Construction back on line VANCOUVER (CP) - Building trades workers returned to their jobs throughout the province Wednesday while three disgruntled unions circulated leaflets urging them to reject their new memorandum of agreement. “Everyone is back, as far as we know,” said Chuck McVeigh, president of the Construction Labor Relations Association. A union ratification vote is expected to be completed by July 25. The three unions, Boilermakers, Elevator Constuctors and Plumbers and Pipefitters, say the other 13 union members of the bargaining council of the B.C. Building Trades Council did not properly represent them in negotiations. . . .and in tomorrow's Citizen... Friday, you’ll read about the Hollywood successes of actors in Canada’s acclaimed SCTV comedy series who are breaking up even the most jaded film crews. Also planned: ■ A survey of Expo fairgoers has produced surprising results. ■ A former FLQ terrorist embraces religion. Reynolds wins West Van 2 Tories prepare for vote 5 Blue Jays beat Clemens 13 City, B.C............. Entertainment....... INTERVIEWS ON THE STREET Do our mosquitoes bug you? One of the main topics of conversation in Prince George this past week has been the swarms of pesky mosquitoes in all areas of the city. It’s been about seven or eight years since the city has been sprayed to control the pests. Last year, city council budgeted only $1,000 for mosquito control throughout the entire city and banned the use of pesticides and herbicides until they can be proven safe. Random man-on-tho-street interviews by The Prince George Citizen show many residents are concerned about the problem and find the increased numbers a real nuisance this summer. JODI DEAN — “It’s disgusting. I was at a pool party Sunday and we spent all our time slapping with our towels. My feet were swollen from the bites. The city had better start spraying again.” Dean’s grandparents, visiting here from Florida, said the mosquitoes are “even worse than back home and they have to be pretty bad to beat Florida.” STEVE KOTTMAN -“They are so bad I have to spray my two small sons with repellent all the time. We have a small slough near our home in College Heights trailer park and I figure it’s an excellent breeding ground for mosquitoes. I don’t know why the city doesn’t fill it up and get rid of it as a way to cut down numbers of mosquitoes.” LORNA BURGART - “In Charella Gardens, where I live, there aren’t any more mosquitoes than in past years. I have no complaints.” CHRIS MORRIS - “Yes. the mosquitoes are bad in the Pine Street area. They’re the worst I’ve ever seen them and they’re spoiling my summer. City hall should consider spraying the entire city.” GARY MUELLER — "The mosquitoes? They’re terrible. . . just terrible; the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Mueller who lives in the Foothills area. Even burning mosquito coils doesn’t help. The city should do something if it possibly can.” MARG CALVERT, a Carney Street resident, says the mosquitoes don’t bother her. “I grew up with mosquitoes in the Vanderhoof area, so I don’t mind them. No, I don’t find them bad at all.” JUNE SHILTON — The city should “start spraying fast”, said the visitor from Courtenay. “I’m finding the mosquitoes very bad; much worse than when I was here last year. It would be nice to be able to sit outside in the evening because it gets very warm inside.” BRUCE SMITH — “It’s a severe problem. I think the city could at least spray the swamps, sloughs and wet areas. I live on Ospika Boulevard and Fifth Avenue and I find myself swatting and swatting inside and out, because the house is swarming with them. “There’s no way we can even sit out on the patio.” GRANT STOVEL — “They’ve never been so bad where I live on McBride Crescent. We have a nine-month old baby we like to take outdoors, but he literally gets chewed alive so we’ve stopped taking him out. Have you tried taking your dog for a walk in Cottonwood Park? He’ll go crazy and so will you.” LANCE TRUEFITT — “You don’t have any problem here. . .nothing like the Barkerville area where I work. . .there are just swarms of them. I look forward to coming home to get away from them.” "They've cut the water off and I need some to cook the potatoes ..." BCGEU starts 'escalating strike' MARG CALVERT LANCE TRUEFITT JODI DEAN GRANT STOVEL GARY MUELLER STEVE KOTTMAN JUNE SHILTON by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter Last-ditch efforts to avert a strike by 34,000 B.C. government employees failed this morning, setting the stage for an escalating withdrawal of services beginning today. Negotiators for both sides worked through the night to break the deadlock, with the government tabling two proposals and the union countering with an offer of its own. “The government’s proposals were empty of anything new,” BCGEU president John Shields said in a news release. He said the government still has concession demands on the table and has not offered a wage increase in the first year, something the union has said it will not go without. “When the government is prepared to make their workers a realistic offer, we will be prepared to, once again, return to the bargaining table.” A government spokesman could not be reached for comment this morning. The initial phase of the strike began this morning, with about 200 clerical workers in the main revenue collection office in Victoria walking off the job. “Nobody went out in Prince George,” said area representative Brian Parker. “It is an escalating strike and for day one it won’t be in the north.” But he said the public could have experienced minor inconveniences this morning as government employees stopped work for a briefing on the status of negotiations and strike strategy. All work sites in Prince George conducted a session in which picket captains briefed members, Parker said. There are about 1,700 BCGEU members in the Prince George region. He said the timing of the sessions depended on the individual site, but most were to be held the hour before the first lunch break. Government workers will start to be pulled off the job in Prince George late this week or early next week, Parker said. “The people who will be going out in the Prince George area will be people who do not impact on the public, but who do impact on government revenues.” He would not give further details. Barring a turnaround, during the next three weeks more and more union members will walk off the job and the public will begin to feel the effects of decreasing government services. “It would appear liquor stores and the motor vehicles branch would be somewhat down the road, because we don’t want that major inconvenience to the public until it is absolutely necessary,” said Parker. Essential services like air ambulances, forest firefighting and mental health services, will be maintained, said government