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Canadian Regional Airlines bails
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A 19-year-old soccer sensation
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WEDNESDAY...
May 26, 1999

7 $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST
($1.16 plus 89¢ GST autstdo of the
Terrace dyea) -
VOL. 12NO.7 ~

Road contract benefits locals

A CONTROVERSIAL plan guarantee-
ing union-level rates on provincial road
construction projects is coming to the
northwest.

A change in policy now means the $41
million in improvements to the Nisga’a
Highway over the next seven years naw
come under the authority of a provincial
government creation called Highway
Constructors Ltd, (HCL).

This will have a significant impact ‘on
Terrace residents and the Nisga’a of the
Nass Valley because of local hire re-
quirements,

The old limit for provincial sector
work at which wage guarantees kicked in
was $50 million.

HCL is owned by the B.C. Transporta-
tion Financing Authority, the body set up
by the province to borrow money to
build roads and bridges.

In effect, HCL becomes the employer
to the employees of companics who win

construction bids, says transportation
financing authority official John Dayle.
“This kind of arrangement goes way
back to the 60s with the construction of
the Mica Dam where there was a no
strike, no lock out agreement struck with

labour unions,”’ said Doyle of the large.

B.C. Hydro project near Revelstoke.

A version of that agreement surfaced in
the north at the end of the 80s when Al-
can reached a no strike, no Jock out deal
with unions supplying labour for its
now-discarded Kemano Completion Pro-
ject.

HCL pays the employees and takes
care of any contract issues such as
grievances.

The HCL modei also guarantees local
hire in that employees taken on must
have resided within a 100 kilometre
radius of the job site for at least a year.

That geographic requirement does not
apply to companies but those from out-

side the area who do get contracts will
have to meet local hire requirements,
“There is an open bidding process,
Anyone is eligible to submit a bid. If it is
a coinpany beyond the 100 kilometre
radius, any employees after the first five

m Another project could
also fall under wage rules.
Page A2

m How it all started. Page
A2

must come from within,”’ said Doyle.

Companies which submit bids don’t
have to be affiliated with a union recog-
nized by HCL but they do have to bid
using wage rates it sets,

Pretty posies

Bill Braam and his sister Hilda Vandevelde admire the
Kalum Street that their jamily donated last year to the Terrace Beau-
tification Society. Their mother, Jane Braam, donated about 300

até

tulips on tulip bulbs in memory of her late husband Car, and Hilda has
donated about 250 bulbs. Last year, the Beautification Soclety
planted 700 tulip bulbs and 150 daffodil bulbs around Terrace.

Band power base shifts as |

“This way the company that wins the
contract does so on being efficient and
hot on cuiting wages to gel the con-
tract,’’ said Doyle.

And those employces past the first five
will be provided from employment lists
kept by HCL. ;

Doyle said the HCL model guarantees
that people from outside the area or pro-
vince won't be hired.

That’s been a sore point for B.C.
unions who say public sector contracts
have gone to companics bringing in
workers from the Prairies who are then
paid a lower rate,

The HCL wage rates are, generally
speaking, three or four per cent higher
than those set out in the provincial fair
wage scale rates for public sector con-
tracts worth more than $250,000.

Those fair wage scale rates were
adopted in 1994 and would have been
the minimum scale for work on the

Nisga’a Highway improvements:had the
ceiling at which the HCL model kicks in
remained at $50 million,
But the HCL tates are also lower than
Standard industry rates negotiated ‘for
private sector work by rain line unions,
said Doyle, a

Workers from non-union “companies
are required to. join: HCL-recognized
Unions for the duration of the contract.

Although wages will be higher than Cor

_ projects worth [ess than $250,000, Dayle

docsn’l expect the cost of the Nisga‘s
Highway work ‘to exceed $41 million
given that the cost was pegged prior to
the HCL model being imposed. =

“There’s always a certain contingecy
built in for any capital plan,’’ ‘said
Doyle. ‘The cosis might even be-lower
because the standard industry rates upon
which they were set are higher than the
HCL model.’*

Health care -

shot in arm

THE TERRACE
determine how to

day from the provincial health ministry.
That'll be detennined in the weeks ahead by the

and Arca Health Council has yel_ to
Spend an extra $886,000 it received Fri-

health

council which runs Mills Memorial Hospital, Terraceview
Lodge and the Osborne Home for challenged adults, said

council chair Larisa Tarwick.

The heaith ministry recognized the need for more anoney
by upping its budget contribution this year to $15.3 mil-
lion, said Skeena NDP MLA Helmut Giesbrecht in making
the announcement to a small gathering in the hospital

lobby May 21.
“Tt will allow

us aS an organization to not be in a

deficit,” Tarwick said in noting the health council ran
$617,000 in the red last year, requiring il'to dip into a
rapidly depleting reserve to cover the excess expenditure,
Although Tarwick said it was too early to determine how
the money will be spent, key areas such as: the intensive
care unit, pediatrics, opthalmology and surgery were cost-
ing more than expected. ~
Health council chief executive officer Michael Leisinger
said the health council is still going to have to Work hard to

keep out of debt.

