CONSTITUTION, SPENDING AND l^ADERSHIP
Heavy week ahead for MPs, Clark
by ALISON HARE
  OTTAWA (CP) — As the Commons enters the second week of the historic constitution debate today, most of the chatter and suspense around Parliament Hill centres on whether the Progressive Conservatives will dump leader Joe Clark.
  And on Wednesday, the government will table its spending estimates — the plan on how it intends to spend its money during the 1981-82 fiscal year.
  The Commons will take a oneday break Friday for the Tory leadership review and general party meeting — its first day off during the week since the Christmas break.
There are several opportunities the Tories may seize earlier in the week to set some of the mood for the review.
Clark is expected to speak this week in the debate on government’s constitution proposals, which include a charter of rights, patriation and an amending formula.
But it is not certain which day he will choose. The choice will depend at least in part on how strategic the day might be in influencing the 2,000 delegates who are to decide his future on the opening night of the convention Friday.
The Conservatives get to choose the topic of debate Tuesday and Tory House Leader Walter Baker said it will probably be set aside for some economy-related issue.
.The Conservatives argue that the economy is more
important than the government’s preoccupation with the constitution.
Clark kept a low profile in the Commons last week, leaving his party colleagues to carry the daily attack on the government during question period.
But the controversial leadership question has not been far from MPs minds with Liberal MPs periodically taking potshots at the former prime minister.
The constitutional debate, which has been proceeding at a relative clip since it began Tuesday, will occupy MPs for the remaining three days of the week.
There were 23 speakers in the debate last week - eight Liberals, three New Democrats and 12 Conservatives.
They saved about two hours by not speaking for the full 40 minutes alloted to them.
 New Democrat House Leader Stanley Knowles asked several times last week when the government will reintroduce, for the third and final reading, a bill to make the post office a Crown corporation.
  The NDP is promising to pass the bill in a day and the government, pressed as it is with heavy legislative schedule, is usually amenable to agreements on quick disposal of bills.
  Government House Leader Yvon Pinard said he is willing to bring in the bill as soon a possible, but he would first like an agreement with the Conservative on a short debate.
   MOSCOW (AP) - President Leonid Brezhnev made a major overture to the new U.S. administration today, calling for a summit meeting with President Reagan and a resumption of U.S.-Soviet negotiations to limit nuclear arms.
    Brezhnev also proposed that the two superpowers limit their submarine fleets and the deployment of nuclear-tipped submarine missiles.
    And, for the first time, he said that the Soviet Union would discuss Afghanistan with Washington, although only as part of talks about the demilitarization of the Persian Gulf region.
    Opening the 26th congress of the Soviet Communist party, the 74-year-old chief of the party said in a keynote address that the state of relations between Washington and Moscow “and the sharpness of world problems demanding resolution ... dictate the necessity of a dialogue on all levels, an active one.”
   “Experience shows that the decisive element here is meetings on the highest level,” he added. "That was true yesterday and remains true today.”
    Although he offered negotiations, Brezhnev declared that since Reagan became president “candidly bellicose calls and statements have resounded from Wasmington, specially designed, as it were, to poison the atmosphere of relations between our countries.”
   A Soviet journalist said Brezhnev delivered only a summary of the speech — apparently a concession to his age and the state of his health.
   Soviet television carried about six minutes of the address live then switched to a studio announcer reading the contents. Almost five hours later, live coverage resumed and Brezhnev was shown delivering the final few pages. No explanation was offered for the unusual procedure and Western reporters were not allowed to attend the meeting.
   Referring to SALT II, the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty which the U.S. Senate refused to consider after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and which Reagan says favors the Soviet Union, Brezhnev declared:
   "For our part, we are prepared to continue the relevant negotiations with the United States without delay, preserving all the positive elements that have so far been achieved in this area. It goes without saying that negotiations can be conducted only on the basis of equality and equal security.”
   MADRID (AP) — Paramilitary civil guards led by an army officer opened fire in Spain's parliament today during a crucial leadership debate, then took over the building and held off other police trying to enter.
