EDITOR'S CORNER - 1997
January 15, 1997 The storm of the century, that is what some publications called it, others just said the worst storm in 75 years. Maybe some people have short centuries. Lynne and I had the pleasure of driving up through Oregon and Washington at the height of it. It was an interesting experience. What was most notable is the way that the different areas responded to basically the same amount of snow. In Washington State they were overwhelmed, a couple of feet of snow and life ground to a halt. In Victoria it was not so bad, they did not have enough equipment to remove it all, but they took it in stride. Most of the city was shut down, but there was not the attitude of helplessness that one found south of the border. Here on the North Island life just went on, snow you say, what else is new? Christmas Day I went face down in the mashed potatoes with the flu. I blamed my mom at first, but when I got back to Gold River I started thinking that maybe my mom should blame me. Who around here has not had this bug? Half of the people that I know are hacking and wheezing. It was a persistent bugger which managed to eat up the whole back end of my holidays and all of the numerous projects that I had planned to finally take care of. I thought about giving my list of New Year's predictions in this space. I couldn't do too bad as most of the ones made by psychics and publications like the National Enquirer last year turned out all wrong. I thought that if I got one or two right I could open my own psychic hot line and charge big bucks for the suckers to call and listen to my fantasies. What an economic boost, fantasies are an unlimited natural resource. However, I think instead that on behalf of THE RECORD I will just wish everyone a happy and prosperous 1997.
January 29, 1997 Just before Christmas Gold River lost a dedicated community activist and supporter with the passing of Carol Kerpan. I only had the pleasure of knowing Carol in the last few years of her life when her energies were sapped by the cancer that was consuming her. But, many of the old timers that I talk to now all remember her from the days when she was active in the NDP, and involved in community affairs. One local politician and admirer said it was Carol who convinced him to get involved, and then told the story of Carol's role in getting the extra lane on the bridge down by the Mohawk. It is people like Carol, who got involved, that built up this community and many of us will miss her. Jack Munro of the Forest Alliance is taking on the Endangered Species Act in an editorial in this issue. I agree with him heartily that there needs to be compensation for people and communities adversely affected by the Act, but his insinuation that environmental protection must be measured by a cost/benefit analysis is BS, and a typical corporate tactic to confuse the issue and frighten the public. For the special interest groups that are funding the Forest Alliance costs and benefits are often focused narrowly on the value of the immediate resource to be extracted without much regard for the impact on other resources. For these people too, costs and benefits are almost always immediate, and the long term implications for both environmental and employment sustainability are of little concern. I will have more faith in them when I see a workable plan that brings back the salmon and guarantees a good supply of old growth timber for my great-grand kids to log.
February 12, 1997 Today is Abe Lincoln's birthday. Understandably this anniversary is not one that has any great local significance, but as a young lad it was certainly one that I looked forward to. In those days February was a wonderful month chock full of good days. First there was Ground Hog Day, almost the most revered holiday on the calendar in the little country store where I worked. Weird you say? Well, maybe, but if it wasn't I would not have had such a good time working there. Then Lincoln came around and it was a day off since California was a Union State. Down in Dixie old Abe did not have quite the same following. Next came Valentine's Day with tacky little valentine cards to pass out to all one's friends at school, and the ever present eye out for a hit on anyone you knew who was being admired enough to get one of those big heart shaped boxes filled with the food of the gods, you know, chocolate. Finally, there was Washington's Birthday. The father of our country and another good reason to take a day off and celebrate. Cherry pie, one of my favorites, was in order. Today February is not nearly the same. Fritz, the store owner, died last year just short of 91, so Ground Hog Day can never quite be what is was. I have not seen any Valentine's chocolate in years, but the day is still special since Lynne always reminds me with a card. As for Lincoln and Washington though, they fell prey to that insanity some years back that sought to make all holidays a Monday. No more remembering Abe and thumbing our noses at the slugs in the south, no more stories of cherry trees and hatchets and two days off. Now its just President's Day, how generic, and depressing too since it includes Richard Nixon. Well, we do not observe it here anyway.
