_ 4: Terrace Review — Wednesday, May 6;1987

Letter
‘Education
_ Showcase
. gets aid
To the editor,

We, o
Education Showcase and

of the Terrace _

Science Olympics Com-

‘mittee,
knowledge the financial
contributions of Mc-
Donald’s Restaurant of
Terrace, the Terrace
Board of School Trustees
(Schoo! District 88), the
Terrace District Teachers’
Association and par-
ticipating public and in-
dependent schools.
The help- given by
’ Dairyland Foods, Over-
waitea Foods, Canada
Safeway and the Terrace
Co-operative Association
is greatly appreciated.

gratefully ac- |

‘Northern Computer .

Concepts and CFTK
Channel 11 are also
- thanked for their displays.
a Allen Wootton,
nO Terrace, B.C.

an Vitamin A Source ° ot
- A half cup of pumpkin has a
_- day’s supply of vitamin A and only

AGcalories, ,

———a

-|. Letters to the editor will be

considered for publication
_only when signed. Please
Include. your _ phone
number. The editor
‘reserves the right to
condense and edit letters.
. Opinions expressed are
not necessarily those of
the Terrace Review.

=

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“Hubert 7
Beyer

Terrace Review |

One of the unshakeable tenets of conservativism has
always been that anything governments do, ‘the private
sector can do better. — .

I certainly go along with the creed when it comes to

imagination and ideas. Governments have their own in- ~

ertia which prevents the germination of good ideas. And

that problem, which is why he makes such a big deal of

community involvement. _ :
In the interest of helping the premier move-from mere

rhetoric to action, I’d like to draw his attention to a re-

cent proposal submitted to his new forest minister, Dave

-Parker, by a delegation from the Cariboo.

To whet his appetite, I’d like to start off by saying

- that the proposal could put more than 1,000 people to

work for the next 40 to 60 years and do some very

~. beneficial things for our forests in the process.

[ Quesnel alderman who believes that good forest man- -

The force behind the scheme is Lloyd Whyte, a

agement consists of more than planting trees and letting

them grow until the time comes to chop them down...
- And I should add that ‘Whyte is not just.a starry-eyed -

idealist. He is woodlands manager for Slocan Forest
Products in Quesnel. - —
Whyte is a firm believer in silviculture. He says the
question is no longer whether we should practice silvi-
culture in a serious way; it’s when do we start, He thinks
now is the time.
_ And his proposal, which has been endorsed by coun-
cils of Quesne!, 100 Mile House and Williams Lake;-as
well as the Cariboo Regional District, is now in the
hands of the forest minister. .
The proposal calls for a concerted silviculture pro-

" gram in the lodgepole pine, Douglas fir and spruce bal-

sam stands in the Cariboo region. The tending program
would consist primarily of thinning, spacing, weeding
and brush control for a minimum of 10 years. The result
would. be at least the retention of current annual

allowable cuts at worst but in all liketihood a substantial
_ increase.

" The silviculture program would be carried out mainly
on immature stands. One of the basic ingredients of the
proposal is the fact that large areas of forest in the
region are now subject to a number of disasters, such as
beetle infestation, which causes the affected trees to be

AQHTTAthe ideas best

Victoria Correspondent. J}
ae ‘annual growth.

lost to commerical use. An intensive silviculture -pro-

gram, on the other hand, would salvage some.of that

- Whyte points out that we don’t have to wait for the

_ benefits of an intensive. silviculture program until the
“treated stands reach maturity. The added volume
| growth created by intensive silviculture on immature
~ stands can be harvested immediately from mature

stands, leaving the total annual cut in balance with total

The cost of the program would be $15 million a year
for 10 years. The benefits would be impressive: Harves-

table volumes would be increased by about 375,000
cubic-metres a-year after.10 years. The program would.
employ about 859 people in the first year and up to

1,885 people in the tenth year.

_ “Whyte says unless an intensive silviculture program is
implemented in the Cariboo immediately, the recent

serious beetle attacks will invariably result in a reduced.

annual allowable cut which, in turn, will lead to higher
unemployment.

“There is no need to explain the advantage of the pro- |

posed project to those youth who will be employed by it.
Without the project, they would likely remain unem-
ployed and their future may be filled with collecting
welfare payments instead of learning a vocation which
will be in high demand not only in British Columbia,
but throughout Canada in the coming years,’ Whyte

Says.

‘Forestry is not a sunset industry. World demand for
forest products continues to rise, The Cariboo region is
in the enviable position of being able to fill the growing
demand with help from the provincial and federal gov-.
érnments and in the process provide increased employ-

ment opportunities,” he adds. . ne
The proposal is modelled, in part, after ‘Strategy for
Survival,’? a recently implemented stand-tending pro-

gram for Vancouver Island. Nobody worked harder for .

the implementation of that program than Graham

Bruce, former mayor of Duncan.
Bruce is now the Socred MLA for Cowichan-Malahat
and although he isn’t the forest minister and inexlicably

not even the parliamentary secretary to the forest minis-_

ter, Bruce might consider throwing his support behind
Whyte’s proposal. — co

_ [hope that Bruce has not yet becoine a victim of gov-
ernment inertia and still retains some of that good-idea
potential he had before he joined the big league. I also
hope he hasn’t forgotten that a lot of people helped him
convince the government that his was a good idea. Now
someone else needs all the help he can get.

-COUNTERATIACK

A DECADE DOWN A SAFER ROAD

Your correspondent J.

-|  Jyrkkanen misleads’ your
. Teaders. when he poses the —
-. question as to “why pub-
“S'lie.‘monies’ should go to-.
wards compensation . for
“cancers. that were alleged

to have been caused by Al-

“can’’, (Letter, ‘one cure —
. for cancer, a cleaner envi-

ronment”, April 15).
" Clearly he does not un-

‘derstand that Workers’

Compensation in British
Columbia is fully. funded
by employers, not by the

public (or the govern-

ment). Alcan’s Kitimat

~ Works is in a category of -
its own with the W.C.B..

of B.C. as the only
aluminum smelter in the
province. Alcan’s assess-
ment rates are based on

both its actual experience

and on actuarial estimates

of future compensation

expense: _
Alcan has seen a sub-

stantial increase’ in-- its

‘assessment rates per $100
of payroll in the past-few
years, despite significant
decreases in our accident

and occupational health.

experience. In 1986 actual
costs to the company in-
creased 14.6 percent over
the previous year to a total
of $1.1 million -- all paid
by the company. There are

-estimatés of a 16.6 percent

increase to $1.4 million in
1987.. Te
It should be noted that
the assessments and claims
paid through employer
funding represents only a

small proportion. of the

dollars spent by major

employers such as Alcan

on health and safety pro-
grams, workplace envi-
ronmental monitoring and

protection, employee me- ~
dical monitoring, and in.

other employee programs.
These - not to mention
modernization - represent
a significant contribution
in the pursuit of a safer
and healthier working en-
vironment in industry to-
ay. So .

I’m sure Mr. Jyrkkanen

would agree that the
W.C.B.. system of com-
pensation provides the
most equitable protection
for sick or injured workers
-- whether they work for
Alcan, the local. store or
sawmill, or even for the
provincial government’s
fish and wildlife branch,

Allan C. Hewitson

Manager Public Relations

_ Alcan, Kitimat Works

ae MT El Me