Page A4 — Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 29, 1992 Phone (604) 638-7283 lustration repro services, and advertising agencies Reproduction in whole of an part, without walter p 48 Specilically pr < CPERRACE STANDARD) ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, Registration No. 7820 4647 Lazelle Ave,, Terrace, B.C., V8G1S8__ Authorized as second-class mail parsing the Pos! Olfice Department, for payment of posiage in cash. Rod Link 1988 Fax (604) 638-8432 Serving ihe Terrace area. Published on Wedoesday ol each week by Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd, at 4647 Lazelie Ave.. Terrace, British Columba. Stories, photographs, illystrations, designs ane! typastyles in the Tettace Standard are the property af ina copyright holders, including Canboo Press (7969) Ltd., 115 it Gun PublisherlEdItor: Advertising Manager Marlee Paterson Production Manager: Edouard Credgeur Jaf Nagel — Sports, Malcolm Baxter ~ News, Arana Watls — Typeseitar, “Rose Fisher - ~ Front Office Manager, Carolyn Anderson — Typesetter, * Susan Credgeur ~- Composing/Darkroom, Janet Vivelros — Advertising Consultant, Sam Colller — Advertising Consultant, Charleen Matthews — Circulation Supervisor aoe Soma OMT re YX Ae Sits» cnet ppl fins 055 Cen hhl #CNA Fws ravens CO Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents. EDITORIA[, li’?s a secret The NDP has failed in its promise for a more “‘open’’ government. Highly critical of the former Socred administra- tion when it came to handing out infor- mation, the new guys said things would be much different. Well, things sure are different — they’re worse. Consider the proposal by Orenda Forest Products to build a $365 million pulp and paper mill south of Lakelse Lake. The proposal has had its fair share of being bounced around through the provincial government’s approval pro- cess. Last fall, for the second time, Orenda submitted its plan to a commit- tee of civil servants. This committee studies the proposal and then makes recommendations to accept, reject or to ask for more studies to a committee of cabinet ministers. Once the proposal is submitted to the committee of civil servants, it takes a small nuclear weapon to shake loose some information. It takes an even larger weapon to figure out what hap- pens after the proposal makes it to the committee of cabinet ministers. The overall reasoning for this comes from the age-old position that what cabinet ministers do in private, stays in private until a decision is reached. _ Consider now:othe: Gi Wet suwet’en appeal ‘of.a B.¢ Court decision which refected their claim to a large chunk of the northwest. That appeal is scheduled to be heard in April. It’s being treated as the lead court case of all those pertaining to aboriginal rights and title. In December the provincial govern- ment announced it would rather negotiate claims then fight them out in the courts. To follow that through, aboriginal affairs minister Andrew Pet- ter two weeks ago asked the court to delay the appeal until this September so the government could better prepare its policy on negotiation. ksan_ and. Smithers areas going. back, , Supreme... Mr. Petter’s request for a delay was never officially announced by his office. The reason given was that not everything a cabinet minister does can be released. The charming phrase that what Mr. Pet- ter did was not considered ‘‘press releaseable’”’ was used. To be fair, governments are large organizations and it’s difficult to develop and maintain coherent policies and practices. And this is a new govern- ment which will take time to get things organized. But the unfortunate impression com- ing out of Victoria is that these two issues are a mere spit into the tidal wave of what the government does. Nothing . could be further from the truth up here. The Orenda project, if it goes through, will add 140 jobs just from the mill. It’ll represent a new way of using wood that is now considered waste and will use a technology markedly different from that of traditional pulp mills. A casual look around the province suggests it is also one of the few large developments now under consideration. The Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en claim has been a source of uncertainty and worry for people in the Hazeltons and tothe. lagt Mb eryeep decade. People there deserve the most up to date information on what the provin- cial government is doing. Taken together, these two issues not only have a significant regional impact but they will also form precedents for ac- tions in the rest of the province and perhaps the rest of the country. Governments — just like people — like to have secrets. But unlike your average person, everything a govern- ments does has a large impact. Reducing government secrecy and improving the flow of information should be first on this government’s list. Heck — it’s even democratic. Courts on trial ‘Whatever their other con- tributions to our society, lawyers could be an important source of protein,”’ - Cartoon caption, Honest-to-goodness criminal trials are a cross between ‘‘Paper Chase’’ and ‘‘Welcome Back, Kotter’, The stickler is the rabed judge, an eagle in his aerie, Through Bifocals by Claudette Sandecki keeping notes as witnesses are cross-examined, He looks up occasionally, to make sure the voices addressing him are live, not pre-recorded, Before him, the action is reminiscent of Kotter and his classroom clowns. Incomplete homework, Court dates overlooked, Crucial evidence lost. Inadequate preparation and forgotten court dates cause recesses and postponements. Loss of crucial evidence may result in dismissal, After a long, costly trial. Physical behaviour, especial- ly, resembles Kotter’s classroom, except lapel microphones are needed to follow the dialogue. The accus- ed smirk, whisper, and dig elbows. Having to sit up Straight, forbidden to horse around, smoke, chew, drink or snack is, for them, cruel and unusual punishment. Lawyers and court clerks genuflect coming and -going; everyone stands whenever: the judge enters or leaves the room. Which he- does frequently. Court recesses oftener than Caledonia during a rash of false fire alarms. Lawyers watch for recesses as closely as mules listen for ‘Whoa’. The weaker their cases, the closer they watch. No excuse is too flimsy for a postpone. ment. With good reason, a court’s agenda is called a calen- dar. Selecting a trial date is tougher than booking the Queen for a Commonwealth tour. Instead of. scheduling trials by appointment, everyone expected to appear before lunch is corraled by 9:30 a.m.. Witnesses, RCMP, and court staff may be kept on standby all day for nothing, Despite the hours spent camped in the corridor, it has to public telephones or vending machines, only holes in the walls punched by society's role models while leaving court. Those with a “What? Me worry?’’ attitude nap like travellers stranded in an airport. Some snack on chicken. “When a lawyer explained his take-out witnesses were absent because they were having lunch in the corridor, the judge snapped his head up and asked in disbelief, “Having lunch?’’ If more public witnessed trials, Kim Campbell would be pressured to unplug our courts, putting an end to the wholesale loss of time and money, and the denial ‘of justice. Too bad Legal Aid is dished out like stale bread at a soup kitchen, or lawyers would quit stalling. Fewer Kotter clowns would break the law. HARTEN'S BEEN WORKING WITH THE GOVERNMENT FoR 3 YEARS ON A ‘YouTH CAMP. WHERE'S BURKE We gan ING! H TENE é Pulp mill rules a gory situation VICTORIA — Whether or not people get mad at government, “tall depends on whose ox is being gored,” Dave Barrett, the first NDP premier of British Columbia used to say. Now environment minister John Cashore managed to gore a beauty of an ox that got guile. a Few people mad at him. ae ‘Cashore announced what he “called “tough but fair’? pulp pollution regulations that are to eliminate the dumping of chlorinated organic compounds into rivers and the ocean, That’s good, if, indeed, we need to reduce the deposit of these compounds below the current level. Unfortunately, the new regulations also have the potential to kill the pulp mill industry. And that’s not good. The proposed law calls for a reduction of so-called AOX compounds to 1.5 kilograms per tonne of effluent released into waterways by 1995. The current level is 2.5 kilograms per tonne. By 2002, the discharge is to be free of any AOX com- pounds, but any pulp mill that can produce a viable plan to achieve zero-discharge levels by 2000 may skip the 1995 deadline calling for the 1.5 kilogram limit. ‘You would think that the minister arrived at his decision to get tough with pulp mills after lengthy consultation with the industry, How does 20 minutes sound? That’s all the time he allotted to attending a meeting with industry officials. I'm not surprised, Cashore is not what one might call an impartial arbiter in en- vironmental matters. He is a committed environmental ac- tivist who assesses any situa- tion from a purely en- vironmental point of view. Cashore is so green they have to water him twice-a day, When he announced the new regulations, he admitted that the pulp mill industry made “significant improvements in the levels of pollution in their effluent’ over the past few AY Nir Cu! BURKE GOT TRANSFERRED AND WILLS 1S OVA A YEAR EDUCATION LEAVE | No@opy CAN FIND THE. FILES ON TS FRoTECT ! Me 1S CLARKE THIS IS MY FIRST TIME ME Nor Td AND T'vé GOT ' Few QUESTIONS FoR You From the Capital by Hubert Beyer coy years, but added that. the *.: presence of anyAOX inthe .« long term is unacceptable. The industry has, indeed, made significant progress. Flet- cher Challenge alone spent about $500 million in the past few years on environmental improvements to its installa- tions. The industry as a whole spent more than $1 billion on cleaning up its act. These improvements have made pulp mills in British Cal- umbia among the cleanest in the world, certainly the cleanest in Canada. In Quebec, for instance, pulp mills haven't even reached the 2,5 kilogram level of AOX per tonne yet, and they’re applying to the federal government for exemp- tions from that requirement. Chances are very good the government will approve those applications for exemption, The biggest problem with Cashore’s unrelenting zeal is that the technology to make mill effluent totally free of AOX compounds hasn't been invented yet, but that doesn’t seem to phase the minister. The other joker in Cashore’s environmental cleanup deck is the reprieve he is offering the industry at the mid-way point of his strategy. Allowing mills to skip the 1.5 kilogram level by 1995, provided they can produce a plan that shows complete elimination of AOX com- pounds by the year 2000, may easily backfire on him, There are quite a number of older mills in British Colum- bia, and there’s nothing stopp- ing them from coming up with a wonderful scheme by 1995, pointing the way towards zero- AOX effluent in 2000, without ever having any intentions of PLUS Now You'R NAME IS FISHER, RigaT? $0, WHAT Is THIS YouTH CAMP ALL ABOUT ANYWAY 2 following through on. that . plan. They could simply operate at the 2.5 kilogram level until the year 2000 and then shut the mills down. But even if between now and 1995, science provides the technology to make plulp mill effluent totally free of AOX compounds, the cost would be staggering, and forcing the in- dustry in British Columbia to implement that technology . would probably make them non-competitive, The result would be that we — might have the cleanest puip mills in the world, but they couldn’t compete and would have to shut down. The environmentalists are correct when they say we can do anything we set our minds to but I'd like to add that there is a price, and that price is jobs. We could stop making pulp - and paper altogether. We could stop falling trees, we could shut down the steel mills in Ontario and improve the air quality immeasurably. We could have the cleanest en- vironment in the world almost . overnight, but at what price? If we shut down the economic engine, we can kiss everything else goodbye, There would be no health-care system | left, no money to look after the unemployed, the ill, the disadvantaged, It’s one thing for Cashore to want to make B.C, an en- — vironmental model, it's quite another to do so at the risk of thousands of jobs, Perhaps the | minister might consider allow- ing input into his agenda from people other than the en- vironmental brigade. WHICH IS —— WHY AETER 3 we