The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1987
OFFICE NUMBER: 562-2441
40 CENTS
TALK OF SHUTDOWNS
New timber fees threaten logging
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
Warm weather may be keeping loggers out of the woods now, but employment won’t be normal even if roads freeze, due to high government cutting fees, according to the industry.
Area sawmills say they just can’t live with new, higher timber charges in today’s lumber market, and it could mean shutdowns next year.
Dunkley lumber in Strathnaver will probably not do any winter logging due to high timber charges, according to spokesman Henry Novak.
“Our costs have gone from about $5 per cubic metre harvested to $22 in government fees plus $4 for reforestation.”
On the logging front, “there’s a pile of guys not working who usually are this Mme of year,” said Frank Drougei, manager of the Central Interior Logging Association.
The obvious problem, unusually warm weather which means winter logging can’t start, is hiding the big problem, according to Drougei and forest industry executives.
“A number of companies are cutting back on their normal win-
ter activity as a result of stumpage (timber cutting fees),” Drougei said.
“It’s the weather, but we’re not overly anxious to run out in the woods due to high cost,” said Doug Little, vice-president for forestry at Northwood Pulp and Timber.
“I don’t think there’s a mill out there that can live with the stumpage that kicks out of the system,” said George Killy, managing director of Lakeland Mills.
And The Pas Lumber says it either needs lower timber costs or a major jump in lumber prices to avoid shutdowns next year.
The new system of charging for timber starts with a target revenue for government then divides it up among lumber producers, rather than taking a share of the selling cost as the old system did.
The Council of Forest Industries in Vancouver has estimated the industry now pays more than $500 million more than it did a year ago.
The Pas Lumber Co. said its timber costs in the last fiscal year were $6.2 million. Now, The Pas president Don Gould estimates the company will pay nearly $19 million this year.
Under the old system of govern-
Lots more money urged for Senate
by PETER MASER Southam News
OTTAWA — A Liberal senator is proposing that he and every other member of the Upper House be given more money — lots more money — to do their jobs.
If approved in full, the recommendations would cost taxpayers at least $7.6 million and increase the global budget for the Senate by a full 25 per cent.
It now costs slightly more than $30 million to run the Upper House, which works out to about $300,000 for each of its 104 seats.
But in documents obtained by Southam News, Liberal Senator Colin Kenny recommends changes that would:
■ Allow senators to achieve full pension after 15 years instead of 25;
■ Increase the salaries for senators who hold positions as whips and committee chairmen.
■ Raise the tax-free allowance for each senator from $9,200 to $19,100;
■ Give each senator a budget of $100,000 for hiring staff.
They can now receive a secretarial and research budget of nearly $36,000 each, meaning Kenny’s proposal would give them an extra $64,000 a piece.
The total cost of this measure alone would be $6.6 million. Add another $1 million in tax-free allowances and the sum rises to $7.6 million.
The extra salaries and pension benefits, which are more difficult to calculate, would come on top of that.
Kenny makes it clear in the documents that he wants the changes in order to bring the Senate up to the same level as the House of Commons.
But the proposals seem more likely to burnish the Senate’s image as a luxury retirement home and trigger another battle between the Liberal majority and the Con-
servative minority in the Upper House.
While most Liberals appear to support the proposals, most Tories do not.
“It’s just absolute insanity,” said one Tory senator who, like most people interviewed on the matter Tuesday, asked that he not be identified.
"We’ve already got everything we want,” said another Conservative senator.
New talks on trade blasted
OTTAWA (CP) — The government is “absolutely irresponsible” in reopening negotiations on the proposed free-trade deal with the United States, Liberal Leader John Turner said today.
Chief Canadian negotiator Simon Reisman said Tuesday the two countries have reopened limited discussions on the deal reached Oct. 4.
He said U.S. proposals to alter the auto pact and maritime shipping provisions of the pact are being analysed and will be presented to the Canadian cabinet.
“We thought we had a deal,” Turner told reporters as he entered the weekly Liberal caucus meeting. “The prime minister told us the matter was closed, it was just a matter of drafting."
Since the outline of the trade deal was initialled in Washington on Oct. 4, laywers for both sides have been translating the deal into the legal form of a treaty.
But Turner said it appears the United States wants “to bootleg a few more items on to the agenda, including our cultural industries.”
