Po os é Ve Lasting impressions \NEWS A5-A8 We take a look back at the news. that mattered over the last year A gripping contest Caledonia bands go digital with their first ever com pact disc\COMMUNITY B1. Skeena wrestlers score six. medals at a Smithers tournament\SPORTS B5 MONDAY DECEMBER 30, 1996 Repap woo FORESTS MINISTER Dave Zirhelt won’t commit himself yet to public hear- ings on Avenor's planned multi-billion dol- lar takeover of Repap. Speaking last week, Zimbelt says he first wants to read the official request to be filed by the two companies to transfer the forest licences and tree farm licence belonging to Repap. Zimbelt bas to give approval to the trans- fer of the licences and public hearings to gain opinions and comments can be part of that process. “There might be a devil in the details so we'll just have to wait,’’ the minister said. But he did say Repap’s new owners will have to abide by the conditions of a licence which which Repap took over Orenda Forest Products. One of those conditions called for wood from the Orenda licence to be used at Repap’s Prince Rupert pulp mill. Repap said it needed the wood as security to finance a planned $250 million improve- ment to that mill. Zimbhelt did not link those improvements as a condition of the licence transfer but he did tell Repap he wants plans for those im- provements forwarded to him by June of next year. Repap must also offer wood to Cged Forest Products, owned by the Gitwangak band, and work toward a wood processing facility of same sort in Stewart. said Zirmhelt, The Repap takeover of Orenda was sub- ject to public hearings held in the northwest over the summer. Zimhelt did say Avenor’s interest in Repap is a good sign for the provincial forest economy. ‘We're fortunate there’s a company whose management has confidence in the future of the area,’’ he said. “There weren’t very many people inter- ested and we're pleased there’s a deal to secure the future of the northwest industry without a crash and then looking for a Phoenix,” Zirnhelt added. That last reference to a Phoenix is when a new creation rises from the ashes of a 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST ANDARD = VOL. 4ONO. 37. d transfer awaits approval The minister added he wasn’t surprised at the deal as Repap, saddled by heavy debt, announced in the summer it was looking for a buyer or for a partner. kkekkk While forests minister Dave Zimhelt is waiting until deciding upon public hear- ings, Avenor is gearing up for that to hap- pen. ‘‘We anticipate going through a public consultation process with the public and with the stakeholders,” company official Dominique Dionne said last week from Montreal, But first, said Dionne, various regulatory bodies, banks and Avenor and Repap share- holders must give their approval to the deal. transfer he approved earlier this year in “Those conditions stand as they exist,’’ predecessor, “WM Hello, 1997. WAKE ME UP WHEN IT’S OVER: The new year creeps u approach to the impending turn of the calendar, P all too quickly for many of us, and this party cat is taking the laid back The closing date is Feb, 28, 1997, MLA ‘vuinerable’ to recall Unseat one gov't member and force election, electronic revolutionaries say REVOLUTIONS ARE no longer a matter of storming a government building. The modern day call to arms comes via the World Wide Web, that massive connection of computer systems allowing people to bare their souls to the world on any number of ideas. A growing discontent with the NDP provin- cial government over fiscal policies and forestry issues has firmly taken hold in the form of web sites, electronic forms of posters or pamphiels. Dissolve 96, a North Vancouver-based plan encouraging people to send petitions asking Lievtenant-Governor Garde Gardom to dismiss the NDP and cali an election, has a web site. So does information on a web site advocating recall — the gathering of enough signatures so that a particular MLA can be removed between elections to force a by-election. The web sile to recall is headlined ‘‘End the NDP’ and carries economic statistics, quotes and other information promoting the cause. It was put together the end of September by James Moore, a 20-year-old Coquitlam college student. ‘‘Afier the election I found it reaily frustrating and needed an outlcl,”* he said last week. The process of recall can’t happen until £8 months after an election and that means, says Moore, even more reason to keep the movement alive on a web sile. Part of that is based on the slim two-seat ma- jority now enjoyed by the NDP government. MLA Helmut 1 Glesbrecht — i one of 13 NDP members suggested as recall targets by Intarnet campaigners. um Skeena MLA suspects letter- writing campaign, Page Ai0 m Local combatants say they’re doing their jobs, page A10 “Don’t forget that if there is the successful recall and electoral defeat of just one NDP MLA, there will be a 50/50 split between the NDP and the opposition parties,’’ says one snip- pet from the site, It even lays