Hunting
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November 5, 1990
50 cents
Volume 53, No. 38

Tin Wis seeks unity talks
as Tsitika tension rises

Representatives of the two-year-old Tin
Wis coalition were moving last week to
bring together various environmental
groups for discussions following a blockade
of logging in the Tsitika Valley that has
created new tensions between IWA-Canada
members and environmentalists.

Meanwhile, leaders of the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labour and the IWA-Canada were
meeting with John Smith, hereditary chief of
the Tlowitsis-Mumtagila First Nation and
other Native leaders. A second meeting was
planned in Vancouver Nov. 1 as the Tribune
went to press.

Joined by Civic New Democrat
council candidate Mel Lehan
(centre), Committee for Fair
Assessments secretary and
COPE aldermanic candidate
Bruce Yorke holds up copy of
Vancouver real estate listings,
demonstrating discriminatory
assessments at rally’ in
Vancouver’s Robson Square
Oct. 31. He cited several in-
stances where assessments
on the west side of the city
were set at only some 60 per
cent of the selling price,
whereas houses on the east
side were assessed at more

The committee is demanding
information from the assess-
ment authority on how the as-
sessments were determined
and whether the procedure
was uniform across the city.
More than 3,000 assessment
appeals were lodged before
the final day Oct. 31.

Also last week, the Indian band, which
has a land claim in the 27-hectare site sche-
duled for logging, was headed to B.C.
Supreme Court Friday to press its case for
an injunction against logging on the basis
that culturally-modified trees — evidence of
aboriginal habitation in the area — have
been found. That band was successful in
winning an interim injunction in Nanaimo
Oct. 31 halting further logging pending the
outcome of the land-claim case.

If the injunction is upheld —as was the
case on Meares Island five years ago — it
could provide formal protection for the old-
growth forest in the area, which is also sen-
sitive because of its proximity to Robson
Bight, a key killer-whale sighting area.

Butif the claim is rejected, it will put new
pressure on the unity of unionists, environ-
mentalists and Native groups who have
taken some tentative steps in recent months
towards a common strategy on balancing
jobs and forest preservation.

Members of the Sierra Club and the
Western Canada Wilderness Committee set
up a blockade of the logging road Oct. 22,
preventing MacMillan Bloedel loggers from
moving into the cut block, located below
Catherine Creek in the Lower Tsitika. How-
ever, the WCWC stated later that its mem-
bers were not blockading but merely giving
moral support to others who were.

The issue of WCWC involvement was
the focus of a court action by MacMillan
Bloedel which was successful in its applica-
tion for an injunction, granted on the basis
of a writ alleging WCWC members had
blockaded the road.

They were joined a week later by chief
see MEETINGS page 12

than their current selling price.

Major industries located in the District
of Coquitlam have become major tax eva-
ders, aldermanic candidate and three-term
incumbent Eunice Parker says, in sound-
ing a campaign platform that has rele-
vance for many progressive candidates
seeking office in municipal elections
around the province on Nov. 17.

“Tf this keeps up, there will be virtually
nothing left to tax (from corporations),
and residential homeowners will wind up
footing the tax bill,” warms Parker, a can-
didate for the Association of Coquitlam
Electors.

Parker and dozens of other candidates
for office around the Lower Mainland
received the nod of the New Westminster
Labour Council on Oct. 24. Around the
province, candidates are seeking office
with labour backing or are running on
environmental and sustainable develop-

ment platforms. Some are associated with
the provincial New Democrats.

Some are running as members of full
slates for council and school board in
long-established civic coalitions or as
municipal New Democrats. In other
municipalities, united progressive opposi-
tion to big-business domination on local
government bodies is only a dream, but
concerned individuals are seeking seats to
put a progressive voice on regional district
board, council or school board.

Parker, asix-year veteran of Coquitlam
council, cites lack of affordable housing,
the polluting de-inking plant near the
Fraser River, a proposed golf course on
agricultural land near Pitt Lake, and the
Greater Vancouver Regional District’s
$1.8-billion, five-year infrastructure up-
grading plan as key issues.

Regarding the latter, a plan to upgrade

sewage, water, and solid waste disposal
facilities and hospitals, she says: “We
must do it and fight for the funds from the
federal and provincial governments.”

On taxation, Parker charges: “Many
major industries, with the complicity of
the province and the Assessment Auth-
ority, have become major municipal tax
evaders.”

She points to the 26-acre CPR inter-
modal site, which paid only $56,000 in
taxes last year, and the now-defunct Fraser
Mills plywood facility, reduced in asses-
sed value by $50 million since 1982.

The Coquitlam Civic New Democrats
left one council seat open for Parker, field-
ing five candidates for the remaining
seats. The candidates, backed by the
labour council, are: Gord Campbell, Ar-
mida McDougall, Diane Thome, Phil

MacLeod and Lary Talson.
see LABOUR-BACKED page 2