A12- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday,

By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN
ROAD maintenance standards in the
north are under review, but not because of
the amount of traffic fatalities in the re-
gion this winter.

Instead the review will decide if stan-
dards need to be changed before the con-
tracts of private companiés who do the
work come up for renewal, says highways
manager Don Ramsay.

Some of the northern contracts are due
to expire next year. ~~

A serics of. tragic highway. fatalities
this winter spurred significant public de-
bate, including allegations standards are
too low, snow-clearing work isn’t being
done and that the work isn’t being
checked.

“The government seems to be wanting
to be very responsive. fo the needs of the
public,” Ramsay said. “The public com-
plaints this year would certainly be taken
into account.”

A committee of ministry of highways
people — including. north region highways
manager Geoff Freer — is responsible for
reviewing the current standards and mak-
ing changes as appropriate for the nexl
round of maintenance contracts, he says.

The standards under review include
everything from how potholes are patched
to a review of how sand and salt can be
used to its maximum benefit on winter
roads. ,

Ramsay also said the ministry will be
moving toward a less harsher way of tell-
ing private maintenance contractors how
to do their job.

MLA upset

AN AGGRESSIVE national response to
the U.S. is needed now that softwood
lumber talks have collapsed and crippling
duties have been imposed, says Skeena
MLA Roger Harris.

Duties totalling 29 per cent are due to
be applied in May to the price of B.C.
lumber as it crosses the border.

Harris said the softwood impasse may
drag out years and cost thousands of jobs,
many in B.C,

“I do think we have to aggressively
respond,” he said. “This is one of ihose
defining moments for a nation.”

Harris did not have any immediate
ideas of what the response: should be.

He said B.C. can do little alone, add-
ing it will be up to the federal govern-
ment to take measures to get U.S. atten-
tion,

“T am absolutely disappointed,” Harris
added, noting a final push by U.S. presi-
dent George Bush failed to get results.

“It’s incredible that a man who wiel-
ded as much power as the president does
has so little influence on the U.S. Depart-
ment of Commerce,” he said. “It speaks
valumes to the power that individual coa-
lition groups have in the U.S.”

He says the failure of talks indicates
the U.S. goal wasn’t to force an end to
what it called Canadian subsidies, but
simply to protect its industry from Cana-
dian competition.

“They are very protectionist,” he said.
“This isn’t about free trade, it’s about se-
lectively managed trade.”

Canada may take the trade battle all
the way to the World Trade Organization

March 27, 2002

Road maintenance
rules to be reviewed

That means rather than telling a con-
tractor what methods to use to repair a
pothole, they'll simply ask that it be
done, Ramsay said.

The contract for Nechako North Coast,
which takes care of roads and bridges in
the Terrace area, isn’t up. until April 11,
2004 but other area contracts are due to
expire as soon as 2003.

“The first contract for the next round
expires Oct. 2003 and in order to adver-

“tise and tender: those contracts we are
starting now to develop the parameters
under which thase contracts will be let,”
Ramsay said,

That contract belongs to O’Brien Road
and Bridge Maintenance which has the
Queen Charlottes contract and a portion
of Hwy 16 west to Prince Rupert.

The contract ends next October but the
bids for the renewed contract would have
to be in by Feb, 2003.

Ramsay says the standards need to be
reviewed and any changes implemented
before the tender is advertised.

How or if the standards change will
likely not be seen until early next year.

Although the current maintenance con-
tracts wete extended from previous ones
and did not go out to tender, Ramsay
doesn’t expect that to happen this time
around.

“With the new government they're
looking at a blank page about where we
go with highway maintenance,” Ramsay
said. “I fully suspect that the inclination
of the government would support open
tendering.”

at new tax

on B.C. lumber exports

~ where it has defeated the U.S. before
over the softwood lumber issue.

But Harris
said that will
be a long
process, tak-
ing perhaps a
couple of
years,
“What kind
of industry
will we have
left,” he
asked. “It
may be a

victory.
There are
companies
on the coast
that will
have a hard
time absorb-

Roger Harris

ing this.”

He said it’s hard to say what the effect
will be on local mills. Skeena Cellulose
and West Fraser have both had very limi-
ted ability to export lumber to the U.S.
without paying duties in recent years,

The U.S. penalties consist of a 19.34
per cent counteryail duty plus an average
9.67 per cent anti-dumping duty,

West Fraser will actually pay an anti-
dumping penalty of just 2.26 per cent, be-
cause it’s one of six companies for which
U.S. officials set individual rates, All
other forest companies pay an average of
the rates for those six, working out to 9.67
per cent.

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4654 Lazelle Ave.

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Phone: (250) 635-1601

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