A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 11, 1996

‘TERRACE:

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 198*

ADDRESS: 3214) Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 -
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Too bad

THE NDP’S approval of the takeover by Repap
of Orenda Forest Products and its wood licence

is an obituary for those who had hoped for some-

thing different. .
The Orenda licence was one of three granted in
the Stewart-Meziadin area in 1985 in the ex-
pectation that there be logging and value-added
facilities to diversify the area’s economy.

That didn’t work as first one, then two and now
all three of those licences now rest with the
region’s major forest companies. Along the way
the owners of those three companies made mil-
lions of dollars without giving something
tangible in return despite whatever requirements
were contained in their licences.

Repap’s pulp mill in Prince Rupert, which had
bought the Orenda wood anyway, is simply too
Jarge of an industrial player and employer for
any government to risk a partial closure and suf-
fer the economic or political consequences. The
takeover parallels the saying that if you owe the
bank a $1,000 you’re in trouble. But if you owe
the bank a $1 million, the bank’s in trouble.

What is intriguing — and disappointing for
those who wanted something different — is the
virtual lack of conditions given to Repap.

It has to keep one of its two pulp lines in Prince
Rupert operating — pretty much a given because
that’s why the company wanted Orenda’s wood
for in the first place.

It has to employ. the people Orenda hired to cut
the wood when it had the licence. That’s also
pretty much a given as the wood will still be cut.

Repap has to offer C GED Forest Products, a
small and old native-owned mill at Gitwangak,
35,000 cubic metres of wood a year for the next
three years. That sounds good but Repap gave
enough hints during the public hearings into the
takeover that C GED and the Hobenshield mill,
which Repap now also owns, won’t be around in
their present form in a few years,

To be sure, forests minister Dave Zirnhelt did
give Repap a list of ‘‘expectations’’. But these
aren’t conditions of the takeover and don’t carry
the force of law or penalty.

One of those expectations is that Repap must
provide by next June a plan for the moderniza-
tion of its Prince Rupert pulp mill. This is just to
be a plan. There’s no commitment to go ahead
with those improvements or a set timetable.

What makes this interesting is that Repap made
much of getting the Orenda licence to act as
security to borrow the money tc make those im-
provements. To not have the improvements as a
condition of the takeover is a mystery which
only Mr. Zirnhelt can explain.

Most glaring in all of this is the lack of new or

different employment opportunities in the area in
which the wood is located. A more ad-
venturesome scheme might have been to sever
the Orenda licence from a processing facility
commitment, divide it into small segments and
turn it over to a variety of small logging outfits.
- Those operators could sell to Repap or to any
other customer. This would have required direct
involvement from the provincial government but
the result would have been something more ex-
pected from an NDP government.

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Rervndle

How can 100 children die?

VICTORIA -- Somewhere in
this beautiful province, a child
died in what Ministry of Social
Services officials described as
asmelly, unkempt home.

The child’s family, according
to the officials, had ‘‘a long
history of neglect, substance
abuse, physical and sexual
abuse.’’ The child’s body was
described as “‘slightly un-
kempt.”’

The official cause of death
was asphyxia, which occurred
when the child ostensibly fell
off the bed and was pinned be-
tween the bed and the dresser
with a plastic bag smothering
its face,

Another child died of brain
damage, as a result of major
head injuries, likely caused by

shaking. The father said he’

was changing the child’s
diaper when the baby suddenly
couldn’t breathe and tumed
blue, The rib fractures and
bruising, the parents said, hap-
pened when the child fell.
What these two dead chii-
dren have in common is that in
their short lives, they had been
either in the care of the social
services ministry or received
government assistance. And
they are just two of more than
100 childzen, who died while

FROM THE CAPITAL.
HUBERT BEYER

the ministry was to look out

for their interests,

The horror of children dying
from neglect or abuse, with
neither government nar socicty
as'a whole seemingly able to

- do anything to prevent it, came

home -again last week. After
months of stalling, the social
services ministry released its
report on 19 children who died
between 1992 and 1995, while
wholly or partly in the minis-
try’s care.

The government report,

detailing the deaths of 19 chil- -

dren, was prepared in March,
shortly after. Judge Thomas
Gove severely criticized: the
government’s child-protection
system. :

Despite repeated calls by the
opposition Liberals and pres-
sure by the media, the govern-
ment held onto the report until
last week.

Now it turns out that the 19
deaths were just the tip of the
iceberg. After Gove recom-
mended that these 19 cases be
investigated, the ministry
found another 11 deaths that
needed further investigation.

