The Prince George
Citizen
THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1988
40 CENTS
wmmmmmm
Postal deal gets smiles 5 U.S. ship 'had to shoot* 7 Inductees announced 13
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TELEPHONE: 562-2441
AGREEMENT VIOLATED?
J
Timber fees: 'Shell game'
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
Prince George timber prices break a U.S.-Canada lumber agreement, according to American lumber manufacturers.
Last week, federal and provincial officials went to Washington to discuss a “cap” on B.C. timber fees, which the provincial government says mainly helps Prince George region sawmills.
The U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports says the fee changes, which went into effect July 1, “are in breach of the softwood lumber agreement,” and could lead to unfair comptition by B.C. sawmills.
The two sides plan to meet again in Ottawa next week.
“Even though I’ve tried to understand what’s happened, I haven’t seen a clear accounting of how much it’s worth,” said Mike Apsey, president of the Council of Forest Industries in a telephone interview from Vancouver.
“I’ve heard numbers from two or three million to close to 20, and there are arguments given by everybody as to why they think their number was correct.”
The provincial government has refused to tell B.C. taxpayers how much revenue will be lost by the
reduction in cutting fees, but the Americans are willing to tell Canadians what their own governments won’t.
“It’s only $15 million,” Gus Kuehne, head of the Coalition For Fair Lumber Imports, said in a telephone interview from Tacoma, Washington.
That would amount to about 2.3 per cent of provincial timber revenues.
“I thought about that and obviously if we didn’t raise it here, COFI would say, ‘They didn’t make any fuss, let’s get $150 million off.’”
Local timber firms say the whole thing is a shell game.
According to six out of seven local companies contacted, promised relief from the highest timber-cut- ; ting fees in the Interior actually ended up raising government charges $1.50 to $3 per cubic metre. The seventh company said prices remained the same.
“It’s a shell game, they’re just playing with us,” said Blair Mayes, woods manager for Dunk-ley Forest Products.
Prince George companies had complained they were paying an average of $16.50 and as high as $26 per cubic metre — enough wood to make about 235 board feet
of lumber. This was the highest average price in the province, with the Interior average $8.59 and the Coastal average about $10.59.
“With enough cutting permits and prices going in every direction, the numbers go any way you want,” said a B.C. Forest Service official who spoke on condition his name not be used.
“We’ve been arguing about numbers for months and I’m not going to get dragged into it again.”
However, he added that if the Americans are complaining about the change, and the highest prices before came from the Prince George forest region, the majority of the $15 million must have come from charges in the northeast quarter of the province.
The mathematics of the situation are so complex, and costs are kept so secret, that it’s impossible for an outsider to know what’s going on.
In simple form, the new "cap” means companies pay the first $14 of charges, then half of what they were charged above $14.
“Our wood costing more than $14 went down and wood under $14 went up,” said Brian LaPointe, woods manager at Carrier Lumber.
“The view I’ve held since day one is that there should not have been a memorandum of understanding and this country had better fina a way over the next year or so to find a way out of this agreement or we’re going to be harassed ad nauseum,” Apsey said.
“We’re willing to take our chance on the tribunals that were in place (when the deal was made).
“The lumber industry across this country will say it’s got to go at some point. And that will continue until the damn thing is gone. As a Canadian I get extremely upset that natural resource prices are being dictated by a group of U.S. lumbermen.”
HERMAN
"Whaddyer mean, 'Don't get mad at him'? He bought a diamond necklace for his girlfriend with my credit card!”
ABOUT ISO MISSING
YMCA counsellor Keith Hepburn shouts out commands as he tries to get Steven Orr, 11; Laura Dempsey, 8; Chrissie Smith, 10 and Scott Anderson, 9, synchronized during the Giant Team Ski. The Fun seekers kids are participating in Y Fun Seekers, a program for young-
sters eight to 12 years old that runs from 9 a.m. to 4. p.m. Cost of the program, which includes outings, games and an overnight campout, is $70 a week. Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
Oil rig disaster death toll high
Smoke rises from oil rig Piper Alpha early today.
SECOND READING
Trade deal closer
ABERDEEN, Scotland (AP-CP) — An armada of rescue ships and helicopters scoured the North Sea today for about 150 people missing after what may have been the worst oilrig disaster ever.
Fire engulfed the Piper Alpha oil platform Wednesday night, and two explosions rocked the massive structure.
Aberdeen police said two Canadians were aboard and were listed as missing. She declined to identify them pending notification of next of kin.
The External Affairs Department in Ottawa confirmed one Canadian among the missing.
Police held out little hope of finding more survivors.
Most of those aboard the rig, 200 kilometres northeast of Scotland, were Scottish.
Energy Secretary Cecil Parkinson told Parliament 229 people were on the platform. He said 65 survived and 16 bodies had been recovered, leaving 148 missing.
In addition, two would-be rescuers disappeared into the flames when the second explosion occurred as they headed toward the rig in a small boat.
In the previous worst North Sea oil-platform disaster, the Alexander L. Kielland capsized in Norwegian waters during a storm in March 1980, killing 123 people.
