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A 12- year-old violinist with the |
Terrace Symphony Orchestra plays
like a pro\COMMUNITY B1

Terrace Thunder girls’ basketball
team squash competition in.
Quesnel\SPORTS B4

. WEDNESDAY. .
June 7, 2000

By ALEX HAMILTON
PREGNANT WOMEN with complicated deliveries or
who require caesarean sections may have to be taken
elsewhere for care until Mills Memorial Hospital can
hire another obstetrician/gynecologist.

The hospital is currently unable to provide continuous
obstetrical and gynecological coverage because Dr.
Sheila Watson has moved to Calgary, leaving Dr. Lani
Almas as the sole specialist able to provide obstetrical
and gynecological coverage.

“Certainly anyone delivering under 35 weeks may
have to be transferred out,” Almas said.

The hospital's chicf administrator, Dieter, Kuntz said
he’s made arrangements that if pregnant women can’t
deliver at Mills Memorial, they will be referred to Kiti-
mat General Hospital.

“And in the event that that hospital’s delivery room is
inuridated, patients will be referred to Prince Rupert,”
Kuntz said.

» He added the hospital has been advertising for months

fur a new replacement for Dr. Watson.

“It is a priority,” he said.

For the past four years, Watson and Almas have been
able to provide continuous obstetrical coverage for
women in Terrace, but Almas alone cannot work 24
hours a day, seven days a week.

“I cannot do one-on-one call,” Almas said, which
means performing 24-hour coverage — working regular
hours during the day and also being available in case
there are emergencies during the evening and into the
eatly morning hours.

“| just can’t do it. I need to sleep. 1 need to be able to
go out with my family and have a drink. We're talking
about having a life,” she said.

Almas has agreed to work one-on-two call, which
means she will be available onc night out of every two.

“fam taking a minimum of two weekends off a
month,” Almas added.

Although the hospital is searching for a replacement
to Watson, Almas said an obstetrician/gynecologist will

g Go Mini Mites!

A Terrace Minor Softball player basks in the gloriaus sunshine that's been
baking local ball diamonds this month. This first baseman preferred sitting
on the ground in a game against fierce Mini Mites competitors.

Seven

By SARAH GLEN
DESPITE PROTESTS by
the Gitksan, the Seven
Sisters mountains and
27,200 hectares of sur-
rounding old-growth hem-
lock forest are becoming
one of B.C.’s newest pro-
vincial parks,

The Seven Sisters pro-
vincial. park is one. of
many named in legislation
tabled Thursday by provin-
cial environment minister
Joan Sawicki,

The legislation, which
establishes 29 parks, six
ecological reserves and in-
creases the size of 13 ex-
isting parks, will protect
old-growth forests, moun-
tain goal habitat and water
quality in the area.

But the proposed park,
now in its second reading
in the provincial legisla-
ture, is steeped in conflict.

The baundaries of the
park take in lands where
the Gitksan have tradition-
ally hunted and trapped.

The Gitksan continue to
oppose the creation of the
park because they fear
hunting and gathering acti-
vilies could be restricted,
said spokesman Art Ma-
thews, who chairs a com-
mittee studying Gitksan
land holdings in the area.

“We weren't consulted
by the parks department,”
said Mathews.

“We should have been
told,” added Gitksan elder
and Cedarvale-area resi-
dent Mary Dahlen.

“We lived here all our
lives and we were born
and raised here,” she said.
“And other people come in
from other areas and de-
cide they want a park.”

But assistant deputy en-
vironment minister Dennis

- STANDARD

Pregnant women face transfers

be difficult to recruit .

She said most doctors aren't willing to move north
where they are expected to handle emergency cases one
night out of every two.

Almas noted that the on-call ratio is better in other
places. She said Watson is going to a hospital in Cal-
gary where she has to be available only one night ia
eight.

“The younger docs are coming up here and saying, ‘l
don’t want to do this’,” she said. “They want a life.”

Mills Memorial also doesn’t pay its specialists to be
on call, which means they aren't paid to be available
should the hospital need them.

Kuntz acknowledged he’s be looking into the poss-
ibility of paying on-call work. That’s also a demand of
anaesthetisis who work at Mills.

Kuntz agreed it will be difficult to recruit a new
obstetrician/gynecologist because there is a shortage of
them in Canada. Other smaller hospitals face similar
challenges in recruiting specialists.

Sisters to be

on the Gitksan land claim
courl case, he said.
Whether the Gitksan or
‘the provincial government
will manage the new park
is still under negotiation,
he added.
Another

O’Gorman said aboriginal
people lave the right to
hunt and exercise aborigi-
nal rights on provincial
parks within their tradi-.
tional.

