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CastlégarNews 40:17! 198s

Mulroney
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By STEWART
OTTAWA (CP) — Turn on,the tube these days and
chances are good your favorite show has been interrupted
by Brian Mulroney holding court with the premiers, U.S.
President Ronald Reagan, delegates to a national economic
conference or native leaders.

Open your newspaper and there he is again, responding
to reporters’ questions at formal news conferences — there
have been four since March 22 — informal “scrums” or even
a chat in the back of his prime ministerial limousine:

The man seems to be everywhere and analysts such as
former Liberal pollster Angus Reid of Winnipeg are
impressed by his public relations skills.

“I think so far he’s done an excellent job,” Reid says. “I
think there's no doubt that he and some of his advisers have
proved to be fairly brilliant tacticians.”

“The man is a wonder,” Gerald Caplan, the New
Democrats’ former federal secretary, adds admiringly.

“The mystery to me, who once worked closely with
leaders, is how he finds the time to do everything. People
say he starts the day still with his newspapers and ends the
day still with his video replays and in the middle calls
(people).

“Everytime you meet somebody they've just been
called by Brian. It’s true. You bump into (Canadian Labor
Congress president Dennis) McDermott and he was talking
to Brian last night.

“You meet (PC campaign chairman) Normy Atkins and
he’s home — this is true — he’s home two Saturdays ago and
in the middle of the afternoon Brian calls. Three quarters of
an hour. In the middle of the afternoon. Atkins didn't have
that much time, but the prime minister did.”

oO ition critics say Mul y's style and infl is
more presidential t! prime ministerial, that his dominance
leaves all other ministers in his shadow.

But Caplan and others say Mulroney's current strategy
seems to be to build support for the rainy day that may come
as soon as next month's budget.

“We're into the period of real nice guys,” said Reid.

“I think there's a real commitment . . . to try and really
show that they're concerned and care aboyt a lot of different
groups.”

Former Conservative president Dalton Camp adds that
the extensive television exposure has also helped “firm up
the impression of him that he knows what he's doing, that
he's good at inter-personal relationships, good at concilia-
tion.”

Moreover, it has helped Canadians become acquainted
with a new political menu after 16 years of an almost steady
diet of Pierre Trudeau.

“No one knew what or who he was (when he took over)
and it's easier to do that when you're prime minister than
when you're bucking for the job,” says Camp from his New
Brunswick home.

“And now he can use the communications media in a
more or less controlled environment and on his own terms.”

“I think they know they're on a roll,” says Caplan,

‘a wonder'

relations

BRIAN MULRONEY . . . seems to be everywhere
adding that even though this month's conference on
aboriginal rights ended without agreement, it was still a
personal success for Mulroney.

“I thought he looked wonderful. He always looks
wonderful calling ordinary folk by their first name, referring
to his cabinet ministers as ‘John,’ and doing his number —
being the great reconeiler in front of the cameras.”

Reid says the prime minister seems to have adopted the
reverse of Ronald Reagan's strategy in the United States.

Where Reagan took tough steps first and “then used the
polities of image and style to sort of try to soften the blow
after the fact,” Mulroney seems to be softening the public up
in advance.

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A look
Westar

Editor's note: The following is reprinted from a
Westar Timber in-house newsletter called
Backgrounder printed in February.

By SANDY FULTON
Westar

Those of us who work in British Columbia's forest
products industry have lived through some dramatic
times in the last few years. Our world has changed.
Markets are no longer assured; jobs are scarce; and the
industry is threatened by much tougher world
competition.

In order to survive, Westar Timber has had to adapt
its operations to suit this new economic reality. Each of
our mills has slashed production costs and searched for
ways to reduce wood supply costs.

Our Celgar Operations have been no exception. We
have been carrying out a thorough review of our pulp mill
and sawmill in Castlegar and related woodlands oper-
ations in Tree Farm Licence 23. This has resulted in a
restructuring and reorganization of fibre supplies which
has helped us to increase our efficiency in the region.

However, these changes have caused some confusion
and misunderstanding — most of which seems focussed
on the way we manage TFL 23.

This is an important issue for the company, and I
think it’s essential that you understand what is involved.
ONLY ABOUT ONE-THIRD CAN BE LOGGED

TFL 23 was granted in 1955 on the agreement that
an integrated pulp and sawmill complex would be built in
Castlegar. It was recognized at the time that the
over-mature, decadent forests of the “Columbia wet belt”

wooocHiPs ——

e

PURCHASED
PULP WOOD

— TFL 823
PULPHOOD

1980

inside

's TFL 23

ANALYSIS

could be utilized as the chief source of fibre for the pulp

TOO MANY PULP LOGS IN AREA

There is now a chronic over-supply of pulp fibre in
the Castlegar area — both in roundwood and woodchip
form. We have been utilizing some of that over-supply,
because it's cheaper than harvesting pulplogs from the
TFL. While this has resulted in less logging in the TFL,
roughly the same amount of pulp fibre is being used from
the entire region.

