000 copies i printed in this issue THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER thewestern canadian lumber worker Published once monthly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1 Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC 2859 Commercial Orive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone874-5261 Editor—Patrick S. Kerr Business Manager—Wyman Trineer Forwarded to every member of the IWA in Western Canada in accordance with convention decisions. Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year. leading expert in the field of forestry has accused B.C.’s So- cial Credit government of gross negligence for failing to develop a sound forestry policy for the prov- ince. John Walters, director of the Uni- versity of B.C. research forest at Maple Ridge, in a recent article in The Vancouver Sun which is reprinted elsewhere in this issue, charged that there is an air of com- plete indifference on the part of the government where B.C.’s number one industry is concerned. To show the contempt or ignor- ance the government holds for the industry that produced $83 million in direct revenue to the province last year and supported 76,000 jobs, Walters cited figures showing only twice as much money was allotted to the forestry budget as was spent on archives and museums. He stated that in 1976, B.C. ex- ported $3.1 billion of forestry prod- ucts as compared to only $11 million agricultural exports during the same period and yet the provincial budget for agriculture was $3.2 million larger than for forestry. This gross negligence, Walters charged, will have serious far- reaching effects on the industry. He pointed out that seventy years of mismanagement and neglect by pro- vincial governments has already wiped out large areas of our forests to the point that half our reserves are lost. . Walters claims the government is unwilling to recognize the danger by flatly refusing to provide the money needed to rebuild our forests. To support his charges, Walters compared the thirteen cents B.C. spends per acre on reforestation while the Weyerhaeuser Company in the United States spends $14 per acre — 109 times as much. Not content with this penny- pinching — the government, Walters states — is reducing this year’s budget of the B.C. Forest Service by $5 million of which $1 million will be taken away from the already too little reforestation fund. Considering that 58 cents of every dollar made in British Colum- bia is generated from the forest in- dustry, the government should be taken to task and forced to institute a forestry policy which would ensure that our forests and our forest in- dustry would be no longer placed in jeopardy. CANADIANS NOW PAYING PRICE FOR PAST GOVERNMENT SELLOUTS Canadians are beginning to pay the price for allowing their resources to fall into the hands of large international corpora- tions, according to Saskat- chewan’'s NDP labour minister. Gordon Snyder _— says Canadians working in resource industries anywhere in Canada face the same danger of ar- bitrary layoffs as workers in Sudbury and Thompson, as oe ge mae resources are by large private companies who are given sub- sidies and assistance by per- missive federal and provincial governments. ‘ “By allowing our major re- sources to become the private of international cor- ations, Canadians have hostages to the for- tunes of the international world of finance,” Snyder says. Snyder is particularly - qualified to make his remarks on -acleng pio of the = source in es precise because Saskatchewan's NDP government is demonstrating the socialist alternative to re- source sellouts. One of the reasons is to be found in Saskatchewan’s take- over of the potash industry in the province, which is leading it into economic prosperity while most of the other regions of Canada stagnate. The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan is already North America’s largest supplier and will get even bigger when the province completes the take- over of more mines. So successful is the operation that the corporation had to halt sales in August because sup- plies ran out. But the Potash Corporation doesn’t tell half the story of the Saskatchewan government’s successful intervention in the province’s economy. The gov- ernment is raking the profits in from its fifty percent equity in mining ventures, profits which allow it to charge the lowest average tax rates in Canada. And the government also operates a power utility, tele- phone utility, coal strip mine, thermal plant and cable TV system. The government has substantial equity invested in the world’s largest inland steel mill, Interprovincial Steel and Pipe Corporation. And its net assets in the farming industry, growing by 36% a year, are al- lowing it to lease farms to farmers who otherwise could not afford to work the land. _ Snyder says an Inco-style layoff could not happen to the potash industry in Saskat- chewan because of the pre- sence of the provincial govern- ment as a major force in the in- dustry. - “We are re-investing re- source revenue within Saskat- chewan,”’ he says, ‘‘and we are planning our potash develop- ment so that there will be some stability for Saskatchewan workers. Snyder says Saskatchewan’s intervention into resource ownership and management may be “the way of the future.’’ They got disposable diapers .. . why not disposable long- johns? ; CLC PRESIDENT MORRIS ON MAJOR COMMISSION CLC President Joe Morris has been appointed to an inter- national commission to study the world’s major social and economic problems. The commission, under the chairmanship of Willy Brandt, former chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany, was cre- ated on the initiative of Robert S. McNamara, president of the World Bank. f hs oR Ax | ee JOE MORRIS Other members of the Brandt Commission include Edward Heath, former prime minister of Great Britain; Olaf Palme, former prime minister of Sweden; Pierre Mendes — former prime minister. of France,; Shridath S. Ramphal, Commonwealth secretary-gen- eral; and Eduardo Frei, social- democratic president of Chile before the election of Salvador Allende. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state, de- clined the invitation to be a member of the commission, due to other commitments; but agreed to serve as an adviser. Originally the commission’s mandate was aimed at break- ing the impasse in economic relations between the world’s poor and rich nations. But the terms have been expanded to look at the social impact of economic developments. Morris said one of his goals is to find a way to provide a better deal for the developing countries in their access to the markets of industrial countries without disrupting the econ- omies of such countries as Ca- nada.and the United States. The commission’s secre- tariat will be in Geneva, Morris said. The commission’s report is expected to be pub- lished within 18 months and the commissioners plan to meet about six times during week- ends in this period. Morris is also chairman of the governing body of the International Labour Organ- ization. LSS ESN SRE SSE SERS NCE SST ETS SE DRED ASE 5 Pe EE Tau fe eee ea Cos Tt CLC LODGES COMPLAINT _ AGAINST UIC ADS | q 1 ESE) The Canadian Labour Con- gress has lodged a formal com- plaint against the $2 million advertising campaign being conducted by the Canada employment and immigration commission, and a top CLC official says the department of labour’s $500,000 campaign is " also misleading. In a letter to the consumer fraud protection branch of the federal consumer and corpor- ate affairs department, CLC president Joe Morris describes the unemployment insurance ads developed by a leading Liberal advertising agency as “misleading” and “inaccurate in the extreme.” Don Montgomery, CLC secretary-freasurer, termed advertisements developed for the department of labour urging labour-management co- operation as ‘“‘meaningless and pointless” in an interview. :~