February 26, 1997 Vandals, lovely German people who overran southern Europe and North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries. In 455 they visited Rome and sacked it. From them we get the words vandal, vandalize and vandalism. Perhaps this is unfair to the Vandals, after all they were just trying to make a living following the honored, age old profession of loot and pillage. You know, a little rape here, a little burning and murdering there, things that any red-blooded free enterpriser understands quite well as the means to achieving a profit. Nowhere do we find the Vandals spray painting a wall, bashing out tail lights for the hell of it, or overturning garbage cans just to hear them clank on the cement. There is no profit in any of that, it is just stupid. So why denigrate the Vandals by appending their name to it? Perhaps it is time to change our terminology. Morons and moronism sounds more appropriate to me, unless of course you are heavy duty into politically correct terminology, then instead we could use conceptually challenged or some other foolish term. Speaking of morons, there are a few people in Gold River who seem to have lost sight of the fact that the Village has laws regulating dogs. This is evident from the large number of unleashed animals seen running around lately; the ever spreading coat of doggy doo that has become almost impossible to avoid on a casual stroll; and the large number of comments that have been heard from people who are really getting fed up. The item has come up in Council and no doubt we will be hearing more on this topic in the future. Perhaps it is time for the Village to do its duty and put the dog catcher back to work aggressively collecting and dealing sternly with the offending pets and their owners.
March 12, 1997 There is a philosophy prevalent among industrialists and their apologists that can be called the Three Legged Stool view of life. This outlook holds that society is built on three equal legs consisting of the environment, the social fabric and the economy. According to its devotees we have to balance the needs of each leg in order to achieve stability. This belief is somewhat akin to the view that the earth is flat, and those who expound it either do so out of ignorance, or with the express intent of deception. A more realistic view of life is that of the pedestal. The environment is the base upon which all else is built. Any degradation in the environment leads to the eventual degradation of both the economy and the social structure. Destruction of the environment leads to destruction of all. Those who would say that environmental concerns have to be tempered with a concern for the economy are either knowingly practicing a cruel fraud, or have not the slightest grasp of how the universe functions. The environment is paramount, and we must fit our society and economy to it if we are to ever enter the magic realm of sustainability. The share groupies speak of balance, but their balance includes shrinking forests, vanishing fish stocks and an ever expanding human population. It is a lopsided balance tilted steeply toward the maximization of economic gain. Rather than asking how to meet environmental concerns while sustaining the economy, we should be asking how to develop a sustainable economy while meeting the requirements of a balanced environment. More jobs per unit of resource, not increased exploitation of resources, is the way to build an economy without destroying its foundation.
March 26, 1997 "Taxpayers can expect to fork out upwards of $60 million for this new spending initiative -- the amount spent on sponsorships by Canada's three tobacco companies last year." So goes the argument put forward by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation regarding federal Bill C-71 which tightens up controls on tobacco and, among other things, restricts tobacco sponsorships of sporting and cultural events. The CTF would like to see the promotion of tobacco continue just to save a few tax dollars. What some people won't do for money. I suppose that if someone proposed that millions in tax dollars could be saved if we required schools to pay their own way by producing and distributing child pornography then logically the CTF would be all for it. Tobacco may not be quite the evil that child pornography is, but it is still an evil in the same category as other recreational drugs that cause so many problems for society. Ask most smokers, they all say "I would like to quit, but ...." Making tobacco illegal would be foolish, that lesson was learned with alcohol and ought to be learned with the other drugs that give us the most problems only because they are illegal, but promoting tobacco is foolish too. As a society we need to learn to accept and control the vices that we can not eradicate, but we certainly should not be glorifying them. Most Canadians support tougher laws on tobacco, and everyday more and more cities and other places are enacting stiffer no-smoking rules for public areas. Even the outright banning of tobacco advertising would not be out of place today. Fewer smokers may be a blow for the mega-corporations, but good news for the rest of us. It is time that the CTF got a moral conscience.
