BRITISH COLUMBIA ‘Forest companies owe B.C. millions’ At least $1 billion in forest revenues has been lost due to government undervaluing and the log scaling scandal, the New Democrats’ forest critic has charged. Vancouver East MLA Bob Wil- liams said British Columbians are being “shortchanged” because of untaxed “windfall” corporate prof- its through log exports, artificially low wood chip prices and inept log scaling. Referring to the recent settle- “ment awarded two independent logging contractors, Williams told the legislature March 17 that former provincial ombudsman Karl Friedmann has been com- pletely vindicated in his charges against B.C. Forest Products. Frigdmann made headlines two years ago when he revealed that two/independent contractors had been bilked millions of dollars by the company’s Shoal Island opera- tions because of the government’s faulty scaling system. His comments followed a set- tlement by B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Allan McEachern in which the contractors, Traer and Mahood, and Kyuquot Logging Ltd., were awarded undisclosed amounts out of court. Justice McEachern’s report stated that the value of the logs sold to B.C. Forest Products was appar- ently underestimated by 12 per cent over a 3 % year period. “Tt is now clear that there was cheating and an undermeasure on a grand scale on Shoal Island. Who knows how many millions the Crown has been cheated?” Willi- ams told the legislature. Later Williams cited the Forest Management Review, Justice Mc- Eachern’s review and forest minis- try data on log exports in stating that the government is foregoing “millions” of dollars in revenues. **As much as 12 per cent of coas- tal logs are now exported into the lucrative Pacific market. The dif- ference between the real price received in Asia and the phoney prices on the Vancouver log market means as much as $100 mil- lion in untapped revenue,” he said. Regarding the pulp market, Wil- liams said: “Chip prices are as arti- ficially low as export log prices. The rigged market for chips short- changes British Columbians _be- tween $200 million to $300 million each year. “These are public resources, and the benefits should be going to the public. Instead, this government’s so-called ‘sympathetic administra- tion’ is putting huge profits from log exports and pulp production into the pockets of a few corpora- tions,” he charged. In a Tribune article last fall, pro- vincial Communist Party leader Maurice Rush cited Friedmann’s forest management study in charg- ing that former forest minister Tom Waterland allowed compan- ies so many charges against their stumpage fees, they paid little or no tax after deductions. 2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 8, 1987 Canada-USSR Friendship Society vice-president Rod Doran (I), addresses So society president Dr. Alan Inglis (second from left) listens. Leon Bagramov commenting that a strengthened Soviet society, rec . wel viet visitors in Vancouver Monday while (third from left), head of the Canadian department of the USSR’‘s Canadian and U.S. studies institute, spoke of the glasnost process under way in his country, overed from the ravages of the Second World War, can now consider multi-candidate elections and a more decentralized management of enterprises. He said that incentives to produce better quality goods and allowing small-scale private enterprise are measures to strengthen, not abolish, the Soviet Union’s socialist system. His companion, Vadim Zhdanovich of the USSR-Canada Friendship Society, praised glasnost measures that have seen new women’s and seniors’ movements with greater control over issues affecting their members. The Soviet representatives had visited with city officials in Regina and had stopped in Calgary after attending the seventh conference of the Canada-USSR Friendship Association. Rally backs abortion clinic A packed auditorium Saturday showed that despite the stated opposition of Pre- mier Bill Vander Zalm, B.C.’s pro-choice community is moving forward with its plans to open a free-standing abortion clinic in Vancouver. “We are ready to take the Vander Zalm government on. We are ready to demand free access to abortion,” Maggie Thomp- son, a representative of the B.C. Coalition for Abortion Clinics, told an enthusiastic audience of some 500 pro-choice suppor- ters at a rally at Vancouver’s John Oliver High School. The rally, organized by the coalition and Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abortion, featured Dr. Nikki Colodny and Dr. Henry Morgentaler, both of whom currently face charges for their work at abortion clinics in Toronto. There is an ongoing campaign to raise committed community support for a clinic in Vancouver. “You cannot let