  The news agency Europa Press reported that a man in an officer’s uniform pulled a gun, shouted "everybody down!" and fired.
   There was no indication of any casualties and it was not clear what caused the violence.
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FEATURED TODAY
_/
"now hear this]
 •	The weekend started early for a fellow we know — he admits the night was going smoothly until he fell off his chair (then went home).
 •	Two boys have been canvassing the Westwood area collecting money for the Terry Fox cancer fund. Trouble is, they are not sanctioned by the local cancer society and the RCMP are sure the boys are pocketing the cash. They’d like a call if the boys drop into your neighborhood.
 •	Prince George will be copying Hawaii April 5 in our own enduring way. Northern Ski has been meeting with local clubs involved in canoeing, running and cycling for a triathlon competition that will have two-person teams cycling out to Miworth, canoeing down to the New Fraser River bridge and then running 10 miles around the city. In a similar endurance event in Hawaii, they swim three miles, cycle for 120 and then run a 26 mile marathon.
    Got a news tip? Call The Citizen's 24-hour
    news line at 562-2441.
OFFER TO REAGAN
 Convict coming home
  A Canadian in a Texan prison feared for his life and transferred to a Canadian pen, but the decision may have cost him two years of freedom. Page 7.
 Labor code for Poland
  Polish government and labor negotiators have nearly completed work on a new labor law to codify some of the issues agreed to during last summer’s strikes. Page 5.
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  Cloudy with occasional Sadrack SOVS . . . light snow is the forecast for	'
today. Temperatures should reach 2 degrees and the low could be -4. Tuesday could be much the same, with mixed snow and rain, lt could be 3 degrees Tuesday, the weatherman says.
   During the past 24 hours the mercury reached a high of 8 and a low of -6. One year ago it was 0 during the day and -15 at night.
   The sun will set today at 5:33 p.m. and rise Tuesday at 7:12 a.m.
 Details Puge 2
Mediator
appointed
at CNC
 A mediator was appointed shortly before noon today in the dispute between the College of New Caledonia and Local 5, Association of University and College Employees.
  “This means everything will continue normally until he makes his report to the labor minister,” a college spokesman said.
 The mediator will be in Prince George after March 4. Under B.C. Labor law, no strike action can be taken until a mediator makes his report to the minister.
 Any strike notice already served must be held in abeyance until the report is made.
 The association served strike notice on CNC Saturday after the 102 members rejected the latest contract offer and took a strike vote. The members voted 88-per-cent against the tentative agreement reached earlier last week.
  At the regular board meeting Saturday, there was disagreement over whether negotiations had broken down.
 College of New Caledonia bursar Jim Blake told the board he had applied for a mediator Friday after nonteaching staff at the college rejected the two negotiating teams’ settlement.
 But Lauma Avens, spokesman for the 105-member Local 5 of the Association of University and College Employees (AUCE), said their position was that negotiations had not broken down.
 “The membership rejected our offer and asked us to go back to the negotiating table, which we are ready to do."
  College bursar Blake says he is confident a mediator will be able to settle the dispute before the games begin next month.
  The college has offered average wage increases of 13.7 and 11 per cent on a two-year contract for all clerks, secretaries and maintenance staff in the union.
 I '
B.C. Tel’s Ron Drane displays slashed telephone equipment.
B.C. TEL OFFERS REWARD
Citizen photo bv Brock Gable
Cable slashings probed
  by JAN-UDO WENZEL Citizen Staff Reporter
    B.C. Tel has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons responsible for several recent cable slashings in the Prince George area.
   Telephone service to various areas was disrupted on the weekend, but full service was restored by Sunday afternoon, a B.C. Tel spokesman said today.
    The reward offer is good only until the current labor dispute between the company and the telecommunications union is settled, the spokesman said.
   A company spokesman said TWU leaders and senior management discussed the acts of vandalism and neither B.C. Tel nor the union leaders condone them.
   Union spokesman Ken Stahl said he does not believe any of his members are responsible.
