The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 4

A4 THE OTTAWA CITIZEN MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1989 Canada mmim Posft j(s $4 ACROSS CANADA Citizen news services German-owned firm favored to supply sorting machines By Dave Blaikie The Canadian Press on by the Canadian Press, is being used to test a new 10-digit postal code system Canada Post hopes to introduce within the next few years. The system is so precise that all addresses in the country, and possibly all individuals, will be assigned individual codes. The new machines will eliminate the need for many of the jobs now performed by postal employees who are operating equipment that has been in use since the last modernization program in the early 1970s. Lander has said he expects rising mail volumes to create enough jobs to absorb employees who are displaced by the Some of the new equipment will be manufactured in Ajax if AEG gets the contract but much of it will be built elsewhere. "This equipment is made in Germany and here at our plant in Ajax as well as in the United States by our licencee in Dallas, Electrocom Automation." AEG Bayly, which employs about 150 people, specializes in digital telecommunications equipment.

The new equipment will incorporate many features tested by Canada Post in the Paradigm Project, a high-tech research program started about two years ago. The project, kept secret until last month when it was reported products. Canada Post president Donald Lander is a former international auto executive. AEG Bayly is negotiating with Canada Post to provide high-speed sorting machines, including optical character readers, coding desks and stamp-cancelling machines, sources said. Other machines, including new parcel sorters, will also be installed in the agency's countrywide network of sorting plants.

A modernization program to replace equipment, renovate or replace sorting plants and expand the postal delivery fleet was announced by Canada Post last week. It will take five years to implement. "We have been involved in discussions with Canada Post for some time. But there are many details yet to be worked out before we could or would have a contract," Carl said in an interview. Canada Post refused through its media office to answer any questions about the talks.

The Frankfurt company is owned by Daimler-Benz, a German high-tech and automotive conglomerate with interests around the world. Mercedes cars are among its most successful AEG Bayly Inc. is favored to win-a $400-million contract to build sophisticated mail-sorting equipment for the post office. A longtime postal supplier, the Ajax company is a wholly-owned 'subsidiary of AEG Aktiengesell-schaft of Frankfurt, West AEG Bayly president Douglas Carl confirmed talks with Canada Post have been going on for some time but cautioned that nothing has been signed. Charity approved transfer of funds TORONTO (CP) Patricia Starr's charitable group transferred funds earmarked for the disabled into the foundation's special capital fund, from which controversial political payments were made, a newspaper reports today.

Three months after passing a resolution in June 1987 to make the transfer, the charitable group deposited $33,000 connected to a program for the disabled into the capital account, the Toronto Globe and Mail says. Starr had sole signing authority over the account, the paper says. Starr, a prominent Liberal, recently resigned as chairman of Ontario Place a government-run amusement park on Lake Ontario after weeks of controversy over her role in channeling charitable funds to political campaigns. An investigation by Toronto law firm Goodman and Goodman has determined that more than $60,000 was paid out of the capital fund to political campaigns by Starr's group, the Toronto section of the National Council of Jewish Women of Canada. She resigned last month as head of the council's charitable founda- tion.

Under the Income Tax Act, it is illegal for charities to make polit-' ical donations. Clifford Lax, a lawyer with Goodman and Goodman, told the newspaper it was unclear where the $33,000 originally came from. His confidential report identifies the transfer of the $33,000 into the capital account, but he argued it was unfair to suggest a connection. NATIONAL Govt, sold on subcompacts The government has spent about $1.2 million since 1980 on booklets and posters explaining the fuel efficiency of cars being sold in Canada, the Transport Department says. Although new car sales are down this year, fuel-saving subcompacts are doing well, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler said.

Spokesmen point to the subcompacts' fuel efficiency as one reason. BRITISH COLUMBIA Seattle quake felt in Victoria WASHINGTON A light earthquake that shook the Seattle area Sunday afternoon was felt as far north as Victoria and Sidney on Vancouver Island, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The tremor was recorded at a preliminary magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter scale. ALBERTA 'Proposal aimed at teen drivers CALGARY A proposal to suspend the licences of caught drinking and driving is a step in the right direction but doesn't go far enough, a group that lobbies for tougher action against impaired drivers said Terrance Kulasa of People Against Impaired Driving said all new Alberta drivers should be subject to losing their licence if caught driving after doing any drinking at all.