In a similar tragedy off Newfoundland in February 1982, all 84 people on the Ocean Ranger died when the platform capsized and sank.
Occidental Petroleum of the United States owned the Piper Alpha rig. The company’s Los Angeles headquarters said there was no immediate information on the cause of the explosions and fire.
Flames continued to leap from what was left of the rig late today, the British coast guard said. The mammoth structure was a wreck of twisted metal.
Sleeping workers died as flames raced through the Piper Alfa’s living quarters. Others leaped some 45 metres into the frigid water.
“It was a case of fry and die or jump and try,” said Ron Carey, 45, who dived off the platform after he was choked by smoke following the first explosion.
Carey, an instrument technician, lay in a hospital bed with his arm in a sling and his eyes closed by bums.
“It was over the side or nothing,” he said. “I just dived.”
The second explosion sent bits of lifeboat raining into the water, he said.
“There was a lot of debris floating around and the flames were billowing above us. I found my head was being cooked. I had to keep ducking down to get it cool.”
He saw bodies float past, and then was rescued.
Six NATO warships, including the Canadian destroyer Skeena, were diverted from manoeuvres off Norway to join the search.
Queen Elizabeth and the chief of Occidental Petroleum, Armand Hammer, sent messages of sympathy.
OTTAWA (CP) - Liberal MPs hummed the Star Spangled Banner and sang Yankee Doodle Dandy as Conservative members rose one by one in the Commons on Wednesday to approve in principle the government’s free-trade legislation.
New Democrats MPs, taking their turn to vote against the proposed deal with the United States, gamely belted out O Canada.
Despite the opposition bravado, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his caucus easily outvoted the combined opposition 114-51 to give second reading to Bill C-130.
Liberal MP Shelia Copps hummed a funeral dirge as the Tory vote was recorded and NDP House leader Nelson Riis shouted “God
Bank rate
OTTAWA (CP) — The bank rate edged up to 9.46 per cent today from last week’s 9.44 per cent as the Bank of Canada tried to keep interest rates high enough to limit inflation.
Southam News WASHINGTON - Canada and the U.S. should create a “common defence economic market” and “eliminate national boundaries” in the area of defence, a Canadian federal government task force has recommended in an unpublished report.
The task force, composed of senior officials from National Defence, External Affairs and International Trade, urges even greater continental integration of defence pro-
bless America!”
Both parties say the deal is a sellout of Canadian sovereignty.
The bill, which would amend 27 federal laws to make them conform with the tentative free-trade pact, now goes to a 16-member committee for clause-by-clause scrutiny.
“I think it’s a most significant and historic piece of legislation,” Mulroney later told reporters. “I hope at an early moment after people have considered it carefully, they will want to pass it back to the House for final approval.”
The committee, which holds its first meeting tc*day, is scheduled to complete its work by mid August.
The vote capped five days of sometimes fieiy but often uninspired debate on the merits of opening Canada’s border even wider to commerce with the United States.
Under the deal signed Jan. 2 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the two countries would begin phasing out tariffs and other restrictions on trade in energy, investment and services over 10 years.
duction. Bilateral trade in weapons and other defence goods amounted to $3 billion last year and is already covered by more than 200 agreements.
This existing co-operative foundation must be expanded, the officials say, to make joint industrial planning by National Defence and the Pentagon an integral part of continental defence. Twenty specific recommendations promoting greater integration and institutionalization are included in an executive summary of the task force report obtained by Southam News.
Such changes are necessary to follow up on pledges of increased co-operation made at the 1985 Quebec summit by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, according to the task force. It also calls on decisionmakers in both countries to become “continental” in their orientation, rather than “state-centric.”
Although the June 1987 task force report has been suppressed by the Mulroney government, Defence Minister Perrin Beatty moved on one of the five dozen recommendations last November by asking defence industry contractors for regular advice on how Canadian industry can sell more defence goods to the North American market.
Canada has consistently run a deficit in defence trade with the United States. National Defence statistics list last year’s deficit at $496 million and the cumulative deficit since 1959 as nearly $3 billion.
LOCAL SYMPHONY
Conductor resigns
William Janzen, conductor and music director for the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, has resigned.
A brief press release from PGSO cites: “. . .difficulties of timing and priorities for change within the orchestra (are) contributing factors to Janzen’s decision.”
Janzen came from Kitchener, Ont. a year ago, to take over from Roberto de Clara. In the succeeding year, under Janzen’s leadership, the PGSO continued its climb toward better concerts.
Les Waldie, PGSO president, said in the press release: “He led the orchestra through a successful main concert series.”
janzen Later, Waldie says: “Bill Janzen is a dedicated and knowlegeable musician. We have benefitted from his season with us.” Waldie told The Citizen that the past concert season has left the PGSO on sound financial footing, but he would not elaborate on Janzen’s leaving. Neither Waldie nor Janzen would comment further.
Waldie said arrangements for the fall season are in progress and might result in an announcement by Friday.
Canada-U.S. 'market7 for weapons outlined
Low tonight: 7 High Friday: 24
*iOteuAci detail*. 2