A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 14, 1998 TERRACE _ STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 » FAX: (250) 638-8432 EMAIL:. standard@kermode.net A fairer way BY NOW the provincial government is digesting carefully the results of Ralph Torney’s blitzkrieg examination of the northwest economy and how it is absorbing the impact of the Skeena Cel- lulose creditor payment plan. The former truck logger association president has a tough job — outlining how badly hurt northwest businesses are going to be by accept- ing the creditor payment plan and what might be done to help those businesses in the years ahead. There are essentially two types of businesses affected by Skeena Cellulose — those that don’t rely solely on the company for their income and those that do. It’s this last batch which is hurt the most by the creditor payment plan and the group which concerns Torney and the provincial government a great deal. One of the great puzzles dating back more than five yeats now is how Skeena Cellulose got this second group —~ primarily loggers and truckers — to break with the industry tradition of pay- ment every two weeks. The company first con- vinced them to take payment every month, then two months, then three months, then whenever. Ail the while the company was paying other creditors and its direct mill employees, One plan that’s been tossed around is a change in the way forest companies have to treat their contractors, And that’s to essentially tie them to the same payment schedule as a company’s direct employees. This might go against the tradition of con- tractors being independent, stand alone business people, but at least it might have prevented the kind of pain they are now suffering. Had Skeena Cellulose been required to pay contractors regularly, the pain would have come much earlier because the,company couldn’t have run without ‘any. money...But at least we would have known where things stood and would have avoided this past year’s ongoing agony. And contractors would have avoided working for nothing, which is the bottom line reality of the creditor payment plan. Ouch IF THAT mid-January paycheque’s lighter than normal, look at the amount deducted for the Can- ada Pension Plan. It’s increased and will con- tinue to do so into the next century as the federal government socks away more money to pay for, the pensions of retiring baby boomers. Those who support the new payment schedule cal] it a needed bit of pain to save the universal pension plan. Those who oppose it call the in-’ creased payments the biggest tax grab in Cana- dian history. The truth is somewhere in between but what the’ new Canada Pension Plan schedule does do is to create two classes of Canadians. There are the older baby boomers who'll benefit in the next few years from that cash that’ll be rolling in. And there are younger Canadians who'll be paying more for longer only to receive less, rela- tively speaking, when their turn to retire comes along. PUBLISHER/ EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur ~ NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Dave Taylor NEWS COMMUNITY: Cris Leykauf OFFICE MANAGER: Sheila Sandover-Sly ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Fanet Viveiros TELEMARKETER: Patricia Schubrink ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Kelly Jean TYPESETTING: Sylvana Broman DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Brunette SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $53.50 per year: Seniors $48.15: Out of Province $60.99 Outside of Canada (6 months) $149.80 . (ALL PRICES ENCLUDE GST) MEMBER OF B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPEAS ASSOCIATION, CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION AND B.C. PRESS COUNCIL G@cna Serving the Terrace and Thomhill area. Published on Wednasday of each week at 9210 Clinton Street, Toace, British Columbia, VBS SRe, Stories, photographs, ilustrallons, designs and typastyles in the Tarraca Standard ara the property of tha Copyright holders, including Cariboo Prass (1669) Ltd,, Ils illustration repro services and advertising Reproduction In whole of in part, wilhout written permission, is spacifically prohibited, Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment ol postaga in cash. Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondenits for their time and talents ‘Quit Smoking in’ ‘qouroblem: he Said... wanna bet 50 ae "You're on "he Said... + i said... Hidden agenda behind cuts VICTORIA — Threaten onc acre of old trees, and you're virlually assured of province- wide protest. Enviromnental groups will man the barricades, forest companies will claim that wilbout those trees, their future hangs in ithe balance, and politicians will hide behind double-speak until _—ithey determine which side is the. safer one to be on. ‘ But dismantle a government agency that has served the pub- lic faithfully for 127 years, and nobody knows. And even if” they did, they probably couldn’t care less, In a society ” that measures issues by their controversy quotient, one is | sexy, the other boring, One current issue lacking the - sexiness of public confronta- . tion and, therefore, unfolding | ‘almost unnoticed, is the virtual ‘ elimination of B.C. Lands. B.C, Lands is a provincial , goverment agency with a his- tory that goes back to 1871, the year British Columbia joined. Confederation. [ts mandate has been to oversee the province’s Crown lands. Since its inception 127 years ago; B.C, Lands has played a major role in the economic and social development of the pro- vince. FROM. THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER B.C, Lands staff have been instrumental in developing and maintaining the province’s sur- vey sysleni, leading-edge