April 09, 1997 "Study Proves NDP Policies Killing Forestry Jobs," "Rules Hike Forestry Costs by 75%," "Higher Sawmill Taxes Cutting Into Job Creation," so on and so forth scream the Liberal press releases and the headlines of the Vancouver Sun. As radio commentator Paul Harvey would say, "now for the other side of the story." What the Liberals fail to mention and what you have to dig out of the Sun are the facts that over the same period of time used to calculate the rise in costs the price of lumber went up 58% and industry revenue went up 45%. Also not mentioned by the Liberals, though touched on briefly by the Sun, is the fact that for years stumpage fees in this province were so ridiculously low that the province was virtually giving away our trees to the point that the US was threatening higher tariffs on our lumber to compensate for what they considered unfair trade practices. The higher stumpage rates, which are a major cause of increased industry costs, were put in place for the most part to avoid the tariffs and keep the value of the wood in BC. So blame the NDP for taking money out of the US tax pool and putting it into ours. Regarding costs related to stricter codes, who wants to go back to the mess we had before the Forest Practices Code? Even the FPC is not tough enough to deal with the abuses to the environment that are endured to keep overpaid executives in Vancouver and foreign investors rolling in our dough. Both the Liberals and the industry recognize this to the point that they say "it is a good code .... just do not enforce it." And job loss, what a bunch of hypocrites. Where is all of the moaning and wailing when they bring in more automation and downsize an operation?
April 23, 1997 It is nice to have fresh flowers and budding leaves all around the village, now only if we could get more than a day at a time of sun shine. After some serious scientific studies this past week I have come to the conclusion that spring rains are caused by two main factors. One is the tempting of the gods by Joe over at the hardware store when he so blithely puts out lawnmowers and garden furniture. The other is cherry blossoms. It seems that there is a pattern developing here that is neither good for bees nor me. The cherries bloom which attracts the rain, the bees stay home to keep dry and my tree once more is left standing at the alter, forlorn with no honeymoon to follow. Abstinence leaves the old cherry bucket to go empty. On a more serious note everyone should mark April 28 on their calendar. This day is the official day of mourning for persons killed or injured in the workplace, and also the anniversary of the third reading of the first comprehensive Worker's Compensation Act (Ontario 1914) in Canada. According to statistics put out by the CLC and IWA one out of every 13 Canadian workers are injured on the job, and there are approximately 1000 work related deaths per year. One out of every four women workers are injured each year. An average of one million injuries are reported to WCB's each year, and about $5.2 billion is paid out in benefits. Another $5.2 billion is estimated to be the indirect cost of workplace injuries. It is important that we all remember those who are injured or killed in the workplace, and the struggle of those who fought and those who still fight for worker's compensation and for increased safety and better conditions in the work place. Compo is not an act of God, it is a hard won benefit.
May 07, 1997 Nice weather for frogs and ducks, although given the problems in North Dakota and Manitoba I guess one should not feel too bad. Even if we can not play on our ball fields at the moment, at least we can see them without scuba gear. I also might not get any cherries again this year, but my tree will still be in my yard and not headed out of town in the Red River. The federal election is getting up steam with at least five candidates now running in our riding. There has been a bit of comment in some of the other local press about too early and election and about how it is time to have fixed terms of office for a government. I tend to agree. We would be better served if our leaders were busy taking care of business rather than continually sampling the waters to see if the time was ripe to call and election and extend their mandate. Give them a five year term and eliminate votes of non-confidence. I am getting a kick out of some of the candidates surfacing across the country. We have Reformers bolting to run as PCs, we have Liberals switch hitting as Reformers and vice versa, and the dance goes on to the point that you can not even tell the players with a score card. The ease with which members cross back and forth between the Liberals, PC and Reform parties shows just how much they have in common, and upholds my theory that it is just really one big mega-party with three related factions arguing over technique with no substantial differences in ideology. I get a laugh when I hear the PCs and Reform talk about how much they are going to do for our public healthcare system. I get a laugh, but I also know why they have to be respectful of public health care. Thank you, Tommy Douglas.
May 21, 1997 My weather observation for the past two weeks is that we went from too wet to too hot in two days, but it looks like I might have some cherries after all. Bad enough that the weather is fickle during blossom season, now I hear we have a mite on the island killing off all of the bees. Maybe I can hire that guy on television who advertises flowers in a bee costume to satisfy my tree. There are a lot of things on my list to rant and rave about in editorials, the asininity of Jack Munro and the industry's stand on the endangered species legislation (that I think died on the Order Paper when they called the election), on Chuck Bennett's vicious and bigoted attacked on environmentalists in the North Island Gazette, or on the various and sundry trade deals, signed and about to be signed, that our current government is getting us into at the cost of our national sovereignty, not to mention our economic welfare or our complicity in the oppression of workers in developing countries as a result of these deals. Instead, like many others this time, I think that I will say a few words about the election. It is not uncommon to hear the sentiment that individuals mean nothing in elections, that it doesn't matter who you vote for, or that all politicians are crooks. These feelings are all BS and those who hold them are asleep at the wheel. Every vote counts, and those that count the most are those that don't get cast. They elect the government by default. It matters who you vote for. Although the Liberal, Conservative and Reform parties are all sheep cloned from the same ewe, there are some other choices. One vote at a time we make a difference. As for all politicians are crooks, that is like saying that all cops are brutal, all loggers are gay, or all Irishmen are sots. You know its not true, get out and vote.
