Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 75

CAM C0LE2 more to sports I than just winners 3C. and losers The virftl Edmonton fUUI 1111 EDITOR: Peter Collum, 429-5325 Call 498-5500 to subscribe ttDGCwDeim take pkes aft eoyimco Five 'nobodies' ask some important questions about how Edmonton's run 0ow Jones7r 1 300 up 6.21 to 4,447.39 Rod Ziegler down 25.93 to 4,412.23 Canadian Dollar 72.98 cents US Gold $3 $528 ($385.70 US) .29 I VyS. baa Mir.o. had to leave Edmonton to find, work elsewhere. If we don't do something, this city could end up no better off than Winnipeg." Let's do something about it, they said.

The first idea that came into their head was a billboard. "All our billboards have contained questions that we want Edmonto-nians to ask and answer." The first Anyone care about Edmonton any more? asked a. legitimate question, the Stickmen said. "All these issues just seem to hang over us. The dump.

The airports. Statuegate. The water-, dumping all these things are symptomatic. City council is sitT ting there micro-managing Edmonton's affairs, but still hasn't resolved the question 'where will this city be in It's councils not us, not the business community, who are the curmudgeons here." Please see ZIEGLERF8 and political distance to the Oct. 16 municipal election shortened, it became necessary to force the five and their cohorts out into the open.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the folks at city hall, the fundamental brilliance of the Stick-men's PR campaign shines through; their Achilles' heel was their anonymity. It led to wild speculation: I heard one suggestion that Ralph Klein's people were personally directing the Stickmen campaign to turn Edmonton into a Tory fiefdom. So what's it all about? The Stickmen put it this way in a crowded Capilano restaurant Thursday: Look, they said, it started with the water-pouring incident last August (when Aid. Sheila McKay poured a pitcher of water over Aid. Brian Mason's head).

We can whine and complain like everybody else or we can do something about it. "We all knew close friends who'd left, or had Whatever. There are more Stickmen and Stickwomen perhaps 15 people were asked to join the core group of five and have chipped in money for the four billboards run. Each $1,200 billboard asked a gut-level, fundamental question about the city of Edmonton. Each struck a raw nerve.

(I confess, the first billboard I saw annoyed me: which set of power brokers is behind this stuff? I asked myself.) In case you missed them, the four billboards went something like this: Anyone care about Edmonton anymore? (And a telephone number); Edmonton: Do we need a change? (At the bottom were five stick figures, like those amorphous figures you'd see on a Statistics Canada graph there to represent everyone, and no one in particular.) Edmonton City Council: the Who are the Edmonton Stick-men? And why on earth should you care? They're five young men who have sent the pundits scurrying, looking under political rocks for gunpowder, treason and plot. "We're nobodies," the core group of five said Thursday. I disagree. Far more important than who the Edmonton Stickmen are and are not is the extraordinary reaction caused by a series of four billboards the Stickmen have bought and paid for since last August. But, first things first: Frank Duke sells insurance; Vitor Mar-ciano is a grad student and sessional lecturer; Mike Nickel is a small business owner; Mike Simons is a retail manager; and Tom Hochhausen is a financial consultant.

None of them are, by my guess, pushing harder than their early 30s. BANK RATE 7.71 PRIME RATE 9.25 TSE daily volume 76,640,000 Dow dally volume 344,370,000 TSE CLOSING INDEXES City vacancy rate for apartments leads the country Landlords woo tenants with incentives Close Change Minerals 4321.23 1.58 Financial 3336.05 Oil 4616.88 3.10 Industry 2867.68 Utilities 3361.36 1.04 Consumer 6981 .05 52.70 Merchandise 3804.06 Forest 4951.38 Transport 4912.87 61.16 Pipeline 3890.33 2.35 Management 5290.98 15.55 Communications 8117.64 Golds 10397.82 132.52 Building 1726.07 OTHER CANADIAN MARKETS VSE Index 776.04 5.50 VSE daily volume 22,81 6,089 ASE Index ASE daily volume 9,1 70,770 FOREIGN MARKETS Nikkei 15579.44 Hong Kong 9390.60 132.42 London FT100 3328.2 0.9 Frankfurt holiday closed Australia 2046.0 7.5 500 528.59 1 07 ill 1' XJ i 1 1 1 4 i Business Beat best advertising Calgary ever had? (This billboard, too, had the phone number and, for the first time, the name Edmonton Stickmen.) How do you confuse Edmonton City Council? Tell them their next meeting is at the airport. P.S.: Will the last head office moving out of Edmonton please turn out the lights. That's the one that went too far, that forced others' hands. As time million.