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"He can't hold on forever.'
ment timber charges, some mills would shut down when lumber prices dropped to US $130-$135 for 1,000 feet of two-by-fours.
Little estimates the system, introduced Sept. 15, means mills would start shutting down when the price drops to $150-$160.
At the moment, prices are $182, but they were $176 a week ago and have been bouncing around, according to lumber wholesalers in Vancouver.
“We’re playing it day by day, like a lot of other firms,” Killy said.
“It’s like sitting on a waterbed and one guy on the end yells at the forest service that his prices are too high. His price goes down but everyone else’s goes up.”
Both Killy and Greg Jadrzyk, vice-president and general manager of the Council of Forest Industries office in Prince George, say the rules change every day.
“Mills don’t know where they should be logging,” Jadrzyk said.
“There were changes in stumpage Friday and there’s more new changes coming soon says the Ministry of Forests.”
According to Jardzyk, the changes annoounced by the government in September raise fees by $220 million, with 48 per cent of the amount coming from the Central Interior.
However, the government’s submssion to the U.S. in Washington raised the figure to $240 million. When asked if that was correct, Jadrzyk said, “no one knows. We feel it’s still too low.”
Some companies, including West Fraser Timber, based in Quesnel, are doing their normal amount of logging for this time of year. Canfor in Prince George has normal logging planned but has been delayed Dy weather. John Whitmer, president of Balfour Forest Products Inc., said his firm needs large wood and would like to be logging, but warm weather means it’s impossible to do.
However, when asked about stumpage fees, Whitmer said, “We’re fighting it. We’re sure as hell not going to sell lumber for less than it costs us.”
Other firms, according to Drougei and Killy, are doing salvage logging in areas hit by fire or blowdown, which means lower fees or buying wood on private land and logging it to avoid government payments.
Still other firms have other reasons to pause.
Rustad Bros. Lumber, for example, has a lot of wood left over from last winter so will do less logging this winter.
However, only two firms in the Prince George region, the northeast quarter of the province, have formally appealed the new stumpage charges, according to the B.C. Forest Service, but a number of firms have talked with Forests Minister Dave Parker about the problem.
“It may well be as a result of the new direction in forest policy that in fact the timber is overpriced,” said Drougei, whose log-association has traditionally large companies pay too little for umber.
Export tax legislation introduced
VICTORIA (CP) - The British Columbia government introduced legislation Tuesday to refund money to forest companies paying an export tax and increased royalties because of a threatened United States countervailing duty.
Since Oct. 1, the province has charged lumber companies the cost of replanting trees and increased fees to cut Crown-owned timber.
Those charges are aimed at replacing the 15-per-cent federal export tax that was slapped on Canadian softwood exports nearly a year ago after the Americans determined Canadian wood exports were subsidized.
The companies are paying both charges while the Canadians and Americans are negotiating what provincial fees will replace the 15-per-cent export tax.
Free trade talks reopen 5 Charges in Bhopal deaths 7
Kings win in overtime 13
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City, B.C............... ....2,3 .......32
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Entertainment......... . .22,23 .......18
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Citizen photos by Brock Gable
From top, Dana Pidherny, 3, Valerie Skusek, 10 months and Rebecca Morin, 5 months, share a chat with Santa.
Santa's in town!
by KEVIN FRANCHUK
The children come from all over to see him, the bearded man in the red and white suit. Their eyes light up in wonder (and often fear) of the old man with the jolly laugh.
Santa Claus has come to town, three weeks before his traditional journey from the North Pole.
At two city malls Tuesday, Santa listened to the Christmas wishes of long lines of children.
“Most of them are tongue-tied,” Santa said while at the Parkwood Mall. “Once and a while you get one who asks for so many things, you can’t put them all in a sleigh.”
Over at Pine Centre, Santa said things were much the same. “Two-year-olds, they’re a disaster,” he said. “The three and four-year-olds aren’t articulate enough,” he added, demonstrating by mumbling into his hand.
Santa said the number of children visiting him in Prince George is close to last year’s figure of 5,200. What surprises him the most this year is that children seem to be asking for less.
“Most of them want one or two things, and that’s it,” he said.
Santa said most of the girls still want dolls, and G.I. Joe remains a boy’s favorite. However, the high-tech influence is creeping onto their toy lists.
