2 - The Prince George Citizen - Saturday, October 9,1993
J?
.
LIKE CAMPBELL’S, CHRETIEN’S IS LOADED WITH LOOPHOLES
J
. y
V
Liberal ‘book’ worth a closer look
RICHARD SONNENBERG
Colleagues mourning policeman’s tragic death
CALGARY (CP) — Before he left home to start his final shift, Const. Richard Sonncnbcrg kissed his mother goodbye and told her he would sec her in the moming.
It was not to be.
Sonncnbcrg, 27, nicknamed Lurch by his colleagues because he was over six feet tall, was killed as he attempted to slop a stolen car shortly afler midnight Friday.
He was setting down a spiked belt — a device that flattens tires — on a Calgary freeway when the car struck him, killing him instantly.
The vehicle fled and was found about an hour later smashed up and abandoned.
Police estimate it was travelling at 175 kilometres an hour when it hit Sonncnbcrg.
About 7:30 a.m. Friday police plucked two youths off a city bus aLcr the driver called her dispatcher. Her suspicions about the pair were aroused by their dishevelled appearance and the fact they paid their fares with $5 bills and Jidn’t ask for change.
One of the youths, a 17-year-old, was charged with criminal negligence causing death, hit and run and possession of stolen property.
The other was released.
Sonncnberg’s death came less than 24 hours after an officer in Sudbury, Ont., was shot to death.
Const. Joseph MacDonald, 29, was killed carly Thursday when he stopped a vehicle. Two men, both 29, have been charged in that case.
The task of delivering the grim news to Sonncnberg’s mother, Maria, fell to Calgary Police Chief Gerry Borbridgc.
“this morning I met with a graceful and dignified woman who has suffered an immense tragedy/ the loss of her son,” Borbridge said.
“He was very close to his mother.”
Sonncnbcrg, who was single, lived with her. His father Alexander, who was a bridge master wilh CP Rail, died of cancer in August 1992 at age 57.
Before visiting Sonnenberg’s mother, Borbridgc went to the home of Sonnenberg’s older sister to tell her of her brother’s death.
Colleagues of Sonncnbcrg remembered him as they struggled to cope with his death Friday.
Const. Gary Creasser, who worked with Sonncnbcrg said he was a good-natured man who enjoyed pulling a practical joke. Despite only having three years service, Sonncnbcrg always had friendly advice for a rookie, said Creasser.
“God looks after His police officers, but sometimes He takes the good ones away and He took one of the best,” said a distraught Creasser.
“He was a very, very caring, thoughtful individual who was a dedicated police officer,” said Mike Dungey, president of the Calgary Police Association.
Sonnenberg’s partner, Const. Lisa Jorgenson, witnessed his death.
“She’s devastated,” said Borbridge. “They had a very close partnership.”
Sonncnbcrg was bom in Coal-dalc, cast of Lethbridge. He moved to Calgary in 1981 where he attended high school and was an above-average student.
The young police officer was fondly remembered by teacher Jim Adams. “He had wodcrful knowledge and was a pleasure to teach,” he said.
A funeral service for Sonncnbcrg will be held Thursday al a downtown concert hall.
by ERIC BEAUCHESNE Southam News
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Kim Campbell, her own blue book of Tory election policies shredded by critics, says Jean Chretien’s red book of Liberal promises is full of holes.
She’s right — it’s loaded with loopholes.
The most obvious is that, like Campbell’s blue book, its deficit reduction promises are based on overly optimistic economic and revenue forecasts contained in last April’s budget.
But those are Tory projections. That gives Chretien a bit of an out that not available to Campbell if his deficit reduction forecasts come up short.
But there are others.
And with the Liberals heading to what could be a majority victory
Analysis
Oct. 25 it’s worth taking another look at the fine print in their 112-page book — Creating Opportunity — the Liberal Plan for Canada.
The promise to get rid of the hated GST comes with the caveat that il will be replaced with a tax to “generate equivalent revenues.”
That allows the Liberals to get away w-ith a cosmetic change.
Or they can put Canadians through another round of tax reform, and all the national bickering and angst that probably entails, to replace the devil Canadians know with the devil they don’t.
The red book also promises that “tens of thousands of Canadians will be pul back to work immedi-
ately” with a $6-billion, two-year program of sewer and highway construction.