Mr. Vander Zalm whit- tle away the acquired rights of women in this province ... I would remind him that the Charter of Rights guarantees us all freedom of religion and conscience,” Morgentaler said to cheers. “The abortion law as it presently stands is unconstitutional. We know that it is unconstitutional. We know because a Supreme Court judge had no answer when asked how a law could be constitutional when provinces can simply opt out of upholding that law,” he declared. He cited Prince Edward Island, where no hospital has approved an abortion since 1982, and Quebec, where legalized free-standing abortion clinics have oper- ated for the past 10 years. “Tt is up to you and the thousands of people like you in this province that sup- port women’s rights to ensure that a free standing clinic is opened in B.C.,” he urged. Outlining some of the history of the first clinic opened in Toronto 2% years ago, Mogentaler noted: “We are still open and operating but we have been constantly harassed by the police, by the government and by fetus fetishists,” he said. He added that anti-choice groups are made up of “people who don’t care about women, and certainly don’t care about children once they’ve been born. They are people who would prevent women from deciding when is the right time to bear children, and from deciding when they are ready and able to offer the love, affection and nurturing that all children need.” Colodny condemned the present system of providing access to abortion as a “‘lot- tery” and urged that as broad a coalition as possible be built to support the opening of a clinic in Vancouver. “You have an opportunity now to be part of a movement that will further the ‘autonomy of every woman in Canada,” she said. Carolyn Egan of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics detailed the struggle to build the support necessary to open Ontario’s first abortion clinic. “We knew that the women’s movement could not win this battle alone. To suc- ceed, our coalition had to be rooted in the community, in the labor movement, in the progressive movement, in political groups, _student groups, ethnic groups,” she said. Egan emphasized that the role of the trade union movement was critical in ensuring that the clinic remained open during repeated harassment by the police and anti-choice groups. “We have to build a coast-to-coast campaign made up of every person that is — committed to women’s rights. We have to let all the attorneys-general know that we will not tolerate raids on our clinics. We have to change the law that has denied us our reproductive freedom for centuries,” she said to applause. B.C. seniors launch campaign on Drug Act British Columbia’s seniors are warning old age pensioners groups across Canada that the province’s Pharmacare program is the “first casualty” of the federal govern- ment’s revamped Drug Patent Act. New charges applied to Pharmacare by the provincial government in its March 19 budget bear out forecasts that the federal bill will mean the imposition of user fees for provincial drug programs, Russ Hunter of the Seniors Caucus warns in a letter. Changes to the act, currently before Par- liament, will impose a 10-year limit on copy- ing new formulas, meaning an end to ‘low-cost generic drugs and skyrocketing costs for provincial drug subsidy programs. Several organizations have sought to overturn the amendments, introduced by the Conservative government after intense lobbying by multinational, mainly United States based, drug firms. * Victoria’s Socred government has passed on the anticipated price hikes to B.C.’s seniors in the form of a 75-per cent dispens- ing fee and a $5-per visit fee to chiroprac- tors, physiotherapists and other health specialists. Additionally, Pharmacare’s “deductible” — the amount spent before an 80-per cent government subsidy to fam- ily drug costs applies — has been raised to $275 from $200 annually. “We've been predicting for a year that increased drug prices would jeopardize pro- vincial drug programs like our Pharma- care,” Hunter stated. Joyce King of the National Seniors and Pensioners Organization said Victoria’s user fees “show that drug programs across Canada are at risk.” The organization 1s distributing the letter to other seniors groups. , The organizations are urging Canada’s seniors to write their MPs, the prime minis- ter and the Senate urging the Drug Patent” Act changes be scrapped. Meanwhile, the B.C. Old Age Pensioners Organization is circulating a petition calling. on the provincial government to rescind the user fees, : “These proposed measures will impos¢ an unjust and traumatic hardship on the majority of pensioners of British Columbi@ who cope with life within a limited income, the petition states.