Smoke sellers stung Sail away Basketball best A number of tobacco. retailers have been caught selling smokes A local youth will be sailing in an international race from Boston to Caledonia tops their own record at the AAA tournament in to underage teens\NEWS A3 New York \COMMUNITY B1. Vancouver\SPORTS B5 WEDNESDAY. _ April 5, 2000 IN A MOVE thal’s economical and polilical, West Fraser wants to sell its forest licence on the north coast. Tentative buyer Olsen Management Group, one of two contractors West Fraser uses to log its licence, is better suited to make logging profit- able, West Fraser vice president Wayne Clogg said last week. And by getting out of the coastal logging busi- ness, West Fraser hopes. to remove. itself :from the battles between companies and environ- mental groups over iogging in old growth forests, Clogg added. West Fraser will keep its North Coast Timber custom cutting mill in Prince Rupert, which now handles some of the wood from the forest li- cence. The jicence contains an ‘annual cut of 161,449 cubic metres. Clogg said the licence was never an easy fit for West Fraser which runs profitable operations in the interior and which owns Skeena Sawmills in Terrace and the Eurocan pulp mill in Kitimat. “There’s a wide range of species and grades in that licence, not all of which is suitable for “For our custom culting operation, only 15 per cent of the wood was suitable. That means six oul of every seven logs or so weren't viable. And it wasn’t economical to process that wood in Terrace. We were Faced with selling it on the open market at a loss,” he said. Olsen Management, owned by Tom Olsen from Campbell River, is better suited to do the logging and selling the wood because it is a small and flexible operator, Clogg continued. “The licence made up two per cent of our timber holdings as a company, but it consumed many, many times that in Management time,” he ' said. A downturn in the Japanese economy in the mid-1990s, a key market for the wood from the licence, also cut into revenues and the kind of species West Fraser could sell, Clogg added. He’s not anticipating any job loss in the log- ging end or at the North Coast Timber mill. Clogg said that mill is not profitable but that West Fraser has a lot of money invested in it and wants to continue acting as a custom miller. “IUs the prime custom cutting mill on the The sale will require the approval of the pro- vincial government and its deliberations will be important because what West Fraser wants re- presents a change in forest policy. _ That’s because the wood in this licence is tied to the North Coast Timber mill. West Fraser's plan calls for a severing of that policy. “We're asking the provincial government to put a clause on the licence so that the wood is offered in the Prince Rupert market first,” said Cloge. That then paves the way for Olsen Manage- meni to pay West Fraser to custom cut wood from the licence at the North Coast Timber Mil!. Clogg said West Fraser has not struck any such deal yet with Olsen Management, He called the requesied severing of the li- cence from the North Coast Timber mill a hint of what may be new kind of forest industry in B.C. by creating more classes of loggers and millers who will be able to strike business deals advan- tageous to each other. - “Smaller operators may have advantages we don’t have if there is an open market and full ac- - $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST- ($4.20 plug 8¢ GST outside of the Tarrace aren} ~ : VOL, 12 NO. 52 Logging licence sale wanted Clogg conceded that the pending sale will fucl rumours that West Fraser wants. out of the northwest allogether. But he repeated previous company staternents that West Fraser is not shopping for a buyer-or buyers, “It’s like asking if your house is for sale. The answer may be ‘no’ but if the price is right, might be,” said Cloge. As is the case with other wood licence trans- fers, the province will take back five per cent of the annual allowable cut. A decision on whether or not to hold public hearings as yet to be made. West Fraser took over the licence when a _ Prince Rupert mill owned by Wedeene River, a company owned by the Williams logging family, went into receivership in the early 1990s. West Fraser originally thought it could modify that mill but ended up spending millions of dol- lars to replace it with the North Coast Timber custom cutting mill. For more on West Fraser's corporate strategy to leave behind batiles with environmental groups, our mill in- Prince Rupert,” said Clogg. coast,” said Clogg. RCMP OFFICER Mike L'Italien with Ali the. newest recrult to the police detach- ment here. He’s 20 months old and comes from Europe. Ali takes up his duties | TERRACE’S newest RCMP member is a special agent able to sniff out crime fast, What's more — give him a home, a ball, and all the dog food he can manage and Ali, Terrace's newest police dog, wilt work for free. Ali and handler Cust. Mike L’Ilalien arrived here from the RCMP's dog hand- ling school in Alberta five weeks apo. They'll be under the jurisdiction of the detachment and so will be used primarily take press off the regional dog and officer team. But L’Italien and Ali, will help their counterparts and assist search and rescue efforts when needed. Their presence in Terrace and area is also expected to give heft to the idea of drug free zones around school because school searches are part of that program. At 20-months-old, Ali is about six- months younger than most graduating po- lice dogs. “He still has some maturing to. do,” said L’Italien, Like most German shepherds, Ali has a lot of courage, versatility and wiiling- - ness to please his master. When the Czech-born German Shep- herd, was purchased from a European bro- ker and brought to Canada seven: months ago, he had to. demonstrate enough cour- age and focus in a