WILL OUR CARIBOU HERDS SURVIVE?
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VICTORIA – Once upon a time, hundreds of woodland caribou roamed the Telkwa Mountains and surrounding forests near Smithers. Fewer than 10 are left. Extinction rears its ugly head.
"We had no cows breeding this year," says Sean Sharpe, head of the provincial environment ministry’s regional wildlife section. "There’s no bulls."
It may be too late to save the sad remnants of the once healthy herd, but the ministry will try. This winter, they plan to capture about 20 caribou in the Itcha-Ilgachuz Mountains to the south and relocate them to the Telkwa region.
Wildlife officials hope that any transplanted bulls will mate with enough cows so that a new generation of calves will be born. But even if that happens, there’s no guarantee the calves will be able to survive.
The reason for the decimation of the Telkwa caribou herd is human disturbance. Like other parts of British Columbia, the Telkwa area has been drastically altered by man. Large areas of forest, once inhabited by caribou, have been scarred by roads, clearcuts and other industrial activity.
Caribou depend on older, undisturbed forest for survival, particularly in the winter months. Roads are a problem because they make it easier for wolves to prey on caribou. Poachers also find them a boon.
Government officials aren’t unaware of what has led to the sorry state of the Telkwa herd. Rick Page, a research scientist with the forest ministry, has this to say:
"In North America, every herd of caribou has declined once the forest has been logged. – no exceptions – over the course of the last two centuries. And in eastern North America, most of those herds are now extinct."
So does that mean the choice comes down to logging or caribou? Not so, according to B.C. Wild, an environmental organization that has done a lot of work in the area of wildlife habitat.
Saving British Columbia’s remaining caribou, says B.C. Wild, requires "a commitment on the part of the provincial government heretofore not seen," including the protection of older forest frequented by caribou and the introduction of revised, low-volume, low-impact forest practices.
B. C. Wild acknowledges that the creation of new parks by the NDP government over the past few years, including the 109,000-hectare protected area in the Itcha-Ilgachuz Mountains, was a laudable endeavor, but adds that the boundaries don’t protect the local caribou herd.
While most of the herd can bee seen within the park boundaries during from early spring to late summer, the caribou move outside the park into the surrounding forests during winter, and that area is open to varying degrees of habitat disturbance, all detrimental to the survival of the animals.
We have an estimated 1,500 caribou left in British Columbia and have set aside 109,000 hectares of protected land for the animals. That’s 72 hectares per animal. By comparison, Ontario has set aside 3,000 hectares per caribou for the remaining 300 animals within its provincial boundaries.
Cynics point out that species have evolved and died out by the thousands since time immemorial. That may be so, but they lived and died as the cycles of nature dictated. The destruction of a species at the hands of man is unconscionable, particularly if we have the means to prevent it.
I have often been critical of Greenpeace, not for its aims but its methods, which include intimidation and scare tactics. I don’t believe in the dictum that the ends justify the means.
B.C. Wild, on the other hand, makes its case much more powerfully, and does so without organizing boycotts of B.C. lumber abroad. B.C. Wild’s concern for the survival of our caribou should be shared by us all.
IT WAS MAYBE NOT QUITE A VERY GOOD YEAR
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VICTORIA – For those occupying the seats of power in Victoria, 1997 started out with several bangs and ended with barely a whisper
Despised by many, loved by few, the politicians who find themselves in the capital city on New Year’s Day are stuck in the city’s worst snowstorm in a century. More than three feet of frozen precipitation blanket Victoria, causing snow banks of up to 10 feet and a lot of Schadenfreude in the rest of the province.
Schadenfreude is a German word for taking fiendish delight in someone else’s misfortune, and there’s no equivalent term in the English Language. I wonder what that says about the country of my birth.
The second bang is the implementation of the Mifflin Plan, which calls for a drastic reduction of the West Coast fishing fleet. Try as he might, British Columbia’s affable Fisheries Minister Corky Evans is unable to convince his federal counterpart to hold off on his plan.
On a positive note, the B.C. government implements a new child poverty program. Under the B.C. Family Bonus program, low-income families get up to $103 a month per child. Currently, the program provides $250 million in annual support to 200,000 low-income families with dependent children. About 70,000 of these families are on welfare.
