A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 14, 2002 TERRACE) STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, [988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C, « V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (25()) 638-7283 « FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEB: www.terracestandard.com EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com Wood woes THE PROVINCIAL Liberal government has a. solid opportunity in the northwest to put people back to work and to fulfil its mandate of en- cOuraging an entrépreneurial spirit it said was all but snuffed out during the NDP years. in power. And that’s to take every effort possible to make available small amounts of wood for small operators. In many ways, this would return the region to the early days of 20th century settlement when individuals or small groups of people using sweat and ingenuity and fuelled by optimism hewed out a living from the forest. That kind of spirit survived for a good num- ber of years. But as the provincial government moved to manage the business of forestry through regulation and licensing, small mills gave way to larger ones to the point that today there is a rather substantial bureaucracy dealing with a few very large players. This sounds rather comfortable — big govern- ment doing business with big companies — but as events have shown in the northwest when things go wrong for whatever reason, they go terribly wrong. That’s why groups such as the Skeena Timber Trust with a vision of small operators deliver- ing wood to a common log yard for sale to the highest bidder should be encouraged. It’s not as if there isn’t any wood available, Skeena Cellulose obviously hasn’t logged any- where close to its licensed amounts in the past several years, theoretically freeing up more than enough to satisfy small operators. If Skee- na Cellulose isn’t using the wood, then turn it over to somebody who just might make good use of it. The province might even consider forgoing any revenue from wood assigned to small oper- ators. It isn’t getting anything for it now, so it has nothing to lose, Call it an experiment. Give the effort the usual fancy name governments love to assign to programs. Call it anything, but just do something. . There is no way the number of small opera- tors in the northwest can ever match or surpass the kind of economic power generated by large forest companies. Yet any job that might result by fostering small operators is a job that doesn’t exist now. If it keeps people in the northwest, if it puts food on the table then let it rip. This may sound naive, but the point to re- member is that the B.C. Liberals were elected to establish a framework in which the entrepre- neurial spirit can thrive and wealth can be cre- ated. Entrepreneurialism doesn’t guarantee suc- cess. But it does offer people the chance to suc- ceed and that chance is something lacking right now in the northwest. 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Stories, photographs, Illustrations, designs and typestylas in ihe Terrace Standard are the proparty of the copyright holders, Including Cariboo Press (1969) Lie, its Mlustralion repro services and advertising agancles. : Reproduction In whola or in part, without written parmission, is spacifically prohibited. Authorized as second-class mail periding [ha Post Office Department, for payment ol postage in cash. B.C, PRESS COUNCIL {www.bepresscouncll.crg) Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents — WE NEEP A LEADER WHO CAN BEAT CHRETIEN. A LEADER CANADIANS CAN GET BEHIND. SOMEONE WHO WILL INFUSE NEW BLOOD INTO THE PROGRESSIVE —~) SGiee Once eS CONSERVATIVE PARTY, OR ILE C2 Rail lines bringing Europe together COLOGNE - If memory serves me correctly, the cost overrun of building the Coqui- halla Highway in time for Expo 86 was close to 4 billion deltars. That’s chicken feed, com- pared to the difference in the original estimate and the act- ual cost of building a high- speed rail service between Cologne and Frankfurt, Ger many. The cost of the 177-kilo- metre stretch was originally estimated at $3.75 billion (ail figures in Canadian dollars). When the first train left Co- logne last week, the actual cost had reached $9 billion. The line is one of the most impressive infrastructure pro- jects of post-war Europe. It in- volved the construction of 18 bridges spanning deep valleys, and 30 tunnels. Supporting the rails is not the usual gravel, but solid concrete, the only way +o . allow the trains to safely tra- . vel at a speed of 300km an hour. By itself, the Cologne- Frankfurt connection would. not be of great enough impor- tance to justify the expense, but the service will be integra- ted into a third-generation Trans-European high-speed rail transportation system that will eventually connect all coun- Harsher sente IT’S 8:30 Saturday morning and you’re bustling about your diiveway provisioning your first river boat for a weekend of fishing. As you stow gear, you admire the boat’s sleek aluminum hull cradled on a trailer haoked behind your late model 4 x 4 pickup. You've scrimped months to pay for this 22 footer. Everything is finally aboard except ice. You borraw your wife’s Honda for a last minute trip to’ the nearest convenience store. As you drive off, you wave to Fred atop a ladder among his cherry trees, and see Herman pulling weeds in his rock gar- den. In no time you’re back with the ice. You can’t believe it's your driveway. Your boat and pickup are gone. You race through the open gatage into the house expect- ing to find something missing or disturbed. In fact a quick in- spection