ONTARIO Quebec accused of ignoring others MIDLAND A group representing Ontario's 500,000 francophones is disappointed Quebec has chosen to side with Alberta in opposing a Supreme Court of Canada bid by Edmonton francophone parents to run their own school boards. Quebec is closing in on itself to protect French and abandoning francophones outside its borders, said Rolande Soucie, president of the Association cana-dienne-francais de l'Ontario. Soucie said Quebec's anglophones already have control of their schools, because of a guarantee in the Constitution protecting certain denominational school boards. Missing pilot dead in wreckage MILTON A pilot's body was found Sunday afternoon amid the wreckage of a light plane reported missing over the weekend. The name of the male pilot was not released.

The Cessna 182 left Toronto's Island Airport about 11 p.m. Friday and was reported missing after it failed to land in Kitchener. QUEBEC Town sues Hydro for PCD storage MONTREAL The town of Mirabel, about 45 kilometres northwest of here, is taking Hydro-Quebec to court for storing polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. Mayor Hubert Meilleur said Hydro is storing about 10,000 gallons of PCB-laced oil in tanks and transformers in Mirabel, despite a bylaw forbidding storage of "products which can, in any way, pose a danger for the health or welfare of the public, notably radioactive materials and CP photo Investigators search Burnaby, B.C., service station for clues to Sunday's explosion Mother and son, 6, injured in B.C. explosion VANCOUVER (CP) A six-week-old boy and his mother suffered burns after a fiery explosion Sunday at a Mohawk gas station in Burnaby trapped them inside a nearby telephone booth.

An empty, 10-kilogram propane tank stored in the station's shed was ignited by a spark shortly after noon. It exploded, shearing off the station's natural gas line at a gas meter on the side of the building, said Burnaby firefighter Ward Rossiter. The explosion blew out the south wall of the station, shattered a plexiglass bus shelter and knocked over the nearby telephone booth, Rossiter said. The 18-year-old mother received burns to 25 per cent of her body and is listed in fair condition at Vancouver General Hospital's intensive care unit, said a hospital spokesman said. Her six-week-old boy is in critical but stable condition at Children's Hospital, said a spokesman.

No names have been released. top and bottom of the booth and I saw someone trying to break the glass with a two-by-four," Massey said. "I ran out and grabbed (the trapped woman) by the ankle and dragged her out the broken window. "She had a baby strapped to her stomach and she kept asking about her baby but it seemed okay it was making gurgling noises and spitting," he said. The woman's back, face and hair were badly burned, Massey said.

Trevor Massey, a waiter at a restaurant across the street from the gas station, said he heard the explosion and saw flames leap as high as a street lightpost. "I was serving a table when I heard a big bang," Massey, 22, said. "Everything was shaking I thought the whole roof was coming down." He ran outside and saw the phone booth on its side with the station roof on top of it, he said. "Flames were coming in the Dead woman had wanted gun for protection, investigator says By Gerard Young Vancouver Sun backyard, her father Otto Hack and Kaban have both said. They also say that last October, she was found in a coma outside her home after having been assaulted, strangled and injected with a tranquillizer.

Kaban, who on and off had investigated her case since her first complaints of harassment, said his client went to a lot of trouble and expense to protect herself, including retaining him to get enough evidence to find the person who was tormenting her. He said she carried an electronic panic button that could transmit a signal to an alarm company and then to the police in case she was accosted around her property and at one time caried an oil and pepper spray to use against attackers. Kaban said he believes James's attackers went too far in their latest assault, intending only to continue what he thinks were likely scare tactics. James's body was found June 8 about 1.5 kilometres from the Richmond shopping centre where she had deposited her Richmond General Hospital paycheque at a bank machine. Her hands and feet were bound.

