Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 25, 1998

TERRACE:

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

PUBLISHER: ROD LINK
‘ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2
TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432
EMAIL: standard@kermode.net

We're still here

FOR THOSE keeping track, it’s been two years
since the first bad forest industry news hit the
area. Repap (also known as Skeena Cellulose)
began its slide into financial oblivion by delay-
ing yet again payments to contractors and
businesses. And West Fraser announced it was
closing its mill here temporarily.

Repap’s problems had as much to do with high-
level corporate jiggery-pokery as anything else
while West Fraser found itself with high costs
and minimum returns. What was fascinating is
that the bad news came a full year or so before
the general forestry meltdown elsewhere.

Now, two years later, Skeena Cellulose and its
contractors are still,in business thanks to the
provincial government providing financial
stability. West Fraser has scaled down its mill
operations and is looking for innovative ways to
keep its loggers in the bush.

The good news is the area has avoided the large
scale permanent closures and massive layoffs
which are now afflieting other forest-dependent
communities. '

The one hope is that since our troubles came
first in the province, we might therefore be the
first to climb out at the other end.

To be sure, jobs have evaporated and there’s
probably still some ways to go before the indus-
try here recovers. But the point is that skilled
employees remain in the area and the mills aren’t
rusting away. In today’s B.C., that has to say a
lot.

Hey. dude

IF THERE’S any kind of civic medal for dogged
determination, it should go to city councillor
Rich McDaniel and his coalition of busines-
speople, service clubs and young skateboarders
for their absolutely stubborn pursuit of a
skateboard park.

As the cost of the structure keeps rising, Mr. |

McDaniel and company keep plugging along,
raising money and soliciting work-in-kind in the
goal of providing young people with a recrea-
tional alternative to getting into trouble.

Now some may not agree with what’s been
going on, but none can doubt the effort that is
being put into the project.

Just two weeks ago another obstacle was placed
in their path — the estimated $80,000 to remove
dirt and then backfill the suggested location bes-
ide the arena. That’s a lot of money by any stan-
dards and even more so considering the overall
condition of the economy.

The cost sparked yet another debate between
Mr. McDaniel and his council colleagues. And it
also sparked a public display of temperament
from Mayor Jack Talstra. He does this rarely and
it usually happens when a project needs one last
a civic kick in the fanny to succeed.

With that in mind, count on council to figure
out this particular problem and for the
skateboard park to see the light of day.

| ye
1998 WINNER

IER
TER
ERS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR: Rod Link
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur

NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS/SPORTS: Christiana Wiens
NEWS/COMMUNITY: Alex Hamilton
OFFICE MANAGER: Sheila Sandover-Sly
CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Brunette

ON
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Bedford, Bunnie Cote

TELEMARKETER: Patricia Schubrink
AD ASSISTANT: Kelly Jean COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur
AD ASSISTANT/TYPESETTING: Julie Davidson

SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: ;
$56.18 per year; Seniors $49.76; Out of Province $63.13

Outside of Canada (6 months) $155.15
(ALL PRICES INCLUDE GST)

MEMBER OF
B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION. te

CARADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCLATION ey
@ CNA sore previa

AND
B.C. PRESS COUNCIL
Serving the Ferace and Thormbill area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 3210 Clinton Streat,
Torace, Bittish Columbla, VeG SA2.

Stoves, photographs, tlustrations, dasigns and lypestyles in tha Terrace Standard are the property of the
‘ copyright holders, Including Cariboo Prose (1969) Lid., its illustalion repro services and advertising

agencies,
Reproduction in whola or in part, withoul writen permission, §3 epectically prohibited,
Iara ance tol ten my eve i cannort of pslage a csh,
Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
for their time and talents. -

“for USLO

py fot Steal from the

_,,butthen there must be places
tolive that our forefathers
native reo

Liberals divided over

VICTORIA - In less than a
month, following the Parksville-
Qualicum by-election, the B.C.
Legislature will meet to debate
and, because the government has
superiority in numbers, pass the
Nisga’a Treaty.

Pil be very interested to see
how some of the liberal Liberals
will reconcile their leader’s posi-
tion with their own and how, in
the end, they will vote.

A lot of arguments, some
very spurious, have been made
in favor of either scrapping the
treaty and starting over again, or
submitting it to a province-wide
referendum which, the antago-
nists hope, would amount to the
same thing.

“While the government has,

, foolishly-I believe, spent a huge
- amount of money.on selling the -
Nisga’a Treaty to the public, the °

official opposition has trashed it,
admittedly at a much lower cost
to the taxpayers.

Mounting a massive radio,
TV and newspaper advertising
campaign in favor of the treaty
was not a very bright idea.
Wasn’t there anyone in the vast
amy of government information
experts brave enough to point
out the obvious? - a government
with only 11 per cent of the pub-
lic’s support shouldn’t try to sell
anything to anyone. .

_FROM THE CAPITAL ~

HUBERT BEYER

I’m sure some people who
might normally have supported
the treaty are against it for no
other reason than that it has been
concluded by the Clark govern-

. ment, Reminds me of a story an
old arid long-dead friend and col-’

league, Jim Brahan, told of his
father. All his life, Jim said, his
dad, an Irishman of fierce tem-
per, lived by the motto: “If the
government’s for it, I’m agin’
it.”

