IN HIS OWN WORDS Premier describes his vision for the woods Premier Glen Clark spoke to reporters in northern B.C. last Friday by tele- phone. Here are some of his responses to questions about his plans for the Sorest industry: give a age of pulp logs. on the wet belt they will disproportionate break to those companies that have a higher percent- Will areas rich in who really need it — the Repap’s of the world, the coastal communities and the wet belt of the interior of BC. What kind of changes will there be to the code? The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 14, 1997 - A13 The Jobs and Timber Accord @ Premier Glen Clark's master plan for prosperity in the woods is atill under nego- tiation. And it’s far from a done deal. His public relations offensive last week was aimed at putting pressure on industry to sign. Clark wants it done by June. @ The overall goal of the accord is to create 21,000 new jobs over the next four years. If the companies do sign, they’ll cach commit to a share of that tally. They're hesitant because in many cases they’re not yet sure how they’re going to productively employ many more people. i Unions are also being expected to make commitments. There’s a talk of a 30- ting up several hundred million dollars of Forest Renewal B.C. money. Clark said all the jobs that will be created by various pro- grams and projects under FRBC will be counted against the 21,000-job target. Wi Getting companies to sign will involve a combination of carrots and sticks, The big stick is the threat to pull timber licences of companies that don’t play ball. The carrots are Clark’s pledge to ease Forest Practices Code costs and stumpage fees. @ The government wants the 21,000 jobs created to be high-paying union jobs. And forests minister David Zirnhelt has con- How much FRBC money will go toward the Jobs and Timber Accord? Probably all the money that we're investing will count as part of the 21,000 jobs in terms of how it's organized. But it won't be nearly enough. There has to be work done by the com- panies themselves, What's the status of the accord? We're in negotiations and we hope within the next month we'll have an agree- ment. There’s really three pieces we’re working on. One is Streamlining the Forest Practices Code to reduce the cost ta companies to comply — not to screw around with the standards but to really get rid of some of the duplication and paperwork which the code . has spawned, That will require legisla- tion. We will be bringing it in this session of the legisla- ture to make changes. second piece might be called the jobs piece. How we're going to create 21,000 jobs, how we reorganize Glen Clark Forest Renewal, how we get the companies to create More, how we divert more wood to value-added mills — those kinds of things. The third piece is stumpage. We are doing a review of stumpage to make sure it's sensitive to the market, We’ve found in ovr review that with pulp logs in particular, the stumpage seems to be too high to be sustainable because it’s now costing companies in some cases more money to actual- ly harvest the pulp logs than they actually receive. What that will do is give every forest company some relief on the pulp log side, but because there are more pulp logs on the coast and sawlogs pay the price of easing stumpage fees in high-pulp areas? We obviously have a softwood lumber agreement with the United States so I don’t want to raise expecta- tions that there will be huge stumpage reef. We simply can’t do that because we risk a major fight with the Americans, one which we would not win, We'll proba- bly have a fight with the Americans doing anything and that’s something we have to be prepared for. Secondly any move that we are making on stumpage ‘will be the same for every company in B.C., but the real problem is in the pulp sector and pulp logs so it means that the cost relief will likely be larger for those companics who are harvesting poor wood, Be- cause those companies that ate harvesting high quality wood with very few pulp logs are actually making moncy in B.C, today. And so while obviously it would be nice to give them some relief we have to target our efforts on an overall policy for B.C. which gives more relief and more help to those We are looking at ways in which we can be more effi- cient, Part of the problem with the code is it’s kind of con- stipated the cutting permits, 80 we want to make a com- mitment on the part of the government with respect to the jobs question to make sure we have two years up front cutting permits out there so that companies can omanize their work, keep people working and not be subject to this kind of bureaucratic bottleneck that’s been created. And ] think frankly we’re going to have to give professional foresters more power, including private companies. So if you’ve got professional foresters work- ing with a private company and you’ve got professional foresters working for the government both doing the same thing, why not let the private forester do the work and then let’s have the government audit it and then have tough penaltics if they’re not up to speed, rather than what we have now, which is really quite a bit of duplication. hour work week and a ban on overtime. By reducing the amount of work cach employ- ec does, it would create new jobs by spreading the available work around. @ The government’s share would be put- WEDNESDAY WATERING | BAD PLACE Terrace Litle Theatre TERRACE a Seopeirk by > SATURD COMING APART firmed that FRBC grants to companies might only be approved if those companies employ [WA members. That’s ted critics to accuse the NDP government of trying to reward iis union supporters at the cost of the competitiveness of the industry. Union stands to win big, critic says B.C.'s BIGGEST forest industry union — IWA Canada — will become much more powerful if Glen Clark’s Jobs and Timber Accord is adopted. ' That’s the claim of B.C. Liberal forestry critic Ted Nebbeling. He says the premier’s contention that the new jobs created be union jobs will force mass unionization of the non-union portions of the forest industry. And big unions like the IWA will Due to the Victoria Day Long Weekend see their membership rolls balloon and emerge with more power than most cabinet ministers, he said. “They’re going to have extreme power over anyone who needs FRBC funding,”? Nebbeling said. ‘If you don’t play ball with the master you won't get a dime. “There is the potential that the union could use its power to imple- ment all kinds of rules and regula- tions.” The Terrace Standard will have early deadlines to meet press schedules The May 21 issue deadline Thursday, May 15, SERRE EN Ue Gee NE aed eae RESEDA LTRS SNC SS ae chaste TERRACE STANDARD 1997 at 5:00 p.m. for all display ads and word/display classified ads submitied news (letters to the editor, community calendar, etc.) 3210 Clinton Street, Terrace, B.C. V8G 5R2 Phone 638-7283 Fax 638-8432 Nebbeling predicts that money will be available to companies that want access to FRBC moncy — but only to the operations that are unionized. “The condition will be that for a mill to tap into that fund, WA mem- bership is mandatory,’’ he said. “This is going to be the new FRBC raid. It is not a raid that goes into gen- eral revenue, but it will be a denial of that money to the community unless you are willing to unionize."’ by Lakes District Community Theatre BURNS LAKE a Sooraared by yauicn COPY ECENTRE - Tickets St per "show at 1 uilabe Tr Trove Best spain will got ta MAINSTAGE W con, ck i [2 Ws ones x Star Choice special low x Canada’s First Direct-to-Home ; Satellite Service x Authorized Dealer * Special Introductory offer. State. | of the art digital direct to home satellite system PLUS one year of premium programming at a * 21 of the most popular Canadian & American channels plus 30 digital audio channels « Your Satellite Centre in the Lazelle Mini-Mall Terrace... 7” price