Election heats up _

In the zone

NDP locks in on Reformer Scott

| and his land claims
| position\NEWS AS

She places first |

Drama enthusiasts from around
the northwest are here next
week\COMMUNITY B1

Local fitness devotee comes
home with a provincial

‘

WEDNESDAY
MAY 7, 1997

championship\SPORTS B6.

Freeze on city taxes may end

THE CITY has again avoided increasing taxes to
most local homeowners. but Mayor Jack Talstra is
wamiing it may be the last year without pain.

Only those homeowners whose property assess-
ments went up by more than seven per cent will see
their property taxes rise. _

Talstra nated that other municipalities are being
forced to raise taxes as a result of cuts in grants from
the provincial government. Those cuts cost Terrace
$320,000.

“This may be the last year we can hold the line.

here.” Talstra said. “unless we continue to have ~

great growth in Terrace.” 7

The city has depleted its surplus and cannet raid
the piggy bank for much more money.

So in future years council will have to choose bet-
ween (ax increases or letting city streets fall further

into disrepair — unless the record growth of the city
continues.

That growth is what has brought the city ever-
increasing properly tax revenues without the need to
increase rates, Construction of new buildings has
added to the tax rolls each year and spread the
burden. .

So far construction is only stightly behind last
year's record pace, with $8.8 million in building
permits-issued to the end of April. And big new
stores like Canadian Tire and Real Canadian
Wholesale Club won't be completed until later this
year and won't join the tax rolls until 1998. -

This year the city will collect $7.92 million in pro-
perty taxes - up from $7.5’ million last year. But
$361.000 of the increase is the result of new con-
struction last year,

And although assessed values have steadily
climbed, city councils have each year lowered tax
rales to ensure residents don’t pay substantially
more.

This year, residential taxpayers will pay $12.65
per every $1,000 of assessed value (before the
homeowner's grant). That overall tax rate has
declined every year since 1992 when it stood at
$21.43. -

Back then Terrace taxpayers were the fourth
highest taxed in the province. The city is now in the

middle of the pack in terms of taxation across B.C,

This year. councillor David Hull's Anderson St.
home —a fairly typical example - increased in value
by about seven per cent to $135.500. His property
tax bill will rise just $8 to $1.73 in 1997.

Continued Page A2

Gov’t ready
to roll back
fish fee hike

A STUNNING reversal of
the province’s steep in-
creases in angling licence
fees is expected this week.

There will be no big break
for resident- anglers, but
non-residents fishing clas-
sified waters should see the
$40-a-day licence fees im-
posed April 1 revert back to
1996 levels of $10 per day.

That fee hike had jacked
up the price of a northwest
fishing vacation by
hundreds of dollars and had
already begun to drive out-
of-province tourists to other
destinations, like Alaska.
Locals staged two rallies
to protest the increases,
saying they would devastate
the tourism industry in the
Skeena region, home to
two-thirds of B,C.'s clas-
sified rivers.

Comox NDP MLA Evelyn
Gillespie, who has been
given the task of sorting out
the fish fee debacle, said
thase protests have been
beard,

“There has been a sig-
nificant response and
government is acting in
response to what it’s hear-
ing,” she said.

Gillespie said the proposal
now before government has
not yet been approved but
should be dealt with by ‘‘the
highest level” of govern-
ment late this week.

‘Tt takes a lot to change
decisions," Gillespie sald.
“That change hasn’t oc-
curred yet. But I’m seeing
some rethinking and
flexibility in that area.

If it goes ahead, she said,

there will higher son-
resident fees in 1998, but lo-
cals will be asked how that
should happen. |

Northwest Angling Guide
Association president: Steve
Nickolls said the changes —
if they do happen — must
be accompanied by a pro-
gram = of = “international
damage control.”

“There are fishing maga-
zines in the U.S. that are al-
ready ripping into us,”
Nickolls said. ‘I hope the
damage has not already
been done intemationally,
and that we can save -face
and get the word out that
we're still open for busi-
ness,’’

“You've got to do some
sort of advertising campaign
to let them know B.C. is still
open for business.”’

Gillespie said the govern-
ment recognizes it will have

to make sure foreign
fishermen are told of the
changes.

Nickolls said the lodges
tried to get clients to hold
off booking trips in the
hopes that changes would be
made and they could still be
sold fishing trips to the
northwest.

Once official word is
received, he said, guides and
lodges can go back to their
clients, determine whether
or not they’ve already
booked trips elsewhere, and
sign up the anglers who
haven't yet made a decision.

“We'll be contacting all
of our customers again,”’ he
said.

Resident anglers will sce

FISHING GUIDES were celebrating last week after hearing the Gyger of Northwe
government plans to roll back fees for out-of-province anglers. Noel time this season, w

eh econ

aaa, bees

93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST
~~ VOL, 10/NO. 4.

Inn

the evening.

up to the 1993 election.

Manning jetting
in for meeting

THE FEDERAL ELECTION takes on a higher
profile this evening when one of the political
party’s leaders touches down briefly.

Reform leader Preston Manning is due at a
reception hosted by local organizers at the Terrace

The reception begins at 5 p.m. and lasts until 8
p.m. Manning is scheduled to appear at around 6
p.m., staying for an hour.

