‘Senior Management meet in Cassiar During the week.of March 17, 1986, Alan Smith. Chairman, Cassiar Mining Corporation; Doug Little, President,; Peter Jones, Executive Vice-President; Tony Kana, Vice-President, Finance; and John Oughtred, Vice- President, Marketing, were in Cassiar. The purpose of this was to meet with local senior management at the Cassiar Mine to review company performance and discuss the direction of the company. Peter Jones said it is planned to hold these meetings in Cassiar on a monthly basis until June. Arbitration ruling handed down By a majority award, the Arbitration Board has dismissed the United Steelworkers Locals 6536 and 8449 grievance and upheld Cassiar Min- ing Corporation’s right to cease providing room and board accommodation to employees at the Cassiar Mine. MP Jim Fulton Visits Cassiar Skeena MP Jim Fulton was in Cassiar last month with some good news for local residents. Cassiar is included on the isolated post listing and thus eligible for the housing and travel tax benefits announced in Minister of Finance Michael Wilson’s recent budget. Under the provisions in the budget one resident of a single detached dwelling can write off 20% of his/ her net. monthly income to a maximum of $450 per | month (or $5400 per year) as a northern housing tax benefit. One can claim for full months only and may not’ claim for months a resident is away from the home (for “example, during a shutdown). To be eligible for the rebate a person must have lived six full months in the north. . Fulton said he expected more specific information on the housing allowance by the end of March. Questions related to employer or government subsidized housing have yet to be answered. It appears residents living in subsidized housing will have to pay taxes on the benefit and then claim the housing allowance. The budget also included a travel benefit for north- erners. Families will be allowed as an untaxed northern benefit two return economy airfares for each family member each year to a designated city (probably Van- couver for Cassiarites). Fulton added, “It appears quite clear, for people in Cassiar, the housing and travel benefits are the only good news in the budget.” The Skeena MP said the May and February budgets combined will reduce the available net income of the average family by $1350. The budgets increase the taxes paid by workers in the $10,00 - $40,000 bracket by $7 billion while they reduce taxes to corporations with more than 500 employees by $75 million. Looking back over the years Fulton said, “Around 1945-50 75% of taxes were paid by large corporations. Now 80% of taxes are paid by the working class.” Fulton added that one of the things brought out in the recent Nielson Report is that in the last fiscal year the committee studied (1984-85) $16.4 billion in direct subsidies or grants to corporations — “may or may not have any direct benefit to the company or the coun- try.” He said, “It will be interesting to see if the Tories will strip away some of these useless subsidies to corp- orations.” anpek ierieaasee -.* + Continued on Page 16. ; eh ae ee eR ee Tv TER De SOSA ES - Cassiar Courier the Voice of Cassiar Country APRIL 1986 10 cents FRIENDSHIP GAMES ’86 A BIG SUCCESS During one of the worst snowstorms of the winter Jennifer Becket, a gold medallist at the 1986 Northern B.C. Win- lights the torch to signal the beg- inning of the 1986 North ern Invitational Friend- ship Games in Cassiar. Despite the storm enthus- ter Games, iasm was high and the Games were a big success. See Page 12 for details on the Games and Pages & and 9 for more pictures, STIKINE SCHOOL BOARD SUBMITS BUDGET School District No. 87 (Stikine) has submitted its preliminary budget for 1986/87 to the Ministry of Ed- cation. The budget is about 10.3% over the amount allotted to the Stikine in its fiscal framework. The Min- istry allocated about $4 million to Stikine district; that’s about $96 thousand over last year’s budget. However, School Superintendent Keith-Lanphear said the figures __ are misleading. He said this year the Ministry has included such items as the text book credit (about $15,000) and teacher pensions (about $20,000) in the budget but this is really only “paper information” and not actual dollars ‘the district can put into education. Lanphear also said he detected a number of inaccur- acies in the Stikine’s fiscal framework and pointed them out to the Ministry. They have agreed to rerun the figures and this should have a positive effect on our district’s budget. The district superintendent also said there was a lot