shows no sign of theft or vandalism in any room. Months later you’te sitting in court listening as the thief’s lawyer defends him. The law- yer argues that the theft wasn’t FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER lries of the European Union. The new line is a vital part of a north-south axis between Amsterdam and points south in Switzerland and Italy, as well as a south-east axis leading to _ Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade and Athens. As such, the new line is but another of the myriad of build- ing blocks that have forged and. are still forging a united : * Europe. Post-war European politi- cians, especially German lea- ders, realized that the only way to a peace on a continent whose nations had savaged each other for centuries lay in the creation of an econamic entity whose members not only worked together but were dependent on each other. German leaders from Kon- THROUGH BIFOCALS: CLAUDETTE SANDECKI planned; it happened during the day, with people in the area, and the thief knew you would be returning. Why else would you leave the garage door up? To your disbelief, the judge accepts the lawyer’s. defence as a strong submission, noting that the theft was interrupted before anything more serious happened, After all, the thief could have ransacked your home, too. Now, don’t you feel less bit- ter about having your boat and MINERALIZED QUARTZ VEINS! rad Adenauer, the country’s first chancellor, to Helmut Kohl, knew that it was neces- sary to tie up Germany in this new European Community (EC) in such a way that she could never again be a danger to her neighbours. And although Germany ioday is the most powerful partner of the 12-member EC, its predominance is rooted in matters economic, not mili- lary. And the recent introduction of a common currency, the euro, only underlines the im- portance of the EC, one of the greatest political achieve- ments of the previous century. Back to the high-speed train: Since the service con- nects the Frankfurt and Co- logne airports, it is expected to be in direct competition with the Lufthansa airline, which operates between the two ci- fies, 0, ' ‘Considering. the time it takes to get to the airport and to the city centre at the other end, the airline does not have much of a chance to compete with the high-speed train, When high-speed trains began operating between Hamburg Berlin, it didn’t take very long before Lufthansa cancelled its service between the two cities. There is, of course, no short- age of critics who predict that the new service will never operate at a profit, but suppor- ters point to the 250-km long high-speed rail service between Paris and Marseilles, which began operating last year, It, too, was panned by the critics, but turned out to be more popular and successful than even its most ardent sup- porters had hoped for. After just one year, the ser- vice logged 18 million passen- gers, about six million more than the previous connection, which operated at considerably lower speed. Originally, the French rail authorities expected a $115 million deficit in the first year. But unexpectedly high usage reduced that to an actual deficit of $90 million. And cur- rent passenger prowth indicates that next year, the line will operate at a profit. Later this week I will have. . _ an opportunity to travel on the new train to Cologne. From . Cologne it’s on to Edinburgh, via Paris and London. On Aug. 15, Pil be back home. It’s about time. Hubert Beyer is a Victoria- based political affairs column- ist. Beyer can be reached at: £-mail: hubert@cooicom.com; Tel (250) 381-6900. neces needed truck stolen, your fishing weekend — and many more — wiped out? Don’t you agree that your thief’s sentence should be minimal, certainly in line with previous sentences for similar thefts? No property owner would ac- cept those defense arguments. Yet those are the arguments a lawyer used ta successfully defend a local man convicted of sexually assaulting a 14- year-old girl. The lawyer ar- gued the offender didn’t plan the attack; he found himself alone with the girl in his house and merely took advantage of the opportunity, His attack took place during the day (so much less trau- matic for the child than if he had assaulted her after midnight), people were walk- ing by on the street (no doubt another comfort for the terri- fied child), and he knew his friend would be returning, Are we to give him credit for deci- sive action, seizing both the moment and the teenager? The lawyer’s clinching de- fense? The attack was inter- rupted before anything serious you HAVE NOS You HAVE TO AN happened...thanks to passerby who heard the girl’s screams, broke into his home and inter- ceded. For that the lawyer asks the court and society to reward the attacker with leniency. Confining sentences to a nar- row range as set by precedent is a goal of Canadian law. Any judge audacious or outraged enough (is any judge ever out- raged? Or would that be grounds for dismissal from the bench?) to add a day or dollar to a sentence or a fine will have his sentence appealed to a higher court. The higher court will slash the sentence back to the rou- tine or precedent range in ' keeping with standard practice. It requires an act of parlia- ment ta increase the range of sentences. Given our ossified political ‘leadership, more in- tent upon climbing to the top of the political heap than govern- ing the country for the benefit of all its citizens, parliament is unlikely to ever side with vic- tims and the protection of soc- iety against lawbreakers. Coo- kie cutter sentencing will be with us forever. MAKE A Livind- From il! WEES