But implementation of that program is dependent on the other two levels of government, the deficit-ridden provinces and cash-strapped municipalities, coming up with $2 billion each to match Ottawa’s contribution.
Provinces and cities may have projects on the shelf ready to go, as the Liberals claim, but they don’t have cash in the bank.
There are even more strings attached to the promise to create an extra 50,000 child-care spaces a year for three years, which the Liberals claim will generate 30,000 additional jobs.
In fact, there’s no guarantee that program will ever be launched.
As with the infrastructure program, there must be matching pro-
vincial financial support of $120 million a year.
Further, federal funding will only be available in those years following a full year of after-inflation economic growth of at least three per cent.
The economy hasn’t grown at that pace in four years and certainly no one is expecting it will this year.
So the very earliest the program could start would be 1995. Even then it would continue only if growth remained above three per cent in that or any of the two following years.
The promise to renegotiate the existing free-trade deal with the U.S., and the North American free-trade deal if it is ever ratified by the U.S., is also iffy at best.
It takes at least two to tango, three in the case of NAFTA.
READY TO STEP IN AND ‘SAVE COUNTRY’
Gorbachev hints at return to politics
MOSCOW (Reuter) — Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev is considering a political comeback.
“If the situation in Russia becomes such that I have to put aside everything to deal wilh Russian affairs, to save the country, I will do it,” Gorbachev told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview published today.
“I think we are on the brink of such a situation,” added Gorbachev, who resigned as Soviet president in December 1991, four months after an abortive hardline coup paved the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The former leader, as unpopular inside Russia as he is popular outside, was replying to a question about whether he planned to re-enter politics. His comments mcanhe may be ready to stand in presidential elections scheduled for June.
President Boris Yeltsin extended today a week-long state of emergency by eight days,
Interfax news agency said, but added that an overnight curfew would start one hour later.
Itar-Tass news agency said more than 5,000 people had been detained overnight for violating the curfew or for other offences.
Gorbachev predicted that Yeltsin and his allies would lose both the presidential and parliamentary polls.
“People are waiting for elections,” Gorbachev said. “They will come to vote and will reject the authorities which have been wrestling on the Russian political carpet for the last nine months and who have now added shooting to this.”
Gorbachev described the final day of the Moscow fighting, when troops loyal to Yeltsin opened fire on a besieged parliament building with tanks and machine-guns, as an act of revenge against political opponents.
“To my mind, what has happened around the While House (parliament) was an act of
revenge, which cannot be justified,” Gorbachev said.
“(Yeltsin and the parliament) started settling accounts with each other. As a result. . . we all washed ourselves with blood.”
But opinion polls published by Russian newspapers this week show Yeltsin’s popularity has risen since the crackdown on his opponents.
The popular Argumenty i Fakty weekly paper said 71 per cent of people supported Yeltsin and his government. Seventy-eight per cent said Yeltsin’s decision to use force was justified.
Health Minister Eduard Nechayev today put the official death toll from two days of Moscow fighting at 142, although it was not clear whether this figure included those killed inside the parliament building.
Other officials have placed the death toll at more than 170.
Weather
Prince George: Today, sunny periods. Uv 2.2. High near 9. Tonight, patchy evening low cloud otherwise clear. Low cloud becoming more widespread overnight. Low -4. Sunday, extensive low cloud or moming fog. Becoming sunny in the afternoon. High near 9. Probability of precipitation zero per cent today, tonight and Sunday.
Parsnip: Today, widespread low cloud and fog mainly near the lakes. Aftemoonn sunny periods. Uv 1.8. High near 5. Tonight, patchy evening low cloud otherwise clear. Low cloud becoming more widespread overnight. Low near minus 4. Sunday, extensive low cloud and moming fog. Afternoon sunny periods. Patchy. High near 5. Probability of precipitation zero per cent today, tonight and Sunday.
Bulkley Valley, the Lakes: Today, widespread low cloud and fog mainly near the lakes. Becoming sunny in the afternoon. Uv 1.9. High near 13. Tonight, patchy evening low cloud otherwise clear. Low cloud becoming more widespread overnight. Low near -3. Sunday, extensive low cloud or moming fog. Becoming sunny in the afternoon. High near 13. Probability of precipitation zero per cent today, tonight and Sunday.