“A lot of boys ask for remote control cars or Ghostbusters (toys based on the popular movie and cartoon). They still ask for Transformers, but that’s tapered off a bit from last year,” he explained.
The new talking dolls have become popular, and he gets a number of requests for the cuddly TV alien ALF doll. Santa said he is amazed by the number of girls that “ask for nice, frilly dresses.”
It’s hot just kids who want to sit on Santa’s lap.
“It’s surprising, how many adults come in,” Santa said at Parkwood. “They do it as a joke. Couples come in all the time.”
Some jokes aren’t that funny.
“We got two teenage kids in here (at Pine Centre). They wanted a case of beer for Christmas. I kicked them out.”
For the most part, a pre-Christmas chat with Santa is as traditional as stockings on the fireplace or Japanese oranges.
“We had a man who came in last year to see me,” Santa said. “He was 81. He said it was something he wanted to do all his life.”
WINNER GETS NEW HOUSE
Gay Sache of Prince George won Tuesday’s draw for the Prince George Spruce Kings’ lottery house.
The Kings sold all but 60 of the 1,400 $50 tickets in the annual fundraising promotion.
The house, at the corner of James Drive and Christopher Crescent, is valued at about $100,000.
The draw was made during the second intermission of Tuesday’s 6-5 overtime win over the Quesnel Millionaires.
OPINION ON INDIANS DEFENDED
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Staff reporter
The m?yor of Burns Lake rejects Indian leader Ed John’s call for his removal from the board of the College of New Caledonia.
In a telephone interview today Bill Gilgan said neither the college board nor the B.C. cabinet is governed by the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council and Ed John is no more important than any other Indian.
“If he controls the cabinet I’ll make an issue of that,” he said.
Gilgan was responding to John’s statements Tuesday calling on the B.C. cabinet to remove him from the college board for making what John called “outlandish and foolish remarks” during Saturday’s college board meeting.
During the meeting Gilgan was one of two board members opposed to the college co-operating with the Nechako school district in Vanderhoof and the tribal council to establish a Carrier language instu-tute in Vanderhoof.
Gilgan, who was elected to a three-year term as mayor of Burns Lake in November, reiterated his opposition to the Indian language program today.
“He (John) is proving my point. He’s showing the structure of things when dealing with these Indian people. They’re like a bunch of spoiled children who cry when you try to correct them,” he said.
Gilgan said he believes the $10,000 being spent by the school district and the provincial government to establish the institute would be better spent on providing employment-training programs at the college.
“The problem with the Indians is they can’t work or don’t know how to work. They should be going to college to get’training. That's what the college is supposed to be doing. The success rate there is even questionable.
“We should be making these people self-supporting instead of a drag on the whole nation. I don’t know why they have to learn to speak Carrier if they have a language they should not have to learn it from anyone. I don’t understand how that is going to help these people become self supporting,” he said.
He also blamed the media for creating the controversy over the issue.
He was also critical of the government money being spent on Indian land claims in B.C. The largest claim covers land in the Burns Lake area.
“They’ve already spent $3.5 million on land claims which take in half the province. Now, they have another $1.5 million for Ottawa. That’s a total of $5 million to have a court case that’s questionable. This is the type of thing I am talking about. Someone has to stand up and talk about these things,” he said.
Kamloops
newspaper
closes
KAMLOOPS (CP) - The Kamloops Sentinel, which has served this southern Interior city since 1880, will cease publication permanently, Thomson Newspapers Ltd. announced today.
“We regret to announce that publication will cease immediately and permanently because of the financial impact caused by the strike of the Communication Workers of America Local 226 which has shut down the newspaper’s operation,” Dick Laidlaw, vice-president of Thomson, said in a release.
About 40 mailroom workers went on strike Tuesday to back demands for a wage increase.
The Sentinel had published three times a week. Distributed free of charge, and relying on advertising revenue, the paper had a press run of more than 28,000.
It also had 10 composing room employees and pressmen and about 10 non-union editorial employees.
Dick Ainsworth, vice-president of the communication worker’s Vancouver-based local, said the workers went on strike because Thomson made no new offer on health and welfare or pensions.
Ainsworth said the union would have continued to negotiate on those issues if the company had been willing to increase wages from $4 an hour.
The city is also served by the daily. Southam-owned Kamloops News.
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