a Training underway STUDENTS OF the new licensed practical nurse training program at Northwest Community College are nearly a month into what will be a year of intensive study and work. Terrace residents Joan Papps, left, and Gurpreet Gill, centre, along with Linnea Devries of Kitimat are among the 26 students in the program. The students are located in the coliege’s trades building in a large room divided into a classroom and a ward area, complete with beds. City won’t pursue road worries FEARS ABOUT dangerously poor highway maintenance are overblown, most city coun- cillors say. “It’s tog easy to get into the blame game of blaming highways or highway conditions,” city councillor David Hull! said Feb. 11. He and other councillors vated down a mo- tion from councillor Lynne Christiansen to write the transportation minister objecting to the condition of northwest highways. “It’s like Russian roulette for people to be on that road in those conditions,” Christiansen — said, arguing road maintenance has deteriora- ted in the past couple of years. 4 ‘“There’s a definite change, a definite dec- line i in Conditions.” mae s But Hull said motorists have | grown to:un- réasonably expect to travel 100 kilometres per hour all year long. It’s physicaliy impossible to clear hundreds of kilometres of roads in the north instantly when a big storm hits, he said. “You'd need hundreds of machines,” he said. “There’s no way you could afford it.” Sometimes drivers must slow down drama- tically to match conditions, he said. Some- times they should stop altogether. Councillor Ron Vanderlee said he’s seen terrible winter conditions and crawling traffic on some of Canada’s busiest highways. “It’s really sad when someone gets killed, but to write a letter and ask them to improve the highway, I find that difficult to support,” added councillor Rich McDaniel. Christiansen maintained action should be taken. “I’m, not. into,,the blame. game,” she said. “Road: Conditions. -are-one-factor and they are one factor that’ riééd’to’ be addressed.” She said she regularly drives on Hwy 16 East to get to town from her home in the Gos- sen Creek subdivision. “Some of the trips are real nightmares,” she said. On Jan. 31, Christiansen said, she was terrified to start driving on the highway and realize it was a sheet of glare ice. “My heart was in my mouth the whole trip n,” she said. “Two or three school buses were on the road at the same time, alongside the river.” Hull said northwesterners may have become used to too many relatively easy winters in re- cent years, adding he believes the region’s contractor is properly maintaining the roads, “I've seen winters where you couldn’t go to Prince Rupert for two or three weeks at a time.” Meanwhile, ‘truckers_say winter ‘roads are>~4 in bad shape. And a high northern accident. rate spurs meetings of public officials, For News In Brief those stories, see Page A9, Avalanche closes road A DELIBERATE avalanche that crashed down on the Shames Mountain road Feb. 15 teft 280 people stuck al the ski resort for four and a half hours. Provincial avalanche technician Tony Moore said heavy snow fall and warm weather created unstable snow conditions, causing technicians to trigger a controlled slide by dropping explosives from a helicopter in the carly afternoon. “We make every effort to do.our control work around road users-but there are times’ when we need to. do the control. work .when. the: snow’s unstable,” Moore said, , The road was closed until 6:30 p.m., but people at Shames found plenty of ways to keep them- selves busy. The hill kept the lifts running until 4 p.m., the Canada-Sweden Olympic hockey game was on the satellite and stranded skiers entertained themselves playing cards and tobogganing. “People were very understanding,” said Shames Mountain administration manager, April Ann At- well. “They were great.” She added some 70 calls were made telling fa- mily of those caught at the hill that they were safe —they’d just be a little fate coming home. Bold thief sought POLICE are trying to track dawn a gutsy thief who burgiarised a Terrace residence while the owner was still in the home. Around 10:30 a.m. Jan. 21, while a Graham Ave. homeowner was taking a shower, a thief pushed the sliding door to the patio off its track, breaking into the home. Police said a Bank of Montreal Mastercard and $140 cash were stolen from a purse in the front entryway. Transactions were attempted with the stolen cre- dit card including a withdrawal of cash, said po- lice. If you know anything about this, or any other crime, contact Terrace Crimestoppers at 638-8477. Closed door contains fire A VALENTINE’S Day fire could have been a lot worse had it not been for some quick thinking on the part of a local apartment resident. The fire started in the bathroom wastepaper bas- ket in a Summit Square apartment building shortly before 11 a.m. Feb. 14, said fire officials. The resident discovered the fire and tried putting it out with a fire extinguisher bul was unable to do so, said Terrace fire chief Randy Smith. The resident closed the bathroom door while fire crews were en route and that, said Smith, stopped the fire from spreading to the rest of the apartment. “The key thing in holding the fire in check was the fire extinguisher and shutting the. door,” he, said. By shutting the door the fire wasn’t able to get more oxygen to feed the flames