Hi Alain. Yes it's definitely tied to positive.I'm actually getting power throughout the chip, only little or no power to the portb pins for some reason.
I was wondering if this was an intermittent kind of problem initially, because I would get at least one LED to blink and then none at all.But two different PICs with the same problem? Also different power supplies seem to be ineffective.

As far as the circuit goes, I can't find a diagram right now to post(about to head out for the afternoon), but I'll try to give you a breakdown.

pin 4= POSITIVE with 47k resistor

pin 5= NEGATIVE

PIN 6 AND 7= LEDs with 470 ohm resistors(and yes, the polarity is correct)

pin 14 =positive

pin 15 and 16 =crystal with two 22 pf caps attached to ground

If you see something I've done wrong, please feel free to let me know.Frankly I'm baffled.