4 Terrace Review — Wednesday, April 6, 1988 “OPINIONS _ Is the U.S. worth ourautonomy? The recent reissuing of a timber sale in the Nass Valley could be an indication that the price for access to the U.S. market for B.C. \ lumber may be escalating. The original terms of the sale, for 50,000 cubic meters annually to be removed from the Canyon City area, bidder to establish a local timber processing ment was subsequently reissued with an extended deadline and the The reason? U.S. observers believ- ed that the sawmill requirement constituted a subsidy because the timber would not be offered on the open market and therefere - could not be accurately evaluated for stumpage purposes. A well-founded complaint regarding past use of the forest resource in B.C. has been that the lumber is exported in a relatively unfinished state, depriving local industry of full opportunity to get the maximum value out of it. The Ministry of Forests is to be com- to attach local processing provisions to but it appears they are no longer entirely able make these decisions without U.S. interference. . the 15 percent countervail actually costing processing provision withdrawn. mended for attempting timber harvesting rights, How much is avoiding us? market THAT GY WHO HAS BEEN ACROSS THE. STREET 13 A CS1S: AGENT! called for the successful facility. The advertise- WAIN US RM THEGR AN ROMP OFFICER OUST LET THE AIR OUT OF HIS TIRES. Ce Letter to the editor will be con- sidered for publication only when signed. Please include your telephone number. The editor reserves the right to condense and edit letters. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Terrace Review. _ Terrace Review _ Estabtished May 1, 1985 _ The Terrace Review is pubiished each Wednesday by - Close-Up Business Services Ltd. os Publisher: Mark Twyford : Editor: ee Michael! 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Advertisers must assume rasponsiblilty for ar- rora in any classified ad which is supplied to the Terrace Review in handwritten form. : Ja compliance with the B.C. Human Rights Act, ne advertisement will be published which -disorliilnates against a person due to age, race, - religion, color, gex, nationality, ancestry or place af origin. 4535 Grelg Avenue, Terrace, B.C. vaa 1M7 Phone: 635-7840 One year subscriptions: In Canada $24.00 Our of Canada $50.00 Seniors In Terrace and District $12.00 Seniors out of Terracé and District $15.00 al ‘No position is too low to stoop to The problem is we keep forgetting that on the eighth day, God created the NDP, be righteous’’. If we could just remember that, we would appreciate the fact that the New Democratic Party has a divine monopoly on apple pie, motherhood, the maple leaf flag and everything else that’s good and wholesome. = 00h te We would than be as outraged as Bob Williams, NDP MLA for Vancouver East, at the appointment of one Baron Ekhard Hubert Beyer in Victoria Freiherr von Maltzahn to Premier Vander Zalm’s council of economic advisors. The good Baron’s misfortune, in the eyes of Williams, is that he is a director of the Friedrich Krupp GMBH, a company that was known in the Thirties as ‘““The Merchants of Death’’. Williams said he found it offensive that the premier appointed Maltzahn to his advisory council. ‘Maybe I’m young and naive — [ was just a kid during the Se- cond World War — but the Krupp name is one that I, as a result of my understanding of those days, would never, ever again want to be associated with,’’ Williams said. ‘The Krupp corporation were the merchants of death in the Se- cotid World War. The Krupp corporation was the manufacturer of armaments for Nazi Germany. The Krupp corporation and others were financiers of the Nazi Party in the 1930s,”” he said. Williams added that the company was convicted of war crimes after the war, and that 75 percent of the company was ordered sold off ‘‘so that this monster should never rise again’. So much for Williams’ tirade. Now for some observations. Williams is neither young nor naive. He is instead one of the shrewdest politicans around. He’s a master of political subterfuge, able to blend fact with oratory to create impressions that are as far removed from reality as our lieutenant governor is from real power. And it shows in this instance. The Krupp concern was, indeed, one of the financiers of the Nazi Party. It was the major German arms manufacturer during the Se- cond World War. It was convicted of war crimes and, indeed, ordered split up. Williams got that right. His contention, however, that the “monster’? somehow survived is fiction, When no buyer could be found for the