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| . Five men from different

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\COMMUNITY Bt

Yacuum pack
Local entrepreneur nabs
two business awards for his
vacuuming inventions 7
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ie _

24

Pa

neayre back

River Kings conquer
Steelheads with team ©
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\SPORTS B4

oe a “(St 10 plus Be GST
_ } outside of the Terrace area)

CONSERVATIVE candidate Mike Scott
continued his assault on his opponents as:

° «the third of. seven major debates ‘in the»
a Skeena-Bulkley, riding. got under way in

x

Terrace Jan. Vee fe

* Scott maintained his position on Lib-

Oe eral corruption corrupt and that incum-
a bent ‘MP. Nathan Cullen ¢ can’t be trusted,
to keep his word.

: “How. in fact can you trust the Liber- :
hs when | ‘they’ ve" been demonstrated to.

a

be. a corrupt government that has’ stolen :

“millions of tax dollars and have been in-. .
yolved ‘in scandal after scandal?” Scott
di in his opening statement, before at-

u

tacking Nathian Cullen’ Ss record. ‘
“Mr. Cullen in fact i in the last election

promised: his constituents: that he would”
vote against Liberal gun registry funding
“if he ever got ‘the opportunity and in fact
he voted in favour of it when he had that
“opportunity,” he said. ;

» “He broke his word and I don’t know .
‘how anybody could take the view that he
is trustworthy on something that is soim- ..
: portant to the people here inthe north.”
“But Scott himself raised eyebrows and |

drew boos from the audience with his re-

Sponse to a teenager who asked him why ©

he was the only one of the five candidates

woanuiienaceso nda vd.com

rangle at liv

‘There’ S more inside
@ Our federal election cov-

, erage continues with the last
candidate profiles on Pages.
AS and A9 and more news.on -

Pages A10 and on A12. ;

°
V

c

who did not appear at a srsimttion at
Caledonia Senior Secondary organized .
by social studies teacher Bruce. Bing-

“—y m sorry I didn’ t get an invitation,”
"Scott replied, drawing boos from the au-
dience. .

- He added he. takes every opportunity
to speak to’ youth in the riding. mo

“I can assure you this is the first I’ve
heard of a debate at Caledonia school, ”
he said. :

‘Green party candidate Phil Brienesse -

rebutted his. claim. “I can say. with .100

percent certainty that Mr. Scott was in-

., Vited,”” he said.

In an ‘interview with The ‘Terrace
Standard after the forum Bingham said
fhe spoke, to people at. Scott’s campaign

en Team

ely forum

office c on three different occasions: lead-

ing up to the high s school event to extend

the, invitation. _
“Bingham says ‘on the second. phone’

call he was told Scott was already sched- ~

o

-uled to.be in Kitimat. that day, where he :

in fact went.

'. “I contacted his campaign office three
different times and the last time I contact-

" ed them as soon as we had four out of five _-
and thought maybe they could. tear him -

“away from Kitimat,” Bingham said.

“Whether that information was sven .

to him, I don’t know.” ." ,
Cont'd Page Als

Family posts
Tamara reward

TAMARA. CHIPMAN’S family hopes that offering are-

ward will encourage anyone who has information about her ae
- whereabouts to. come. forward. oie cots
,_ The family announced the $3, 000-reward at a small press ane
confererice at father.Tom’ Chipman’ s house i in:New Remo - on
’ Jan..10 for Tamara, who has been: missing since ‘September ong
2005. ae

“We hope maybe the reward will bring forth some more |
information,” said:Tom Chipman. oe,

Tips from the public are starting to slow. down s so > the

“Two- YEAR-OLD Jaden Chipman, cuddling a puppy, sits at a “Jan. 10 conference held by his family to announce a reward for information
leading to the whereabouts of his mother, Tamara, who has been missing since Sept. 2005. oo

_ MARGARET SPEIRS PHOTO.

i)

"MLA launches —
gas hike petition

- SKEENA NDP. MLA Robin Austin has started a pe-
tition for people opposing the double digit rate hikes

wanted by Pacific Northern Gas (PNG).
An interim rate hike went into effect Jan. 1 and Aus-

. tin says he wants as many signatures as possible leading ©
. up to B.C. Utilities Commission hearings at which PNG
. will ask to miake the increase ‘permanent.

“Ty certainly want to appear before the B. C. Utilities
Commission,” said Austin.
Austin said the increase will particularly hit people

’ on low or limited incomes and those who have no choice

but to use natural gas.as a heating source.

The MLA said he paid his latest PNG bill just last
week of $550 which covered two months. “And that
was obviously before the rate increase and during one
of the mildest winters we’ve had i in the last few years,”
Austin continued.

PNG says the increase is needed because of the clo-
sure of the Methanex methanol plant in Kitimat, which
was, a major consumer of natural gas.

When Methanex announced last year it was closing,
PNG officials said a buyout provision in the contract it

‘had with the company called for a large enough pay-

ment to cushion remaining customers until 2009.

