& new mine?

A local prospector hopes to
convince investors he’s found the
mother lode\NEWS A12

Puppy poachers

Your last chance

The city's animal control officer
Says dognappers are at work
here\COMMUNITY B1

WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 28, 1996

The deadline for your Coach of the
Year nomination is this”
Friday\SPORTS B7

-_STANDARD-

T5¢ PLUS 5¢ GST
VOL. 8 NO. 46:

Skeena Cellulose halts logging

SKEENA CELLULOSE will halt all
logging operations for seven weeks slart-
ing Monday.

And the move could also put a few
sawmill workers temporarily out of
work.

Woodlands manager Tim Fenton said
Friday the logging operation will go
down (rom March 4 to April 22.

Skeena Cellulose, a subsidiary of
Repap, is trying to reduce the still high
inventory of chips and pulp logs that
buill up during the 110-day strike at

Skeena Cellulose’s Prince Rupert pulp
mill last fall.

There’s little reason to keep logging in
Terrace when there are still huge mounds
of chips and pulp logs piled around the
northwest that could feed the pulp mill
for months. ;

The decision to shut down means two
months without work for Skeena Cel-
lulose’s Terrace-area loggers.

And Fenton said the Terrace sawmill
will run out of sawlogs to cut around the
end of March.

But to avoid a complete mill shutdown,
it will convert to chipping pulp logs at
that point, allowing the company to keep
both shifts working.

‘We're trying to keep as many em-
ployees working as possible at the saw-
mill,”’ he said.

Pulp log chipping wan't require all the
workers that cutting sawlogs does, how-
ever, and that will probably mean some
temporary layoffs halfway through the

He said the sawmill should resume
normal operations April 29 — a week
afler the scheduled resumption of log-
ging on April 22.

The shutdown amounts to a longer than
usual spring break-up.

And Fenton said it should finally put
the inventory on track and end the
lingering uncertainty local loggers have
had since the end of the strike.

The company had resumed logging in,

chips weren’! being consumed quickly
enough.

Meanwhile in Prince Rupert, Repap
Enlerprises chairman George Petty took
aim last week at the union ‘militants’
he said caused the 1995 strike and won’t
accept change.

“Tt wasn’t necessary, it should never
have laken place and it’s a tragedy for
the community,’’ he said of the strike.

Petty wants a $150-million moderniza-
tion of the Rupert pulp mill to make it
more efficient, but claims union leaders

logging shutdown. January after the strike ended, but began
“It will have some effects,” Fenton decking pulp logs in the bush in Febru-
confirmed. ary when it became clear the piles of are standing in the way.

POLICE PUPPY Pax will soon be one of the
newest four-legged additions ta the RCMP. He's
being raised by Terrace RCMP Const. Liz

RCMP eye

By JEFF NAGEL
PAX the police puppy is teething.

And if things go well, he'll soon be chewing up
crooks instead of Milk Bones as a new RCMP police
dog.

The three-month-old Langley-born German Shepherd
is being raised by Const. Liz Douglas.

“He certainly has all the altributes we're looking
for,”’ says Terrace RCMP dogmasler Cpl. Lothar Bret-
(eld, ‘‘He’s very curious. He'll try anything,”’ ;

If his x-rays are okay and he makes it through his
first year of training without developing serious flaws,
Pax will be off to police dog academy,

Bretfeld says about half don't make the cut to go for
intensive training because of their traits or physical
health.

They look for a secking cuiriousily, boldness, aggres-
sion, and as few hangups as possible. Some dogs, for
example, are afraid of loud noises, slippery floors, and
stairways — things that will be a problem in police |
work. ‘We have to pick aggressive dogs because we’re
not out there chasing boy scout leaders, These are bad

Douglas, whe has been a volunteer raising and
training police dogs for about five years. The train-
ing is lengthy and rigorous.

new recruit

guys.”

Another 20 per cent flunk out during police dog train-
ing, Bretfeld says.

The ones that succeed are tearmed up with a prospec-
tive handler who they're matched with for life.

Douglas is one of three volunteers who raise and train
police dogs in the region. But it’s not all playing with
puppies. She also plays the quarry is simulated dag-
training sessions.

That usually means pretending to be a bad guy and
then eventually getting bilten.

Then there’s the .search-and-rescuc scenarios in
which she gets to be buried in snow for three hours un-
til the dog finds her,

Pax is the fourth pup she’s raised. The first one is
now 4 police service dog. The other two didn’t make it,

One of the RCMP drop-outs is working for Parks
Canada — he had all the right traits but wasn’t aggres-
sive enotigh for RCMP service.

Cont'd Page A2

Nisga’a back deal
by 90 per cent vote

NISGA’A NATIVES voted by a wide
margin Sunday night to approve a trealy
agreement-in-principle that would give them
1,930 square kilometres of land and $190
million.

