4

Terrace Review —— Wednesday, September 25, 1991

CAMPAIGN '91_
Mismanagement caused forest

industry woes, Giesbrecht says

by Michael Kelly
New Democratic Party
government in British

A Columbia would take

back some forestry regulatory
functions now performed by forest
companies, expand staff in the
Ministry of Forests, and set the
timber harvest in accordance with
the findings of inventory studies
now being conducted in most
Timber Supply Areas in the prov-
ince,

These policy statements were
made by Skeena NDP candidate
Helmut Giesbrecht on the first day
of the election campaign last week.
"Our position is that the forest has
been. mismanaged," Giesbrecht
said.

Tn the past 10 years the number
of people working in the Ministry
of Forests has dropped by 25 per-
cent and much of the regulatory
work — keeping an eye on forest
companies and loggers to ensure
they manage the forest according
to the rules — has been transferred
from the ministry to the com-
panies. Giesbrecht likens it to
"sending the fox into the henhouse
to count the eggs". The govern-
ment admits that it now relies on
the companies for much of the
data about the state of the resource
and their own activities in. the
woods, Giesbrecht said. He thinks
‘it places both the public, who
owns the resource, and the com-
panies in an unreasonable position.
"We shouldn’t have to trust a
_ group with a vested interest.

"It’s no different than policing...
we must have adequate monitor-
ing.”

There are a number of reasons
the industry and the resource is in
trouble, Giesbrecht said, and there
is no single solution for the prob-
lems. He points out that his
sources indicate the Kalum Timber
Supply Area around Tertace is
being overcut by 38 percent in
relation to long-term sustained
yield capacity, and the annual
allowable cut has been steadily
increasing.

When the TSA inventories are
finished, around 1993, there could
be some tough political decisions
in the works, Giesbrecht admits,
He adds, however, that those deci-
sions will be necessary only
because the problems weren’t
addressed by previous administra-
tions and have carried on, becom-
ing more critical with time.

"IF the cut needs to be reduced,
the question is how to scale down
the consumption without unfairly
hitting communities,” he said. "It
should be evenly borne." Part of
the NDP policy on forestry would
be to make silviculture a much

larger component of forest activ-
ities, and Giesbrecht belicves that
logging and processing jobs that
might be lost if the timber supply
shrinks could be made up in that
arca. He emphasized that these
would be well-paid jobs, but said it

would be difficult at this point to
say whether all or part of the work
would be paid for by the govern-
ment. He noted that in Sweden
incremental silviculture is of major
importance, with 25 percent of the
commercial timber coming from
thinning of managed stands.
"We're nowhere near that. It’s
time we learned something from
other countries.”

Giesbrecht believes the industry
bears closer watching as well.
While the Kitlope watershed south
of Kitimat is being fought over by
preservation groups and West:
Fraser Timber, which owns the
cutting rights there, mountains of
wood chips are being exported by
Eurocan, a 50 percent stakeholder
in the Kitlope licence. Giesbrecht
believes the situation and others
like it, in which raw materials of
the industry are being exported,
should be investigated. An NDP
government would phase out raw
log exports. When asked if areas
like the Kalum North, where tim-
ber can’t be logged economically
for the price it fetches on the
domestic market, would be
excepted, Giesbrecht said only if

the logging wouldn’t jeopardize
long-term sustained yield in the
forest and the logs couldn’t be

used domestically.

Part of the industry's problem is
government short-sightedness, he
says, Citing the fact that the Oren-
da pulp and paper mill proposal
couldn’t work in the Meziadin area
because the hydroelectric supply
was inadequate. The town of
Stewart was told when the hydro
was extended there that the power
supply would be enough to estab-
lish an industry, but when the
industry examined it closely the
supply fell short. “It’s a good
example of a decision that was
politically expedient," he said.
"Now the mill at Kitwanga is shut
down, - while the community
watches loaded logging trucks go
by in both directions."

For those reasons, he says, any
independent review of the Orenda
proposal for the Terrace-Kitimat
corridor should examine the supply
and use of the timber from their
North Kalum forest licence.

Giesbrecht held an open house
Saturday afternoon to introduce his
campaign headquarters and staff to
supporters and the general public.
In an address he criticized incum-
bent Socred MLA Dave Parker for
what Giesbrecht called his reliance
on securing fottery grants for the
riding.

Skeena New Democrat candidate Helmut Giesbrecht and his
campaign manager Gail Murray started the race off Saturday
afternoon with open house at the NDP campaign headquarters on
Park Ave., across from George Little Memorial Park.

Giesbrecht says he intends to use

personal contact methods like
door-to-door campaign methods as
one of his primary tactics in the .

Hatton scorns politics

Liberal Juanita Hatton: It’s a good chance for people to realize
there is an alternative.

by Michael Kelly.
iberal candidate Juanita
! Hatton says the province
has suffered from the
extreme political polarization of
the past 20 years, with both the

right wing and the left motivated

by fear of one another coming into
power.

"Everyone is scared of each
other,” she said in an interview
shortly after the election call.

"Well, I’m not afraid of anyone."

Hatton believes the voting public
has become confused in the pro-
cess and doesn’t realize what's at
stake in the coming election. "It’s
_a good chance for people to realize
there is an alternative."

Hatton was named last summer
by the B.C. Liberals to represent
them in Skeeta. Although the
parly has so few members in B.C.
it is largely considered marginal,
Hatton thinks that cven one or two
élected Liberal members could be

influential if the number of So-
creds and New Democrats is a
close balance. _

As of three years ago, she said,
there were 137 paid-up Liberals in
the Skeena riding. —

Hatton, who turned 77 this week,
is a 30-year resident of Terrace
with a solid background in helping
the unemployed. Her independent
job service, the Golden Rule, has
for many years made an art of
matching up jobless but willing
people with employers, sometimes
setting up workers from Terrace
with permanent jobs as far away as
the Queen Charlotte Islands and
Alberta. "Ordinary people who
don’t know better say that people
on welfare are too lazy to work,
and that makes me mad," she
remarks.

Hatton’s main concern with the

election race. He spent Monday in
the northern part of the riding
_ knocking on doors and introducing
himself to voters.

of fear

state of affairs in Skeena is still
unemployment. She blames numer-
ous examples of government and
corporate insensitivity and mis-
Management for the problem,
citing a range of factors like the
Free Trade Agreement with the
U.S., which she says is now mov-
ing jobs out of Canada and into
Mexico, or the failure of major
forest companies to begin — until
it was too late — replenishing the
woods they cut down. “Even our
grandchildren won't be able to
benefit from the trees being
planted now," she said. "Those
companies have a lot to answer
for."

She is no stranger to politics,
having worked on behalf of the
Liberals, both federal and provin-
cial, in every election campaign
for the past 30 years,

PUBLIC

Provincial General Election
Notice is hereby given to the citizens of
Skeena Electoral District
that the office of the Returning Officer is

located at:
4639 Lazelle Avenue
Terrace, B.C. V8G 188
Phone: 638-1297 - Fax: 638-1689
Elaine Johnson
Returning Officer

NOTICE

ane,

Sa Teas” anteme Saul GLa ra