The Cheston report

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ay

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 25, 2000 - AS

Mayors press for creation
of a special forestry zone

Stories by JEFF NAGEL
NORTHWEST politicians are
vowing to press hard this
week to get Victoria to ap-
prove radical recommenda-
tions to make forestry more

- viable in this region.

Mayors and councils from the
region are at the Union of B:C.
Municipalities convention in Vic-
toria where they plan to push for
implementation of the Wes
Cheston report.

The document — commissioned
by Dan Miller when he was pre-
mier and circulated this spring
within government - calls for
creation in the northwest of a spe-
cial new forestry zone separate
from the existing two coastal and
interior zones where rules would
be customized to fit the unique
requirements here.

“It contains all the remedies
and solutions we’ve been pushing
to the forest service fur years,”
says New Hazelton mayor Peter
Weeber.

“Cheston said we should create

Expand
exports
of logs:
report

LOG EXPORTS may be-
come an entrenched way
of doing business in the
northwest if a report to
Vieloria on northwest for-
estry is enacted,

Forests ministry offi-
cials are studying the re-
port, which was prepared
by former forests assistant
deputy minister Wes
Cheston earlier this spring.

One of the recommen-
dations’ in’ the Wes
Cheston report on north-
west forestry calls on the
province to approve more
economic plans — similar
to the one brokered by the
Job Protection Commis-
sion for West Fraser -- al-

a third zone in the pro-
vince that contains all
the rotten wood that is §
unique to this area,”
Weeber said.

The region would
cover timber from Mori-
cetown to Prince Rupert
along Hwy 16, he said.

The recommenda- ie
lions in the report by J
Cheston, a former assis-
lant deputy minister, are
also said to mirror many
of those in a report on a
series of forestry reform
recommendations pre-

pared for the City of
Terrace by ex-forests
minister -turned-consul -
tant Dave Parker.

Key among the changes is a
method of blending cutting per-
mits that would effectively reduce
the royalties forest companies
usually have to pay to log timber
in the region.

“We're operating in a 70 per
cent plus pulp climate up here,”
Weeber explained. “Fhat has
never been recognized in the

Peter Weeber

deducted from the
stumpage charged on
more profilable stands,
resulling in less stump-
age paid overall.
“You take the good
wood and the bad wood,
pul them in the same pot
and come up with an
average.”
‘| “We want to see it im-
plemented,” said Ter-
il race mayor Jack Talstra.
“But nothing has hap-
pened since the report
came out.”
“It seems tc have stailed

stumpage system.”

Right now companies are
charged a minimum 25 cent
stumpage per cubic metre on pulp
logs when the difficult terrain
costs would theoretically result in
negative stumpapge if they were
taken inlo account,

Calculating stumpage on dif-
ferent stands of wood together
would allow those high costs to be

“+

Jack Talstra

ae ME bd Sakaaerieaee

or died at the bureau-
cratic level.”
Weeber said if could put
many more loggers and sawmill
workers back to work in the de-
pressed Hazeltons. areca.

The forestry crisis there was
the focus of a public meeting that
drew 200 people out Oct. 16.

“There’s no logging going on at
the present time,” Weeber says.
“There are upwards of 400 loggers
sitting at home that should be
working.”

I gee ce

WEST FRASER’s sawmill here was part of an economic pian that included a log export provision to help
keep the company's contract loggers working. A report on northwest forestry proposes to take that further.

lowing log exports and for

longer periods of time.
Exports have been used
since early 1999 to keep
logging contractors work-
ing despite West Fraser's
move ta limit its sawmill
in Terrace to just one shift.
Had exports not been
allowed, hundreds of log-
gers would be cut of work.
The economic plan, re-
newed for 2000, allows
West Fraser’s contractors
to directly market the tim-
ber they log, with a limi-
ted portion of it available
for foreign export ta make
up for the low values the
remainder of the logs fetch
on domestic markets.
Cheston’s report sug-
gests similar plans be al-
lowed for other operators
in the northwest, including
Skeena Cellulose, and that
the terms of the plans be
increased from the present
one year to as much as
five years.
The idea is to essential-
ly build on what's broadly
considered the success of

the plan for West Fraser’s
contractors, said Job Pro-
tection Commissioner Eric
van Soeren.

“What we did with
West Fraser worked well,”
he said. “There is a sense
that it’s worked well so
let’s expand on it.”