out 13 ridings held by NDPers which, based on May’s election results, might make them vulnerable to a recall movement. That's based on adding up bow many votes the NDP received compared to the combined to- lals for the other candidates. One of those ridings is Skeena, captured by Helmut Giesbrecht of the NDP. Total votes gathered by Reform and Liberal parties outweighed Giesbrecht’s tally, But recall isn’t as easy as it sounds under rules laid out by the provincial legislature several years ago. Recall promoters have to do more than simply gather names on a petition. Recalling an MLA requires gathering signa- tures from 40 per cent of the voters who were registered to vote in the MLA’s electoral district in the last clection and who are currently regis- tered as voters, And supporters have to keep within spending limits and have only 60 days to gather the names, Moore says he's received a lot of response to his red site, giving him hope that recall might work. be,”’ he said, Vancouver area Liberal MLA Val Anderson says his office is getting steady requests for in- formation about recall. ‘*There are no political affillations attached to this,'’ Anderson says. “We're just providing them with information.” Dave Zirnhelt Court hears timber tiff $5m wood seizure disputed FEDERAL LAWYERS are due in court today arguing over the fate of $5 million worth of logs piled up in two locations near Prince Rupert. The wood, 27,000 cubic metres cut carlier this year, is the focal point of a dispute invelving Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the Port Simpson band, a B.C. helicopter company and a Japanese company. Indian and Northern Affairs officials seized the wood in August, saying the band hadn’t received a permit to cut trees on federal reserve lands, That placed the federal government in a tentative owner- ship position, one which it doesn’t relish and onc that’s drawn a lot of heat. The Japanese company is angry because it bas paid more than $2 million for 10,000 cubic metres of wood it didn’t get, the Port Simpson band is angry hecause it wants to sell the wood for needed revenue and VIH Helicopters is angry because it hasn't been paid an eslimated $900, 000 by the band for work connected to the logging. If that weren't enough, the logging dispute threatens to disrupt land claims negotiations between the Tsimshian — Port Simpson is a Tsimshian village — and the federal and provincial governments, Federal lawyers today are scheduled to ask the Supreme Court to declare thal the logs don’t belong to the Japanese company or the band. "Both have filed statements of claim,’” said Indian and Northern Affairs official Toni Timmermans fast. weck. “We're asking the court to declare they don’l own them. That means, by default, those logs belong to us.”’ If that happens, Timmermans conlinues, the federal government will sell the logs, VIH Helicopters is expected to then be ina position to have its overduc bill paid. Lawyers for all parties met unsuccessfully Dec,-20 i in an attempt to work out a settlement. Gordon Link, manager of the Port Simpson band’s devel- opment corporation, blames Indian and Northern Affairs for the mess, He says the department didn't have a forester on staff to process a cutting application filed cartier this year. And, he says, the department did accept $185,000 in par- tial federal slumpage fees for the wood. “They've just about bankrupted the corporation. We have bills to pay and we can’t pay them. We’re also losing credibility with the Japanese company,'’ he said. Link says he feels particularly sorry for VIH Helicopters as the firm is now chasing the feds for payment. And he’s annoyed by Indians and Northern Affairs which he says seems to have ignored the band’s past log- ging history. ‘‘We know what to do. We’ve been logging for the past 8 or 9 years,” said Link. ‘“‘There’s no way. we've Illegally logged,”’ He said the band expected to clear several hundred thou- sand dollars by exporting that first 10,000 cubic metre batch, a second shipment of the same size and by: selling the rest for domestic pulp use, But the wood has since been devalued because it’s been on the ground so long since it was logged. And the band expects to get a bill for ai least $100,000 from the Japanese company which had a ship docked near Prince Rupert for nine days while waiting for the tangle ta be cleared up, Timmermans from Indian and Northern Affairs says the partial stumpage payment of $185,000 is-about one-third of what would be normally due and is now in what's called a “‘suspense account,’’ “] know I'll be involved wherever it might ' That means the department hasn’! officially accepted the money, says Timmermans. ‘‘We told them in-a letter it doesn’t constitute approval,’ she said. Meanwhile, federal land claims negotiator Pauline LaMothe hopes the dispute doesn’t affect trealy lalks. A court fight could be lengthy and if that happens, ‘Swe’re going ta try 10 build a wall between the court case and the negotiations,’” she said,