Cariboo: Today, sunny periods. Uv 2.6. Highs 6 to 8. Tonight, patchy evening low cloud otherwise clear. Low cloud becoming more widespread overnight Low -2. Sunday, extensive low cloud or moming fog. Afternoon sunny periods. Highs 6 to 8. Probability of precipitation zero per cent today, tonight and Sunday.
Gunman flees with store’s cash
A man brandishing a sawed-off shotgun at about 5:30 a.m. today held up the One Stop Food Store at 484 Douglas St., RCMP said.
He demanded money and took $240, says the police report.
The man is described as weighing about 160 to 170 pounds and is about five feet, nine inches tall.
He was wearing a black pullover, baggy olive-green pants, a T-shirt and a bandana tied around his head. Police believe he might be native Indian.
Man acquitted on sex charges
After deliberating for more than nine hours, a B.C. Supreme Court jury late Friday announced its verdict that a city man was not guilty of sexually assaulting two children.
Raymond Clayton Lougheed, 59, was charged in 1991 with two counts of sexual assault involving two Prince George girls in the mid and late 1980s.
The trial, originally scheduled for just three days, actually continued for almost AVi days. The 12-mcmbcr jury, made up of six men and six women, went out
shortly after 11 a.m. Friday, and came back in wilh its verdict just before 11 p.m.
Just after the jury’s verdict was announced, barely audible oaths and curses as well as the sounds of weeping arose from the gallery where relatives and friends of the complainants were silting.
There had been two mistrials in the case during the past year. A justice presiding over a B.C. Supreme Court jury trial here Nov. 16, 1992, declared a mistrial. A second trial began March 22, and a
Heralded B.C. band performs Wednesday
One Horse Blue returns to Prince George for a concert Wednesday al Cadillac Ranch.
They were here for this summer’s Salmon Valley Music Festival.
“We had a lot of fun,” said Rocko Vaugeois, one of the group’s founders.
The band rides in Wednesday and rides out the next day, to head home to Vancouver so they can pack their bags for a trip to Hong Kong, where they’ve been invited to perform at the Wanchai International Music Festival.
Vaugeois (drums, vocals) said the country rock group performed a six-week tour in 1991, after one of their fans arranged the booking for them. This time their reputation did the job for them and they were invited back.
“They’re starved for talent,” he said in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
This isn’t a new group that just staggered out of a garage a couple of years ago.
“The name’s been around since 1987. This conception (of the band) has been around since 1987,” he said.
“We did about four albums in the early 1980s but in 1987 we got back together with this lineup.”
The two from.the original group are Vaugcios and Michael Shcllard (acoustic guitar, vocals). New to the group are Larry Pink (keyboard) and Gord Maxwell (bass guitar and vocals) who are on their latest recording, Starting All Over Again. Jim Foster (electric guitar) is included when performing live.
Those who follow B.C. country music recognize them as the Group of the Year for the B.C. Country Music Association — three years running.
The group is well-knit with everyone in the group writing — all the album is of original pieces.
“It’s been three years in the making. We’re quite happy to have it out and on the streets. It’s a lot of work.”
The three main songs they’ve had in the past are The Man Walks Alone, Ride The Wind and Colors of Love, the last being BCCMA single of the year.
Those three arc included in the new album, along with 10 new
songs.
mistrial was announced to the jury the afternoon of March 23.
The charges arose from incidents the complainants under oath said occurred between 1985 and 1987, when the girls were around nine years old and Grade 4 students.
One of the girls complained to her parents in 1991, and they contacted police, who went on to interview the second girl.
The Crown has no plans to appeal, Crown counsel John Bark-well said outside the courtroom after the verdict.
School trustee seeks 2nd term
Building on the theme of Thanksgiving, trustee Kathy Mueller announced Friday she intends to seek re-election to the School District 57 board of trustees.
“There seems to be so much negativity surrounding the subject of education these days,” Mueller said, “but I think we have a lot to celebrate in this district.”
Mueller cited the “excellent” employee relations climate. The last round of teacher negotiatons was completed in six days. “We also have an extremely strong partnership with parents in our school and district committees.”
Mueller was the only new trustee elected to the board in 1990. Other positions went to incumbents.
Mueller says she is especially proud of the district’s business partnership programs, giving students a firsthand look at how businesses operate.
So unless the Americans cooperate, and the Mexicans as well, there can’t be any renegotiation.
