Nisga’a settlement
offers stability

by Dave Haggard

headed up to the signing ceremony of the
| land claims agreement between the Nisga’a
_ Tribal Council and the federal and B.C. gov-
: | ernments on August 4 which was held in
| the community of New Aiyansh, in the Nass
=i Valley.
On behalf of the I.W.A., I went to witness this
historic event for First Nations and non-aborigi-
nal people of British Columbia, one that we all
can be proud. After more than a century of
neglect and now years of negotiations, Canadi-
ans reached a respectable agreement with the
Nisga’a people. ;

The settlement gives the Nisga’a control over
about 11% of their original claim and nearly
$500 million in monetary compensation which
will be paid out over a number of years to aid in
economic development.

The transition provisions in the agreement
guarantee forest companies operating in the
area their allowable cuts for five years. Over the
next five years, the Nisga’a central government
will do the harvesting, with the agreement to
supply wood to local mills. The Nisga’a will not
build their own mill for at least 10 years.

We are confident that our members working
in the region will not be negatively affected by
the settlement. It provides better protection for

workers than we
have historically
seen from forest com-
panies and we should
be optimistic as a
result. In addition,
both provincial and
federal labour laws
will remain in place
on Nisga’a territory.

The Nisga’a peo-
ple care about the
same things that
I.W.A. CANADA
people do — the

uture of the land,
employment oppor-
tunities and commu-
nity stability. There
is no reason to be-
lieve that there won’t
be work opportuni-
ties on Nisga’a land
in the future, for
Nisga’a and non-aboriginal peoples alike.

After the transfer of land and harvesting
rights, the B.C. Forest Practices Code will still
apply and silvicultural obligations will be
remain.

Those politicians who are calling for a refer-
endum on the settlement, B.C. Liberal leader
Gordon Campbell, federal Reform leader Pre-
ston Manning and B.C. Reform leader Bill Van-
der Zalm are just playing politics.

They know that the government can’t change
the rules of the treaty process now, after years
of good faith negotiations under rules agreed to
by Vander Zalm when he was Premier.

A series of decisions by the Supreme Court of
Canada beginning in 1973, said that the federal
and provincial governments owe First Nations

people and that land
claims settlements have
to be negotiated. All
sides have sat down to
negotiate the Nisga’a in
good faith, making con-
cessions along the way.

A referendum vote on
the agreement, which
would essentially be a
vote on the minority
rights, would cause
chaos and uncertainty,
which is the last thing
that the parties need.

The Nisga’a deal will
put more pressure on
the federal and provin-
cial governments to deal
with First Nations land
claims in an upright and
honest way. This coun-
try has over 500,000 Sta-
tus Indians and spends
more than $4 billion a year in federal finances
on programs that are largely unsuccessful in
assisting First Nations people. “#

Since 1876 the Indian Act has placed aborigi-
nal people as wards of the state, has put them
in shackles and has ignored their legal right for
self deteeminguore 4 com

Only two years ago, unemployment in village
NE Aiyansh, inhabited by 90% Nisga’a,
exceeded 60%. The recent settlement will go a
long way to correct past wrongs and create new
economic opportunities for the Nisga’a and non-
aboriginal partners.

Human decency says Canadians have an
obligation to settle land claims in all parts of
the country. It’s time for the country to be hon-
est and fair to its original inhabitants.

LANDS AN ES

Saskatchewan needs
long term strategy

by Kim Pollock

E jhe wide, open prairie, the big blue sky
and miles and miles of...trees. That’s
Saskatchewan. But it’s a Saskatchewan
that few people in the province actually
recognize. Most of the province’s popu-
lation never see the vast expanse of
northern boreal forest — the focus for them is
dryland prairie farming.

But most Saskatchewanians likely fail to
realize that the geographic centre of their
province lies north of Prince Albert, near Mon-
treal Lake: that means that over half of
Saskatchewan is forested.

Those forests are home to a thriving forest
industry, which generates over 5,000 direct
jobs, pays about $125 million in wages and con-
tributes over $330 million to Saskatchewan’s
balance of trade, according to Statistics Canada.
In fact, that can only increase as Saskatchewan
encourages new investment in an industry that
enjoys an excellent forest resource and unfet-
tered — or at least unquota-ed — access to the
USS. market.

In fact, those job and export numbers could
increase substantially. The province’s New
Democratic Party government is currently
reviewing Forest Management Licence Agree-
ments with two of Saskatchewan’s biggest for-
est licencees, Weyerhaueser and SaskFor
MacMillan. The outcome of these reviews will
determine the shape the forest sector for years
to come.