Biomira shares currently are trading around $3.30. There would have to be a substantial rise in the price of shares before the warrants were used, but Biomira shares previously have traded as high as $33. Ultimately, McPherson hopes to finance Biomira operations entirely out of revenues from cancer diagnostic products, which require fewer regulatory approvals and are closer to market than the cancer treatment products. McPherson promised to reveal his diagnostic-product revenue targets after closure of the rights issue. Eric Baker, president of Almiria and chairman of Biomira, said Almiria is investing because of the promising results from Phase II trials of Biomira's breast-cancer vaccine: "Fifty per cent of the women are still alive and there's no toxicity." Phase III trials are not yet scheduled.

Biomira employs 157 people at the Edmonton Research and Development Park and 26 in a subsidiary, Biomira Research at the University of Alberta. JAC MACDONALD Journal Business Writer Edmonton Tenants looking for an apartment in Edmonton these days will find it as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Alberta's capital has once again captured the ignominious distinction of holding the highest rental vacancy rate of any major Canadian city according to a survey released by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Thursday. The 10.2 per cent vacancy rate reported by CMHC for April put Edmonton ahead of the 9.1 per cent in St.

John's, for the second time in a row. Edmonton also held the highest spot in CMHC's October 1994 survey with a rate then of 8.9 per cent. A plethora of choice and rental incentives abound for renters in a city that hasn't seen vacancies this high in 11 years. As of last month, 6,600 apartments sat empty. CMHC says rental incentives are found in 76 per cent of apartments in the survey.

That usually means a month's free rent, and low or no damage deposits, said Katherine Weaver, executive director of the City of Edmonton's Landlord and Tenant Advisory Board. But tales like a free weekend in Vancouver, or 12 free small appliances such as toasters, electric knives and other items are circulating, she said. "They are certainly indicative of the atmosphere out there." Edmonton landlords say they have been hard-hit by provincial government cutbacks at a time when federal government incentive programs flushed tenants out and into home ownership. Desperation and disbelief are rampant, said Bob Paquette, vice president of property management for Berdean Property Management and Realty Ltd. "It's a very down market.

I wonder if they have underestimated it somewhat," said Paquette, whose company manages 5,000 rental apartments in the city. Pat Bhatty, general manager of City Square Tower, also thinks vacancies are higher than the double digits reported by CMHC. "I think they are talking through their hat. If they are talking the average vacancy rate City loses 55 Nova jobs DENNIS HRYCIUK Journal Business Writer Edmonton Nova Corporation will transfer 55 workers out of Edmonton, a move that will hit one out of every eight of its 430 employees in the area. Edmonton's loss will be Calgary's gain, however, as 50 of those workers move to the southern Alberta city and five move to other parts of the province over the next two or three months.

Corporate reorganization and a desire to be closer to oil company head offices in Calgary prompted the move, said company spokesman Paul Clark. "Most of our customers are in Calgary," Clark said in an interview. Nova, a natural gas pipeline company with petrochemical operations and petroleum exploration arms, is headquartered in the southern city. The transfers will replace lost jobs in Calgary and keep the workforce in that city relatively stable at about 2,400 employees, Clark said. However, the latest announcement will continue a downward trend for Nova's employment of Edmonton-area workers, Clark admitted.

From a high point of 550 in 1990, the Edmonton workforce will now be reduced to 375 a loss of 175 jobs amounting to a reduction of 32 per cent. Asked why Edmonton is getting cut back while Calgary remains stable, Clark said the entire company is going through reorganization. "We are not pulling up stakes. We're very much part of the Edmonton area," he commented. But deputy mayor Ron Hayter said he's concerned any time the city loses jobs.

"This is obviously a business management decision. But Calgary continues to be seen as a place to do business." City officials, including Mayor Jan Reimer, must be far more aggressive in promoting the city, Hayter added. A business-supported election campaign group, however, said the job loss is a blow to Edmonton's economy. Many of the workers will take families and their spending power with them, said Grant Ainsley, executive director of the Greater Edmonton Growth Campaign. "Every family of four produces $32,000 of retail spending in a single year.

If you take that and estimate how many families of four are involved, you're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars moving out of Edmonton." Nova transferring 55 jobs out of Edmonton, reducing workforce to 375. 50 jobs go to Calgary head office, five elsewhere In Alberta; maintains Calgary workforce, where other staff reductions occur, at 2,400. Workers involved: gas control and measurement group In the company's gas transmission division. Due to corporate reorganization, desire to be closer to Calgary oil company head offices. Nova business: natural gas pipelines, petrochemicals, oil and gas exploration.

With Edmonton leading Canada in rental vacancies, landlords are offering tenant inducements, including: A half to two full months rent free Low or no damage deposits Move-in allowances Free parking andor utilities Free dinners Applianceapartment upgrades. across the city, it's higher than that," says Bhatty. Paquette said there are many projects with 20 and 30 per cent vacancies. 3 Building foreclosures are up nobody wants to say just how much. i "The people who have been -j hanging on, their fingernails broke, and they fell off," Paquette.

Allan Carr, vice president of the Argon Group, which manages 6,000 rental units across Edmonton, said many others are on the. brink. "A third of our buildings Edmonton are teetering," said Carr. Surviving landlords are gling to stay in business, and few are making profits. "I don't think anybody is ing any money," he said.

CMHC senior market analyst Laurie Scott said the underlying demographics of an aging population are exacerbating an exodus of tenants caused by moves out of-, the city, doubling up as people lose their jobs, and moves to home ownership. "Our economy isn't moving along as quickly as other centres in the province," Scott said. Paquette noted incentives are rare in Calgary where vacancies declined to 4.6 per cent in April t. from 5.1 per cent last October. The good news is that both CMHC and city landlords believe this is the bottom of the trough.

Scott is forecasting a gradual recovery especially with military relocations to CFB Edmonton, over the next two years. Carr says things can't get worse, "We have had all the layoffs are going to have." three units and more, 'v- Silver 7.50 (5.47 US) cents NYMex N. Gas Price down 15 cents $19.26 US per barrel July delivery down 3.5 cents $1.78 US perMMBtu June delivery Oil (Edmonton par price, Imperial OH) 63 cents to $25.44 Natural Gas per gigajoule (AECO-C Hub spot Waterhouse) -2 cents to $1.22 Complete stock listings, mutual tablesF10, F11, F12 Corn IC by David Waisglass I Ul WM Gordon Coulthart "I'm keeping a low profile until they finish trimming the budget." Foreign investors like our securities The Canadian Press Ottawa Foreign investors' on-and-off love for Canadian securities rekindled in March, Statistics Canada said Thursday. 2 Non-residents purchased $3.8 billion more Canadian securities than they sold in the month. And that was in keeping with the seesaw pattern of investment that has prevailed since mid-1994, Statistics Canada said.

Most of the foreign buying was in treasury bills and, to a lesser degree, Canada bonds. The trend more than reversed February's trend in which non-resident investors dumped $2.1 billion in Canadian T-bills. But foreign selling of Canadian stocks continued in March. Non-residents dumped $600 million in Canadian equity in the month. MAKE IT YOUR BUSINESS Here's your chance to let us know how we're doing.

What do we do well? Where do we need to improve? Please fill out and return the Make It Your Business survey on page F8 of this section. NYMex i. Jim Cochrane, The Journal HELPING HANDS APLENTY Catherine Wee of the Sammons Company displays an asortment of hand splints Thursday at the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists convention at the Convention Centre. Biomira president announces financial plan for company Toronto boasts lowest vacancy rate Strong job growth helped push Canada's national vacancy rate down to 4.2 in April from 4.6 a year ago. Toronto led all other metropolitan areas with a 1 .0 vacancy rate.

Edmonton showed the highest rate at 1 0.2. RON CHALMERS Journal Business Writer Edmonton Biomira Inc. president Alex McPherson announced a financial plan to feed his cash-hungry company at Thursday's annual shareholders meeting. Biomira, which develops products to diagnose and treat cancer, is losing approximately $2 million a month and may be years away from breaking even. It held $26 million in cash, short term investments and other current assets, as of March 31.

Almiria Capital Corp. has agreed to invest $18 million in the company. Biomira also has issued a rights offering to existing shareholders that could immediately raise another $27 million if fully subscribed. For every three shares held, the shareholder may buy one unit, for $3.60, by June 2. Each unit is made up of one common share and one warrant to buy another share, at $5.75, until Dec.

5, 1996. If the offering is fully subscribed, the exercise of all warrants would raise a further $43 i GS 12 Vacancy rate in apartments of April 1995 rv t7r v7 10 pi 8 GfiD -razz Source: CMHC forocns.