A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 12, 1997

TERRACE.

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

A Division of Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd.
ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G SR2
TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432
EMAIL: standard@kermode.net

Tragedy

THE TRAGEDY of the Repap situation is how

the provincial government folded like a cheap
suit and abandoned the logging contractors owed
money by the company.

For years Repap had a nasty habit of seeming to
take care of everybody else yet stretch out and
stall on payments to the companies who employ
those who cut and deliver the wood to its mills.

This problem surfaced last summer during the
public hearings into Repap’s request to take over
Orenda Forest Products and its forest licence.
The provincial government said it didn’t have
jurisdiction in such issues.

The issue festered into last December when |

Avenor and Repap announced their merger plan
and grew in the new year when contractors
pressed the province for short term financing to

tide them over until shareholders for the com-

panies were to vote on the plan.

Those cries became critical more than two
weeks ago at a meeting between contractors,
Mayor Jack Talstra and Skeena MLA Helmut
Giesbrecht.

Unknown to them, evil plans were already afoot
in the Montreal head offices of Repap and
Avenor. With opposition by major shareholders
because of the debt Repap would bring to
Avenor, the companies jettisoned Repap’s B.C.
holdings to make the bigger deal more saleable.

That left Repap B.C. twisting in the wind with
more debt than it could sustain, causing it to seek
protection from creditors. The two major
creditors, the Toronto Dominion Bank and the
Royal Bank, moved in to essentially take over
the company and safeguard their stakes.

This is where the government abandoned the
contractors. One of the banks’ conditions was
that::they be! assigned-all of the wood -under
licence to Repap. That goes against general
government policy of taking back five per cent
of licences when there is an ownership change.

There’s nothing new to what the banks did.
They traditionally want to seize anything and
everything in hopes of recovering their money.

But the province could have insisted that it keep
the five per cent as a security in order to provide
the contractors with as much of their back pay-
ments as possible. Instead it used its powers un-
der a section of the Forest Act to sign over the
wood — away from public view and scrutiny.

With the banks already in the tank for hundreds
of millions of dollars, a tough and determined
provincial government could have stood firm. It
is in the best interests of the banks, after all, to
have a stable logging industry.

And it is the job of the government to represent
and stand up for its citizens. To now provide
loan guarantees for the contractors is closing the
vault door after the money’s fled.

The shame of it all for the government is that
even as its ministers were dealing to sell its
citizens down the road, these same people
marched into the NDP annual convention
proclaiming themselves as the friend of the
working person. .

Pe
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Serving the Terrace and Thamtill araa, Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Press (1969)
Ltd. at 3240 Clinton Steet, Terrace, British Columbia, VSG 5A2.

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Spaclal thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
_ ’ for their time and talents

SURE, SURE..CLONING WORKS.
BUT YOU MOST ADMIT
THE OLD WAY 1S MORE FUN.

NDP faces legal wrangles

VICTORIA — If the pace of
legal action against the NDP
continues unabated, Premier
Glen Clark aud some of his
cabinet ministers may spend
more tine in court than in the
legislature.

The ink has hardly dried on
the subpoenas dropped un-
ceremoniously on the premier
and four cabinet ministers by
Cariboo ranchers Paulette
Ermst and Bob Hart over a
seven-year fight with the forest
service, when the NDP finds
itself confronted will a new
legal battle - this one threaten-
ing the entire gaverument.

To hear the premier (cll it, he
can hardly wait to fight
Kelowna printing shop owner
and anti-NDP crusader David
Stockell in court, Well, there’s
no accounting for how some
people get their kicks, I
wouldn't bee too keen ta see
Stockell in court,

Stockell is the guy who felt
that he was bad by the NDP’s
eleclion promise of a balaaced
budget, He’s pretty sure the
premier knew very well that he
couldn’t deliver a balanced
budget, so he lied to the public
to get the NDP elected for a
second term

But rather than just complain
about it, Stockell took his beef

WHEN ENVIRON-
MENTALIST Vicky Husband
of the Valhalla Society gave
Speeches oulside Canada tar-
ring B.C. as the Brazil of the
North because of logging prac-
tices in Clayoquot Sound, I
was offended.

But with the Repap crisis,
our area may soon fit Hus-
band’s media-nifty label. For
here we all sit, surrounded by
our valuable resource, yet
facing mass joblessness, even
poverty. All because we've li-
censed our timber to one
Moutreal-based company
Whose shareholders probably

wouldi’t Know a hemlock
from a Dr. Kevorkian.
For months, like South

American peasants, area log-
gers have toiled - without pay -
for the profit of sharcholders
four thne zones away, Share-
holders don’t know - and
wouldu’t care - that local con-
traciors and loggers have

financed Repap’s operations
by saving the company hefty
loan charges.

FROM THE CAPITAL.
HUBERT BEYER

to court, asking that the elec-
tion be declared itlegal because
the NDP’s victory was based
on frauduicnt claims.