“Td hate anyone to walk away from this to think we're
ina feeding or spending frenzy,’” he said,

He added that if the heafth council continued to pile up
deficits as it did last year it would have used by the re-
mainder of its reserve, now at $500,000 by the end of this

fiscal year,
Giesbrecht said
were given more

relieve some of the pressures at Mills.

Prince Rupert’s health council will reccive $14.3 million
{an increase of $316,000) and Kilimat’s council will
receive $8 million (an increase of $191,000.)

Both health councils still reccive more money per capita
than Terrace’s health council even though the majority of
the region’s specialists are at Mills, a

Tarwick is expecting more money for mental health pro-
grams to be announced soon, As well, the icalth council is
scheduled to get an additional amount to hire more nurses
and money to cover wage increases, These amounts arc:
over and above the $886,000, Tarwick stressed.

all health authorities in’ the northwest
dollars to provide mare services and to

off-reserve natives get vote

By JEFF NAGEL
HUNDREDS of uative people
living off reserve in Terrace will
get to vote and run for office in
band council elections as a result of
a Supreme Court of Canada nuiling
last week,

Up to now only those natives
living on reserve have been able to
participate in elections for the chief
councillors and band councils that
represent bands and control spend-
ing. .

The high court found a section of
the Indian Act that says band mem-
bers must reside on reserve to vote
is unconstitutional and violates the
Tights of off-reserve natives.

The change won’t take effect im-
mediately. The ruling gives an 18-
month grace period during which
voling rules are expected to be
rewritten,

That means Kitselas band council
elections on June 3 will proceed

under the old system.

But the ruling is already stirring
up political awareness among off-
reserve natives,

“*There’s a lot of excitement in
the calls we've received,’ said
Tsimshian Tribal Council executive
director Robert Sankey,

He said many off-reserve mem-
bers feel excluded from their vil-
lages and cut off from employment,
housing and benefits like health

and education programs controlled

by band councils,

“It’s a long outstanding issue,”
Sankey sald, adding 65 per cent of
the 6,800 Tsimshian live off
reserve. ‘‘Some of them don’t have
any say at the community level.’

The Kitselas band on Queensway
Drive has 192 band members living
on reserve, but another 273 off
reserve,

And the Kitsumkalum band just
west of town counts more than two-

thirds of its nearly 600 members as
living off-reserve.

Most live in either Terrace,
Prince Rupert or Vancouver.

Residency statistics show Terrace
is home to more than 900 off-
reserve natives once band members
from other Tsimshian, Nisga’a and
Gitxsan villages are added together.

Newly elected Kilsumkalum
chief councillor Diane Collins says
she was already moving towards a
more open clection system that was
to open the docr to off-reserve
voting.

She said the ruling js good news
because it will reconnect bands
with off-reserve members.

Some of the most talented and
successful band members have left
reserves in pursuit of work, she
noted, and they've been unable to
participate in band politics Up to
flow, -

“Tt brings them closer to home

and they will feel very good about
this,’’ she sald.

There are concerns that allowing
the off-reserve majority to vote
could result in them taking over
band councils and redirecting
spending to urban members, leav-
ing reserves impoverished,

Gerald Wesley, the Tsimshian’s
chief treaty negotiator and a Kil-
sumkalum off-reserve member who
lives in Terrace, says he’s wortied
about whelher off-reserve members

Oh-reserve issues to vote responsib-
ly.

An cveritual Tsimshian treaty
would supercede the Indian Act
and replace whatever band council
voting rules now evolve with an
altogether new system.

But Weslcy and Collins say open-
ing up voting to off-reserve natives
will be a good way (o test electoral
systems prior to u treaty,

‘When you add all that together, it is a
increase,”’ she said. .

fairly significant

The Terrace and Area Health Council has one nionth to
send ina final balanced budgel to the ministry explaining:

how it'll use the extra dollars, -

Tarwick acknowledged thal the extra: money wan't result
in a lot of new spending because a good portion of it-will-
simply cover off what would have been _a deficit had it not
received any kind of a significant incrcase this year,

ae ee ee

Mills’ budget deficit ballooned. in February. when

$200,000 was overspent in only one month. © :

“That's mindboggling,’’ said Tom Novak-who was sent
will be well enough informed about Here by the ministry to curb Mills’ overspending problem.
“Our place was just packed,” be said of.

four [CU beds were full most of the time.”

February, “All

And when that happens, he said, ‘there aren't chough

- Nurses to handle the patient lodd. That mieans nurses have

to work overtime which costs the hospital more money.
More overtime also means nurses become overworked and

overtired which results in more sick days,”

Novak said the health ministry pays for a minimum num-
ber of sick days, and the hospital has to cover anything

over that number,
For more, please turn to A13