That’s one of the effects

of the Delgamuukw ruling 45

hectares

$1.00 PLUS-7¢-GST--: -

($1.10 plus B¢ GST outside of tha

Terrace area)

VOL. 13:NO. 9. -

Dieter Kuntz

a park

surrounding Catherine
Creck west of Terrace
will also be protected as
an ecological reserve,

The reserve protects an
old-growth stand of west-
ern red cedar.

Machine riders to be curbed

RIDING all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes or but also on
snowmobiles within city limits is one step
closer to becoming illegal.

A proposed bylaw restricting use of the
machines goes to third reading — one slep
before being adopted into law — at city
council’s June Sth meeting.

“This bylaw will help curb the
problem,” said bylaw enforcement officer

But local

Frank Bowsher. “People want to have
fun, but they’re not thinking about their
neighbours who might be out on the back
porch, listening to music or watching
TY.”

Off-road machines are ta be restricted
not only on public property in city limits

noise bylaw

private property that comes

within 100 meters of its neighbours.
Bowhser. proposed the bylaw to council
after fielding complaints for five years.

resident Micki Braid thinks

the bylaw is unnecessary.

“I'm not against it, but I do think it's
just another example of how people are
over-regulated,” said Braid, “It’s a quality
of life issuc.”

Braid notes the city already has a

that could deal with opera-

tion of the machines.

The RCMP will help enforce the new
bylaw and tickets will range from an in-
itial $100 to $500 for repeat offenders.

Hendry
named to
Olympic
team

TERRACE RESIDENTS
will be glued to their televi-
sion sets this September to
watch local Olympian Mi-
chelle Hendry.

Hendry, who graduated
from Caledonia in 1988 and
was named to the women’s
national team a year taler,
made the team May 30.

The achievement is a
dream come true for Hendry
who says she doesn’t care if
she just sits an the bench.

See page B4 for more.

Coastal forest truce talks regrouping

Companies,
greens issue

an apology
By JEFF NAGEL

COASTAL forest companies
and environmentalists admit
they have mishandled their at-
tempt to reach a logging cease-
fire and alarmed people in af-
fected communities.

The environmental groups
and four companies now in-
volved issued a joint statement
May 29 apologizing for the
fears the talks have created
among codslal. communiti¢s,
native villages, logging -con-
iractors, unions and the provih-

cial government.

They vowed to begin a 61}
day process to meet with affec-
(ed groups and communities to
ease concerns.

They also promised to work
with the province to try to link
the talks to provincial land-use
planning processes,

That would be an attempt to
address concerns that a private-
ly reached agreement might run
counter ta land-use plans in the
works, such as the Central
Coast and Kalum Land and Re-
source’ Management
(LRMPs).

Topping the list of priorities
is addressing aboriginal con-
cerns that’a deal might block

Plans

apology” for creating

native bands’ ability to increase
their role in forest operations in
their traditional territuries.

“We wish ta acknowledge
that First Nations and certain
olher parties have expressed
concern thal talks between
companies and environmental
groups did not respect their in-
terests and about the potential
impact of additional harvesting
deferrals on the central and
north coast,” the -stalement
said.

“It was not our intent to dis-
respect ithe interests of First
Nations or these other parties
and we offer an unequivocal
this
canc¢ern,'

They said they remain com-
mitted to finding new ways ta
resolve the controversy over
conservation and management
of old-growth forests.

The stated goal of the talks
when news leaked out in mid-
March was to achieve an 18-
month halt to new logging in
pristine untouched valleys, dur-
ing which time international
market campaigns against those
companies would be halted.

Detailed talks would then
continue towards a eco-system-
based way of determining how
and where further logging would
be permitted,

‘A draft agreément to start -

the “Moratorium and, the new

planning approach has been

reached but not yet signed.
Western Forest Products,

which operates as far north as

the Douglas Channel south of

Kitimat, remains convinced
finding innovative new solu-
tions in concert with environ-
mental groups is the best way
to clear the path to the markets,
said chief forester Bill Dumont.

He said the ratcheting up of
pressure on the company in
markets worldwide have hurt ils
sales in Europe, the U.S. and
now Japan.

“There isn’t a single forest
company in B.C. that can sur-
vive the loss of major portions

of its market and ‘Ihal’s: what

this is about,” Dumont said. “If
we can't sell our products into
the plobal marketplace we
don’! have a future.”

He said the major environ-
mental groups have cased off
from their campaigns against
Weslern Forest Products and
have postponed further action
thal had been planned.

“The marketplace cagpéil
has been wound down ieOur
opinion,” he said.

Activists had been poised to
next take on Western’s share-
holders and pressure them to
sell their investments in the
company, he said.

Continued Page A2

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