4 vay thewestern canadian 1 WorA) aa ee 34,000 copies printed in this issue lumber worker Published once monthly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1 Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC 2859 Commercial Orive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261 Editor — Pat Kerr Business Manager — Wyman Trineer Forwarded to every member of the (WA in Western Canada in accordance with convention decisions. Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year. DP leader Ed Broadbent has cut right to the heart of the current war of words between Prime _ Minister Pierre Trudeau and Quebec Premier Rene Levesque. Speaking to his party’s Manitoba wing, Mr. Broadbent criticized the prime minister roundly for his challenge to Premier Levesque of a political shoot-out on the issue of Quebec separation. Mr. Trudeau, charged the NDP leader, “has ‘taken the most serious political question of our lives and has personalized it and trivialized it.” — Mr. Broadbent is right when he says, ‘the battle is more significant than these personalities.” Unfortunately, great political conflicts are not alwys resolved on the battleground of truth. What ___ The future of Confederation and — the future of Quebec are emotional issues, and both Mr. Trudeau and Mir. Levesque are well-equipped to exploit the passions of Canadians on both sides of the _ philosophical fence. Mr. Broadbent may have-found a new role for himself and his party in this difficult time. The NDP could become a good source of cool thought on the separatist issue. As a small party with no hope of dislodging either the Tories or Liberals, and with a leader who is not scratching longingly at the door to the PM's office, the NDP could become an honest broker in this issue, reminding politicians of the other parties that truth is preferable to fiction. THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER What d’ya mean knocking me drinkin’? “tight-line” € APRIL-MAY, 1977 experiences, you ER— SPRING! Er — Spring! You perfectly priceless old thing; : I’m frightfully bucked at the signs that one sees, The jolly old sap in the topping old trees, The priceless old lilac, and that sort of rot, It jolly well cheers a chap up, does it not? It’s so fearfully bright, so amazingly right, And one feels as one feels when one’s got rather tight. There’s a tang in the air, counts is not how you play the : If you know what I mean, game, but whether you win. o And the grass, asit were, is so frightfully green, We shall soon have the jolly old bee on the wing, THE SATURDAY CITIZEN Methanol, or wood alcohol, to help power automobiles and other forms of equipment, could be produced in large quantities from Canada’s sur- plus forest materials, ac- cording toa preliminary report released by federal Fisheries and Environment Minister Romeo LeBlanc. Entitled ‘“An Economic Pre- feasibility Study: Large Scale Methanol Fuel Production from Surplus Canadian Forest Biomass,”’ the report has been prepared by Inter Group Con- sulting Economists Ltd. of Winnipeg for the Environ- mental Management Service of Fisheries and Environment Canada. The report shows that with sh favorable tax treatment a methanol could be manu- : factured profitably now at a price competitive with that of gasoline. forest biomass re- © aad og in the report includes trees available as part of the annual allowable cut from Canada’s forests but not ex- pected to be utilized by the year 2000. It also includes p regarded as unsuitable bd conventional forestry operations. Wood residues, such as slash from harvesting, bark and sawdust, which are normally viewed as wastes by are also suitable IG WOO , blended, it would require basic design changes in motors; but in blends of up to 20 percent only minor, inexpensive alterations are necessary. On the basis of a blend of 15 percent methanol with 85 per- cent gasoline, the report esti- mates that there is more than sufficient surplus material available to meet Canada’s projected motor fuel requirements at the end of this century. The blended fuel promises a substantial reduction in _pol- lutant emission — an environ- ‘mental aspect seen as a key additional reason for phasing methanol into our present liquid fuel systems. InterGroup foresees prospects in methanol produc- tion for a major new Canadian industry that could bring sub- stantial regional development in many rural areas and up to 40,000 new jobs. The report in- dicates that production of 5 bil- lion gallons of methanol an- nually is feasible. This would lead to an $800 million annual saving in foreign exchange ex- penditures — funds that would normally be required for petroleum purchases from abroad. Methanol, produced from re- newable resources, could be expected to sustain supplies of liquid fuels over the long haul, with consequent lessening of pressures on non-renewable TO FUEL CARS forest © Besides indicating potentials of methanol for increasing Canadian energy security and self-reliance, the report anti- cipates that a domestic methanol industry could bene- fit forest management and im- prove the efficiency of forest industries. The report further indicates that a methanol industry would enable provinces to produce more of their own energy and encourage more equitable dis- tribution of energy production across the country. FEWER JOBS Preliminary estimates by Statistics Canada show the number of job vacancies dropped by 33% between the third and fourth quarter of 1976. Vacancies for fulltime jobs numbered 37,000 at December 31, down 32% from the end of September. Vacancies for full time, part time and casual jobs decreased 33% to 41,700 from 62,300. Job vacancies were down by 18% on a year-to-year basis. The number of longer-term vacancies — jobs unfilled for more than four weeks — decreased by 29% to 14,500. For every 1,000 existing jobs in the latest quarter, five were vacant, down from seven in the third quarter of 1976. Er — Spring! Old Fruit, You have given old winter the boot The voice of the tailor is heard in the land, (I wonder if my rotten credit will stand?) And the birds and the flowers (but especially the birds), Will be looking too perfectly priceless for words. We shall have to get stocks of old ties and old socks And of course we must alter the jolly old clocks. In fact, as I said, you’re a priceless old thing, Er — Spring! It’s — well it’s — you know what I mean; It’s time I was oiling the jolly old bat So, cutting along story short, and all that, The theme of this jolly old song that I sing Is — er — jolly old Spring! ..One of thethings for which the late James Butterfield, long-time Province columnist, seems to be remembered was his annual custom of running, in spring, this famous English poem that first appeared in the London Bystander back in the 1920s. UNION THANKS EDUCATION DIRECTOR Dear Mr. Munro: On behalf of the Workers’ Compensation Board Employ- ees Union and in particular, the Shop Stewards and the Executive members who at- tended the Shop Stewards Seminar last weekend, I would like to thank you for making available to us the services of Mr. F. Wall. His presentation was, I feel, not only valuable but was greatly enjoyed by all those present. As a Shop Steward’s effectiveness is directly proportionate to his ability to communicate freely and clearly both to the workers in the area that he represents and to the Union’s Executive and Management Representa- tives, it was particularly ap- propriate that Mr. Wall dealt so clearly with some of the barriers to communication and means of overcoming them. Thank you once more for enabling Mr. Wall to partici- pate in our Seminar. Yours trul Glen Page, Secretary: