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MANNING SLAMS GRITS ON CHOPPER 'DITHERING' 

By ANNE DAWSON -- Ottawa Bureau 
OTTAWA --� Reform Leader Preston Manning demanded to know why The Winnipeg
Sun was able to rescue injured survivors of a Manitoba air crash hours
before military choppers were even able to land at the site. 
�"Because this government has been dithering about helicopters for four
years, it took The Winnipeg Sun to rescue injured Canadians," Manning told
the Commons. 
� But Defence Minister Art Eggleton insisted the tragedy was the result of
bad weather and the direction in which The Winnipeg Sun chopper was flying
in from, not Ottawa's political dithering over what kind of new helicopters
to buy. 
�"It has nothing to do with whether we would have new helicopters or not,"
Eggleton snapped. 
�"My understanding about the private helicopter is that it was able to get
underneath the (cloud) ceiling. However, it did so at considerable risk. It
did not do it in that much of a different time from what it took our own
Hercules to be able to land ... " 
�Eggleton said the newspaper's chopper flew in from the south, where there
was a break in the cloud ceiling; the government copter was coming from the
northwest, where there was no break in the weather. 
�When asked why the military didn't send another chopper in from the south,
Eggleton responded: "We don't have helicopters everywhere." 
�But Winnipeg Sun senior city editor Glenn Johnson told The Toronto Sun his
chartered helicopter arrived some four hours before the government Hercules
got in. 
�"We were there four hours prior to military getting there," Johnson said.
"The government has helicopters in Winnipeg. I don't know why they weren't
able to (send those in)." 