map- ping, the sale of Crown land and the issuing of licences, leases and statulory rights- of way. "dant Be | Lands‘ ‘hag! ‘touched : people+in a wide range of sec- tors, including agriculture, lourism and resorts, communi- cations, alpine skiing and fish farning. Last October, Premier Glen Clark announced that B.C. Lands would be a specific target for government cuts, and since then, the agency has been slipping quictly into what eventually will be oblivion. Parts of the agency are being . swallowed by the environment ° ministry. Its staff and resources have been pirated without fan- fare, And only those who are affected seem to be aware of what's happening. The systematic dismantling of B.C. Lands is more than just a streamlining of ministry functions. The potential con- Sequences are much more Serious than let’s say taking ‘tourism out of one ministry and adding it to another. The environment ministry ‘has a green agenda, the Forest ‘ministry is forever trapped be- tween being an advocate for -the forest industry and a champion of our forests, B.C. Lands, on the other hand, has always accupi¢d neutral ground. - BC, Lands has never had an . “agenda, ' “other jfhait Took “dfter“ ‘the province’s ra land. It has neither champions nor enemies, although some of its decisions may not have pleased everyone. Even as part of the environment ministry, the agency enjoyed a distinc- tive autonomy, playing a * neutral role in many land deci- sions, With the exception of a few years in the late 80s, when B.C. Lands was a stand-alone ministry, the agency also never Jpt AUR PE at wi had anyone at the cabinet table who would fight for it So what has B.C. Lands done to deserve being chopped up and swallowed by the environ- ment ministry? Some of the people I talked to say that. deputy minister Tom Gunton, one of the influential non- elected powers behind the “premier’s throne, hated B.C, Lands from the start. ; “He didn’t like us, and he finally got his way,’’ said one employee who asked not to be identified for obvious reasons. The cuts have been deep. The Kootenay office in Cran- “brook is down to eight staff from 24 a year ago. The Wil- liams Lake office has five staff, down from 20 or so, And unless the process is reversed, it’s only a matter of time be- fore, the agency is. BON i “OOtortunately’, “Bic: “Landé’* has no public champion; “no. group to demand a halt to the dismantling of this 127-yeéar- old agency. And when it’s gone, the 94 million hectares of Crown land in B,C, will be looked after by ministries with definite agendas, some of them hidden, Beyer can be reached at: Tel: (250) 920-9300; Fax: (250) 385-6783; E-mail: hubert@coolcom.com h Thumbs up to the green life Out ia the country far from fown There lived a man named Farmer Brown From dawn to dusk with rake and hoe He tilled the soil to make things grow — Gwendolyn, a child’s story. IN EARLIER TIMES, 1 fell for the notion gardening was a seasonal hobby, relaxiug and salisfying. I believed garden- | ing ceased in the fall. [ was - wrong. Gardening happens year round just like Alan Eagleson’s defrauding of NHL players, and far fom being a habby, for many it borders on obsession. Even now, with the mercury frozen three degrees above ~" zero Fahrenheit, fervent gar- deners are more concerned aboul their perennials surviv- ing than they are about their waterlines freezing. For dichard gardeners, this mm OUARE AS mm GOD! G-O-D. - AND I MUST CLAUDETTE SANDECKI THROUGH BIFOCALS § »week’s bright spot isn’t the Ttepositioning of furniture that moved to make way for the Christmas tree. It’s the arrival of sced catalogues, | Back in the days when the - _ only green thumbs I knew were farmers who grew stuff to eal, gardening ended in Sep- _ fember with plowing under of potate tops, burying carrots in “tubs of sand, and stacking rakes and hocs in the toolshed. * Then FE met a gardener with a thumb as green as Kermit. Her , 0 TaN a el ile hf e iN bik pe tA ; Oui ae. "' pastime, MUU LSAID Yo autumn is a flurry of sprinkling bone meal, mulching, and raking leaves. She swaddles shrubs in burlap, composts any vegelable matter not square, and intertwines branches over planted bulbs like RCMP swords at a wedding reception to bar dogs from trampling spring blossoms. Ata time when Pm tallying year end figures to reconcile profits and losses, she’s budgeting se she can afford to buy more roses, Before runoff has soaked into the ground, the gardener is on her hands and knees tamping rows of bedding plants into the carth. That be- gins hours of daily digging, taking, boeing, pulling weeds, To make the most of her in- vestment, she fertilizes, thins, ' transplants, covers seedlings at dusk, bares them at dawn, and notes their progress like a scientist bearing a clipboard. Far from a fackadaisical planting seeds at their right depth, in soil with a com- WATCH OUT FOR HORSE Foor WITH UTrLe RED patible pH, taking into account their drainage and exposure needs. Always there is worry. Will the seeds germinate? Will blossoms develop? Will fruit: drop off to become ant fodder? Birds have to be kept out, moisture kept in, creepy. crawlies held at bay. Tanglefoot isn’t a music group. Soil has to be tested for acidity, then balanced. ° Minerals must be added, boron to grip fruit like Toolman tape, nitrogen to act as yeast, The gardener’s only relaxa- tion comes at the hour when like monks, disciples of Lois Hole and Brian Minter stroll incdilalively through their flowerbeds and vegetable patches snicking a yellow leaf, squishing a slug, inhaling the perfume of their favourite rose, Their third eye measures each , Plant's progress in the past 24 _ hours. gardening demands Over winter a gardeier’s cal- luses may fade but never her eithusiasm. 27-50] MUSHROOMS 1A) THEs? J!