Votes that count

Stepping stone

It’s for the men

system\NEWS A1i12

A province wide coalition calls for
a referendum on BC’s electoral

A former Terrace resident revisits.
life on a farm here in her new.
book \COMMUNITY Bi

The Terrace Curling Club’s longest
running bonspiel takes place
Easter weekend\SPORTS B4

VOL. 14. NO, 1
WEDNESDAY

April 11, 2001

System that puts extra
pay into Rupert, Smithers

unchanged since 1983
By ROD LINK

FOR PROVINCIAL civil servants in
Prince Rupert it means an extra $1,014 a
year on top of their regular pay and for
those living in Smithers, it’s an extra $858.

But for Terrace-based provincial civil ser-
vants, it means nothing.

Welcome to the isolation allowance section

m Blaze busters

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$1.00 pws 7¢ GST
($1.10 plus 8¢ GST
oulside of the Terrace grea}

DARD |

“Terrace is 13.C.'3 2.001 Forestry Capital”

| Terrace left out of isolation bonus

of the contract between the provincial govern-
ment and its largest union, the B.C. Government
and Services Employees’ Union.

Through eight and a haif pages, the section
carefully outlines -what places an employee has
to live in to qualify for an isolation allowance
and the amount of money involved.

Factors such as climate, distance to medical
facilities and post secondary education facilities
and distance from larger population centres are
each worth a certain number of points.

The magic number is 11. [f a community has
11 points or more, an employee who lives there
gets an extra $6.50 per point per month. Nothing

NEW VOLUNTEERS to the Terrace and Thornhill fire-departments had a rare training opportunity last
week as firefighters burned a house on the corner of Emerson St. and Davis Ave. to the ground. The
old home had been condemned and the owner generously allowed the fire departments to use It to
practice fighting fires. The house was set ablaze April 3. Pictured above Is volunteer firefighter
George LeBieu. The burn went as planned, attracted a huge crowd and gave new and seasoned
firefighters alike some valuable practice experience. SARAH A, ZIMMERMAN PHOTO

is paid for communities below 11 points.

Prince Rupert, for example, is on the list at 13
points meaning a person gets an extra $84.50 a
month or $1,014 a year.

But what those pages don’t explain is how
those points are accumulated in the first place.

And don’t expect that to happen any time
soon.

“We. had a committee, a joint committee, to
review those points in 1983 and we agreed not lo
publish the rationale, but we did agree to publish
the results,” says Ron Myers, a labour relations
director with the Public Service Employee Rela-
tions Commission, the government arm which

looks after its union contracts.

That policy has held firm ever since 1983,

And it’s also been that long since the province
and its largest union have examined the point
system.to see if it still makes sense given the
immense changes in living conditions in the
northwest over the past two decades.

Without that policy being re-examined, it is
impossible to determine why Prince Rupert qua-
lified in the 1980s when it was a larger place
than Terrace and why Smithers qualified when it
is closer to a larger population centye such as
Prince George than is Terrace.

Continued Page A2

Kermodes get
park on coast

Historic land-use deal trades forest jobs and

logging reductions for peace in the woods

By JEFF NAGEL
TERRACE’s symbol — the Ker-
mode bear — found itself centre stage
last week as a deal was unveiled to
end conflict between loggers and en-
vironmentalists on B. C.’s central
coast, +

Nearly 100,000 hectares of land on
and around Princess Royal Island,
which has higher concentrations of the
white bears, will became part of a Spirit

Bear Protected Area, provincial officials ,

said.

But that’s just one chunk of an extra
604,000 hectares, or 13 per cent, of the
central coast earmarked to become park
or protected areas.

That will boost the amount of protec-
ted land from a present eight per cent to
an eventual 21 per cent of the mountains,
islands and inlets that stretch from north-
em Vancouver Island to Princess Royal.

The preliminary land-use deal lists an-
other 537,000 hectares, or 11 per cent, of
the area as unresolved and subject to fur-
ther negotiations.

Another four per cent is to be tightly
controlled to protect scenic views impor-
tant for tourism.