June 04, 1997 As I write this we are going into the home stretch on the election. As you read it the election is part of history and we are underway with what is probably our last government of the 20th Century. Comments on the election at this point are moot, but as I watch the salmon drama with the United States unfold some historical political comparisons come to mind. US intransigence at the treaty table is threatening the livelihood of the BC fishing industry. In the past two weeks Premier Clark said enough is enough and gave notice that the province would be cancelling the Navy's lease on the seabed off Nanoose, thereby denying the US the use of its torpedo testing range. Not to be outdone the Feds then finally started grabbing US boats that were in violation of Canadian laws, something that they should have been doing all along. In the wake of all of this there was a lot of talk that this kind of brash action was counter productive, that confrontation would only make the matters worse, and blah, blah, blah. Well, the appeasers should take a look at history. Take a look at Britain circa 1938. We can easily slip Jean Chretien into the role of Neville Chamberlain, Glen Clark into that of Winston Churchill and Preston Manning into that of Lord Ha Ha. In the end whose path proved to be the right one? We need a reasonable salmon treaty and we need it now. Endless negotiations only serve US interests at the cost of our declining fishery. If the latest moves do not encourage a more agreeable stance on the part of the US then we should start seriously talking about closing the Inside Passage to all US shipping. We can also threaten to shut down the Welland Canal and close the St. Lawrence. Appeasement is not the answer.
June 18, 1997 Over the last few years balanced budgets and an end to excessive taxation, borrowing and deficit spending have been the battle cry of the right wing. More than a battle cry, they have turned these terms into a mantra that they chant over and over as part of the religion that they have created out of their economic and social views. Well, I agree that deficit spending is bad, particularly when combined with excessive taxation and borrowing to a degree that we may never be able to make full repayment. And, when I study our society I see this phenomena of irresponsible and reckless behaviour most apparent in our attitude toward the environment. With our current, outdated culture and economic framework we are borrowing far more from the environment than we can ever hope to repay. We are taxing it to death and spending its wealth profligately far beyond the ability to replace it in our time. The question that I ask is where is the Fraser Institute and the Reform Party and other corporate flunkies when real deficits need to be opposed and hideous taxations protested? It appears that we might have a double standard in place on the right. To them deficits and spending beyond one's means are only bad if immediate financial profits are affected. When it comes to wasting our heritage and the future of our children, they can see no profit in opposition. Speaking of wasting our heritage, the new, revised Forest Practices Code will contain language adding "economic criteria" to the area of consideration for a district manager when approving plans. Doing so is a mistake. We need to regulate forestry practices in order to sustain the environment, period. Economic considerations have no place in environmental decisions, and if we can not mold the economy to the environment we are hooped.
July 02, 1997 What can one say about this weather, endless spring? My word to all of you gardeners out there who went out and planted corn: it looks like you should have planted rice! Vancouver Island North MP John Duncan has been appointed as the Fisheries Critic which is good news for BC. John has taken a stand in support of lighthouses, and has opposed Coast Guard cuts that were to the detriment of our region. He has also spoken out recently on the problem of diminishing Coho stocks and had the courage to call for a sportfishing closure to match the one in the commercial sector. We are sure that he will be a much more articulate and intelligent critic than John Cummins was during the last Parliament. It sounds like Glen Clark, Dave Haggard, Jack Munro and numerous other luminaries have overdosed on bananas. Lately they all seem to have found delight in jumping up and down while scratching their armpits and pointing their fingers at Greenpeace. What a spectacle, but some of the rhetoric is getting a bit unsettling, some of it sounding a bit like hate-mongering which makes me look back in history to Europe sixty years ago. Greenpeace, no doubt, can use some constructive criticism, but it does have some valid points which need serious attention. Brain dead, redneck posturing is not the way to reach a reasonable solution. As for the IWA suing Greenpeace for lost wages, what a farce. It is like pub owners suing Mothers Against Drunk Driving for pushing for stiffer laws on impaired driving. If suits for job losses are in order perhaps the rank and file should sue IWA leadership for all of the jobs that they failed to protect from corporate down sizing, the big killer of employment in the forest.
