PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Election sees class
divisions reappear

by Gerry Stoney

s we continue to analyze the recent
, NDP election victory in British Co-
\ lumbia there will no doubt be many

\ factors to consider. During the cam-

paign a straight forward concept
iJ \_ twas introduced by Glen Clark to
the electorate.

It was simply that the NDP is on the side of
working people. When Clark introduced the
concept that he was going to fight for the in-
terests of the middle class, he was labeled as
a class warrior by the media in efforts to dis-
credit the NDP. Even Gordon Campbell said
that Clark was trying to ignite class warfare in
the province.

Clark responded to his critics by saying the
big challenge in Canada is dealing with the
squeeze on the middle class and the increas-
ing disparity between rich and poor.

Until Clark brought that out during the
campaign, the. whole concept that different
groups in society have different interests and
status had been largely forgotten.

Even though, over the past twenty years,
there has been a huge transference of wealth,

power and privilege from the middle and low-
er classes to the upper classes, there has been
a general moratorium on discussion of these

issues during elec-
tion campaigns as if
there is some sort
of stigma attached.

Outside of the
trade union move-
ment there has been
some unwritten
code, followed by
the media, that dis-
cussion about the
redistribution of
wealth is somehow
impolite or nasty.

So then along
came Glen Clark
saying that the shift
in wealth and pow-
er can’t go on forev-
er and a chord was
struck with the mid-
dle class.

Blue collar people and lower income peo-
ple have really been taking it on the chin dur-
ing the last two decades by public policy mea-
sures that were intended to have that effect.

A study by the Canadian Council on Social
Development, comparing family incomes in
1984 versus 1993 reveals that the middle class
has suffered an annual drop of about
$1,144.00. Looking at the bottom 20% of soci-
ety, annual incomes have declined by almost a
third or about $2,492.00 per year.

At the same time the top 20% of income
eamers have seen their incomes increase by
about $5,000.00 a year.

The study says that if the bottom 60% of
families held their 1984 ground, they would

have had access to
about $5.2 billion
which works out to
130,000 full-time jobs
paying $40,000 a year.

A report released by
Clark when he was Fi-
nance Minister over
three years ago said
the Bank of Canada’s
high interest rates poli-
cy cost B.C. about
52,000 jobs in 1991
alone.

Clark has shown
that the NDP has not
lost its identity with
working people. In
1991 the party won on
the promise that it
could provide a clean
and honest alternative
to the corrupt Socred Vander Zalm regime.

In 1996 Clark refocused the economic de-
bate from one of hysterics to one of choice.
Do voters support measures that protect and
enhance benefits that are enjoyed by all or do
they want to engage in radical restructuring
that is best unproven or at the worst repre-
sents a windfall gain for those who have al-
ready enjoyed privileged power?

The results in B.C. show that Clark’s ap-
proack and version of choice has a basis of
support that has carries his government to a
second term. We need to expand that base
during this new term to demonstrate that an
NDP approach to government can work in
other provinces as well.

History repeats itself
in Ontario's forests

by Kim Pollock

7 gnore the past and you're bound to repeat it, a
istorian wrote long ago.

Provincial politicians in Ontario should be

seriously reminded of that warning these
|| days.
i_J There, a fiercely pro-business, anti-union
government, is severely cutting the province's for-
est management budget. In all, the Ontario Min-
istry of Natural Resources has lost 2100 positions -
about 40 percent of total employees.

In particular, it appears the Conservative ‘gov-
ernment wants to scale back its monitoring and
enforcement of forest practices, reduce measures
to protect biodiversity and even allow companies
to inspect and regulate themselves.

Announcing over $100 million in operating and
capital cuts in the Ministry of Natural Resources,
Ontario Management Board chairman David John-
son pledged to continue managing toward eco-
nomic and ecological sustainability.

But the real meaning of Ontario’s new buzz-
words - “eliminate activities that are not core busi-
ness” and “streamline...forest management opera-
tions” - can be seen in the new meaning of
“compliance”: companies will now “conduct in-
spections of their operations and identify areas
where standards and guidelines have not been fol-
lowed.”

This is a complete reversal of direction for for-
est management in Ontario. Under the defeated
New Democratic Party government, real gains
were made toward sustainable harvest levels, envi-
ronmentally-sound forest practices, improved lev-
els of reforestation and balance between timber
harvesting and other forest values, such as preser-
vation of biodiversity and protection of fish
streams.