We also know now that a 28
child deaths occurred while
Gove wrote his report, and 64
children died since the report
was tabled last fall.

What in God’s name is hap-_

pening? This is not a banana
republic in the grip of some tin
pot dictator. This is British
Columbia, a place with a stan-

dard of living, second to none,’ —

a place with a supposedly
sophisticated system of
government,

How is it possible that more
than a hundred children, sup-
posedly looked after to varying
degrees by the social services
ministry, can just die under
strange or suspicious circum-
stances?

Whom do we blame for their
deaths, the parents, the minis-
try field staff, or the politicians
who are ultimately responsible

for the mess that seems to exist
in the system? And more im-
portantly, what are we going to
do about it?

The first item on the public’s

agenda, I suggest, should be to

scream blue murder. Not a day
should go by without hundreds
of calls to government MLAs.
The premier’s office should be
swamped with thousands of
letters, demanding immediate
change,

This takes precedence over
budget deficits and Forest
Renewal fund raids. This is
more important than hiring
freezes and cuts to highway
projects. This transcends
partisan politics, We are talk-
ing about the lives of children
here.

The majority of the children
who died might be alive today,
had the sociai services ministry
cleaned up its act

Bureaucracy is always reluc-
tant to change, but with the
lives of children at stake, the
social services miinistry’s
bureaucracy should be forced
to change, kicking and scteam-
ing. Heads should roll, if
necessary,

Beyer can be reached at Tel:
920-9300; Fax: 385-6783; E-

Mail: hubert@cootcomcom

It could be embarrassing

MAKING FINAL §arrange-
menis for someone who's
passed on is always a sad as-
signment To have the
“deceased” tum up alive. and
well, ready to criticize your
plans, must give you quite a
turn.

That happened recently in
Vancouver where a couple
presumed dead after crashing
their amphibian aircraft in a
lake was found safe-and well
three days later.

By then the conple’s family
had read their wills, written
obituary notices, and schedul-
ed a memorial service. Instead
of congregating for a tearful
memorial, the family gathered
ground a Welcome Home cake
for a jayous reunion. Bul even
before everyone had licked the
icing from their fingers, Search
and Rescue were being blamed
for botching the rescue,

No doubt other criticisms
followed. For it’s a rare family

“THROUGH BIFOCALS
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

get-together where at least one
or tvo members don’t get bent
out of shape because of some
perceived slight. Here, where
$0 many lives stood to be ir-
tevocably changed, chances
for criticism were everywhere,

For ‘instance, the rescued
couple could be miffed that
everyone now knows what
they own, what they owe, and

COMES FROM 100 MILE

who they bequeathed what to.
And regardless of how fairly
they divvied up their posses-
sions, someone is sure to utter
the equivalent of Tommy
Smothers’ complaint, ‘Mom
liked you better. *’

Suppose the rescued couple
felt the planned memorial
venue was too small, implying
they lacked caring friends and
relatives. What if they felt the
memorial service was to be tao
short, interpreting that as un-
seemly haste to dispose of
them and get down to the busi-
hess of parcelling out their
property?

Conversely, if the couple felt
the memorial service was to be
too expansive and expensive, a
reckless disregard for their
hard-earned estate?

The obituary notice, too,
might fall short in the couple’s
eyes. Some accomplishment of
‘major stature in their opinion

might have been overlooked as
inconsequential by the writer
of the newspaper notice, Then
what?

Journals, diaries, and private
letters are always a gold mine
of revelations, secrets, and in-
nermost f{celing thal can
wound when revealed. Stum-
bling on to those could result
in years of rankle,

But all those sources of bit-
terness are nothing compared
to having an eager beaver as
exccutor, In three days an
cager beaver could clean house
disposing of  yeam of
paiustakingly gathered — per-
sonal collections of something
as mundane as magaziaca, haul
furniture to a landfill, and hire
a renovator,

The scars from three days of
hiking through thimble berries
and fighting free of a wrecked
plane could heal faster then the
emotional trauma of settling an
estate,

SEEN THE NEW
WAITRESS ?

MEN NEER Kod)

HOUSE WHERE HER DAD'S
AN OUTFITTER. GRADUATED
FROM COLLEGE IN WILDLIFE

MANAGEMENT. Joey ASKED
HER OUT BOT SHE'S GoT
HER EYE ON PETE! tow,

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ABOUT THE NEW
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NAME'S SARA
AND (5 SHE /
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