~ Letters to the editor will be considered for publication only when signed. * Please Include your. telephone number. - The editor reserves the tight to condense and edit letters. Opinions “expressed ‘are not necessarily those of the Terrace Review, — Lo 4 Terrace Review — Wecnesday, September 28,1988 s . - Something to cheer about Tomorrow will be a day a high drama and celebra- tion for Terrace, but once the ceremonial aspects to launch the Starship sawmill are over that opening will leave a lasting legacy for the community: economic stability. a oo The event has sent reverberations all the way to Vic- toria, tremors strong enough to bring Premier Vander Zalm up here for the first time since the Social Credit leadership campaign prior to the last election. He got- ten the lion’s share of the.publicity, but the real star of the show will be arriving quietly aboard a private jet and remaining in town for only about three hours: George Petty, the man who had the vision and the confidence in this region to go all out in rehabilitating the disaster we used to call our local forest industry. Petty’s company, Repap, for the benefit of those who are not already aware of it, is ‘‘paper’’ spelled backwards. That combined with the divisional name Skeena Cellulose is strongly indicative that pulp and paper, not lumber, is the company’s primary product. When Repap took over the old Pohle mill, the Watson Island pulp operation, and the fiber supply in TFL#1 from Westar, local residents could be forgiven if they: feared that the Terrace sawmill would wind up a poor and neglected cousin to the Prince Rupert pulp mill. A couple of years and $42 million later, those fears have been laid permanently to rest. The complementary market trends between lumber _ combined with a wood resource in the region that averages a 50-50 mix of pulp logs and saw logs, ap-. - pear to be made to order for a company like Repap. The mystery is that the previous owner found the - same operation economically unfeasible. . The entire board of directors for Repap, along with an astonishing number of their overseas customers, are converging on Terrace for this event, and if nothing else that’s a convincing indication of the high regard in which they hold this area. . One local resident who has worked in the woods since the day TFL#! was created, and who had no love for the previous operators, said recently that George Petty is the best thing that ever happened to this city. The importance of a stable primary industry for the well-being of Terrace cannot be overstated, and in view of Repap’s commitment to this area, we think that woodworker is probably right. 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Human Rights Act, no advertisement will be published which .. discriminates against a person due to age, race, of religion, color, sex, nationality, ancestry or place of origin. . . _ ., Michael Kelly Staff Reporters: - 22. Tod Strachan -.Charlynn Toews : Advertising Sales: :» Marj Twyford “> Typesetting: . 4535 Grelg Avenue, - Linda Copeland Terrace, 1B.6. 2: Production: Phone: 635-7840 “Jim Hall, Alvin Stewart, Gurbax Glil, Linda Mercer ‘ Offlee: Se _ 7 __ Carrle Olson “Qe year subsertptions: - Accounting: in Canada $2400 “” Mar] Twyford Out of Canada $50.00 Seniors in Terrace and Olstrict $12.00 Saniora out of Terrace and District $15.00 ‘ ——_E - Second-class mail _. tegistration No. 6896. ASIGH OF AN ae a a UPCOMING @GTON.. by Victoria correspondent Mark Collins The British Columbia Liberal Party is caught in a classic Catch-22 situation. People won’t vote for Liberal can- didates until the party gets _ some credibility, ‘but they can- not get that credibility until more people vote for them. The latest innovation from their leader is not likely to change that, but itis at least . refreshing. He has calleda | leadership convention for. the spring of 1989. He has not resigned his title but has challenged all contenders to fight him for it in the new year. a In the Social Credit Party. ‘that step would be the mark of a real dare-devil as there is a substantial list of potential leadership contenders waiting in the wings. The NDP seems happier with Mike Harcourt than some Socreds are with Bill Vander Zalm, but an NDP leadership convention would certainly attract a few can- didates. With the Liberals there’s no guarantee that © anyone else wants the leader- ship. . mo oo Remember J ev Tothill, on Will the real Liberals ~. come out of the closet? and pulp (one tends to go up-when the other declines); - “ Shirley McLoughlin and Art _ Lee? They are all former — leaders of the provincial Liberals. | would normally .._ have mentioned the name of . the current leader earlier in this column, but I left. the name Gordon Wilson until now to’ ° give many readers a chance to realize for themselves that they don’t know the name of the man who has led the B.C. Liberal Party for almost a — year. Wilson does not represent a large enough group of people for the news media to call on . him for comment‘on a regular basis, so he’s stuck in relative obscurity. The Liberals are so used to this game of revolving: leaders that his party stationary reads ‘OFFICE OF THE LEADER” but doesn’t actually - say what’ his name is. Wilson says this leadership convention idea is not ‘‘a veiled attempt to recreate the Socred | Party under the Liberal: — banner’’. He sounds sincere, ‘but what he hopes will happen will not be very different from exactly that. Wilson admits that either the Social Credit Party. or the New Democratic Party must falter if the Liberals are to succeed. He says the Socreds have already collapsed to the point that they could not win an election, so . the time is right to re-open the party to the people who repre-. sent the ‘‘formidable middle- ground potential” of the Liberal Party. Liberal polling results say a majority of British Columbians believe the NDP will win the next election, not because of positive policies but by default in an anti-Socred environment. “Wilson says he is drawing from the expertise of traditional ‘NDP and Socréd supporters to form a policy platform that” - will transform the Liberals into to resolve his probleims but a real alternative. Popular policies are nice'to.- . have but the other parties... shamelessly steal them, so the ~ Liberals also need some high — profile people to run as Liberal candidates. Some of the current. group of Socred MLAs could - fal into that category. -. .. T haven't been searching for. - dissident MLAs, but the Social - Credit Party of the late 1970's ‘ and the 1980’s. is composed of three groups. There are the ~ federal Conservatives, the federal Liberals and the true Socreds. Former Liberals like Mel Couvelier, Jack Davis and Vander Zalm himself run under the Socred banner because it is a much easier route into | cabinet where the real decisions. . are made than the long difficult task of rebuilding the provin-:. ~ cial Liberal Party.. ye There are probably several -... others who would feel quite ~— comfortable running under the - Liberal banner if they thought the party had a better chance . than the Socreds, There’s no -. _ quick answer, though, because the three recent cabinet dissidents don’t.fit: Brian Smith-and Stephen Rogers are _ 7 from the federal Conservative — group while Grace McCarthy is; | one of the true Socreds. The Social Credit Party | would be in serious trouble if : an election was held this fall but that’s nothing new. Bill” Bennett was also thought to be. - 7 ‘in trouble during the first two 0.) years of each of his three man- dates. _ Premier Vander Zalm ~~: doesn’t need to go back to. the voters for three more yéarsi That’s more than enough tim he doesn’t, the Liberals are waiting 7