“] think there’s a lot of
logic in going for a longer
term if only to give more
security to the major li-
censecs that would hope-
fully enable them to make
more reinvestment.”

Other components of
the Cheston report Iook at
ways to treat the northwest
as a unique area requiring
different solutions.

“We're trying to deve-
lop a strategy around
that,” Van Soeren said,
“We're not neccessarily
accepling everything in
the report but we're at
least using that as a base
of discussion.”

Such a strategy could
be about a month away
from completion, he said,

He said there's a pood
chance it will incorporate
expanded log export provi-
sions and allow indepen-
dent market loggers to
take unused timber.

But suggestions cutting
permits can be blended or
averaged to produce lower
Stumpage rates would be
problematic, he said, be-
cause it would increase
costs in other forest re-
gions.

“It just means some-
body samewhere else is
going to have to pay more
for their fibre.”

Likewise, he said, al-
terations to how the Forest
Practices Code is enforced
could be “problematic.”

Northern development
minister Dan Miller, who
commissioned the report
when he was premier, said
industry has widely re-
quested a special look at
the region, which is a
coastal-interior transition
zone.

Increased log exports

fin é
Dan Miller

are a sensitive issue that
often draws public opposi-
tion, Miller admits.

But he says they appear
to be justifiable when the
value of the timber is less
than the cost of harvesting
it,

“Limited exports can
provide one way to make
up the gap," Miller said.

Other challenges in-
clude finding ways to im-

prove the marketability of
the coast’s hemlock forests
to Japan, where a change
in building codes has cost
B.C. business,

Miller also noted the
province has to tread care-
fully when it comes to the
Canada-U.S. Softwood
Lumber Agreement.

“Any suggestion we’re
prepared to subsidize tim-
ber harvesting brings about
retaliation,” he noted.

Miller said long-term
solutions may also mean
questioning ail the as-
sumptions about how for-
estry in the northwest runs.

“That may mean the
current configuration of
mills may be questioned,”
he said.

The bottom line, he
said; is the industry has to
be efficient.

“You've got to get
maximum utilization of
the timber resource,” he
said. “The log must go
where it derives the very
highest value.”

Competitive bidding stumpage
experiment limited to the coast

is (rue.”

A MOVE to tie coastal stumpage
rates lo market prices may help
Interfor but not Skeena Cellulase.

The province is experimenting
with a trial system expected to rc-
duce the royalties forest compa-
nies pay for low-value timber.

It's geared to stands consisting
of at least GO per cent hemlock
and balsam.

While there’s plenty of that
grade of wood in this area, the
program is only being tried in the
North Coast Forest District and
not the Kalum or Kispiox forest
districts, say ministry officials.

Stumpage rates in those stands
will now fluctuate based on the
competitive bids the forest. mini-
stry receives for similar grades of
standing timber sold under the
smalt business program.

Interfor stands to benefit be-
cause it operates south and west
of here in the North Coast district.

Bul none of the timber man-
aged by Skeena Cellulose or
West Fraser in the Kalum or Ki-
spiox districts will be part of the
program.

West Fraser northwest general
manager Low Poulin said the
slumpage change could reduce
the price of logs on the coast and
indirectly help its North Coast
Timber sawmill in Prince Rupert.

“Hopefully it will make more
wood available to us at a price we
can afford,” Poulin said.

That's particularly timely, he
said, because West Fraser closed
its Prince Rupert sawmill Friday.

He said they hope to re-open il
two days a week for up to six

months if a federal work-sharing
program is approved.

The mill continues to struggle
in the face of a Japanese market
where a once-voracious appetite
for hemlock has dried up.

“They want kiln-dried wood so
they don't have warpage,” said
forest ministry spokesman Mike
Hogan.

Since the market for green or
undried hemlock is all but: gone,
the game in coastal ateas has be-
come finding ways to dry as much
of the wood as possible.

“The industry has been getting
more and more kilns,” said
Hogan. “But they’ve been asking
for acknowledgement from gov-
ernment. that this needs address-
ing, that this is not cyclical but
structural. And we've agreed this

Thal, he said, was behind Vic-
toria’s move to try the market-
bused stumpage system and it’s
also behind plans by Forest Renc-
wal B.C. to pump money into re-
search for new hemlock products
and to help the B.C. industry find
new markets in places like Tai-
wan, Korea, India and China.

The foray into market-based
stumpage is also part of Victoria's
plan to try to deflect American
accusations that B.C.'s stumpage
system amounts to an unfair trade
subsidy of B.C. lumber.

