British Columbia

Gift to
pulp firm
siphoning
taxpayers

In quick succession the Social
Credit government and B.C. Hydro
have made three decisions that will
affect every citizen of this province
adversely.

1. B.C. Hydro will lend a private
corporation — Howe Sound Pulp
and Paper Ltd. — $108 million int-
erest-free for five years. This is equi-
valent to a gift of well over $50
million. Because B.C. Hydro is pub-
licly owned, it means that B.C. resi-
dents must pay high electricity rates so
that a private company can be subsid-
ized by public funds. If this isn’t public
patronage —_ pilfering the public
purse would be a better term — I
don’t know what is.

2. The provincial government will
require B.C. Hydro to hand over $500
million from its profits over the next
three years. B.C. Hydro has a debt of
$6.7 billion and there is no justifica-
tion for forcing it to fork over $500
million as long as it has this debt load.

Does the Social Credit need this
extra $500 million? What will it do
with this money? You ‘guessed

it — the $500 million will be used to
provide subsidies to private corpora-
tions, the_first of which will be an
interest free loan of $108 million to its
friends who own Howe Sound Pulp

and Paper Ltdeoisi: GO.ssisB  22itoG

3. B.C. Hydro is applying for a rate
increase of nine per cent for residential
consumers, to go into effect in three
stages: three per cent in November
1989, another three per cent in April
1990, and the final three per cent in
April 1991. This application requires
the approval of the Utilities Commis-
sion before it can go into effect. But
don’t hold your breath — this com-
mission is also appointed by the
government so the outcome is predic-
table.

Why this new rate increase? Energy
Minister Jack Davis says this will
encourage consumers to practice con-
servation. What a sick joke.

First of all, consumers are keeping
down their bills all the time by using
as little electricity as possible.

Second, we are dependent on elec-
tricity and we can’t just cut down con-
sumption to suit Jack Davis.

Third, we are not short of electricity
in the province and any time we do
become short, all the government has
to do is cut down on its exports of
electricity to the U.S.

Actually the increase in rates has
nothing to do with conservation. It’s
just another way of placing an addi-
tional tax on the public so the
government can take money from
B.C. Hydro to hand it over in subsi-
dies to private corporations.

The whole thing is a scam.

And this government thinks it’s
going to be re-elected!

Expanded NATO base in Labrador
will be fought, Innu reps say

The proposed expansion of NATO facili-
ties near Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labra-
dor, will mean eight more airstrips and live
bombing and ammunition training, a repre-
sentative of the area’s Native people told a
shocked conference in Vancouver Nov. 4.

Raphael Gregoire, one of the Innu who
have been protesting the disruption the low-
level bomber and jet fighter flights cause to
the environment and the Innu way of life,
told the Mini-One conference that the
Department of National Defence’s so-
called environmental impact study shows
there is “a pool of ignorance in Ottawa.”

“The government’s so-called environ-
mental study which was, in effect, prepared
by themselves, shows they don’t know
what’s happening to the animals and our
people,” Gregoire, part of an Innu delega-
tion touring British Columbia, said.

The study, released Oct. 31, was prepared
for the department by outside firms but was
also partially written by government offi-
cials. It drew a blast from New Democrat
MP Dan Heap, who told the House that the
40,000 planned test flights annually will
include “live-bombing training and strafing
training ... flying at 100 feet along river
banks and doing dog fights in the air and
making sonic booms, which do physical
damage to living things.”

It was also criticized by the Naskapi
Montagnais Innu Association, which in a
statement called the study a “fiction.”

“Tt bears no reality to our life on the land
and the devastating impact of low-level fly-
ing,” the association charged.

The airforces of Canada, Holland, Bri-
tain, West Germany and the United States
already conduct some 7,000 low-level flights

_a year from the NATO base, which cause

sonic booms and opponents say disrupt
natural phenomena like caribou migrations
and inflict severe stress on the area’s Innu
residents.

The proposed flight area encompasses
100,000 kilometres spanning Labrador and
portions of Quebec.

The existing flights have already engen-
dered mass protests, including sit-ins on the
runways of the NATO base. Gregoire was
recently released after serving 30 days in jail
for his activities, two others are still serving

jail terms, and 108 other Innu are awaiting
trial on 250 public mischief charges.

Gregoire was released on the condition
that he stay away from the NATO base:'The
tour aimed to raise funds and moral sup-
port for the Innu’s legal battles and land
claims.

Innu association leader Greg Penashue
has said the DND study did not include an
examination of the fishing and hunting
practices of some 9,500 Innu in the area,
which the Natives call Nitassinan.

Penashue, a member of the delegation
who addressed a talk sponsored by the Uni-
versity of B.C.’s Alma Mater Society on
Nov. 3, has said: “If the NATO base is
established, Nitassinan will be turned into a
war zone and our nation will be utterly
destroyed.”

In its statement signed by Penashue and
Innu Chief Daniel Ashini, the Innu associa-
tion called the CNC’s study “‘a very biased
document” and compared it to “asking
(Prime Minister Brian) Mulroney whether
the Conservatives run a good government
or asking McDonald’s whether they make
good hamburgers.”

