Daily Colonist, August 12, 1978

Cloudy, high 17

No. 203 — 120th Year

Movie screens coming alive

Movie screens are due to light up across the province today with the end Friday of the three-week projectionists’ strike.

All but a few independent theatres had been closed by the strike against the Odeon and Famous Players chains. The Quadra and Towne in Victoria were unaffected.

Far from militant, the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees local which covers projectionists in B.C. had struck only once since its birth before the turn of the century—and that lasted less than a day prior to the Second World War.

A union spokesman said the main obstacle had been automation and hours of work. Changes would be phased in slowly over the three-year duration of the new agreement, he said. There will reportedly be increases of about four per cent each year, bringing the final level to more than $14 an hour.

B.C. takes over troubled Vancouver hospital

The provincial government has swept the board of trustees aside and taken control of strife-torn Vancouver General Hospital.

Health Minister Robert McClelland told a news conference Friday night the emergency move was taken with regret to ensure the maintenance of proper patient care in B.C.'s largest hospital.

Stepping into the picture today in place of the trustees to tackle what McClelland feels will be an "almost horrendous" task, is Peter Bazowski, former deputy commissioner of the RCMP, who retired only 10 days ago after 31 years of service.

The minister, who appointed Bazowski public administrator Friday, said he had an impressive record as an administrator with the RCMP and had done much to improve communications within the force.

He stressed that the government’s move and the ex-Mountie’s appointment are strictly on a temporary basis to get the hospital back to normal operation.

The matter has come to a head after several months of internal problems involving the registered nursing staff and trustees. Senior nursing staff personnel have resigned over what they describe as inadequate patient care and a lack of faith in hospital president Larry Truitt.

They have argued that the busy hospital is sadly short of nurses.

In a related development Friday, the Vancouver coroner’s office said it was investigating violent deaths recently of three patients at the hospital. The probe was being conducted to determine if nursing staff problems were in any way connected.

McClelland said his office had received expressions of concern from friends and relatives of patients.

Because of its importance as a referral centre for the entire province, the minister said it was 'imperative that measures be taken to rectify the present situation of staff unrest.'

He said the hospital had been operated well in the past, but that the takeover of operations by the government would now be seen as a failure of the present system. He predicted it would create wounds that would take a long time to heal.

In announcing Bazowski’s appointment, McClelland said: "What we need is a person who combines the skills of administration and conciliation, who can cut through the fog of confusion to get at issues and propose solutions, and who can display an extra measure of sensitivity in regard to the employer-employee relationship ..."

The first responsibility of Bazowski, McClelland said, was to ensure that there would be a proper level of patient care.

Ottawa’s deficit soaring

OTTAWA (CP) — The government had a deficit on its operations during the first three months of the current financial year of $4.45 billion, the finance department reported Friday.

The deficit figure for the April 1 to June 30 period is nearly 49 per cent higher than the $2.99 billion deficit posted in the comparable three-month period a year earlier.

On Thursday, the finance department reported that the government's spending deficit in the final year that ended March 31 was $10.03 billion—almost a 14 per cent rise from the preceding year.

If the deficit continues to rise throughout this year at the same rate as in the first quarter, it would indicate a $15 billion deficit for the current financial year.

On projected federal spending plans of nearly $49 billion in the financial year that started April 1, that represents nearly 31 cents of debt for every $1 of spending.

The figures show federal spending rising at a rate that far outstrips the growth of revenues. While spending jumped by 17.3 per cent from last year to $11.57 billion in the first three months of this financial year, revenues were up only 3.9 per cent to $7.12 billion.

On Aug. 1, Prime Minister Trudeau went on national television promising to cut $2 billion from "current and planned expenditures," shifting most of it to new programs to try to stimulate economic growth. He also promised federal tax cuts in an effort to double the country’s real economic growth rate to five per cent.

Commenting on the deficit figures, Sinclair Stevens, the Conservative finance critic, said it is obvious now that the prime minister chose to ...

Angry HEU itching for action

By DON COLLINS

The "explosive" hospital industry contract dispute led to limited job action Friday and a warning by union officials that "the thing could snowball anytime."

Rank-and-file members of the Hospital Employees' Union are reported incensed at the Health Labor Relations Association’s move to the courts to challenge a binding arbitration award. Application was made Thursday to the B.C. Supreme Court to set aside the award.

The union has charged that HLRA, bargaining arm for the hospitals, is in contempt of the Essential Services Disputes Act. It was the first union to apply for binding arbitration under the act to resolve a contract dispute.

Union secretary-business manager Jack Gerow had warned Thursday that unionists might take job action as a result of HLRA's move.

On Friday there were union reports of at least one "slowdown" in a single department of a Victoria-area hospital.

And at Burnaby General Hospital, employees staged what the union called a two-hour sit-in "to demonstrate their feelings in respect to HLRA's action."

Meanwhile, representatives of HEU units on Vancouver Island continued to flood the phone lines into the union's Victoria office with what were described as "very angry calls."

"There seems to be a real threat of walkouts," said staff representative Bill Muir. "Right now it looks like everyone is just waiting for someone else to make the first move."

Muir, Gerow and other union officials have been recommending that members stay on the job pending the Aug. 24 court hearing.

Israel bolsters West Bank belt

TEL AVIV (Reuter) — Israel is planning to increase the Jewish population in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River by 59 per cent next year. Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon said in a radio interview broadcast Friday.