And this practice keeps several local mills operating.
For example, our program of purchasing residual chips
helps support six area sawmills with an employment base
of about 2,000 workers.

In the past few years we have also improved the
efficiency of our Celgar Operations by cutting down on
as inventories. This too has meant less logging in the

L.

But the point I would like to stress is that the
undercut on the TFL is essentially made up of the pulplog”

mill, which started up in 1961. Low quality
from the TFL was to be supplemented by woodchips
produced by the adjacent sawmill.

. The TFL is huge, covering 880,000 hectares in the
Arrow Lakes region, stretching from Castlegar north to
Revelstoke. It’s one of the largest TFLs in the province
but only about mottirs of its total area can be logged.

The tops,
glaciers, scrub land, lakes and rivers. And it's important
to note that the TFL has a high percentage of low value
timber species. In fact, 25 to 30 per cent of the
harvestable timber in the TFL is pulplog quality.

UNDERCUT RESULTS FROM
COST-CUTTING PROGRAM -

Wester Timber had been accused of undercutting the
TFL. Over the last five year period, that's true — but not
because of neglect or mismanagement, as some critics
have claimed. The main reason we have not cut our
Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) is our program of reducing
costs over the past couple of years.

We believe the method of setting the AAC for TFL
23 no longer suits the realities of the region. Since the
TFL was granted in the 1950's, technology has changed,
transportation has changed, and the industry has
changed. In order to survive, we all have to adapt.

WHERE CELGAR PULP GETS ITS FIBRE

; i, WOODCHIPS

Graphs show how

TFL 023 Ceigar Pulp has come to
id

PULPWOOD

years. Fulton says the
undercut on the TFL is
largely due to the mill's
lower demand for pulp

\ PURCHASED
PULP WOOD

1984 logs

of the because cheaper forms of pulp
fibre are readily available for running Celgar Pulp.
ONLY A LIMITED QUANTITY OF SAWLOGS
Sawlogs, however, are a very different story. Good
quality sawlogs are in short supply in the area. And our
recent review showed us that we would have to take a
closer look at our sawlog supplies to cut costs if our
Castlegar sawmill was to survive. It is critical that we
maintain our right to harvest the small percentage of
good quality sawlogs in TFL 23.
We have been accused of refusing to allow

‘It's one of the largest TFLs in the
province, but only about
one-third of its total
area can be loggeed’

independent contractors to log TFL 23. On the contrary,
we 's to make use of
those parts of the résources we can't utilize.

For instance, Mica Dam Sawmill of Revelstoke logs
the far northern portion of the TFL where it is
uneconomical for us to operate because of distance to our
mill in Castlegar.

And Columbia River Shake and Shingle of Nakusp
which employs about 100 workers takes a part of our
harvest that we can't use. That improves the overall
utilization of the forest resource and helps provide much
needed local jobs.

What we do not and cannot allow is independent
contractors selectively taking prime sawlogs that we
need to keep Celgar Lumber fully supplied. TFL 23 has
only a limited quantity of good quality sawlogs. We need
most of them to keep our people employed in Castlegar. If
we allowed others to harvest more sawlogs, we would
further increase the imbalance of pulplogs on our TFL.

We have also been criticized for selling and trading
logs from the TFL. In fact, we also buy logs. This is
simply @ matter of reducing transportation costs, and
makes good business sense. Overall, the forest resource
of the region is used just as much, but more efficiently.

WESTAR COMMITTED TO FUTURE
OF CASTLEGAR

I believe the measures we have taken to reduce
operating costs demonstrate our commitment to improve
the performance of our operations and provide gtable
employment in Castlegar. It is vital that all employees,
particularly those in the southern interior, understand
this commitment. It is equally important that you
understand the issues related to TFL 23.

We are now entering discussions with the Ministry

INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY

WHERE IS IT? ... Map of TFL 23 shortly after Celgar
Pulp n Operating in 1961 outlines major timber
blocks along Arrow Lakes and north of Revelstoke.

of Forests to consider the management plan for the TFL
for the next five-year period. We believe it is crucial that
the forest service, our employees, and the general public
recognize the real issues related to our management of
the TFL.

