CORE report unacceptable |
to workers and committees _

he New Democratic government of British Co-
” lumbia did the right thing by establishing the
Commission on Resources and Environment
(CORE) a couple of years ago. With the best in-
tentions at putting a halt to land-use conflicts |
the government said it would give us a process
where all interests groups could sit down and thrash |
out comprehensive strategies to create a balance be-
tween economic and environmental concerns.

Never in our wildest dreams did we think that the |
lengthy CORE process would give us something like
Stephen Owen's recommendations on Vancouver Is-
land.(see cover story re. Victoria protest).

Instead of creating a balance between the environ-
ment and the economy, Mr. Owen has opted for preser-
vation - not balance. His recommendations have several
blunders which are unacceptable to workers and re-
source dependent communities.

Mr. Owen has said to us that the way to change log-
ging practices and improve forest management is to
lock up all the forests. He has drawn a green line
around 23 new parks on the Island but has forgotten to
draw a line around the working forest and call it a For-
est Land Reserve.

|
|
|
At the CORE table there was consensus on a new cat- |
|

egories of lands to be managed with intensive forestry
methods. Mr. Owen chucked out that consensus and in-
stead of continuing to apply integrated management
across the whole landscape to protect special values
while harvesting timber, he recommended that we lock
up 13.2% of the Island and an additional 8% as “regional-
ly significant lands.”

Instead of agreeing that four major watersheds (the
Tahsish-Kwois, Tsitika, Walbran, and Carmanah) that
have already had public processes go ahead on their
agreed upon plans, Owen says they should be locked up
completely. Owen ignored years of previous planning

done in the Tsitika and Tahsish-Kwois. He simply cir- |
cled both areas with his green pen. |

Instead of giving us assurances that integrated re-
source management within the upcoming Forest Prac-
tices Code will apply to the so called “regionally
significant lands,” Owens has put those categories into
a special category all on their own.

The most gut-wrenching part of Owen's report is that |
instead of demanding that government commit a specif- |
ic level of funding to a transition program that would |
created new forest industry jobs, he leaves us with a |
woolly promise.

The working people of Vancouver Island have hadall |
the job loss threats that they can stand. The Owen re-
port is just a callously bureaucratic attempt to cater to
the preservationists. |

The Owen report, if unchallenged would set a danger-
ous precedent for the CORE process in the years ahead.
Workers and communities are unanimously speaking |
against it. |

The only consolation for the report is that it is only
recommendations. The report sits in front of the NDP |

|
|
|
|
j

Cabinet. It will make the final decisions. |
One thing is for sure. The Harcourt government
knows loud and clear that the we will not accept a |
13.2% set aside of lands and we will also not accept the |
additional set aside of 8% as “regionally significant |
lands.” |
Our government must respect its workers and this in- |
dustry. The workers in the forest industry have helped |
to build British Columbia. |
We are proud of what we have built and what we do. |
We say “NO!” to the Owen Report. |

LUMBER

Official publication of WA-CANADA

}

N GARCIA GERRY STONEY . . President

agente NEIL MENARD . . Ist Vice-President
FRED MIRON . . 2nd Vice-President |

WARREN ULLEY . . 3rd Vice-President
5th Floor, HARVEY ARCAND ... dth Vice-President
1285 W. Pender Street ‘TERRY SMITH |. Secretary-Treasurer |
Vancouver, B.C. |

V6E 4B2

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For LOGGERS-

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INFORMATION
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EDUCATIONAL
DISPLAY

OQVRICE4

Chretien government abandons opposition to

The new North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAF-
TA) is well under way and
Canadian Prime Minister Jean
Chretien is now one of its

| Iargest supporters. In true Lib-

eral fashion, Chretien sound-
ed like a New Democrat
before the election and is act-
ing like a Conservative after
the election.