spokesman Shiela Fruman. She said Wednesday that negotiations on essential services should be wrapped up without any problems by today. A major stumbling block is wages, with the two sides disagreeing on how productivity improvements, outlined in a special report by former deputy finance minister Larry Bell, could be applied to a wage increase. Before talks ended this morning, the union had offered to drop five months of retroactive pay, proposing a 2.25-per-cent increase starting April 1, 1986, instead of Nov. 1, 1985. It retained its demand for a three-per-cent increase in the second year. The government’s last offer was a two-year pact with no increase in the first year and one per cent in the second, as well as a $300 signing bonus for lower level employees and $225 for higher levels. The BCGEU contract expired Oct. 31, 1985. The BCGEU last went on strike for 13 days in November, 1983, reaching an agreement only 90 minutes before the deadline for a full-scale public-sector strike involving more than 100,000 workers. CHRIS MORRIS BRUCE SMITH LORNA BURGART Low tonight: 7 High Friday: 16 l TOcatAex eUUUh. foot 2 ^I THURSDAY, JULY 3, 1986 40 CENTS OVERNIGHT TALKS FAIL TO RESOLVE DISPUTE Southam News OTTAWA — The New Democratic Party made big gains as fights with the United States on trade issues took their toll last month on Conservative popularity among voters, according to the latest Gal-,lup poll. Support for the NDP shot up to 27 per cent in June — the party’s highest level in 10 years — while the Tories skidded to 32 per cent, their lowest Doint since the September, 1984 election. The NDP gains came in Quebec, where it has replaced the Conservatives as the second most popular party behind the Liberals, and in the West where it is now in a solid second place as Tory support steadily erodes. Nationally, the Conservatives fell five percentage points from the 37 per cent average they had enjoyed since April. The Liberals remained way out in front with the support of 40 per cent of voters, down slightly from 41 per cent in May. According to Gallup, the Liberals continue to hold substantial leads in Ontario and Quebec, where they hold about half of the decided vote. However, Gallup also found that the level of undecided voters is highest in Quebec — about 42 per cent — compared to 33 per cent nationally. In May, 28 per cent of those surveyed said they could not choose among the three parties. The poll was taken June 5-7 just as the U.S. International Trade Commission launched an investigation into Canadian softwood lumber to determine if it was being unfairly subsidized by the government. That action came as the Canadian government was escalating a trade war with the U.S. that began when President Ronald Reagan imposed a stiff tariff on imports of Canadian cedar shakes and shingles. Executions blocked by court STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A federal appeals court indefinitely blocked Wednesday the execution of convicted serial killer Theodore Bundy, who was scheduled to die this morning in the electric chair. The three-judge panel issued the stay without comment. Court clerk Miguel Cortez said in Atlanta the court will hear Bundy’s appeal “in due course,” and predicted it will be in at least two months. Bundy was scheduled to be executed at 7 a.m. EDT today along with convicted killer Gerald Stano at Florida State Prison near Starke. Stano also won an indefinite stay Wednesday. Bundy, 39, condemned for murdering two Florida State University sorority sisters, lost appeals in state courts, and U.S. District Judge William Zloch denied his lawyers’ request for an indefinite stay of execution Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale. However, Zloch granted the 24-hour stay to give the lawyers time to appeal. Bundy was also convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl in Florida and of a 1975 kidnapping in Utah. Labor has plan for credit cards TORONTO (CP) - The Canadian Labor Congress says it is studying a plan by the AFL-CIO, the giant U.S.-based labor federation, to give its 13.5-million U.S. union members credit cards with lower interest rates. The CLC will make a recommendation on whether to adopt a similar program at a meeting of its executive council in September, spokesman Mary Kehoe said Wednesday. The AFL-CIO said earlier this week that a Union Privilege MasterCard will be issued this month by the Bank of New York in Newark, Del. Protest camp set up by Indian fishermen by Canadian Press Indians have set up a protest fishery at a camp on the Skeena River in defiance of a federal Fisheries Department demand that all native fishermen obtain a food-fish licence, Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council president Neil Ster-ritt said Wednesday. He said the camp at the junction of Highways 16 and 37 about 180 kilometres east of Prince Rupert in west-central B.C. involves “25 to 70 people at times, one net and we’re refusing to take permits. “It’s a protest fishery by people from the village,” Sterritt said in a telephone interview from Hazelton. “The people are very upset but they are not looking for violence.” The Indians fear they could jeopardize future land-claim actions by recognizing the need for government fishing licences. They lay claim to 35,000 square kilometres Bank rate OTTAWA (CP) — The Bank of Canada rate fell to 8.65 per cent today from the 8.84 it had been stuck at for the past two weeks. The expected drop in the bank rate reflects the relative strength of the Canadian dollar, which has risen this week against its U.S. counterpart. of land extending from Burns Lake west almost to Terrace and from Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park south to Tweedsmuir. “The fisheries people have asked us if there is room to talk (about the fishery) and we’ve told them ‘yes’ but we’re not prepared to take out permits,” Sterritt said. “They said they’d get back to us.” At a gathering of hereditary chiefs at Kitwanga on June 23, Indians from northwestern B.C. affirmed their intention to defy federal and provincial fishing laws this summer. The decision followed a B.C. Supreme Court decision to grant a temporary injunction against the implementation of four commercial inland fishing bylaws on the Skeena River system. The injunction, sought by the B.C. Attorney General’s Ministry on behalf of commercial and sport fishermen pending a full hearing, also prevents members of the Gi-tanmaax, Gitwangak, Kispiox and Moricetown bands from interfering with federal fisheries officers and fishermen on the river. Garnet Jones, director of field services with the federal Fisheries Department, said Wednesday the department is continuing to monitor the situation on the Skeena. “Our intention is to continue to enforce the regulations in that area,” he said. The Prince George Citizen