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British Columbia

Cancel cruise testing
agreement, EAR urges

registered their opposition to cruise
testing.

The 250-member peace coalition
End the Arms Race Monday called

on Prime Minister Brian Mulroney “The
to use the new opportunities offered answer was
by the shift in East-West relations no and it is
and cancel the agreement that allows still no,” he
cruise missile tests over Canadian said ina
territory. statement:
The call came as the Department “The
of National Defence announced the agreement
latest cruise test, carried out Tuesday between
Over northern B.C. and Alberta. In Canada and
_line with policy announced last year, the U.S.

DND gave only 24 hours notice that
the test of the first-strike weapon
Was scheduled.

EAR president Frank Kennedy
Said the coalition was appalled that
a new test was being carried out at a
time when the dramatic changes in
world relations have opened the way
for new disarmament initiatives and
a de-escalation of the arms race. He
noted that as early as 1982 a
majority of Canadians had already

which allows
KENNEDY for testing

can be cancelled by either country at
any time. That time is long past due.
We have called the prime minister
today asking that he defuse the cold
war mentality that the cruise tests
represent,” he said.

Peace activists also rallied at the
Alberta legislature Tuesday to
protest the latest test.

GST protested at border

i

Benny Wolfe, whose Delta-based organization Scrap-it has mounted a cam-
paign against the Goods and Service Tax, nails up his organization's sign
Saturday at the Peace Arch border crossing where he had called a rally to
highlight the link between the GST and the free trade deal. Although the event
failed to draw a crowd, supporters got petitions against the tax out to hundreds
of bargain-hunting motorists waiting in line to cross over into the U.S. to shop.

MACMILLAN-BLOEDEL’S ALBERNI PULP MILL. .. company threatens 200 jobs.

M-B told to promote

2nd growth for pulp

Continued from page 1
other areas. ... There are ways further
value-added processing can be done here,”
he said. -

Dave Thien, the current president of
CPU Local 592, whose members face the
200 layoffs, said that the local is putting
forward the position that the TFLs were
granted on the basis of providing stable
employment for community stability. And
if M-B isn’t prepared to manage TFL 44 on
that basis, then the government should take
back the TFL and give it to some who
would, he said.

That demand has been echoed by both
Janssen and Mitchell. ;

Thien added that M-B’s announcement is.

‘“self serving” and verged on blackmailing
- their workers into supporting M-B’s stand

regarding the forest land disputes. In a ref-
erence to the “share” organizations. Thien
said that Local 592 isn’t involved in
company-organized support groups and
they won’t get involved in them.

Share Our Resources president John
Bassingthwaite said that M-B’s letter and
announcement was quite harsh and should
have been written more diplomatically. But
he argued that M-B should not be criticized
for its business decision to determine the use
for whatever fibre it had. He backed M-B’s
claim of land base uncertainty as being a
contributing factor in their decision.

But Alberni Environmental Coalition
director Judith Hutchison disputed the
company’s claim that one-third of the TFL
is up for preservation. She said that the
demands around Clayoquot Sound don’t
include a call for preservation but rather
urge multiple use and community involve-
ment in planning that multiple use.

Hutchison said that it is “outrageous that
M-B wants it all. They want all the old
growth forests and they want to be able to
pollute the environment,” she said.

She added that M-B has tried to make
environmentalists the enemy of workers,
accusing them of trying to steal jobs, when
in actual fact it is M-B stealing jobs to
increase their already high profits. She said
the M-B has no commitment to the com-
munity and that the environmental coali-
tion’s demand for community control of the
forest is obvious. and needed for Port
Alberni’s survival.

M-B’s announcement is designed to put
pressure on the provincial government to
relax pulp mill pollution standards and to
allow M-B to maintain its corporate
strangle-hold on Crown-owned forest land
in TFL 44, The Socreds are unwilling, for
fear of alienating potential urban voters, to
resolve the growing land use conflict.

The announcement is sure to further
polarize the already tense situation around

forest land use. Conflicts range from native
land claims on Meares Island, to demands
for sustainable development for Clayoquot
Sound, to wilderness preservation in the
Carmanah Valley. Throughout, M-B has
wanted to maintain business as usual in its
forestry operations. .

Clinton Webb, Vancouver island organ-
izer for the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee, said that blaming wilderness
preservation amounted to “blackmailing
forest industry workers to distract attention
from their own forest mismanagement,
(including) over harvesting in TFL 44.”

Webb said that M-B’s own information
shows that the company has been over
_harvesting at a rate 35 per cent above the
long term sustained yield in TFL 44, and
that without any wilderness preservation to
date.

He said that the best way to offset job loss
from reductions in harvest due to wilderness
preservation is to invest more money into
intensive second growth management. M-
B’s own figures show that intensive man-
agement could increase the sustained yield
by eight times the amount of fibre lost from
saving the Carmanah.

Yet despite over $1 billion in profits for
the last eight years, M-B doesn’t want to pay
for second growth management, claiming
the land is owned by the government. Webb
said it is irresponsible and hypocritical of
M-B to want to make a profit from the
forest but to put none back to sustain the
forests, and protect the jobs and communi-
ties whose future depends on the forests.

Janssen and Mitchell also raised con-
cerns about the impact the closing the kraft
mill will have on the viability of the Alberni
Plywood mill, especially given that M-B has
been looking for a way to close Alply for
some time.

Due to M-B’s export of high quality
peeler logs from the region the workers at
Alply have been forced to make plywood by
chipping pulp logs and using the suitable
portions for plywood. According to [WA
1-85 first vice-president Dave Haggard, the
closing of the kraft mill, which buys the
chips, will have an impact on the plywood
mill and its 240 jobs which are already eco-
nomically close to the line.

The Port Alberni branch of the Commu-
nist Party drew attention to the party’s draft
forest policy currently under discussion.
The policy calls for legislation to require
that TFL holders guarantee specific
employment quotas in harvesting, silvicul-
ture, and manufacturing for each 1,000
cubic metres of wood harvested. Such job
requirements would help to guarantee that
workers and community stability would
result from their publicly-owned forest
resource.

Pacific Tribune, January 29, 1990 « 3

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