Kaban said James, who attended high school in Ottawa between 1960 and 1962 while her father was posted in the capital, had an audible alarm installed in her Richmond home and wanted the infra-red system to detect any movement coming toward her house. The system would have given her extra time to call police if an intruder came on to her property, Kaban said. During the past six years, James had complained more than 50 times to Vancouver city police and Richmond RCMP that she had been sexually and physically attacked, threatened, had her home torched, her phone lines cut and dead cats strung up in her He said he believes whoever was tormenting her was trying to cause James to have a mental breakdown that would lead her to kill herself or become "a babbling little vegetable." While the harassment caused her extreme stress, she refused to give in and would never have committed suicide. He said she was treated by a psychiatrist and had to be admitted to hospital for two weeks for stress after her home was torched in 1986. He said he believes Richmond RCMP are close to solving the case.

And he thinks James knew who was terrorizing her but didn't point the finger for fear of reprisals. James separated from her physician husband six years ago and was divorced in 1985. A sister currently lives in Ottawa. (Distributed by Southam News.) VANCOUVER Cindy James wanted to get a gun for protection only weeks before she was found dead, her trussed body left in tall grass near an abandoned house. Ozzie Kaban, a private investigator who worked for James and is now trying to solve the mystery of her death for her family, says he was able to discourage the 44-year-old nurse from obtaining a gun.

"I advised her against getting a gun because she was not trained in firearms and having one could be a danger to herself and her friends," he said. "She was seriously considering it but she decided not to." However, James planned to have an infra-red detection system installed around her Richmond home May 25, the day she went missing, Kaban said. Cindy James Attended high school in Ottawa It's no wonder space agency workers don't want to move to Quebec FRANK HOWARD Citizen staff BUREAUCRATS week by Labor Minister Jean Corbeil, Labor Canada will look after federally-regulated workplaces and Transport will police trains, planes, ships and in-terprovincial or international bus routes. The legislation (C-204) was introduced by the New Democrats' anti-smoking champion, Lynn McDonald, In the last Parliament and was passed by both houses but was not proclaimed law before the elections. The department promises to proclaim the law six months after the amendments clear both houses.

Which probably means that the smoke troopers won't be very active until next year, probably In fiscal '90-'91. There should be a few jobs in the compliance bureaucracy, but not too many. Mostly they will be counting on local informants to keep the smokers In line. COMINGS AND GOINGS: William O'Neil, president of the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority, has been designated as the next secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, based in London, England.

He assumes his new duties in January 1990. Following the appointment of Gen. John de Chastelain as chief of the defence staff, several other senior appointments were announced at National Defence Headquarters. Vice-Admiral Charles Thomas was appointed vice-chief. James Fox will be assistant deputy minister, personnel.

David lluddlcston will be promoted to lieutenant general and made a deputy chief of staff. Brig. -Gen. John Maclnnli will be promoted to major general and appointed associate DM, policy. Commodore Bruce Johnston is to become director-general, plans and presence of English in Quebec as a pathological condition.

The Liberals under Bourassa have not been much better. English could be tolerated, but not in public. No wonder each new census since the Parti Qubecois victory of 1976 has shown a decline in the English population of Quebec. And yet the nationalists still worry about the disappearance of French and produce harebrained schemes to get more French babies and more French-speaking Immigrants who will stay in Quebec. No wonder, also, that some English-speaking employees, especially those with young families, would prefer to stay where their families have good schools and good job opportunities.

The bureaucrats at Labor Canada and Transport Canada seem to have sorted out who gets to administer the so-called "non-smokers' health act." According to amendments tabled last The suggestion by Premier Robert Bourassa that space agency employees who do not want to move to Montreal are either bigots or fools is typical of the high-level FrenchEnglish debate that has developed under his rule in Quebec. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney does little to advance the debate by suggesting that opposition to the move is mainly the product of regional envy and xenophobia. The fact Is there are many reasons why scientists and engineers, most of whom seem to be English-speaking, it is true, might not want to move. The most obvious is that the decision to locate the new space agency's headquarters in a suburb of Montreal is so crassly venal. Facilities are here.

Private sector expertise Is here and, most Important of all, government expertise is here. Otherwise, there would be no staff complaints about moving to St. -Hubert. The trip was not necessary. It would probably have encountered similar resistance if the agency had been given to Kingston or Winnipeg.

But It's true that Quebec presents a distinct problem. The constant nagging of the language issue is an Irritant for English-speakers. A minority of the political culture of Quebec has raised xenophobia into a principle of state. Dr. Camllle Laurln, father of Bill 101, seemed to regard the.