The association said it may not be able to
participate in the Federal Environmental
Assessment Review Panel next spring

_because of government underfunding.

“The government has given DND approx-
imately $5 million to prepare their study.
The government proposes to give the Innua
total of $87,000 to respond to the study.

“We have asked the federal cabinet for an _

additional $250,000 so that we can hire the
experts to do a response. What we are ask-
ing for then is five per cent of what DND
has been given.”

' The defence department’s study has
acknowledged that the effects of the war-
planes’ “ear-splitting” noise on wildlife is
not fully understood. And while the area’s

white residents stand to gain from an esti- |

mated $850 million in local spending over
the next decade, “‘the future of the residents
Sheshatshit (the Innu community)” is “of
concern.”

“Should mitigation measures (attempts
to avoid migration paths and concentra-
tions of people during the exercises) fail, one
can expect a variety of negative social, cul-

CHIEF DANIEL ASHINI .
is biased.

tural and economic impacts,” the study’s
authors. admit.

Several hundred dollars were raised for
the Innu at the Mini-One conference, spon-
sored by several environmental, peace,
church, labour and community groups as a
prelude to the One Conference planned for
next June at UBC.

More than 60 delegates attended the
Mini-One conference at the Unitarian
Church in Vancouver to lay the ground-
work for a movement linking “people
working for justice, peace and the environ-
ment.”

David Pollack of the Pro-Canada Net-
work told the conference: “We need an
alternative social vision and have an under-
standing of the base of power.”

Greenpeace Vancouver’s John Mate,
participating in a panel with representatives
of the Social Planning and Research Coun-
cil, the Canadian Physicians for the Preven-
tion of Nuclear War, and other groups,
said, “We are at the beginning of a
revolution — a worldwide revolution.”

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, which
also expressed its support for the Innu’s
fight, will host a conference on the land
claims question at the Croation Centre in
Vancouver Nov. 14-16.

. DND study

- President Corazon Aquino of the Phi-

~ lippines came to Canada Nov. 4 to woo
investment and trade, but was greeted by
demonstrators who said her government
must clean up the human rights record in
the south Pacific archipelago.

Demonstrators bearing placards carry-
ing the names of 25 disappeared Filipinos
rallied outside the Vancouver Trade and
Convention Centre, while another group
met with Aquino’s press secretary to press
the case for human rights and breaking the
stranglehold the United States has on the
Philippines.

And Amnesty International told a press
conference in Ottawa that human rights
violations have doubled since Aquino
took power from the deposed former pres-
ident, the late Ferdinand Marcos.

Vancouver resident Cenen Bagon of the
coalition Kapihan Vancouver said four
people representing different issues of
concern met with press secretary Adolfo
Azcuna Nov. 4 and that Azcuna blamed
“Marcos hangovers” for the deaths and
disappearances at the hands of the notor-
ious right-wing death squads.

Pastor Bong Collado of the Filipino
Alliance Church told Azcuna that atroci-
ties related to the military conflict between

Aquino hit for rights record

government forces and the revolutionary
New People’s Army can only be resolved if
both sides get back to the negotiating
table.

Odette Taverna of Seattle urged the
government to shut down U.S. military
bases in the Philippines after the current
agreement expires in 1991. She told the
president’s representative that the bases
key function is to tie the Philippines politi-
cally and economically to U.S. foreign pol-
icy, Bagon related.

Taverna, a former assistant to the Phi-
lippines foreign office, said there is no
longer any need for military bases given
the new climate of disarmament ushered
in by the Soviet Union. And she said eco-
nomic studies show there are benefits to
converting the existing airforce and naval
bases to peacetime uses.

University of B.C. visa student and Phi-
lippines human rights lawyer Sedfrey
Canadelaria urged the government to res-
tructure its foreign debt to the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund and reject loans
inherited from the Marcos regime. Cur-
rent IMF strictures are causing social ser-
vice cutbacks and price rises, worsening
the situation for the millions of Filipinos
living in poverty, he said.

outside the Pan Pacific Hotel-Trade and
~ Convention Centre, where Aquino addres-

Azcuna told the group the government
opposes the death squad atrocities by
groups such as the Tad-tads and Alsa
Masa. And he said the government is con-
sidering a referendum on military bases,
but did not commit Aquino to any posi-
tion on the question, Bagon reported.

“What is happening is that there are
different policies (by the Aquino govern-
ment), but they are not being imple-
mented,” she said, saying the government
is in many ways powerless to change poli-
cies supported by the Philippines military.

United Church minister Linda Ervin
and B.C. Federation of Labour executive
member Christine Micklewright were
among the speakers at the demonstration

sed business leaders in a session sponsored
by Placer Dome and the Vancouver Board
of Trade.

Demonstration organizer Peter Kerr
said Aquino has given her support to the
Alsa Masa terrorist group, and cited
Amnesty International’s estimation that
the Philippines ranks number two in
human rights violations, after Peru.

2 « Pacific Tribune, November 13, 1989