The Liberals, to some
degree, are motivated by the
same sentiments.

After all, as their designa-

‘ tion — Her Majesty’s Loyal

Opposition - implies, they feel
obliged to oppose just about any-
thing the government proposes.

.

But not every Liberal MLA
might agree with Campbell.
There’s Val Anderson, for
instance, who, as a man of the
cloth, has developed quite a
reputation for championing the

‘poor, the underdog.

I can think of a dozen or
more Liberals who don’t share
their leader’s feelings about the
Nisga’a Treaty, privately, that is.
So far, they haven't publicly dis-
tanced themselves from
Campbell on this issue, but come
the vote, they’ll have to stand up
and be counted.

Mind you, the fact that Clark
has called for a free vote in the
legislature, should go a long way
towards assuaging guilt feelings
by those Liberals who decide to
support the treaty.

Campbell has been slam-

ming the treaty from the begin-
ning. Sure, the Nisga’a “deserve
a treaty as matler of social jus-
tice and practical necessity,”
says Campbell, but not this one.

“Aboriginal people have
rights under the constitution that
need to be clarified and codified,
preferably through negotiated
treaty settlements,” he says, but
rejects the Nisga’a Treaty out of
hand.

For more than a hundred
years, the Nisga’a have been try-

treaty

ing to negotiate a treaty settle- -

ment in good faith. For more

than a hundred years, they were .

ignored and humiliated. And
when, at long last, the two senior
levels of government, at the

eae

.

extreme urging of the courts, -~

have reached an agreement with
the Nisga’a, Campbell wants to

teat it up and go back to the bar-

gaining table.

Perhaps the Liberal leader _

wants ‘o interest the Nisga’a in
some fine blankets and colorful
beads.

For what it’s worth, the e-

mail [ get from readers is usually. ~

a good indicator of how people
feel about important issues. If
they disagree with me, they let
me know, in very certain terms.

I have:-written -several.col-.

‘umms in support of the Nisga’a.

Treaty, and the response runs
about 70-to-30 in favor. What’s

more, opposition to the treaty is ~
centred in the south, whereas in |
the north people are more inter- —
ested in resolving the uncertainty _

of land ownership, which has
been a great disincentive to
investment.

I, for one, look forward to he
tatification of the Nisga’a Treaty.

And I look forward even more to -
seeing how may Liberals will -

support it.

Held hostage by offenders

CHILD ABUSERS and our
laws to curb them leave us all
helpless to rescue a Jost, cold, or
crying kid.

Recently neighbourhood
parents drove past a first grader
walking to school coatless in
cold rain, not because they were
heartless or lacked room in their
cars, They all felt at risk of prase-
cution if they invited him into
their vehicles,

And on a= rainy, chilly
Sunday morning in June, a three-
year-old strolled main street
through Murfreesboro,
Tennessee for thirty minutes
while cars and trucks whizzcds
past him. Roy Pawelski had
crawled out of a first floor win-
dow while his father slept.

A farmer, Jerry Lokey, driv-
ing ‘west through the cily of
50,000 in his pickup noticed
barefoot Roy,

Lokey realized the boy was
at risk of being run over. Lokey

a sits eed

THROUGH BIFOCALS
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

also realized if he touched the
kid, picked him up, or put him in
his truck, he could be charged
with abduction.

Only three weeks earlier
police in Nashville, 50 kilome-
tres. away, had issued an all-
points bulletin looking for a
“man ina van”.

What to do? Lokey decided

BECAUSE TVE

WATCHED OVER

4 GENERATIONS
ON THIS vf
(RARUNES |

to drive alongside Roy like a cow
shielding her calf.

When Roy came to a four
land highway, he ignored the red
light; so did Lokey. Traffic on the
green light slowed to swerve
around Lokey’s pickup.

On the other side of the
intersection, Roy stopped to look
at a truck in a parking lot. That’s
when Lokey hailed a woman
tuming her red car on to Main
Street. Lokey asked her to say
with him until help arrived,

She phoned police on her
cell phone, but she, too, refused
totouch Roy. She joined Lokey’s
procession.

Finally, Viola Russell, look-
ing out her bedroom window,
spotted the creeping cavalcade.
In bare feet and housecoat, she
ran out, scooped shivering Roy
off the pavement, and cuddled
him in her driveway until police
artived,

another officer berated him.
Whether or not incidences of
child molestation have increased,
we cerlainly hear of them daily.
Last Monday kids came home
from Copper Mountain
Elementary School with a note

warning parents a nine-year-old :

boy had been dragged down an
alley the afternoon before while
walking on Eby Street about 6
pm. After a spirited struggle, the
boy managed to flee from a tall,
thin man wearing black with his
face covered,

To protect our children, we

warn them not to walk alone, not”
to be out after dark, never to get
close to a stranger. Molesters .’

have made us all fearful to live,
to be kind to each other, to enjoy
freedom.

Then a judge in Ontario

places a ban on publication of an

offender’s name because the

poor pervert might commit sui-.

One officer praised Lokey; cide out of shame!
AND THATS T] BiG BEAR County §
MY HOMAN!!] | Hee sKoox!! Bur
TOWN FUNNY THING IS L

Aim //. NEVER HAD Ay
PROBLEM WiTH ONE.

pou wa-b. Ee