Sneak peek What now? City council and the RCMP took a look at the bench youth rehab centre last week\NEWS A13 Anti-poverty group wants you to see what it’s like to be homeless in Terrace\COMMUNITY BG Michelle Hendry reflects on her Olympic experience and charts out her future\SPORTS BS: | WEDNESDAY October 11, 2000 $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST_ ($1.10 plus 8¢.GST outside of the Tenace ara). . VOL; 13 NO. 27 Gas giants make their peace Deal paves way to re-open methanol plant METHANEX will restart its closed Kiti- mat methanol plant as part of a deal reached last week with natural gas sup- plier Pacific Northern Gas (PNG). Methanex closed ils plant in July for at least a year, saying it needed lower costs from PNG and others to make the plant profitable. Methanex pays PNG to ship nhtural gas through its pipeline from the north- east to Kitimat. The tentative deal allows Methanex to stretch out payments due over the next two years frum one large gas transmis- sion contract until 2009. “We'll get the same revenue, only it will take nine years,” said PNG official Greg Weeres late last week. What this does is lower Methanex’s costs for the next two or so years, he said. In return for taking less money now, ihe deal also’ calls for PNG to profit should methanol prices rise in the future, Weeres added. Methanex spokesman Brad Boyd said a -Te-opening date has yet be set. Although happy with the deal reached with PNG, Boyd cautioned that provin- cial Job Protection Commissioner Eric Van Socren must arrange for ather cost culs. These involve lowering the royalties Methanex pays the province for the na- tural gas it buys in return for the pro- vince having the chance to share profits based on a rise in the price of the metha- nol Methanex produces at Kitimat. Also involved in the profit sharing plan is a lowering of the property taxes charged by the District of Kitimat on the methanol plant and lower rates by B.C. Hydro. The tentative deal, details of which are to be hammered out over the next two months, ends a period of uncertainty concerning the 120 jobs at the methanol plant. Italso buffers the prospect of paying a lol more ta maintain PNG’s pipeline to make-up for the loss of revenue had Methanex shut down permanently, “We're trying to do everything we can to protect residential customers,” suid Weeres, . The deal does not affect a general 10 per cent rate hike which came into place Oct. | as that increase is to cover the rising cost of natural gas itself, he said. PNG also wants to raise prices Jan. 1, 2001 but that. amount won't be known until the final details of the deal with Methanex have been worked aut, Weeres continued. He said those increases will inciude any hikes in the cost of gas and any that nay follow from the final details of the PNG-Methanex deal. The tentative PNG-Methanex deal was reached last week after PNG filed a rate increase application with the B.C. Utilities Commission Sept. 29, Cont'd Page A2 w Our t DREW LUBY takes in a crisp fall day at a bridge across Howe use city trails to c Creek near Christy Park. He's one of hundreds af residents wha more on the city p toss town, for exercise and for pleasure. For arks and plans for expansion, see page A5. a Land planning freeze wanted TSIMSHIAN NATIVES want a nearly complete land-use - plan for the region frozen while they draw up their own version of it, They've asked the province to withhold final cabinet approval of the Kalum Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP), now in the final stages of negotiation. Tsimshian treaty negotiator Gerald Wesley said three member villages — the Kitselas, Kitsumkalum and Lax Kwalaams — would then spend a year or more drawing up their own plan for how. logging and other resource uses would be allowed in the future. “The third step would be to compare and reconcile the two plans,” Wesley said. He said having separate plans drawn up would put the Tsimshian in better position to talk to provincial repre- senlalives “on a nation-to-nation basis.” The Tsimshian walked out of the Kalum LRMP talks in January, he said, and haven’t been back. “We don’t think LRMP as a whole is constructive,” Wesley said. “There are too many different stakeholders with too many differing and varying approaches for an effective job to be done.” ‘ “First Nations are only recognized as a minor voice and we don’t think that’s appropriate.” A major battle is in store, Wesley said, if the Kalum , LRMP is finished without Tsimshian participation and is approved by Victoria. “Then the Tsimshian will stand up and say we dis- agreed, we fought the process from within the system from day one — now we go public with it,” he said. He noted there are some signals the province may be prepared to