   “We agree 100 per cent with
 this reward offer. However, this offer should be made all-year round because there is vandalism to company equipment at any given time. This way it certainly points to union members,” Stahl said.
   But while the union does not condone vandalism, it continues to shadow supervisory personnel out on jobs.
   Pickets were posted today at the Permanent Building because the union says telephone work was carried out by supervisors during the weekend.
    B.C. Tel facilities in Prince George are also still behind picket-lines.
   The BCR Industrial site service was cut when cables at Ford and Victoria streets were slashed Thursday.
   Cables were also slashed at Melville Street and Renwick Ross Lane cutting service to the area of Central Street and
 Fifth Avenue, the spokesman said.
   Friday, part of the College Heights area was without phones because of damaged cables at Starlane just off Davis Road. Giscome also was without service because cables were damaged in the area just past Stewart Road on the old Giscome Highway.
   In Vancouver, the striking Telecommunications Workers Union instructed its lawyers Friday to file unfair labor practices charges against B.C. Telephone Co.
  Meanwhile, B.C. Labor Relations Board ruled the union may not picket entrances to shopping malls unless it gets permission from mall managers.
   Union president Bill Clark said the compan has been “dragging its feet” for 17 months, and the union’s only recourse is to charge B.C. Tel
 with failing to bargain in good faith. The application was filed with the Canada Labor Relations Board.
   B.C. Tel said Wednesday it would agree to a three-year pact only if it received approval for another rate increase from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission.
  Terms were the same as those contained in a report last fall by federal conciliation commissioner Ed Peck, plus 12 per cent in the third year.
  Peck recommended a twoyear contract, retroactive to Jan. 1, 1980, that would increase a journeyman lineman’s pay to $13.75 an hour by July 1 this year from $11.15.
   The CRTC recently granted B.C. Tel a 12.5-per-cent increase for residential phone rates and a 15-per-cent increase for business sus-cribers.
PHYSICIST RAPS 'SAFE' CLAIMS
N-leaks, infant deaths linked
   VANCOUVER (CP) — Leaks from nuclear reactors are having a devastating effect on infant mortality rates in the Soviet Union and the United States, says a physicist who specializes in radiation.
   "Without the knowledge of what the results of nuclear fission are, we as a race will surely go the way of the dinosaur,” Dr. Ernest Sternglass, scientist and teacher at University of Pittsburgh, told environmental groups at a weekend lecture sponsored by the Sierra Club of Western Canada.
   Sternglass said the March, 1979, accident at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa., is having demonstrable health consequences in North America, although radiation from the plant is below safe levels.
   “They claim there were no deaths caused by Three Mile Island, but the infant mortality rate in Pennsylvania increased over the rest of the U.S. by 14 per cent three to six months after the accident.”
   He said low levels of radioactivity become lethal when inhaled or ingested by infants. Iodine released affects thyroid glands of newborn children, slowing growth and resulting in premature births and susceptibility to disease.
   "But government agencies are refusing to accept the
 fact that scientific information - which had stated low levels of radiation are harmless — has changed.”
   Sternglass said the USSR is reluctant to publish infant mortality rates which demonstrates radiation is affecting newborn infants.
   “In the Soviet Union, child diseases such as influenza and leukemia are of epidemic proportions, despite increased medical care. Analyzing has not revealed a cause, but the infant mortality rates have increased in direct relation to the nuclear testing in the Sixties and building of reactors in the Seventies.”
   Sternglass said when the infant mortality rate began climbing in the early 1970s, the Soviets stopped publishing the figures.
   He said a similar trend began in the U.S. in the late Sixties when New York City stopped publishing detailed health reports for economic reasons. This trend continues with withdrawal of information on infant mortality rates in Pennsylvania after the Three Mile Island accident, he said.
   Sternglass said Canada’s Candu reactor has been designed to keep radioactive levels low. so there are minimal fluctuations of the infant mortalitv rate.
HCk/nAII
Citizen
 Monday, February 23,1981 Prince George, British Columbia
Soviet leader seeks dialogue
  "I need as much fire insurance as I can get by next Friday night."