February is the month in which the Liberals lose their carefully preserved political virginity. They send political propaganda to 800,000 homes at a cost to taxpayers of $1 million
Not to be outdone, the NDP gets caught pants down when it becomes public that former finance minister Elizabeth Cull has snared a lucrative $1,000-a-day government contract.
In March, Michelle Poirier wins her six-year battle when the Human Right Commission rules that breast-feeding in public Is a human right. Dan Miller, the head honcho of gambling in B.C., assures citizens that the province would get no Las Vegas-style casinos, while paving the way for massive changes in our gaming laws. A financially beleaguered government is trying to tap into new revenue sources.
As we drift into spring, Greenpeace renews its efforts to spread fear and loathing over British Columbia’s forest practices. At a press conference, the environmental watchdog releases a booklet that claimed to contain "The truth about what’s happening in British Columbia’s forests."
Summer brings politics to a boiling point. In June, Premier Glen Clark declares an all-out salmon war on the United States, Greenpeace escalates its campaign against forest companies and the government introduces Labor Code changes that scare the hell out of the business sector.
Women MLAs, both NDP and Liberal, celebrate the summer by presenting NDP MLA Ted Nebbeling with a plastic penis in the legislature. Their immature antics are caught on TV and receive the appropriate public attention.
In August, Alliance leader Gordon Wilson briefly flirts with the Reform Party, considering a possible merger. It doesn’t happen, and Reform begins its side into oblivion.
Ottawa sides with the U.S. in the salmon war, child murderer Clifford Olson enrages the nation, one again, by getting a hearing under the faint-hope clause, and the terms o settlement between Alcan and the B.C. government over the cancellation of the Kemano Completion Project are announced.
In September, Wilf Hanni, the new Reform leader, gets off to a bad start by denouncing the only two sitting Reform members, Jack Weisgerber and Richard Neufeld for having supported same-sex benefit legislation.
October sees the creation of the province’s newest and largest park – the size of Nova Scotia -- in northeastern B.C. The drive to recall Helmut Giesbrecht, Skeena, and Paul Ramsey, Prince George, are announced.
In November, Greenpeace strikes pay dirt. B & Q, one of Britain’s largest do-it-yourself furniture-maker chains has announced that it will boycott B.C. hemlock, the predominant species on the West Coast.
But with the Christmas holiday at hand, December is relatively quiet. Recall is about the only political activity happening in B.C.
And so, another year in Lotus Land comes to en end.
PREMIERS REMEMBERED
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VICTORIA – At least once a year, preferably around Christmas, I do a one-on-one interview with the premier. Last Wednesday, Glen Clark was the seventh premier sitting across from me, participating in my journalistic Christmas tradition.
These Christmas interviews are always published in question-and-answer form, because I think it’s only fair to give the premier one chance a year to talk about his job and his views on topics that happen to make his life miserable at the time, without me interpreting what he says. The latest interview will be appearing in this newspaper shortly.
Sitting there with Clark in the west wing of the Parliament Building, I couldn’t help but compare this premier with the six others that went before him.
For one thing, he’s the youngest of the lot. If he were introduced to me as the doctor about to perform open-heart surgery on me, I’d ask him for his driver’s licence.
And even though he is, next to W.A.C. Bennett of long ago, the most consummate of politicians to occupy the premier’s office, he manages to look and act like a happy-go-lucky whippersnapper.
Those who confuse appearances with the man, however, do so at grave risk. That boyish grin and ready laughter hide the occasional arrogance, a mind like a steel trap and a determination that will stop short of nothing to achieve whatever goal he has.
The foregoing also pretty much describes the late W.A.C. Bennett. Age and political philosophy mark the only real differences between the two. There was one other difference: Bennett could get quite emotional. I can’t picture Clark with tears in his eyes, not in public.
Dave Barrett was a different kind of premier. With a background in social work, Barrett showed much more compassion than Clark does for those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. He would, for instance, never have cut benefits for single welfare recipients by $50.
Then there was Bill Bennett. Having lived in the shadow of his father all his life, it took him a while to feel comfortable in his job as premier. Most people considered Bennett aloof. I’ve seen him in situations where he showed more kindness and compassion than most of the premiers that came before or after him.
Bill Vander Zalm. Now there was a strange guy. Blessed with an all-encompassing ignorance of what our parliamentary system is and should be he simply failed to understand that he couldn’t ram his views down every British Columbian’s throat.