series of tests to guar- antee he would pass the RCMP training. in Terrace and area. That's expected to L'italien and Ali have spent most of ‘their short time here continuing the inten- sive training they learned in the RCMP’s Police Dog Service Training Centre in In- nisfail, Alberta. Old shirts and articles of clothing are hidden in the woods to see if Ali and L’Italien can find them in an attempt to simulate every real life situation they will encounter. “When they call you, they got to know what to do,” said L’Italien of police dogs. Ali also has to get accustomed to loud noises, bush tracking, crawds and. even gunfire, to teach him how to react in every possible situation. “Anything you can think of, you can do,” L’Italien said. The officer and Ali will need to pass an annual validation exam to make sure - the dog and handler live up to standards of other RCMP dog handlers in the coun- try. The most important skill All can learn is to listen. “Everything we do is an ex- tension of obedience,” L’Italien said. Ali and L’Italien wit) live; work and lrain together for about ‘six years, the average time a dog and handier work to- '. gether. > “lf you like animals and you like to be outside it’s a:cool job,” said the officer . But it’s not a job that’s easy to get. oy cess [to timber],” he said. please see Page A2 students buckle down now that strike is over STUDENTS WENT back to school this week after hav- ing a week off because of striking support workers, The school district’s 394 school support staff, which include special services as- sistants, janitors, noon hour supervisors, and secretaries shut down classes March 27-31 protesting what they called an attempt to gut their collective agreement. Workers were bargaining for 47 issues, including keeping seniority rights (the school district wanted to be ‘ able to lay off any worker Fish projects taking a THE NUMBER of area fish habitat projects is likely to be cut because of budget reductions to Fish- eries Renewal B.C. Last year FRBC spent $10.4 miliion on habitat projects throughout B.C, but is to spend only $4 million this year. That will have an effect in this area where "$480,000 was spent last - year on 24 projects. Details of what will happen for this budget year, which began April 1, , have yet to be announced. Fisheries Renewal B.C. is a provincial crown cor- poration and is to fish what the other FRBC, Farest Renewal B.C., is to trees. It’s been around since 1997 and iast year’s ex- penditures were assisted “with a $2 million contribu- _tion from B.C. Hydro. FRBC’s overall budget _of $16.5 million last year will drop to $9 million. Also taking a budget hit - from $3 million to $2 million - is FRBC’s pro- gram to develop new fish- eries and value-added sea- food products, Part of that $9 million, to be spent this year, $1.7 million, will go to admin- istration and overhead, That is about the same amount as was spent last year, If there is some good news it's that FRBC now has a commitment of $7.5 million a year for the next _ three years from the pro- regardless of seniority), keeping the same prabation- ary periods (the district wants to increase the proba- tion time of new workers), and Keeping the ability to schedule their own vacation time (the district wants to dictate holidays to be taken at March break and at Christmas). Another contentious is- sue dated back to when Kiti- mat and Terrace merged into one school district. Workers in Kitimat and Terrace, although they all belong to the Canadian vincial government, says Scott Macrae, one of its officials. The remaining $1.5 to make up this year’s $9 million budget is coming from investment income. Fisheries Renewal head Paul Kariya last week said it is still talking to other agencies for money. “We hope to have same news in the first quarter,,. before the summer,” said Kariya of negotiations with - agencies such as B.C. Union of Public Employees (CUPE), went into contract talks with different con- tracts. School district adminis- trators wanted to create one equal contract for everyone by removing previously bargained for wages and benefits that Kitimat work- ers receive. But instead of eliminat- ing special benefits from Kitimat workers, CUPE wants particular working conditions and language to apply to everyone. School district acting su- B.C. The largest project in the area was $100,000 to the Nisga’a and the de- partment of fisheries and oceans to count out-going chinook, coho and stecl- head salmon on the Kinco- lith River, That money was also used to make sure hatch- ery chinook are released upstream in the Kincolith River and decide where a permanent adult counting weir should be built. perintendent Sharon Beedle said support workers were also asking for an increase in the provincial wage scale of zero salary increases in the first two years, followed by a two percent wage in- crease in the third year, “They are. asking way beyond thal,” Beedle said last week, “Percentage wise it’s well beyond 0-0-2.” Beedle assured parents and students that additional school days won’t be tacked on to the end of the year despite losing one week. Cont'd on Page A12 hit $49,846 paid for a juvenile coho study conducted by Kitsumkalum. Other projects near Ter- race include $3,449 to Tri- ton Environmental Consul- tant’s and the Terrace-Ki- limat Salmonid Society for a colour-coded resource | map of the Northwest Wa- tershed’s Resource Coun- cil’s atea of responsibility. The Northwest Water- shed Resource Council is the delivery agent for Terrace/Kitimat Salmonid Hydro and Forest Renewal Closer to Terrace, renewal program. BEAUTIFICATION I PROJECT: An excavator prepares the site of a naw garden along Highway 16 near the four-way stop. The garden will com- memorate the deaths of Laura Lee and Renaud Fontaine, two teenagers killad June 12, 1999 in an auto accident at the intersection.