huge concern, it was split into more than a dozen companies after the war. Today, most of the fragment companies are controlled by shareholders. Some are in public ownership. Today, the Krupp Group of com- panies is a multi-national concern, true, but the family enterprise which once financed emperors and fuelled Hitler’s stupendous war machine is no more. The monster Williams spoke of is dead. It did not survive. , Now to the Baron. According to information provided by the consulate general in Vancouver of the Federal Republic of Ger- many, von Maltzahn is in his late 50's. Like Williams, he was ‘just a kid’ during the Second World War. His brother, Hasso von Maltzahn, was the West German consul general in Vancouver from about 1980 to 1984. And unlike the Austrians, confronted their infamous past and wouldn’t be caught dead sen- ding anyone abroad as a diplomat who’s even remotely tarnished by any association with the Nazis. So why all the moral outrage about a representative of the death merchants on the premier’s economic advisory council? Because all's fair in politics, at least in Williams’ book. No position is too low to stoop to if it tarnishes the image of an opponent. liked what he saw and said: ‘'Go forth and - the Germans have. Taking Williams’ rationale from the ridiculous to the sublime, he - should object to the inclusion of a nun on the premier’s advisory council on ethics because her church burned innocent people at the stake during the middle ages. The premier pointed out, quite correctly, that you can’t hold to- day’s directors of any of the dozen or so Krupp companies responsi- ble for what the company, then owned by one powerful family, did half a century ago. To do so isn’t only cheap politics, it comes close to bigotry, = - . The creation of the economic advisory council was one of Vander Zalm’s better ideas. So was von Maltzahn’s appointment. British Columbia’s economic ills and those of the nation, for that matter, can’t be cured in isolation. What better way to gain access to inter- national markets than by seeking the advice from the movers and shakers in those markets. The attack on Vander Zalm for appointing von Maltzahn was a dumb move. If the NDP has to go back half a century to hack away — at the premier’s image, there’s hope yet for Vander Zalm’s political survival. Socred Slush Fund . Lok : It didn’t take the NDP very long to figure out why the Socreds. established the Budget Stabilization Fund and kicked in $450. million right off the bat. . It’s a sluch fund, they said, and their reasoning does bear scrutiny. With an anticipated operating deficit of $395 million in the new fiscal year, Couvelier could have balanced the budget if he had thrown the $450 million into the pot. Instead, the money will sit in a special fund to ‘‘absorb fiscal shocks’’ in the future. Seems the government is going back to the old W.A.C. Bennett practices. He had all sorts of goofy funds for special purposes. Few people would be surprised if the first real use of the new shock ab- sorber fund came shortly before the next election. . Surprise, Surprise For aficionados of Vander Zalm trivia, let it be noted that the budget speech contained no references to abortion. Nor did Finance Minister Mel Couvelier use the word ‘“faaantastic’’ once. Hands Across the Border Governor Booth Gardner of Washington and our Premier Vander Zalm are on the same wave length with regard to free trade. The two met last week to discuss current relations between the state of Washington and British Columbia and called on theit two respective federal governments to ratify and implement the agree- ment 4.5.a.p. a Report Card for Premier . rr A few Victoria Socreds showed up at the Legislative Buildings last week to hand Premier Vander Zalm his first report card. It wasn’t very flattering. The renegade Socreds, led by one Maxwell Tracy, gave the premier failing marks on just about everything, except elocution and charisma. Promotion to the next term, the report card said, was doubtful. A cartoon, accompanying the report card, showed the premier floating on a cloud above the Parliament Buildings, saying: ‘Government? A piece of cake’’, while the ground below was lit- tered knee-deep with issues that have not been addressed. These in- cluded unemployment, high welfare rolls and Workers’ Compensa- tion Board problems. | os Tracy said he’s a Socred from way back and doesn’t want Vander Zalm to be a one-term premier, but unfortunately, he was ‘the NDP’s most reliable ally at the moment. And if Vander Zalm in-. - sisted on self-destructing, he shouldn’t take the party with him... t