Logging in the remaining 62 per cent

of the land base will be subject to an as-
yet-undefined system environmental
groups call “ecosystem-based manage-
ment.”

‘The area Victoria has promised to de-

signate the Spirit Bear Protection Area is
only about 40 per cent the size of the lar-
ger 247,000 hectare preserve environ-
mental
groups wan-
ted.
And it allows
some logging
to continue
on Princess
Royal Island.
1 But Simon
Jackson, the
18-year-old
West Van-
couver stu-
dent who
spearheaded
the campaign
for a Kermode bear protected area, says
he thinks unresolved areas on the island
could push the total area protected for the
white bears to more than 150,000 hec-
tares,

“That’s really substantial,” Jackson

Continued Pg. A14

Kermode bear

Companies cry uncle, agree
to take up greener forestry

INTERFOR and West Fraser — both of
which employ loggers in Terrace - are
now out of the gunsights of environmental
groups.

Activists have promised to end their
Campaign in the international market-
place against the two companies, which
have in turn pledged logging will be done
by “ecosystem-based management”.

That vaguely defined concept is under-
stood to mean a less intensive, less in-
dustrial style of logging to better ensure
wildlife and cther uses, as well as forest-
ry, remain sustainable.

The two companies say they're already
Preparing to practice green-approved for-
esiry methods and are willing to work

. with environmental groups.

That’s expected to take from one to
two years, during which time they’ve
agreed to suspend logging in key valleys.

“A group of scientists has been brought
together to look at all of these defeerred
areas, these unlogged areas, and arrive at
a plan of how to work to balance ecolagi-
cal concerns with social concerns like
employment,” said West Fraser vice-pre-
sident Wayne Clogg.

When the dust settles, however, the
companies admit they will pay a price in
reduced logging to achieve peace in the
marketplace.

“There will be fewer operations and
job loss as a result of the government's
announcement,” said Ric Slaco, Interfor's
chief forester. “That extends to both our
woodlands and our sawmills.”

Although concerned about the effects,
he said, Interfor has pledged to support
the central coast land-use plan because of
the wide range of interests participating,

Continued Page A13

Nurses’ training program eludes college

NORTHWEST COMMUNITY College

An official from the advanced edu-

uary 2002, she said.

The Hospital Employees’

Union,

nurses at Mills Memoria! Hospital

has failed to secure any of the 89 new
licensed practical nursing training po-
silions announced this week by the
provincial government.

The northwest and the northeast are.

now the only two regions in B.C. not to
have such a program.

The College of New Caledonia ‘in
Prince George did get 32 of the spaces
for a new program it hopes . to have off
the ground. by this fall. ae

cation ministry, which provides the
college with. its budget, said the cal-
lege didn't get a training program be-
cause it has yet to be approved by the
provincial government.

“Is really not us. The college

~ hasn't given us its full proposal,” said

Nikki McCallum.

Should the college get its program

plan approved later this year, there is

_ a chance il could be in place in Jan-

“The college may be able to reallo-
cate from its budget later on or apply
to a different program,” McCallum
added.

_ Three new positions were granted to
an existing program at the College of
the Rockies in the Koolenays, 15 to an

. ‘existing ‘program at Malaspina Uni-
‘ yersity College in. Nanaimo, 30 to”
Okanagan University College and nine
\. registered and registered psychiatric

io Vancouver: Community, College.

which represents 4,500) licensed prac-
tical nurses in B.C., said it was
pleased with the 89 new spaces.

And HEU official Zorica Bosancic
said it would push for programs here,
in Dawson Creek in the northeast and
in Victoria for the 2002 academic
, year.

pee
In the meantime, (he more than 70

began limited job action April 9 to fur-
ther their demands for a 62 per cent
Wage increase.

Penny Henderson of the B.C.
Nurses’ Union here said nurses have
stopped all dulics save those essential
for patient care.

Ironically, by refusing to perform
non-nursing duties, nurses are actually
able lo spend more time, with palients,
she said,