The move to market stumpage
in the fow-value coastal stands
could cost the government as
much as $15. million in lost
stunpage in the remainder of this
fiseal year, Hogan said.

CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD

The Mail Bag

Now this is a reality

An open fetter to:
Helmut Giesbrecht, MLA, Skeena

Dear Sir:

You said you wanted the name of someone denied:
adequate health care. Well, | have one for you.

A 74-year-old diabetic lady with high blood
pressure, fluid retention, mobility problems and
difficulty breathing was sent away from the hospital
on March 4, The hospital had sent'a memo to all
doctors the previous day stating that the hospital
would not accept any admissions over the weekend
because there were no nurses or available beds to put
patients in.

She arrived at the haspital in an ambulance. Jt was
quite an ordeal for these people to remove her from
her house due to the way the house was designed with
narrow slairs and hallway and to her size. This was an
ordeal that stripped her of her dignity and in the past
when this was necessary, she apologized profusely to
these care-providers for making their job difficult.

A young woman, with a four-month-old baby, had
found her on the floor of the bathroom. This young
lady had wanted to visit to help pass the time for this
older person while her son was out of town. Luckily
the young lady had a key because the house was
locked tight. We have no idea haw long she was on
the floor,

This fine woman had only been out of the house
once in the past six months — to attend the funeral of
her husband of 52 years. Walking down the hallway of-
her home was an ordeal that caused her to stop to
calch her breath more than once.

She was not afraid to die, She spoke of this with’
calmness saying that she did not want to be taken ta
the hospital ever again. Two major operations in five
years were encugh. She wanted to die as her husband
had, at home surrounded by family,

However, her only son was out of town and she
wanted to see him again. When the doctor at the
hospital said he was going to send her home but there
was a problem with her heart and he wanted her to
come back again the next day to see the specialist,
she begged to be allowed ta stay at the hospital. Her
wish was denied, She knew she would not have the.
strength to return. In her broken English she tried.
again and was denied. There were no beds.

She didn’t return to the hospital on Sunday but she
did return on Monday — to the morgue. She had died
alone in the middle of the night trying to sit up. You
wanted the names and date of inadequate service at.
the hospital - you have one now. When an elderly
lady has to beg to be treated and cared for with
compassion, when she is ignored due to lack of
space, I consider it to be a health care crisis.

You said this perception was in our minds and not
a reality. Tell that to Emilie Borovec. I'll be glad to
tell you where to find her in the graveyard.

Pat Borovec,
Terrace, B.C,’

Way to go, doc»
Dear Sir:

I support Dr. Michael Kenyon when he says what is
“really needed is a body that can run health care at
an arm's length from the provincial government, and,
deal with those that are not worried about next year’s
budget or the next election.”

This would be an effective and responsible body
for an area's citizens, like and elected local hospital
and health care board operating under basic, minimal
government regulations.

It would be a much better system. Priorities first.
Provincial government appointees are not effective in
tunning our hospitals or professionals.

They don’t appear to be competent in running other
government areas, besides the crucial situations and
needs of health care.

The government must put away the games of
funding reductions for professionals and hospital
operations, and allow rational, common sense to
prevail in maintaining good medical and surgical care
in our province, while reducing spending in less
important areas.

Edna Jensen,
Terrace, B.C,

More nurses coming

Dear Sir:

Re: “More Nurses”, Editorial, Oct 11.

You are right, the nurse shortage is leading to bed
closures across the province. I am pleased to report
that the government is supporting our 10 point plan to
address it. At a meeting last week the Minister of
Health, Mike Farnworth, assured me he is committed
to most if not all of the strategies outlined in the plan.
These address the key factors that are essential to
combat the nurse shortage: retention of our current
nurses, education of new nurses here in British
Columbia and effective recruitment of nurses from
other jurisdictions.

The nurse shortage is international in scope and is
poing to get far worse unless comprehensive solutions
such as these are implemented now. The problem has
been years in the making and there are no quick fixes.
Band-aid approaches will not work and may
compromise the nursing care provided to the public.

I draw your attention to item six of the plan. The
public expects registered nurses to be educated to
meet the needs of health care consumers. The issue is
not whether a nurse has a diploma or a degree, the
issue is whether (he entry-level nurse has the
competencies to practice safely in today's health care
system and provide quality care for British
Columbians,

Lorraine Gillespie, RN,
President, Registered Nurses Assoclation of
British Columbla

About the Mail Bag ~

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