Even if the U.S. agrees to return to the bargaining table, the Americans are unlikely to leave with anything less than when they arrived and their goal will be to leave with more.
A Liberal government could always tear up the deal but, based on the party red book, not to mention comments by Chretien, that’s not likely.
“Abrogating trade agreement* ‘ should be only a last resort if satisfactory changes cannot be negotiated,” the red book slates.
And it’s the Liberals who would decide what’s satisfactory.
As such, voters shouldn’t put too much faith in the Liberal biblc even if Chretien swears by it.
Newspaper retracts incorrect poll results
Southam News
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail today is retracting an incorrect opinion poll it published during a flurry of hearsay reporting that raised questions about how journalists conduct themselves during an election.
“We got this wrong and we’re going to make it clear on the front page tomorrow,” editor William Thorscll said Friday.
He was referring to a front-page story published Friday by the Globe, in which extensive data on the major parties’ election standings were falsely attributed to a Southam Ncws-Angus Reid survey.
The Globe’s numbers, which were widely circulated in rumors Thursday, were reportedly given to reporters by aides accompanying Liberal Leader Jean Chretien.
These numbers differed sharply from the real Reid poll numbers published Friday in Southam newspapers.
The data used by the Globe put the Literals and the Reform party higher in popular support than Reid found. The Globe also carried projections on how many Commons seats each party could be ex • pccted to win Oct. 25. The Reid poll contained no such estimates.
“I’m dumbfounded as to who in their right mind would take a piece of gossip from one of the parties and put it out as the top of their news,” Reid commented.
“This is a complete mishandling of our results and I resent the attribution to me and my organization of incorrect results.”
Reid added that the story was “one of the worst cases I’ve seen of the mishandling of information.
“If this is the way they (the Globe and Mail) check their information, they need to revise their procedures.”
Southam News Editor Aileen McCabe said the mistake was “totally unbelievable.”
“The Globe has taken numbers leaked by the Liberal party and run them on the front page without even bothering to check whether they were true,” she said.
“The least it can do now is give the other parties equal time,” McCabe added. “I’m sure the Tories have some numbers of their own that they’d just love to see on the front of the Globe.”
Thorsell said the story was published because “we thought we had it double-sourced.” Thorsell said that turned out to be a “lazy assumption” because it wasn’t checked with Angus Reid Associates or Southam News.
Canadian Diabetes aakx uiior.
<•]
Association carudicnnr du dubetc
Your money has punch. Fight Diabetes.
Supported by the Prince George Citizen
(EMM. INN
955 Victoria St. 563-6432
We will be closed Thanksgiving Day Monday Oct. 11/93
We will re-open Tuesday, October 12, 1993 11 a.m. - 2 a.m.
TO THE CHURCH OF THE NORTH
"(jodlslovt
t"Lovc bcamh ill things". Bcarcth • Grk. To roof over, cover with siilenct", Strong's. So we my rad, ‘Love quietly covers ill things, *lCoi37 Isn’t JESUS beautiful! And Prl79 says, "He that covneth i transgression seeketh love". And then, ‘Likewise you wives • if your husbands obey not the word • without a word (from you) may be won lPe).l "And JESUS answered Pilot never a word", Mt27:l4. ‘A time to keep silence', Ec3;7. Yes, and also about the MOCKFJtY of denominationsHow many tunes has our lad of faith, lad J love a lad of quietly "watching and waiting* and praying hindered the power of Cod being marafeted? "And the Lord wDI fight for you and you shall remain silent," and the waters cov-
ered the Egyptians. ExH;U. Further, Joshua "commanded the people (at Jericho), 'Ye shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth until the day I bid you
shout*. 6:10. Then the lloiy Spirit unction comes, THEN speak out with all boldness. Yes, love silently obeys God and Busts Him to fight the bade, fa God is love, and he that dwcileth in love dwdleih in God and God in him, and love never faileth!" ajnf 16, 1Co13-8. So then why not fa-give? Pray. ‘Little children, guard yourselves from Idols. Amen." 1st Jn last vi John Punk.
PS Prl0:19 "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin,* a those who speak speak much sin, as on TV.
H&R BLOCK INCOME TAX SCHOOLS
invite you to attend an Open House to review course materials and meet the instructors.
Enroll in the H&R Block Income Tax Course now.
Make money during tax time. Comprehensive course taught by experienced H&R Block instructors begins soon in your area.