“We weren't always 100 percent in agreement
with them, but they were on the right track,” says
I.W.A. CANADA National Second Vice President
Fred Miron, who served on the NDP government’s
ground-breaking Forest Policy Panel, which re-
ported in 1993.

The NDP created a new business relationship
between the province and forest companies, car-
ried out a sweeping audit of practices on Crown
jot land and passed the 1995 Forest Sustainabil-
ity Act.

This record partly explains Ontario's ability to

avoid protests and inter-
national boycotts.

Miron says: “The new
government and the for-
est companies are going
to pay in the long run. It’s
long-term pain for short-
term gain.”

If this all sounds
painfully familiar to
I.W.A. CANADA mem-

ga bers in British Columbia,

1 \ | it’s no surprise.
i A The former Social
Credit government of
B.C. adopted a policy of “sympathetic administra-
tion,” which amounted to the proposition that the
province’s Ministry of Forests should let forest
companies do anything they needed to survive the

economic downturns of the 1980's.

Coupled with the So-

vides the only realistic hope of sustainable em-
ployment, high living standards and steady govern-
ment revenues.

But the government also knew that British
Columbians’ faith in the industry was so eroded
that it needed some strong medicine. It got it, in
the form of a tough Forest Practices Code; sharply
reduced annual allowable cuts in many regions;
doubling of the area included in provincial parks
and difficult land-use planning processes the
forced industry, workers, communities and greens
to sit down and hammer out solutions to forest-
use conflicts.

1.W.A. CANADA has supported the govern-
ment’s forestry policy, but not because it has come
without costs, both in access to timber and in time
and resources spent responding to the govern-
ment’s many initiatives.

In spite of the B.C. Forest Renewal Plan, which
aims to create jobs through intensive silviculture,
forest rehabilitation,

creds’ view that
forestry is a “sunset in-
dustry” - that the best
years and the best tim-
ber are behind us and
we simply need to
cream as much as the
resource as we can be-
fore something better
comes along - sympa-
thetic administration
was another “short-

There will a high price
paid for an increase in
Sorest degradation and

green-group activities in
Ontario

value-added processing
and retraining, there is
still downward pres-
sure on union jobs in
the B.C. industry.

It's still too soon to
see whether new poli-
cies of Glen Clark’s re-
cently reelected NDP
government will re-
verse the trend.

term gain” strategy.

The long-term pain was severe and we're still
feeling it.

One result was a long period during which the
effects of technological change in the forest indus-
try was not matched by any effort to create new
jobs. The impact of the two major recessions of
1982 and 1989 was compounded by job reductions
due to tech change.

Another source of pain was a long, drawn-out
and ugly “war in the woods.” As the Socreds al-
lowed higher cut rates and bigger progressive
clearcuts, British Columbians became increasingly
concerned. When the government ignored those
concerns, some environmental groups turned to
road blockades and other confrontations with log-
gers; others promoted international boycotts of
our forest products.

A long series of “environmental hot spots” cul-
minated in the messy Clayoquot Sound situation
through the hot summer of 1993.

That was the painful disease. The “cure” has
also proved painful - and it’s not over either. The
NDP government of Mike Harcourt, elected in
1991, took a longer term view of the forest indus-
try. They agreed that far from a sunset industry,

the forest industry is B.C.’s meal ticket and pro-

This is the history
that Ontario ignores
should the provincial government plow ahead with
its own, new version of sympathetic administra-
tion. There will almost inevitably be an increase in
forest degradation, tech change without any jobs
strategy and green-group activism. That’s a high
price to pay for a lesson that British Columbians
have already learned.

In the many years since I.W.A pioneers like
Harold Pritchett launched pleas for “sustained
yield” forestry, we know that companies shouldn't
monitor their own performance.

“Forestry operations must leave to future gener-
ations of Canadians a rich endowment of fish and
wildlife, soils capable of supporting varied ecosys-
tems and forest managed to provide many more
jobs and the wide range of forest recreations that
Canadians value,” says our Forest Policy.

We've long ago learned that won't happen with-
out government involvement, planning and pres-
sure. Unfortunately, it looks like the government
and forest workers in Ontario are going to be
forced to learn it again.

Kim Pollock is the Director of I.W.A. CANADA’s
Environment and Land-Use Department.

a

_ ALUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1996