On a personal basis, he was the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet. I’ll never forget Vander Zalm dashing from office to office in the Parliament Building on Christmas Eve, delivering poinsettias. The look on the NDP caucus staff was priceless.
There isn’t much to say about Rita Johnston. She became premier when Vander Zalm resigned and promptly lost the next election to Mike Harcourt’s NDP. Forever ingrained in my mind will be her shouting at the tope of her lungs into the TV cameras after the Socred convention that confirmed her as leader: "Mike Harcourt, you will never be premier."
Well, Harcourt did become premier, and of all the premiers I have interviewed and written about, Harcourt was, without a doubt, the most decent person to hold that job. I’m not implying that the others were rascals. I’m just saying Harcourt wasn’t cut out for politics. Going for the jugular to Harcourt meant saying "you’re not being very nice."
It somehow seems almost fitting that Harcourt had to leave office for something he had nothing to with – the Nanaimo Commonwealth Society scandal.
And that brings us back to the Glenster as one of Clark’s previous press secretaries referred to him when talking to reporters.
I hear people say things like "there’s no way he can win another term," and I reply, don’t underestimate Clark. Remember that steel-trap mind. Remember that determination which stops short of nothing.
RAMSEY SUES NEWSPAPER
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VICTORIA – I hate to see grown men cry. The sight of Education Minister Paul Ramsey ruminating sadly over what the campaign to turf him from office has done to him and his family is not a pretty one.
Then again, Paul, your government brought in the recall legislation because it seemed a good idea at the time, and you voted for it. Like the late Winnipeg alderman Slaw Rebchuk, master of the mixed metaphor, used to say: "you buttered your bread, now lie in it."
And now that political oblivion is staring him in the face, the Prince George MLA appears to get a tad desperate. His latest weapon to fight off the recall campaign is a lawsuit against the Vancouver Province newspaper and fellow columnist Michael Smyth.
The circumstances leading up to Ramsey’s suit are interesting. In an interview with a Province reporter, Ramsey said a lot of people in his riding are telling him they are upset that people who didn’t even vote in the last election can now sign a petition to recall him.
The quote contained the phrase "and they tell me that these guys didn’t even have enough energy to get out of their La-Z-Boys and get to the polls. And now they are just going to sit back, pop another beer and order another pizza and decide whether to recall or not. This is quote democracy unquote."
When the reporter who had interviewed Ramsey gave columnist Smyth the quote over the phone, reference to "they say" got lost and the quote was attributed directly to Ramsey. And that’s the way Smitty ran the quote in his column.
Now, I admit there is a difference between other people accusing some of Ramsey’s constituents of having been too lazy to vote in the last election and now signing the recall petition while swilling beer and gobbling pizza, or the minister himself making such remarks.
The difference wasn’t lost on Smitty. He apologized for his mistake a couple of days later.
Now Ramsey says burying the apology on page 6 isn’t good enough. Begging your pardon, minister? The apology appeared on the same page on which the wrong quote had appeared. In addition to that a big banner headline on page 1 drew attention to the fact that "Michael Smyth apologizes – Page 6."
Asked to provide some names of people who made the controversial remarks, Ramsey now says he wasn’t referring to anything specific people told him, inferring that it was a sort of compilation of sentiments expressed by some folks on whose doors he had knocked.
A few years ago, Liberal MLA Mike de Jong attributed some derogatory remarks about a cabinet minister to unnamed people. He had to apologize in the legislature, and rightly so.
Politicians often complain about reporters quoting "sources." Reporters will quote sources only if the people who gave them the information are subject to retribution if their names are revealed, but the sources are real and the information is reliable.
A few days ago, an American reporter ran afoul of the strict rules that apply to source attribution. At a press conference, he said to President Clinton "some people" were saying the administration’s racial-integration policies are mere window-dressing. Clinton shot back at the reporter, asking him t provide names.
That incident isn’t so different from what led to the lawsuit against the Province and Smitty. Even if the quote had been reported correctly, readers could be excused for assuming that Ramsey was expressing his own feelings.
Simply saying that some unidentified people have been telling him how they feel doesn’t make it clear that he feels differently, although he as, in the meantime, said publicly hat he, indeed, disagrees, with the remarks.
If you ask me, the Province caved in. Smitty, I suppose, had little choice in the matter.
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