of pressure on the staff during the budget prepar- ation this year because the Stikine district didn’t receive its fiscal framework until. Feb. 18th and the deadline for submission of the budget to the Ministry was March < 15th. Lanphear said they should have had the figures by Nov. 15, 1985. In addition to‘ the late arrival of the figures the staff had to cope with the problem with the figures themselves. He said the Ministry calculated the figures on the 1984 teacher salaries when oy should have used the 1985 salaries. On the positive side, Supt. Lanphear said the district has not had to cut any programs or staff so far. Also the Ministry has recognized the high cost of operating a school district in the north. They have increased the freight rate index from 18% to 23%. Lanphear said the rate has an impact on everything, not just freight, and the higher rate is a significant change for the district. More medals for Gassiar The 1986 Winter Games were held in Terrace this year, and three athletes from Cassiar represented the Northwest Zone at the Games. They were as follows: DANNY ANDREWS - WEIGHT-LIFTING ATUL KAUL - BADMINTON BLYTHE GRIMMETT - BADMINTON The results were a great ego boost to Cassiar, as Danny Andrews won three gold medals and Atul Kaul and Blythe Grimmett won silver medals. Danny won the medals in the 75-Kilo Class, in the areas of Clean & Jerk, and the Snatch. As well, he won the overall gold medal in his weight class. Atul and Blythe won the silver medals in Badminton. Although neither lost a game, they were part of a team from the Northwest Zone which placed second overall. Congratulations to our athletes are definitely in order. Danny will be participating in the B.C. playdowns in March as well, with the idea of making the Canadians in the.very.near future. A . Lanphear added, “The Ministry has also recognized the fact that one of our major costs is teacher salaries and they’ve included housing benefits and travel allow- > ances in salaries.” This means the government has agreed to give more funds for northern salaries because of our location. The district continues to argue for funds. for. a full time superintendent and a full time ‘secrétary-treasurer. However, Lanphear said the government continues to refuse this request and the two positions here wil! still be funded on a pro rata basis. The district expects the next set of budget figures to be completed by May Ist. In other district news several schools are considering sending students to Expo ’86. Atlin has received about $1800 from the government’s travelling fund for students. Also Gulf Canada, the company developing the Klappan Coal project, has announced plans to take three or four students plus one supervisor from Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake and Iskut to Expo for one week. The Stikine School Board has drafted a new policy for tendering maintenance projects. The draft reads: “1. To insure the Maintenance Supervisor is able to respond to district needs, emergent or otherwise, any project costing up to $500 may be acted upon by the supervisor. 2. On any maintenance project costing between $500 and $4,999.99, the Maintenance Supervisor will first consult with the Secretary Treasurer for approval to proceed. 3. Any project estimated at a cost of $5,000 or more ' will be put to tender unless the Board, through a resol- ution, waives the need to go to tender.” The next meeting of the Stikine School Board will be - held in Cassiar on April 18 and 19. Skukum pours first bar Total Erickson Resources Ltd., operator of the Mount Skukum Gold Mine, announces that production is now.underway at Mount Skukum: the first 1,000 ounce doré bar (60% gold, 40% silver) was produced on Friday, March 7th. The pour was attended by A. David Ross, Vice-Chairman of Total Erickson and Pr. Piero Faenzi, Executive Vice-President of AGIP Canada Ltd. A second dore bar was produced during the weekend. The mill is operating at 300 tons per day. Construction of the surface and underground facil- ities started in mid-August, 1985. Including a one-month tune up for the plant, the whole project was completed in less than seven months. We are proud of this accom- plishment achieved by the Company personnel through difficult winter conditions. At Erickson, where the reconstruction of the mill is covered by insurance policies at new replacement cost, engineering has commenced and the new plant is sched- uled to be operational at the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year. The Company is also insured for _ Continued on Page 16. ae, ar » *