A6 Terrace Review — Wednesday, March 28, 1990

_ Well, what is a subsidy?

When the B.C. government, in the form of Dave Parker
_ as Minister of Forests at the time, assured local
government bodies and heads of industry in this region ~
that the Sustut-Takla timber license would be harvested
_without subsidies, it was in the back of everyones minds
that things would just not turn out that way. © |
Still, there’s a certain shock value to the feeling that
either we were-misled or the people who made those
promises simply didn’t know what they were talking
about. It all depends on what your particular definition of

subsidy happens fo be..

-Let’s see if we can find a subsidy here — in October
1989 at the request of Terrace city council, economic
development officer Peter Monteith found the following:
Westar of Hazelton, 200 kilometers geographically closer
to the timber than the Prince George companies which
got the license, offered-$8.71 per cubic meter plus a
$500,000 signing bonus. Prince George Wood Preserving/
Rustad Brothers offered $.25 per cubic meter. Westar’s

" proposal was tied to a $30 million facilities expansion
with no public money; PG Wood proposed an expansion
and got 50 percent of it — totalling $2.225 million —
from a combination of provincial and provincial-federal

loans.

A contract signed by Takla Track and Timber stated
that the companies would rebuild and operate the rail
line. Now the BCR has decided they will rebuild and
operate it, with $25 million in construction costs and
probably another $8 million in rolling stock. The intent is
to recover the investment plus the operating costs through

the freight rates they are pres

timber companies.

enily negotiating with the

Will we have to wait until the 20-year forest license .
expires to determine if this is a transportation subsidy?
Weil, the BCR just finished writing off $81 million it lost
over 10 years ago trying to operate exactly the same

piece of railway.

The railway unions are curr

ently getting the evil eye for

having thrown a wrench into the private enterprise aspect
of this situation. Did the government not consider that

factor in its original. plan?

That would have been_.as stupid as failing to take into
account native land claims in the arca... .

——

THE CARIBBENN COUNTRIES.
WONT HAVE TO REPAY THE
$182 (LLIN WE LENT THEM.

MMOD. PAY

L

Established May 1, 1985
The Terrace Review is published
each Wednesday by
Close-Up Business Services Ltd.

Publisher:
Mark Twyford
Editor:
Michael Kelly
. Staff Reporters:

Tod Strachan, Betiy Barton
Advertising Manager: .
Mar] Twyford
Typesetting:

Carrle Olson
Production Manager:

Jim Hall
Production:

Charles Costelio, Gurbax Gill,
Karyn Kirk, Linda Mercer,
Ranjit Nizar
Office:

Carrie Olson
Accounting:

Marj Twyford, Harminder K. Dosanjh

. Letters to the aditor will be considered for publication: ’ Ly ‘it

Second-class mall
registration No. 6896.

All material appearing in the Terrace Review Is
protected under Canadian copyright Reglstra-
tlon No. 362775 and cannot legally be rapro-

. duced for any reason without permission of the

publisher.

Errore and omissions. Advertising Is accepted
on the condition that in the event of
typographical error, that portion of the advertls-
ing space occupied by the erroneous Item will
not be charged for, bul the batance of the adver:
tisament will be pald for at the applicable rate.

Advertisers must assume responsiblity for er-
rore in any classified ad which!s supplied to the
Terrace Review in handwritten form.

In compllance with the B.C. Human Rights Act,

no advertisement will be published which,

discriminates against a person due to age, race,
raligion, colar, 86x, nationality, ancastry or place
of origin.