Chances are that SaskFor MacMillan, a joint
venture between MacMillan Bloedel and the
provincial Crown Investment Corporation in
northeast Saskatchewan, will expand in the
near future. Weyerhaueser, which under the
disgraced former Conservative government
was granted access to a huge expanse of Crown
land on the northwest side of the province, has
also promised future expansion.

As well, several companies are lined up to vie
for a slice of Weyerhaueser’s huge FMLA area.
These firms have each promised economic
development or have indicated they would use
pncreaeed access to timber to secure existing
jobs.

“We have to secure existing jobs first and
foremost,” says I.W.A Canada Local 1-184 pres-

our resources to create
new jobs and future
opportunities in our for-
est-based communities.”

Government represen-
tatives appear to agree.
While politicians and
bureaucrats we met in
late June and early July
believe there have to be
sustainable forest prac-

Be y tices, they also believe
| NE a | Saskatchewan has to
Metin Vi improve its ratio of jobs

to timber harvested,
which is currently among the lowest of any
jurisdiction in Canada.

At the same time, government officials agree
Saskatchewan also has to take steps to reverse
the legacy of poor past forest management,
especially in northeastern Saskatchewan.
Licencees in the 1960’s and ‘70’s practiced a
form of high grading, in

Hon SaskPower, for instance, would be a nat-
ural.

Progress on restocking of NSR would also
help solve another problem, that of severe
waste of wood in the bush. This is especially a
problem for SaskFor MacMillan, a company
that has to deal with a number of logistics prob-
lems in its efforts to operate efficiently.

SaskFor MacMillan, for instance, operates a
sawmill at-Carrot River, an OSB plant anda
plywood plant at Hudson Bay. At the same
time, it and other companies must sell aspen
chips to Weyerhaueser, which operates one of
the province’s two pulp mill in Paiieg Albert
(the other is in Meadow Lake). While the com-
pany has worked hard to apportion the right
spruce sawlogs and OSB inputs to the right
foci there is a constant surplus of aspen for
chips.

As as result, SaskFor MacMillan tends to leave
large quantities of felled aspen lying in the
woods. Bro, Paul Hallen of Local 1-184 andI saw
thousands of cubic

which softwood — mainly
spruce — was creamed,
while aspen and other
hardwood species were
left behind. Now there is
a growing shortage of
softwood for lumber or
plywood and an over-
abundance of hardwood
for oriented strand board.

As a result, Sask-

. Saskatchewan needs to
invest to insure a long term
supply of high quality
timber to build a strong
future for the industry.

metres of it when we
investigated some of
the company’s cutblocks
near Porcupine Plain
one day recently. It’s a
problem the compan:
acknowledges and bot
government and Sask-
For MacMillan promise
to rectify in the com-

atchewan needs to invest in restocking of its “not
sufficiently restocked” areas to ensure a long-
term supply of high-quality timber on which to
build healthy forests and a strong future for its
forest industry. That’s one of the challenges as
the FMLAs are renegotiated.

One opportunity might lie in Canada’s planned
response to so-called global warming. As a sig-
natory to the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming
and Climate Change, Canada is committed to
“afforestation” of areas not currently under
forests, because as forests transfer gasses they
“sink” carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas.
There is, in fact, evidence that younger forests
sink more carbon than do older forests, which
grow more slowly.

An opportunity for Saskatchewan and other
parts of Canada lies in the Kyoto agreement’s
provisions with respect to “emissions trading,”
which allows nations and companies that release
greenhouse gasses to purchase “credits” in the
form of carbon sinking elsewhere. Why not look
for “guilt money” from Canadian and American
oil companies, power utilities or coal producers,
among others, seeking relief from critics? In
Saskatchewan, where the government is such a
huge economic player, a deal between Crown

ident Dennis Bonville. “Then we have to use

partner SaskFor-MacMillan and Crown corpora-

pany’s new FMLA.

That agreement, as well as Weyerhaueser’s,
have recently been reviewed by a panel of forest
experts who have now reported to the provin-
cial Environment and Resource Management
Ministry. The next stage in approval of the
plans will be a sixty-day public review, likely in
October and November, according to senior
ministry official Al Willcocks. Meanwhile a
series of options on future forest development
plans will be presented to Cabinet some time
this fall.

We can likely look for closer monitoring of
forest practices, although not as stringent or
regulatory a system as that now in place in
British Columbia, for example, with the Forest
Practices Code. As well, we can look for a vari-
ety of measures to deal with the NSR problem.

Most important, however, we can look for an
expanded forest sector, with an emphasis on job
creation through more processing and diversifi-
cation of the forest products industry. Hope-
fully, that means some good news for those
thriving forest communities that folks in
Saskatchewan seem not to know even exist.

Kim Pollock is the Director of Environment and
Public Policy for I.W.A. CANADA.

4/LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1998