and was con- tained to a small space. Smith said “smoker: $ materials”. appear ‘to, be” “the? chilse ‘and that’damage to bathtadm, ‘counters, cabinets and walls is estimated at $6,000- $8,000. National Leader Ron Gray CHRISTIAN HERITAGE PARTI DE L’HERITAGE PARTY GY CHRETIEN COMMUNIQUE Heritage Place, 155 Queen Street, Suite 200 Otlawa,ON K1P 61 Ph (819)669-0673 Fax (819)669-6498 Email: edchp @ottawa. com. « 2 : Other commentaries can be found at www.chp.ca “CHP Speaks Out’. This Communiqué may be copied TWO THREATS TO CANADA - AND A WELCOME DEFENDER a While quantities last. ‘SuperStar ticket for the first 50 players! - BONUS prize to every: Starship Bingo ‘winner! british | |, Columbia. Lottery... .. Comoration . roo. | want to begin this Communique with a Mea Culpa: I’ve often said that Christians looking at the major media in Canada can't see their world-view represented there. I was wrong. The statement is still true in almost all major media in Canada, but the Calgary Sun is a shining exception, thanks to editor Licia Corbella. It’s not that she injects the Christian world-view into the news columns of the Sun, but neither is she shy about letting her world-view be seen in columns that are clearly labeled as her own opinion. It’s a rare and welcome relurn to journalistic principles the late Jack Webster taught me: news is news and opinion is opinion, and never the twain should be confused. An example was - her most recent column. about the suppression of Christianity in the Chaplaincy of the Canadian Forces - just one more instance of the anti- Christian bigotry that seems to have become official policy in the Federal Government. (That's my statement, not Licia Corbella’s. My reasons for saying that anti-Christian bias is Government policy include: (a) orders from the Prime Minister’s Office to exclude Christian references at the memorial services held for victims of SwissAir Flight 111 at Peggy's Cove (b} the total exclusion of a prayer for Sept. 14 memorial service on Parliament Hill for victims of the Sept. If mags murders; and . (c) now the order for chaplains to be theologically ‘neutral’ in thele public 7 prayers.) As Licia Cobella correctly points out, 1- Canadian Forces chaplains have always been sensitive to minority faiths, and 2- Christianity without Christ is as meaningless as praying to a cabbage. Furthermore, in a splendid piece of investigate journalism, she has exposed that fact that anti-Christian bias extends not only to public observarices, but also to private counseling and prayer. Shocking and shameful! : What ts at issue here is the demonstrable — fact that the PMO and the Federal Government are working to make militant Secularism Canada’s slate religion, even though doing so violates tie Constitution's * slatement that “Canada was founded upon principles thal recognize thal supremacy of God" - please note, ‘God’ with o capital ‘G’: the God of the Bible- “and the rule of _ law.” And it’s not only the Government party that’s involved in this outrage: although the Leader of the Opposition _ protested the Chaplaincy order, the fact is . the Canadian Alliance, at its founding convention at Ottawa in February, 1999 itself specifically and overwhelmingly rejected a motion to endorse those principles. The party's secularism is what makes it possible tor gay activities like Stephane Prud’homme and pro-abortion advocates like Dr. Keith Martin to be accepted as accepted as candidates for the CA. Militant Secularism is on the rise in. Canada, arid it's a threat to all people of faith, - in his 1996 book ‘The Clash of - Civilizations’ , Harvard's Professor Samuel Huntington said that to maintain world stability, the West “must preserve ils: - culture and values," That culture and those Values, Prof. Huntington states, are wo rooted i in Christianity. : _ my hat to them. M ~. increase,“ A tecent report in the Toronto Star says - hard-line Wahhabi extremism is being preached in more and more Canadian mosques; the New York Post states that about 80% of Islams in North American mosques are now Wabhabis. This is not to’say that all Canadian Muslims are extremists; merely that there is a determined effort - probably financed “by Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism originaled -.to covert North American Muslims to the brand of extremism that is flourishing and causing violence and terrorisin elsewhere in the world. Neither the: Federal Government militant Secularism nor radical Wabhabi Islamism has any place i in Canada, We can't preserve the culture and - values of Canada if-we ignore these ‘dangerous trends; the only way to retain the fruit.of western civilization is to nourish its root: the Christian faith oul of which both democracy and free enterprise grew, Wha will have the cour age lo state this nation's urgent needto return Lo these rools? Surely not thé Federal Liberals, nor the Alliance (whose leader: promised before the last election thal - ~just like the Liberal and PC leaders - his Christian taith wouldn't influence Party ‘policy), nor any other party now sitting in the House; and surely’not the ~ militantly liberal and Secularist media, who regularly cerisor Biblically oe Christian viewpoints oul of their. : reports, With the rate‘exception, of - course, of columns by péople like Licia ~ Corbella, Susan Martinuk, Charles Moore, and a very few: ‘olhers,"A tip of May. their tribe