We cannot afford any misunderstanding of these
issues to result in a costly penalty that could jeopardize
the future of our Celgar Operations and the jobs of our
600 employees of Castlegar.

WE ALL HAVE TO ADAPT TO CHANGE

A company’s survival depends on its ability to adapt
— and, when necessary, to re-adapt. We want to work
with our pk ities and the provii
government to find better ways of adapting to change,
providing more stable jobs, and making better use of the
forest resource.

I invite you to discuss this issue with your fellow
workers, friends and neighbors.

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OCEAN FALLS

Town's fate in limbo

VICTORIA (CP) — Ray Williston looks at a map of the
stretch of British Columbia and pronounces it “an empire.”

It is an empire of trees that extends some 300
kilometres along the coast, north to Kitimat.

It is rugged, inaccessible, sparsely populated and
largely unused. Almost in the middle is Ocean Falls, a town
inside a protected inlet and carved out of the forest.

There are no roads into Ocean Falls, about 500
kilometres northwest of Vancouver. The caly way to get
there is by boat or plane.

The provincial government bought the town from
Crown Zellerbach in 1973 for $800,000. It has a church, a
school, a hotel, a hydro power plant and a paper mill that
used to be the major employer.

Williston runs the town.

The 71-year-old former forest minister in the late
W.A.C. Bennett's Social Credit government is in charge of
Oéean Falls Corp. and the B.C. Cellulose Co. — two Crown
corporations that own and operate just about every major
service in the community.

SEES POTENTIAL

If he had his way, Williston says he could turn Ocean
Falls into the hub of logging activity on the desolate central
coast.

However, he could have a ghost town on his hands
within months. He might not even have a job.

Williston is used to suspense; the fate of Ocean Falls has
been in limbo for nearly five years.

Ocean Falls has not been much of a town since 1980,
when the government closed the aging mill to cut
multi-million-dollar losses. Some 450 people were left
without jobs.

The population shrank to 70 from more than 1,000.
Eight still work for Williston, running the power plant and
oceasionally turning on machinery in the idled mill to
prevent rusting.

Williston says it can't go on much longer

It costs $500,000 a year to maintain the town. The
money comes from reserves accumulated by B.C. Cellulose,
but it is rapidly being depleted. B.C. Cellulose lost $962,495
in 1983. Williston says losses continued last year and the
money is running out.

The government appeared to have reached a decision in
1983. It passed two bills abolishing both corporations,
effectively wiping out Ocean Falls. But cabinet orders

needed to proclaim the legislation effective never came.
Ocean Falls is still waiting.

“They were going to close it down absolutely,” Williston
says. “Then they ran into a fellow like me who doesn't
believe that's the answer.”

Williston told the government it would cost $6 million to
$8 million to shut down the town, dismantle the mill, level
the dam and clean up the site.

Since passing the legislation, the government has sent

to study the si ji The bureaucrats say
they're close to assembling all the facts to present to cabinet
for a decision.

Williston wants the government to preserve the town
and says he is not just trying to save his $40,000-a-year
government job.

“At 71, it doesn’t bother me (if the job was axed). I
won't have to go out with a tin cup tomorrow.”

Though he says a lot of people believe he's “bellying up
to the trough,” he notes his salary has not changed since he
took the job in 1976. He also points to his sparse office in
Victoria, with letters missing from the name plate on the
front door and a single secretary as staff.

SECURE FUTURE

He says he is maintaining Ocean Falls as cheaply as
anyone can while seeking ways to secure the town's future.

Top quality timber in the region has been selectively
logged, but Williston sees immense potential remaining for
small companies willing to cut different kinds of timber and
adopt new techniques.

The higher quality lumber could be sorted and shipped
to sawmills down the coast, he says.

A process which cost $368,596 in 1983 to develop at
Ocean Falls could use the poorer timber to make oriented
strand board used increasingly in construction as a
substitute for plywood, he says.

Two small companies are negotiating with him about
locating at Ocean Falls, he says. They need assurances the
town will not vanish.

Williston says these companies could help revive the
mill. A municipality could eventually be set up, enabling the
province to pull out without having to spend large sums to
bulldoze the town.

“If there were any use, you've got maybe $100 million
worth of assets. If you don’t use them, you haven't got a
God-darn thing.”

Kitlope 9%

Hecate Id.

THE EMPIRE . . . Ray Williston, in charge of the near-
ghost town of Ocean Falls, says there is an empire of

Terk y

oe Provincial 9  --~

KALONE
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g Rivers =

trees extending some 300 kilometres along the coast

from Ocean Falls north to Kitimat

Owrken
Lak

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