He’s flying in via chartered jet, departing later in

Manning visited the riding several times leading

st Fishing Guides put his jetboat out for the first
ith helpers Gill McKean and Randy Marshall.

some relief in the form of a
change in the requirement
for steelhead tags. Anglers
now won’t have to buy the
tags unless the river they
plan to fish actually has
steelhead running in it.

That likely means steel-
head tags will only be re-
quired after a certain date in
the summer on certain
rivers.

The 1,100 per cemt in-
crease in fees to angling
guides does not change, and
Nickolls said guides will
continue that fight them-
selves.

Nickolls said ihe con-
tinued protests and outcry

from northwesterners forced
the change in non-resident
fees.

“We got no help from our
local MLA,"’ he said, ad-
ding Helmut Giesbrecht
would only say that the
government would not
change the fees and that the
adverse effects on the region
were exaggerated. ;

‘We did it ourselves and
it worked,’’ Nickolls said.

Nickolls added that the
sporifishing industry is
prepared to agree to fee in-
creases next year, provided
there’s proper consultation
this lime.

The greatest objection to

the increases was the lack of
warning that sent confused
signals to foreign anglers.

“This is not a victory for
anyone,” Nickolls said. ‘‘It
is a lesson in the lack of
consultation for govem-
ment,'”

“There’s an acknowlege-
ment that the timing has put
a lot of difficulty on a lot of
people,” Gillespie said. “T
think there has been a clear
recognition all around that
consultation will have to be
much broader.”’

The path to the deal was
complex, said Nickolls.

First the government tried
to pre-empt a second protest

Sobol defends B.C. gov't

FEDERAL NEW DEMOCRATIC Party candi-
date Isaac Sobol is making no effort to distance
himself from the troubled provincial NDP
government.

Sobol defended the provincial government's

budget difficulties and health care record when
they were mised at a press conference last week.

He said Glen Clark’s government didn’t lie
about the state of B.C.’s finances before last
year’s provincial election.

Clark has been roasted for going into the elec-
tion with 4 rosy provincial budget in spite of ad-
vice from his officials that revenue was not
going to meet expectations.

Sobol called those suggestions ‘‘biatantly un-
true and a gross distortion’ carried out by
Vancouver-based media outlets.

Sobol said the budget was based on one of
many government used was based on one of

many economic projections, and it was in the
middle of the road. A copy of the most negative
projection was leaked to the media, and that was
then portrayed as the alternative the government
didn’t choose.

'} think people can see behind the head-
lines,’’ he said. ‘‘] think they can tell fact from
fiction.”

One hint as to Sobol’s relationship with the
provincial NDP comes in the form of his
campaign manager.

Pratik Modha, the ministerial assistant to

‘ provincial agriculture and fisheries minister
Corky Evans, is on unpaid leave from that job
so he can rut Sobol’s campaign here.

Sobol is also supported by northwest NDP
MLAs, Including Helmut Giesbrecht, Deputy
Premier Dan Miller and Bill Goodacre.

4

Sobol also defended the Clark government’s:

record on health care, saying the B.C. govern-
ment increased spending despite transfer pay-
meat cuts by the federal government. ‘Don’t
point the finger at the provincial government.
Point it at the federal Liberals,’ he said.

But he sppeared less certain when asked if
Mills Memorial Hospital, under budget pres-
sures and in an almost perpetual deficit position
since the turn of the decade, was getting cnough
money from the province.

‘T can't say if Mills has enough money to op-
erate,’” said Sobol, adding that he wasn’t privy
to the hospital's financial situation.

He said much the same when asked if the
NDP was putting money into health care every-
where else except for Mills,

Ultimately, Sobol said he’s running for federal
office and voters will be able to distinguish that
when it comes to June 2.

rally here two weeks ago by
offering to declassify por-
tions of the Jower Skeena
River.

Nickolls said that was re-
jected because it would have
led to ridiculous crowding
on important portions of the
river.

Next, he said, Comox
MLA Evelyn Gillespie, who
has been named sportfishing
liaison by the government,
offered a series of
proposals,

They involved having
non-residents pay the $40-a-
day fee for the first three or
four days, and then getting a

number of days for free be-
fore the $40 fee kicked in
again.

Nickolls said be told Gil-
lespic it would have been
too confusing for tourists,
particularly Germans.

He said the guiding com-
munity countered with a
suggestion of $20-a-day
fees for non-residents.

But he said Victoria has
apparently instead settled on
simply rolling the non-
resident fees back to last
year’s levels of $10 a day.

“They decided to go right
back to square one,” he
said.

June 2 federal election.

R.E.M. Lee Theatre.

each other,

to ask their questions.

Theatre.

All candidates
meet next week

HERE’S YOUR chance to hear and question the.

candidates running for the Skeena riding in the

It'll occur next Monday, May 12, at an all-
candidates meeting beginning at 7 p.m. at the

The five candidates, incumbent Reform MP
Mike Scatt, NDPer Isaac Sobol, Liberal Rhoda
Witherly, Tory Kent Glowinski and Rod Freeman
of the Christian Heritage Party will provide their
positions and have the opportunity to question

And there’ll be plenty of time for the audience
The evening is sponsored by The Terrace Stan-

dard, Terrace Toastmasters, the Terrace and Dis.
trict Chamber of Commerce and the R.E.M. Lee

ite