— ae

November 12, 1990
50 cents
Volume 53, No. 39

<€3>

Rafferty Dam:
part of the
trade deal?
— page 6 —

British labour
debating
the future

—page 9 -

NPA grip challenged
as Van votes Nov. 17

The Vancouver civic election looms, and
the ruling coalition might be in trouble.

Don’t count your chickens before they
hatch, civic progressives warn. Just be
aware that voter dissatisfaction could make
downtown eastside activist Jim Green a
mayor and puta majority of COPE and Civic
New Democrats on city council.

Aldermanic candidates for COPE — the
Committee of Progressive Electors — say

the dominant Non-Partisan Association has
several black eyes which could add up to a
knock-out on election day, Nov. 17.

Long-standing COPE alderman and can-
didate Bruce Eriksen puts it succinctly:
“People are mighty pissed off with (Mayor
Gordon) Campbell and the NPA.”

Bruce Yorke, a former COPE council
member seeking election, says the left is
unified while divisiveness rules within the

RCMP force down Native blockade

RCMP officers remove a man from
the Duffey Lake Road blockade last
Tuesday. The blockade was mounted
by the Lil’Wat Nation near Pemberton
four months ago, in solidarity with
the Mohawk barricades in Quebec.
The government expropriated the
land surrounding the road which
runs through Lil’Wat territory after
the blockade was mounted July 12.
Sixty-three Natives were arrested,

and most were bussed to jail cellsin |

Vancouver after refusing to sign dec-
larations that they would attend trial
in B.C. Supreme Court. A communi-

que from the Lil’Wat Nation People’s |

Movement declares the province has

no authority over the Natives’ ter- |
ritory, never ceded by treaty. The |
communique also demands repara- |
tion for logging, pesticide spraying, |
and the destruction of pictographs |

and Native sacred grounds, as well
as the removal of a PCB storage

facility held responsible for pollution
to local salmon spawning grounds. |

Movement spokesperson Terri John

(r) charged that police roughed up |

many of those arrested.

city’s right-wing forces and voter dissatis-
faction is high, even among traditional NPA
supporters.

Yorke said there is more than a 50-50
chance Green, organizer of the Downtown
Eastside Residents Association and a
popular figure in Vancouver, may upset two-
time incumbent Campbell.

It’s hard to avoid the David-and-Goliath

see VOTE page 2

By KIM GOLDBERG

NANAIMO — While members of the
Tlowitsis-Mumtagila First Nation spent last
week in court here seeking an injunction
against logging their “scared shrine” and
burial place, a Friends of the Tsitika group
has formed to aid the on-site resistance to
logging in the contested watershed.

On Nov. 6, after B.C. Supreme Court
Justice Douglas MacKinnon refused for the
second day in a row to grant a temporary
injunction against logging in the lower
Tsitika Valley while the Natives’ case could
be heard, environmentalists called an emer-
gency meeting in Nanaimo to map out a
strategy.

“Tt’s a farce to allow logging to continue
while the legal process is underway,”
Western Canada Wilderness Committee
director Laurie Gourlay said.

Gourlay, who is one of 17 people arrested
in the Tsitika since MacMillan Bloedel
began logging a 27-hectare block in Oc-
tober, said Friends of the Tsitika will help
organize and expand the resistance group
camped near the logging site.

The Tlowitsis-Mumtagila band, based in
Alert Bay on northem Vancouver Island, has
been incourt since Nov. 5 seeking an injunc-
tion against logging until their comprehen-
sive land claim is settled. Justice Mac-
Kinnon was expected to hand down a
decision Nov. 9.

The band members say the area currently
being logged, which drains into the world
famous killer whale rubbing beach at Rob-
son Bight, has great spiritual and cultural
significance for them and that some of the
trees are burial sites.

“My people speak of this place as our
most sacred territory,” hereditary chief John
Smith said. “It would cause irreparable harm
to my people if we were to lose this place...In
our culture people were buried in trees, par-
ticularly the children. Their spirit would be
left in the care of the tree. It is my belief that
there are ancestors of Tlowitsis-Mumtagila
in the trees currently being logged.”

The dispute has re-opened a rift between
woodworkers, Natives and environmen-
talists — a rift many accuse MacMillan
Bloedel of actively manufacturing.

Upon arriving in Nanaimo for their first
day in court, band members were met by a
1,000-strong rally of lo, from around

see NB page 12