July 16, 1997 I had a conversation with long time mill worker in Gold River the other day, a friend that I have known here for almost ten years. As often happens when we stop to chat the topic turned to the state of the world in general and the state of Gold River in particular. We talked about the changes occurring and the changes that we know for sure are to come. He said that among the people that he knows in the village, and particularly among the young, there is a lot of denial about the reality of the future, and he is not sure what can be done about it. I agree with him that there seems to be a lot of denial on the part of the general populace. I also think that there is not enough sense of urgency for the future on the part of community leaders, both designated and natural. The future is coming, and coming faster than many would like to admit. This future will undoubtedly contain far fewer forestry jobs as we know them today. Technological change, corporate downsizing, world wide competition and a shrinking fibre supply will all see to that. This is a given and denying it will not make it go away. Denial will only make the impact greater when reality sinks in. The resource communities of our region will not die, but they will change. Resource extraction will no longer be as important as other activities take a more prominent role in the economic picture. If we can not organize and carry out this change we will watch outsiders come in and do it for us (or maybe to us). Those who start planning for this change now and begin making the transition to other pursuits will have some control over what the future here is to be, and will maximize their advantages in the new economic order. Those who persist in denial will have to take whatever fate tosses their way.
July 30, 1997 Its really summertime at last, and I thought about doing a little upscale piece on fishing and swimming and hiking around in the forest, and on how lucky we are on the North Island to live in such a beautiful and abundant area that is the envy of many a city dweller. Then I got to thinking about testosterone and how too many city folk like Dave Haggard, Jack Munro and Glen Clark must be using it instead of Cremo in their coffee. It has to be testosterone that is driving their imbecilic response to the environmental problems in the woods, it certainly isn't facts or common sense. Terrorists, outsiders, enemies of BC, this is the rhetoric of avoidance and diversion when you know that the facts will shoot you down. It is also crap. The so called environmental terrorists are being assaulted by the rummies in Bella Coola who, according to press releases, are burning native flags, smashing cameras, trashing cars, even desecrating graves. And outsiders? They are no more outsiders than the multinational corporations that they are protesting against. The corporations are such good local citizens that they have to bring in big PR outfits to set up phony "share groups" and industry propaganda organs like the Forest Alliance to manipulate information to keep people from focusing on the fact that their future is being stolen from them, not by those who are standing up for the environment, but by corporate greed. The insincerity of these organizations is evident in their double standard on issues. The Forest Alliance and IWA made a big deal out of asking people to sign a petition calling for "democratic" solutions as opposed to illegal blockades. Yet, when forest industry shills illegally blocked the road at Squamish Jack Munro refused to condemn them. Label these guys hypocrites.
August 27, 1997 The past month brought on the high point of the summer with warm, sunny days and some good salmon fishing in the sound. It also brought sadness and tragedy to the area with four deaths in the region. Of the four one on Nootka Island served to remind us once again of the risks and the dangers of this business called logging that serves as the underpinning of our local economy. In another a Tahsis man in his fifties succumbed alone to heart failure, while in Gold River a popular young dentist died suddenly, a shock to his family and many friends. For me the final passing was the hardest, the loss of Keith Hutchinson was the loss of a friend, a neighbor, and a source of wisdom in our community. Keith came to Gold River in 1974 at the age of 50, and by the time I arrived here in 1988 he was among what I would call the village fathers, one of those the younger leaders would be wise to turn to for advice whenever difficult questions arose. I got to know Keith through my dealings with the Rod & Gun Club, and when he and Mary moved to a home just across the street from my office I got to know him more. He would some times drop by the office to chat, and I would now and then wander across the way to sit and talk in their garden. Then, he became active in the affairs of Strata 252 and served on its council during my term of office there. It was a pleasure to work with Keith, and the strata was well served by his knowledge and ability to bring workable, common sense ideas to the table. His memorial service last Saturday filled the Community Centre, a testimony to the high regard in which the people here hold him. I will miss him, as will the whole village.
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