_- But PNG is now saying taxes on the $23.3 million.
buyout from Methanex and other costs associated with

its closure paint a different picture.

‘ PNG’s wanted increase stems not so much from a
hike in the cost of gas but in having to.charge people
and businesses more to deliver the commodity because
Methanex will no longer be a customer.

hens

family decided to put a reward together from donations-and .

‘.money from Rob Parker, Tamara’s ex-boyfriend and father
of her two-year-old son Jaden, he said.

“Res ‘said Christiias wasn't the same” “without: “Tamara: “We*
were hoping for a phone, call but unfortunatel we didn’t get.

a phone call,” said Tom. . -

- The search for Tamara continues although searchers took 7
a bit of a break for the holidays. “We haven’t been doing ao

while lot over the Christmas

holidays,” said Tom...

Tom will be heading up north to Fort St. John for work,
leaving the search up to search team captain Don Roberts: °
‘Tamara’s aunt, Lorna Brown, said the family needs Ta-

Callers’ who: ‘phone. with.

_ they're still investigating, he
‘that said 10 RCMP: members were working on.Tamara’s ;
case, he said six general investigation members are involved”
_-with ‘the case, including" two from Terrace and two: from
> Prince Rupert, along with Prince George investigators.
_. Tamara Chipman, 22, is described as about 5°10” tall,
weighing about 130 pounds, with brown eyes and very short:

_ mara to-come.home. “It’s difficult without Tamara around.

~. Her son‘needs her around,” she said’ «>... a
. any. information | on ‘Tamara’, Ss.
~ whereabouts can_remain-anonymous if. they- want? Brown aN
_. said. Tom said Terrace RCMP Staff Sgt. Eric Stubbs told him ce
7 officers are actively pursuing tips that they receive here...
-.. When called Jast-week, Stubbs confirmed the slowdown
“in n'tips; saying. after a while the police r receive less response coe
“from the public...
“The reward is offering: another opportunity to the pub- :
> lic.to not forget about: “Tamara,” he ‘said. The detachment .
received. two tips the first week of January,. one of which >

said. Contrary: to prior reports:

“brown hair. Anyone with any information on Tamara is asked..
to call the nearest RCMP detachment, the Terrace RCMP at ‘”

- 250- 638- 7400, or to leave a message at 1-250-631- 2632.

She worked hard i in order to. vote

By ANDREA MALO

| FEELING QUITE strongly

about the importance. of
voting in the federal election,
I wanted to make sure that
I was able to do so. -from
Guatemala.

Looking ‘at the Elections
Canada web site it- seemed

like a relatively: straightfor-

. ‘ward process, but once again

as I have discovered, noth- .

. ing is as it seems in develop-
_ing countries. _

First, we..faxed a copy:

of our driver’s licences and

‘various forms to Elections
Canada, then our _ ballots:

were. to be sent via diplo-

matic mail to the consulate’

in Guatemala City.

“The consulate would

courier them to us in Xela.

and we would send the bal-
lots back to the consulate by
the Jan. 13 deadline. Given
that we faxed all our paper-
work on Dec. 15, we were
expecting our ballots to be
in Xela when we returned
from Christmas holidays on

Jan. 9. However, the ballots .

had not arrived.
According to Elections
Canada, they had been sent

fe statin tte. i tn ie a sn she

‘in December but they had
“not arrived at the “consul-
‘ate yet! Apparently the dip-

lomatic mail is delivered
by American Airlines (Air
Canada doesn’t fly directly

~ to Guatemala) but American
- Airlines currently has an em-
bargo on delivering things to’
Guatemala. Other arrange-

ments were being made for
our ballots. Finally,’ on Jan.

12 they arrived in. Guate-
- mala City, but this didn’t

give us enough time to have
them couriered to Xela and
returned by Jan. 13..

So off we go to Guatema-
la City, which is a four-hour
bus ride each way. We were

quite surprised once we were’
given our ballots that they

were blank! I guess it’s too

much work to- personalize.
the ballots for each individ-—
_ ual voting abroad so it’s up
to you to know the name of:

the person you want to vote
for in your riding. Instead of
marking an X you write the
name of the candidate.

’ Twelve hours later we -

arrived safely back in Xela,

content that we had exer- ©

cised our democratic right to

ADVANCE poll’ Voters from. left, "Alaya E Boisvert, Andrea a Malo, Doris” is Tang, Erica : |

Loughlin and Gerry Hutchinson i in Guatemala City Jan.. 13.

vote. I hope that you do the

same in the upcoming elec-

tion.” . ;

Andrea: Malo, from Ter-
race, is volunteering with
other Canadians for Canadi-
an Crossroads International
in Xela (Quetzaltenango),

. i

200 kilometres northwest of

the capital, Guatemala City.
She has already contributed

. two articles for the Terrace

Standard since departing. in
Septeniber 2005. Her proj-
ect there is based on good

. governance, human rights:

support.
Benne

See Page A2 fora local guide

to casting your ballot for the
Jan. 23 federal election...

_CONTRIBUTED PHOTO.

and democratization, while
“offering computer technical