace recipient is now for-
ced to live in exile — indefinitely.

He and other renal patients like him shouldn’t have
to, his friends and supporters say.

Terrace is still awaiting word on whether a proposed
regional hemodialysis unit based at Mills Memorial
Hospital in Terrace will
gain final approval.

Renal patients in the
northwest needing hemo-
dialysis have two options:
they can eet the ongoing
treatment they need in
Prince George ar Vancou-
ver.

AL present, three Ter-
race residents including
Ryan have moved to
Prince George for hemo-
dialysis treatment at
Prince George Regional
Hospital.

A fourth Terrace patient
uses a dialysis unit at .
home, an expensive aption
that’s out of reach. for Jim Ryan
most, and requires special training 10 use,

A December 1999 report prepared by the B.C. Provin-
cial Renal Agency at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver
estimated that 39 patients in the northwest region need a
renal unil like (he one Ryan needs three times a week.

Mills Memorial Hospital CEO Dieter Kuntz says Ter-
race is the location for a proposed six-unit, ambulatory ’
hemodialysis program that would serve the region.

Terrace already has a qualified renal specialist — Dr.
Michael Kenyon, who’s the local coordinator helping to
put the program in place.

Kuntz said Terrace’s renal unit would be designated
as a regional service operated as a satellite program of
the Northern Interior Hospital Region in Prince George.

Approval is expected lo be announced in time for this
financial year, ending in March 2001,

But Kuntz cautioned that final approval may not be
made until the fall.

“Once the ministry approves it, it will take 18
months, approximately, to formalize it and put it into
action,” Kuntz said, adding renovations will -be neces-

-sary lo accommodate the program at Mills. -

While that may sound like a long wait for Terrace pa-
tients wanting to move back home, Kuntz stressgd
least there is a light at the end of the tunnel.” am

Meanwhile, family, friends and supporters are rullying
around Ryan in a bid to bring him home..

“It could take up to two years,” said Yvelte Bos, a
colleague of Ryan's who has joined the effort to hasten
the approval of Terrace’s regional hemodialysis program.

We want to try and speed it up as much as
possible.”

Ryan, who originally started to suffer from renal fail-
ure in 1991, ‘has needed two kidney transplants.

Continued Page A10