The increase would bring the Jewish population to 7,500. Sharon, known for his hard line views on settlements, said the government had decided to expand existing or already planned settlements rather than create new ones.

Earlier decisions by Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s government to set up new Jewish settlements in the West Bank created an uproar in the Arab world and prompted President Carter to term them an obstacle to peace.

Risk in preservative poses U.S. dilemma

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government announced Friday that nitrite, the most widely used food preservative in the country and a standard component of hot dogs, bacon and many other processed foods, appears to cause cancer in animals and may do so in humans.

The announcement came with the release of a three-year Massachusetts Institute of Technology study of the substance. The study was ordered by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

But unlike the FDA’s attempt last year to ban saccharin, the government said this time it is faced with a difficult challenge and hasn't decided what to do.

The statement noted that nitrite also protects against botulism and conceded: "We, thus, are presented with a difficult balance of risks."

There is general agreement that to ban the substance immediately would so upset the food distribution system that many foods simply would not be available for an indefinite period.

In addition, according to the joint statement by the FDA and the U.S. agriculture department, about 80 per cent of human dietary exposure to nitrites comes from other sources.

For instance, nitrate is found naturally in spinach, radishes, beets, celery and leafy vegetables as well as in drinking water. It is converted to nitrite by bacteria found in the human digestive tract.

Nitrite is used in many processed foods because they cannot be heated sufficiently to kill the botulism spores without destroying the taste of the food.

Nitrite-free foods, including hams and bacon, have been sold in recent years by stores specializing in natural food products.

Scientists have known for 15 years or more that nitrite combines with natural amines and other substances to form nitrosamines, a family of powerful cancer-causing agents.

That conversion occurs when bacon is fried at high temperature, and consumer groups have demanded for years that the preservative be banned from cured meats and baby food. Because the nitrite itself was not known to be dangerous and has been added to meats for centuries, the government has hesitated to act.

American trio ballooning over Atlantic

PRESQUE ISLE, Me (Reuter) — Three Americans lifted off Friday night in an attempt to make the first balloon crossing of the Atlantic—just two weeks after two British adventurers narrowly failed to do so.

The helium-filled balloon, the Double-Eagle, lifted off from this northern Maine town near the Canadian border at 8.45 p.m. EDT.

Those predicted ICBC hikes

A 10 to 12 per cent increase in Autoplan rates next year will only cover normal inflationary growth. Insurance Corporation of B.C. president Robbie Sherrell said Friday.

But Dennis Cocke, former president of the giant insurance company and the NDP's ICBC critic, said the rate hikes were "predictable as another form of taxation."

Cocke said the rate increases "prove that car dealers should not be responsible for public insurance companies. The Social Credit government always forgets about services to people. The whole concept of low-cost insurance has been lost in an effort to make a profit."

Sherrell said it was not a matter of making a profit but of increasing rates to keep pace with similar cost increases for materials to repair damaged cars, increased claims and increased medical costs.

And he suggested that the 10 to 20 per cent increase forecast was on the low side and dependent on certain continuing factors.

One of the factors is ICBC’s ability to meet old claims—those from previous years— out of reserves, something ICBC has been able to do for the past several months. Before that, settlement of old claims was running higher than reserves.

Sherrell said if claims could be held down in numbers and value, "drivers will likely see normal inflationary increases—probably on the bottom side of what the private industry is talking about."

He said it was too early to make firm forecasts but with private companies forecasting a 15 per cent increase, B.C. motorists should be expecting something "around 10 or 12 per cent."

Lucky 13: Where are you?

MONTREAL (CP) — Loto-Canada is still waiting for people to claim seven $1 million and six $100,000 prizes.

Four of the unclaimed $1 million cheques are from the Aug. 4 draw, two are from Oct. 9 and one dates back to last Jan. 9.

Unclaimed cheques are kept by Loto-Canada for a year after the draw, after which the money is returned to the lottery pool for future prizes.

Since Loto-Canada replaced the Olympic lottery on Dec. 5, 1976, $2,625,000 in unclaimed prizes—including two prizes of $1 million— have been recycled in other draws.

Loto-Canada officials said Friday they did not release the numbers of unclaimed winning tickets to guard against forgery.

Previous winning numbers can be checked on lists kept by banks, credit unions or lottery ticket agents.

Driver escapes plunge from bridge

Spectators on Johnson Street Bridge watch recovery of car which ripped out 15 feet of steel railing and dropped between dual spans into Inner Harbor Friday. Driver Peter Paul Sarakannas, 422 Wilson, escaped serious injury by leaping out of car before it plunged. He told police approaching car crossed centre line and caused him to lose control on rain-slickened bridge.

Air show warmup ends in disaster

A British Vulcan, a delta-wing jet bomber, in top photo screeches over fireboat on Chicago waterfront in rehearsal for air and water show being held today and Sunday. But Friday, as the big jet attempted takeoff from naval air station in Northbrook, a suburb of Chicago, it crashed into garbage landfill site and burst into flames (below). All four crewmen aboard were killed.

Ex-Mountie to run big hospital

... continued from earlier section.

Gun-sellers await police once-over

OTTAWA (CP) — Law enforcement officers soon will begin security inspections of the country's estimated 14,000 business establishments which sell firearms.

The inspections ...