He and his party were sup-
posed to be opponents of the
free trade agenda and then
they got elected. Remember

| their pre-election campaign to

scrap the NAFTA if they

| couldn’t get the United States

to agree to a new subsidy
code, anti-dumping rules, and
a energy security agreement
for Canada? Of course the
Liberals did not get anything
for Canada. Now they are sell-
ing NAFTA. In late March the

| Prime Minister led a contin-

gent of Canadian politicians
and bureaucrats to Mexico to

| throw the full support of the

government behind the deal.

| This took place during the

time of the assassination of
presidential candidate Luis
Donaldo Colosio, the hand-
picked choice of the ruling

| PRI party which has held

power in Mexico for over 65
years.

The assassination has
caused considerable panic for

| the Mexican establishment

which moved quickly to as-
sure investors that there
would be nothing to worry
about. Jean Chretien was
quoted in the Mexican press
as saying that “Mexico is a
stable democracy” just prior

| to the shooting.

Of course that is a lie.
In Mexico the government

| was fraudulently elected in
| 1988. Therefore it is not a

democracy. It is not stable ei-

| ther.

On January 1, 1994 the NAF-
TA hit Mexico like a storm
when an uprising of Mexican

| peasants in the southern

state of Chiapas began. The

uprising was planned to coin-
cide with the onset of the
NAFTA and the serious effects
that its implementation is hav-
ing on the rural descendants
of the Mayan Indians.

In recent years over 15,000
peasants have been removed
for their ancestral lands as the
Mexican government has
been clearing the way for
large-scale, export-oriented
agri-businesses. An influx of
subsidized corn from the U.S.
has ensured the Mayans’ tra-
ditional crops of corn can no
longer support them.

There are going to be
tougher times for the Mexican
farmers in the years to come.
The World Bank, one of the
NAFTA’s main supporters, pre-
dicts that in the first five years
of the new trade agreement
up to 300,000 Mexican farm-
ers could abandon their lands
as competition from the U.S.
drives them out of business
and deeper into poverty.

The same goes for Canadi-
an farmers. In late 1993 the
Chretien government rolled
over when the international
GATT body ruled that our sup-
ply management marketing
boards have to be abolished.

The U.S. has told Canada
that any new tariffs against
their agricultural products
will be quickly phased out un-
der the NAFTA. So similar to
Mexican farmers, Canadian
farmers are under attack.
Tens of thousands of our
small scale farmers are going
to be driven out of business
from subsidized U.S. competi-
tion.

The Liberals are showing
less concern for workers.
Once defenders of the unem-
ployment insurance system,
they are now attacking the
unemployed (see article oppo-
site page President’s Mes-
sage). The standards for
workers in Canada are being
lowered. They are making it
tougher for the jobless to get
benefits and when they do get

NAFTA and becomes its leading supporter

benefits they are greatly re-
duced and periods of entitle-
ment are shortened.

Free trade was supposed to
be the great job creator. Why
then do we have over 11% of
Canadians on UIC? Those
numbers are much greater
when we add up all of those
on welfare and those who
have quit looking for work.

As Canadians continue to
lose thousands of manufactur-
ing jobs each month our
prime minister gets into bed
with the Mexicans and the
Americans who are pushing
free trade. At the same time
there is a revolt of the unem-
ployed building in Canada.

An uprising may take place
in Mexico and others may be
on their way but it’s business
as usual for the transnational
corporations. In mid-January
Canada’s ambassador to Mex-
ico said the uprising had no
effect whatsoever on the level
of interest that Canadian in-
vestors have in Mexico.

For multi-national corpora-
tions, human rights issues are
of no importance. The rights
of labour are of no impor-
tance either. After all they are
going to Mexico in order to
exploit cheap labour.

At the same time labour
standards in Canada and the
United States are under at-
tack. These attacks will in-
crease under NAFTA as the
deal is fully implemented.

In mid-February Canada’s
Business Council on National
Issues led of blue-ribbon dele-
gation of chief executive offi-
cers to Mexico City to
promote stronger ties with
Mexico’s political and busi-
ness elite.

Now added to the list of
salesmen is Jean Chretien,
Prime Minister of Canada and
former opponent of NAFTA.
Chretien and his party have
betrayed the Canadian people
and have perpetrated their
own unique brand of electoral
fraud.

LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 1994/5