4535 Grelg Avenue;
Terrace, B.C.
V8G IM7 =

. Phone: 635-7840
Fax: 635-7269
————————————————— |
One year subscriptions:
In Canada $24,00
Out of Canada $60.00

Seniors In Terrace and District $12.00
Senlors out of Terrace and District $18.00

Please include your telephone number. 2. ee.
The editor reserves the right to condense and: edit letters,

expressed are not necessarily those of the Terrace Keview,

STEEL, “et

fo if
ro “le

by Bob Jackman

Wednesday
so Perspectives :

Relax, Council...loday we go
after the Feds! a
Lawas,a_bit surprised to find ‘that:
the total funding for Women’s —
Resource Centres was only $1.6
million throughout all of Canada.
I wasn’t surprised by the funding
cuts, because there is a strong |
perception among the far right
that the Resource Centres are too |
political, hotbeds of radical leftist
‘thinking. I suspect there have
been a fair number of letters from
Conservative Party faithful de-
manding that the WRC’s be -
abolished ~ first because of
the perception, and second _
because it would take a fair num-
ber of letters to break through the
mind-numbed Ottawa politicians’
consciousness.
~ T remember how strongly Ter-
race City Council was lobbied a
few years ago to kick the women
out of the City-owned house on
Park Avenue. Opponents pointed
out how the building had been
festooned with political posters
during a previous election, and
showed Aldermen copies of anti-
government brochures and other
material that was being distrib-
uted from the Resource Centre.
By the time the vote was taken to
give them a long-term lease,
though, everyone seemed to have
taken a less antagonistic
approach. It’s been pretty quiet
the last couple of years, and
every once in a while a press
release has come out announcing
some new program that the WRC
has started to assist women in
some new area. .

‘But old perceptions die hard, .

' and I guess Mulroney or Wilson,

or whoever decides such things,
had finally received enough

2 7 antl-WRC mail to react. So they

save $1.6 million of federal tax

ne

"I suspect there have been a fair number
of letters from Conservative Party faithful

‘

demanding that the WRC’s be abolished..."

money and kill a perceived politi-
cal threat at the same time.
Shrewd move!

What do they do with the $1.6
million? They find another
$200,000 or so, and (get this!)
they buy one hundred and

fifty twelve-man assault rafts for

the military. 1 don’t know about
you, but I’d be willing to bet that
the outcome of World War II] is
not going to depend on 1,800
Canadian soldiers storming some |
obscure beach in their 150 port-—
able dinghies. Wouldn’t it be a
great idea to track down the
moron who signed the purchase
requisition — total price before
the GST is added, $1,800,000 —
and invite him to a Chamber of
Commerce luncheon in Terrace?
I'd love to hear his rationale!

If that’s not enough, Mulroney
justifics his Caribbean vacation,
taken at our expense of course,
by giving away another $180
million or so to some other cor-
rupt governments.

«Maybe the Reform Party is the
answer. Preston Manning is so
popular that 29 percent of
Albertans are voting Reform
federally, while the Conservatives
and NDP get only 12 percent
each, and the Liberals 17: percent.
Forty-three percent want 10 vote
Reform in the next provincial
election, even though the party
has no provincial wing.

*This is another one of those -
columns that gets mellower after
leaving it sit for a few days. |
just got back from another trip

to the Queen Charlottes, and it’s
hard to get irate, or even to

stay irate, after an overdose of
surf, sand, good food and relaxed
people.

_ With all the attention South
Moresby’s getting, tourists are
beginning to arrive, expecting a
Yellowstone or Banff, and then
discovering there are no roads
into the Park Reserve. I hope it
doesn’t destroy their holiday.

_ ‘Whether it’s because the com-

munities are smaller, or because
of the isolation, a stranger
is an event, and the people have _

‘an openness that invites you to

make the first move toward a
conversation. And unless you
have a plane to catch, the conver-
sations can go on forever.

If even a few people are too
many, you can walk the
shoreline, pick up a few shells,
watch the eagles, and wander
ihrough the old growth forest. For
excitement, you can go fishing.

There’s an old Islands tradition
that says if you drink from
St. Mary’s Spring, a little trickle
beside the road north of Skide-
gate, you'll return one day. I'd
had a sip last year, and as
I drove by on the way to Masset
I just had to stop again.

We've
Touched |
the Heart of —
Someone
You Know.

"B.C. Heart
Foundation