I must admit that when
Stockell started his crusade, I
was tempted to disiniss him as
a crank, wasting the time of the
court time and taxpayers’
money, Was I wrong.

Last week, Stockell won the -

opening round when B.C,
Supreme Court Justice Bryan
Williams tumed down a
government bid to throw his
law suit aut of court. Stockell
can ow continue to apply for
a class-action suit aimed at the
39 elected NDP MLAs,
Lawyers representing NDP
Speaker Dale Lovick and the

‘THROUGH BIFOCALS.
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

[ picture profil-minded CEOs

who collect quarter million
dollar salaries at convenient in-
tervals living in penthouses,
riding in chauffeured BMWs
aud fying to Patm Springs for

weekend golf.
Meanwhile, back in the
northwest, contractors file

liens on mill yard logs; loggers
and their samilics scrape by on
welfare.

You don’t bave to be a
degree-carrying bydrologist to
tniderstand the trickle down ef-

So! CALE SURVIVAL THAT MUST MEAN
IS HIGH BUT THE |\| PREDATION IS Lou
HERD IS DECLUMING J | BUT CALF PRODUCTION

IS STILE Down!

Y fRigtr AGAIN! |

other 38 NDP MLAs tied to
get the case tossed out on
grounds that Stockell’s claim
was frivolous, but the judge
didn’t see it that way.

"Courls generally are most
reluctant to strike out a petition
or statement of claim at an ear-
ly slage unless it can be clearly
demonstrated that there is no
chance of success at all,” Wil-
liams said in his decision.

I don’t want to put words in
the judge’s mouth, but the way
[ read the decision, the judge is
saying, in sa many words, that
Stockell has at least a chance
to make his case in court.

Bul even if at the end of the
day, Stockell doesn’t win, the
case is a Wake-up call for all

politicians, according to Vic-_

toria ° University political
science professor Norman
Rulf. This case, Ruff says, has
nalional implicatians. I
couldn't agree more.

There a lot of anger among
voters that politicians tend to
make promises they have no
intention of keeping, be that a
promise by the premier of a
balanced budget or by the Jean
Chrelien to get rid of the hated
GST.

The public demands more
honesty in politicians. They
have had it with being bhood-

all hurt from

fect on the wider community.
Eventually everyone = from
travel agents lo car dealers,
coffee shops to music teachers
will feel the pinch of Repap
contractors’ withheld — pay-
ments. ,

Walk through a department
store Saturday morning. Check
through a.supermarket Satur-
day noon. Drive past a fast
food outlet 1 pm. Sunday.
You could bowl a ball from the
front door to the back without
bruising anyone.

Some of us feel Repap’s
Jackadaisical bill-paying — ef-
fects sooner than others. After
only a few weeks of mill slow-
down or-bush layoff my work
load shrinks toa dribble. First I
miss the work of reapholster-
ing truck and heavy equipment
seats, Then no one asks lo have
a sofa or chair redone. Lastly
boats tops and skidgos don’t
come in.

Rebuilding omy workload
after g startup can take six
mouths,

Even government services —

WELL THEN IT MUST
BE THAT SORT HUNTING
IS TAKING Too MANY
BULLS SO THERE ISN'T
ENOUGH MALES LEFT To
BREED ALL THE Cows?!

TELL me ABOUT IT I!

winked every three or four
years into electing a govem-
ment that will break its
campaign promises with im-
punity.

There’s no doubt that a lot of
people voted for the NDP on
the premise that if it aint
broke, don’t fix it. As long as
the NDP could prove to voters
that it was capable of not only
implementing its agenda but
locking after the public purse,
they felt the parly deserved an-
other term.

When it tumed out that a
flood of reports and cor-
respondence from staff of a
number of ministries had
warned the govermment that its
predictions of a balanced
budget was on the shakiest of
grounds, people .got undes-
standably upset. And Stockeil
was one of them.

Stockell may not succeed in
bringing down the govern-
ment, but even so, he will have
performed an admirable public
service.

If nothing else, this case will
have put politicians on notice
that. the public no longer

tolerates double-speak and lies
from its polilical leaders.
Beyer can be reached at Tel:
920-9300: Fax: 385-6783; E-
Mail: hubert@caolcom.com

and staffing levels —— suffer.
Without the corporate taxes,
stumpage fees, income taxes
and all the other provincial
taxes that accrue when we all
work, funds aren't there for
Northwest Community Col-
lege, Mills Memorial Hospital,
schools, highways and more.

Times like these show the
community benefit of smaller
tree farm licences and entre-
preneurs. We wouldn’t all suf-
fer economic disaster at. the
sane moment. But with a great
piece of our forest in the hands
of one company, we’re at the
mercy of a corporation where
we're only a Elyspeck on the
shareholders’ agenda,

Astonishingly, our provincia!
govenunent has no legal ine-
chanism in place forcing
Repap to pay its contractors.
Regularly. On time. First.

We could have avoided bec-
oming Brazil of the North if
the government had written
one caveat into Repap’s forest
licence:

Pee or get off the pot.

yon,