Mother lode The mining industry says its best prospects this year will come out of the ballot box\NEWS A8 In spiritual service Dojo dynamos Two Nass Valley couples head. Off to Salvation Army posts\COMMUNITY B1 Local karate athletes take _ international martial arts tourney by storm\SPORTS B5 > | VOL. 13 NO. 52 WEDNESDAY March 28, 2001 _www.terracestandard ae $1.00 pius 7¢ GST ($1.10 pius 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) um Ry JEFF NAGEL THE LOOMING trade battle with the U.S. over softwood lumber exports threatens to hammer interior sawmills if it doesn’t go Canada’s way. But to northwest forest companies, the expiry of the Canada-U.S. Soft- wood Lumber Agreement this week lifts a millstone from around their necks and presents a golden opportun- ity to increase exports to the U.S. “Por a company like Skeena Cellu- lose, this is their opportunity to get back into that if some kind of free trade arrangement can be made,” says Ken Veldman of the Terrace Econo- mic Development Authority. Trade has been anything but free for Directors increase own pay By JENNIFER LANG CITING THE going rate for other politicians serving on regional district boards in northern B.C., Kitimat-Sti- kine Regional District dir- eclors voted to give them- selves a pay raise. After looking at the al- lowances of their counter- . parts in four other northern } regional districts, Kitimat- :§ Stikine regional directors approved a $50 increase to their monthly pay Feb, 23. That means directors -& will now receive $400 (or $4,400 annually) to attend the 11 monthly meetings, held at the regional district office in Terrace. The beard chair’s monthly remuneration will rise from $485 to $535, a $550 annual increase that works oul to $5,885 a year. All 12 directors, includ- ing the chair, also receive monthly operating allow- ances to cover out-of- pocket expenses for fulfil- ling their duties. Operating allowances for municipal directors like Jack Talstra and Rich Mc- Daniel will rise from $39 to $50 a month. Electoral area C direc- tor Bob Cooper will naw get $150 and area E direc- tor Les Watmough will re- ceive §85 in operating al- lawances per month. Directors have also ap- proved a mileage increase of five cents per kilometre, Directors can now charge 45 cents per kilometre on paved roads and 60 cents on gravel roads. The pay increase bylaw has passed first reading — and will likely get final approval in April. Only Kitimat director Jim Thom voted against the increases at the Febr-_ STAN -TERRA( DARD “Terrace is B.C.'s 2001 Forestry Capital” ber battle ma B.C. companies in the past five years of the current agreement. U.S. producers have always viewed Canadian production as unfairly subsi- dized because forest firms here use Crown forests rather than owning their own land — the practice in the U.S, U.S. lobbyists push for high tariffs and penallies on Canadian wood head- ing south in the absence of an agree- ment to restrict Canadian exports. Five years ago rather than attempt to disprove U.S. claims, Ottawa agreed to restrict Canadian exports and signed the soon-to-expire deal, The problem with it was it did not treat all Canadian producers fairly. Here in the northwest, sawmills had a Splash time THE TERRACE: aquatic centre was packed last week as hardes of people escaped the chilly weath- ‘ar. That's Kathy Dodd and 22-month-old Frazer who came fram Hazelton with Frazer's twin brother Liam and dad Simon Dodd. The afternoon open swim was a big hit and the pool was puny all waek. retooled in the 1980s to precisely cut wood for the Japanese market, but could also cut 2x4s for the U.S. Around 1995 the Asian housing market was booming and almost all northwest lumber was going to Japan, When the new agreement went into effect, Canadian forest companies were issued quotas - a maximum amount of lumber each could export to the U.S. each year ~ based on their re- cent history of exports to the U.S. For Skeena. Cellulose, that number was almost zero. “As a result they got almost no quota at all,” Veldman. says. When the Japanese market col- lapsed amid the Asian financial melt- down, lumber prices in Japan plum- metted and SCI found itself unable to instead sell lumber to the U.S. without paying hefty penalties. That has greatly contributed to the recent years of pain in the northwest forest industry, Veldman says. “That’s exacerbated the Asian meltdown for us in the northwest.” At Skeena Cellulose it meant lower profits and harder times at exactly the same time it was abandoned by parent company Repap Enterprises and had to he bailed out by the province. SCI twice asked the federal govern- ment to increase its U.S. quota, by re- ducing exports of other producers. Those requests - which SCI said for the party raid. vary board meeting. SCI workers rejected pay Shutdown ends early By JEFF NAGEL SKEENA CELLULOSE asked workers at its Terrace sawmill to consider taking a 10 per cent pay cut, a union official says. The idea was rejected in a-unani- - mous vote by mill workers last month, IWA local rep Surinder Malhotra said. “They wanted a blank cheque,” he said. “We told them where to go.” Malhotra said it seems the idea evolved from an offer by SCI’s Hazel- tons-based loggers to take a pay’cut, “We threw. it out: as .a: question,” confirmed sawmill general® manager Terry Bennett, who said it was an in- formal query, not a concrete proposal. “The company is obviously looking to remain competitive in this market and it’s a matter of sharpening the pencils atid this was one of the options being considered to cut:costs,” added Don Zadravec, a spokesman for the province, which owns SCI. The vote by mill workers here came just before they were laid off Feb. 23. ~ The mill. shutdown, which was ex- pected to last into April, ended carly -with a restart last week. . >. Bennett was unable to say how long. the.mill will run...’ “We! ve got: some customer “orders that we wanted ta fill,” he said. “We had some wood in the bush that was decked and we thought we'd bring it in before the weather pets (oo difficult.” Malhotra said the sawmill is run- ning four days a week. More junior workers are laid off for a day a week, while senior staff will work the planer mill once it retarts April 2, The pay cul suggestion is separate from an economic plan being crafted to offer Skeena Cellulose limited log exports and other assistance. Mathotra said: union: membets also _ oppose log export provisions for SCI. But ‘job protection commissioner : Etic: van Soeren says. ‘he :is just con- cluding the plan that’s about to go out for signatures to all participants. “We've got what we think is a final draft,” he said. It will give SCI approval to export 10 per cent of the logs it cuts, he said. Approval depends on the company, the forests ministry, three unions, and Port Edward and Prince Rupert city councils signing the plan,-he said. SCI would pet further defertals of . property tax from those towns, but not Terrace, where the amounts involved are considered minor. ~ “The, company. should be paying faxes back ‘and ‘should .be. paying. ~stumpage back but can’t do it right 7 | =e es — ————i) CS | 1°) 95 | a |_——__—_______—fs 8] ————————Ta 7 | y help northwest would have put at least 500 more pecple to work in its northwest saw- mills — wete rejected by Oltawa. West Fraser frequently shut its saw- mill down here and allowed its interior mills to fill the company’s U.S. pro- duction limit because the mill here was less efficient and less profitable. During much of the last four years penalties on U.S.-bound exports have been the difference between a saw- mill’s abilily to be open or closed. “The current agreement has really hammered us up here,” Veldman said. It was doubly painful for forest ex- ecutives here because they had to Continued Page A2 Marijuana man gets set to roll Pot party’s budding candidate attends election training camp By JENNIFER LANG A 48-YEAR-OLD construction worker and former NDP supporter is mulling over an offer to run as the B.C. Marijuana Party’s candidate in Skeena, Bob Erb has been actively recruiting new members ~ best known for its stance in favour of le- galizing marijuana — since he joined in February. Erb said he’s signed up at least 75 party memberships in Skeena so far, and expects that support to grow.to 200 by the end of April, Voters could very well find them- selves in the middle of an election campaign by then. He said the majority of new party members here are people in their 40s or 50s, and he knows of a couple in their 70s who have signed on. Erb, who headed down to the party’s launch in Vancouver over the weekend, said party executives have asked him to consider becoming the candi- date here in the upcoming pro- vincial election. . The fledgling party, led by former Grand Forks mayor Brian Taylor, intends to field candi- dates in all 79 B.C, ridings. Erb, a long-time federal and provincial NDP member, said he joined the national marijuana party in January after reading about it in Cannabis Culture magazine. He wanted to be involved after learning of its pledge to run candidates in the provincial election. Alter a lifetime of political involvement in the main- stream, Erb cites frustration that the NDP hasn’t worked harder to legalize marijuana. “] have voted NDP all my life,” said Erb, a union member and single father of two teenagers, who de- scribes himself as a “regular user” of marijuana. - Erb was charged with possession in 1997 after RCMP raided his Thornhill home, but the charges were stayed, He later filed a complaint against the RCMP over the Bob Erb He thinks legalizing marijuana for personal use. and encouraging hemp farming would “generate real, new sources of revenue for the government while culting the numbers on our employment and welfare rolls.” He also believes it would draw more tourists to B.C, cut idea now and that’s why we need to conti- nue the deferrals,” van Soeren said. Yan Soeren said he’s also very close to approving a plan giving Inter- for log exports and similar aid. The plans flow from the Northwest Forest Plan announced in December to give specialized assistance to compa- nies here. “The disappointing part about. it is the market is so bad no matter what we do there will still be mills taking downtime,” van Soeren said. - Malhotra said he’s hopeful markets will improve. “This is the bottom right now,” he Predicted. “It’s going to move up.”