The vote ended four days of debate
about the deal in Aiyansh where 1,200
Nisga’a from around the province and
Alaska had gathered and packed into the
high school gyn,

Of the nearly 600 who ultimately voted
Sunday, 90 per cent backed the deal and gave
Nisga’a negotiators the go-ahead te begin

negotiating a final treaty. That process could
take up to two yeurs.

But it was a reluctant approval, with dis-
content voiced both publicly and behind the
Scenes. ,

Publicly, many were saying that too
much had been given up — there was not
enough land, resources and money to ensure
a future for their children and grandchildren.

And an extra resolution was passed
authorizing the Nisga’a negotiating team to
seek improvements to the deal - but not to
sive any further ground.

That will bolster Nisga’a Tribal Council
president Joe Gosnell’s resolve to fight off
any changes this or future provincial govern-
ments might want to make,

Although Nisga’a unity was not frac-
tured in the vote, it was severely strained.

The 1,930 square kilometres of core
lands included in the deal is less than eight
per cent of the Nisga’a traditional territory,

Some Nisga’a families’ clan territories
ure within the border, but many are outside
and those people are upset that those lands
will not be protected by a Nisga’ a
government.

_ The Nisga’a have long adhered to a
“common bowl" philosophy that says wha-
tever the resolution of the land question, the
Nisga’a will all share in final treaty.

“Every Nisga’a will get the benefit equ-
ully,” said NTC executive director Rod
Robinson; whose own traditional territory —
Mineeskw — is outside the core lands bound-
ary. “It's outside, but it doesn’t bother me
one bil because of the common bowl. It
doesn’t belong to me — it belongs to the
tribe.”

Protests also came from the urban locals
~ particularly Vancouver and Prince Rupent —
where many off-reserve Nisga’a see little
benefit from the treaty.

Off-reserve Nisga’a see no services,
money, or benefits flowing to them, unless
they move to the Nass.

“In the end everyone voted for itso that
this would be the starting paint,” Robinson
said,

A signing ceremony is expected to take
place in the Nass sometime next month,

Extra hospital beds
not seen as big cost

[T WON’T cost that much more to renovate
two extra rooms at Mills Memorial Hospi-
tal so they can be used if needed, says its
administrator.

Michael Leisinger made the comment
after the hospital’s governing sociely de-
cided not to cut the number of beds on its
main medical floor to 33 from the current
42.

That original plan calls for renovations lo
the medical floor to make it run more effi-
ciently with fewer people in anticipation of
a $500,000 budget cut.

The board at first decided to cut the num-
ber of beds to 33 as part of the renovations
plan but reversed itself after strenuous ob-
jections were made by city council and lo-
cal doctors.

“Tf we're going to add $10,000 to make
those rooms patient ready on top of the
$863,000 forecast for the renovations, it’s
no big deal,” said Leisinger.

The board’s decision to keep the current
42. bed format is essentially an expansion of
what it had in mind all along.

And that was to place in reserve two
rooins for use in case of emergencies.

But deciding to stick to 42 beds docs
mean more nursing and other costs when
those extra beds are being used. Leisinger
is now preparing those costs for the board
to consider.

He did caution that the intent of budget
plan is still to have 33 beds running at 80
per cent occupancy for the great majority of
the time.

That figure works out to 26 or 27 beds In
use all of the time-and is based on the
amourt of money the hospital estimates. it

will receive from the provincial gavern-
ment should its budget be cut by $500,000.

As things sland now, Leisinger said the
hospital normally functions already with 26
or 27 beds in use.

The one unknown, in the hospital’s
troubled financial siluation is exactly what
budget it will receive when its new finan-
clal year begins April 1.

“Without a clear picture yet of what our
budget is going to be we can’t really plan,’?
said Leisinger.

‘We were told to plan for between a and
-5 per cent from last year."”

Another complication is now knowing the
labour and benefits costs implications from
new union contracts to replace agreements
running out this spring.

A final budget figure that doesn’t cut as
much as 5 per cent and new contracts
which could hold the line on wages and
benefits will work in the bospital’s favour,
Leisinger continued.

hk kk

In the meantime Mills officials are plan-
ning a conference call with the health min-
istry this to explain its renovations plan.

Lelsinger said some trimming could be
made from the $863,000 estimate but
warned that it might result in not achieving
the kind of cost efficicncics that are needed,

That $863,000 estimate is roughly double
what Mills was hoping would be the
renovations cost figure.

Skeena MLA Helmut Giesbrecht is also
meeting with health ministry officials to
discuss the Mills situation.

On his list is health minister Paul Ramsey
and senior acute care division officials.

er