listen. ; “We're geared up for confrontation,” Wesley said. “Bul we're now seeing a willingness from B.C. to avoid that and harmonize respective plans.” The planning issue runs hand in hand with overall Tsimshian desires for a big role in managing the forests here. “We feel the treaty will provide for a Tsimshian role in the managing of the forests,” he said. “We'd like to see a working relationship now while negotiations are going on that are moving us towards thal.” He said local bands also expect a trealy to deliver direct means for them to get jobs and money from the commercial forest industry, through logging, silviculture ar other ventures. Business shutdown urged Healthy rally crowd wanted By JENNIFER LANG HUNDREDS OF busines- ses have been asked to close down for an hour Friday night to demonstrate sup- -port of and to bolster atten- dance at a rally in support of locat health care. “We're going to encour- age people to shut down and go attend the rally,” Terrace and District Chamber of Commerce president Justin Rigsby said. “If they do they do, if they don't they don’t,” he said, adding he hoped lots of people would attend the rally organized by the Ter- tace and Area Health Watch Group. “We want our businesses to go oul and encourage them to have their: voices heard as a collective voice to the government that health care is paramount to our fu- ture viability as a commun- ity,” Rigsby said. Organizers hope to draw attention to what they say is inadequate financing for Mills Memorial Hospital and the government's failure to recognize Terrace as a re- gional medical referral centre, The chamber of com- merce began faxing its 380- plus members last week, ur- ging them to close their bu- siness doors between 7 and 8:15 p.m, Oct, 13 so em- ployers and their workers can attend the rally, “We want to make sure they realize it’s crucial the community stands behind the health. care practitio- ners,” chamber manager Bobbie Phillips said. The health watch group says a huge crowd is needed at the Save our Services rally at the R.E.M, Lee Theatre to attract the atten- tion of the provincial gov- ernment. A rally in Quesnel last week drew 2,000 resi- dents, Ida Mohler of the health watch group said. By contrast, the number of people showing up at a Terrace and Area Health Watch Group rally Sept. 10 was approximately 250. Six days later, not very many more people turned out at a meeting here orgi- nized by northwest mayors. But Mohler is buoyed since the city and now the chamber are backing the cause of preserving health care, The city is picking up the expense of renting the . T stra, a chamber of commerce - theatre. “Theyre recognizing the implication this is having on local business,” Mohler said, The focus of Friday's rally has shifted away from the ongoing: doctors’ pay dispule with the Health Ministry. ' Physicians and special- ists in- Terrace called off their job action while the two sides resume negotia- tions pending mediation. Friday's rally will instead home in on What Mohler says are serious problems at Mills: Memorial Hospital, including nursing shortages, restricted operating room times, a reduction in the number of beds and an in- adequate number of house- cleaning staff on weekends. Terrace mayor Jack Tal- Justin Rigsby representative, and Mary Ni- cholls, a hospital employees union executive member, are expected to address the crowd. ; Also expected tu speak is ‘Dr. Bill Redpath, who re- -presents local. physicians, “and ophthalmologist Steven Shiver. Man loses youth court appeal A TERRACE MAN ACCUSED of murder has lost an appeal to have his case heard in youth court. Christopher Alexander, was 17 at the time of the Dec. 9, 1998 death of Linda Lefranc. Now 19, Alexander appealed a section of the Young Offenders Act which automatically raises a youth to adult court when the charge is murder, Staying in youth court also means the individual can’t be named. The decision was handed down Sept. 27. A per- son tried in youth court is also subject to lighter sentences if convicted. =. Lefranc was-stabbed (o death Dec. 9, 1998 in her Braun Street townhouse. Details of the stabbing are still under a court-ordered publication ban. Alexander was arrested by Terrace RCMP at the airport Dec. 17, 1999, a little more than a year after Lefrunc:was killed. The arrest followed an ex- tensive police investigation thal involved hundrgda of tips, polygraph tests and a monitoring of hig tivities in the Lower Mainland. - Under the Young Offenders Act, 16 and 17 year- olds who sland accused of murder are {ransferred to adult court, no A preliminary trial date for Alexander is slated for Oct. 20. oe ae Under. the Criminal Code, he could face life im- prisonment without parole for up to 25 years if con- victed, © :