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NEWS photo Mike Wakelleld

LAID-OFF Versatile Pacific Shipyasds Inc. employees met with North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP MLA
David Schreck on Monday to air concerns they have ever the issue of unpaid severance packages.
Earlier in the day the group confronted Premier Mike Harcourt and demanded the provincial gov-
ernment hold a public inquiry into the operations of Versatile.

Workers confront Premier

Employees demand inquiry
into shipyard’s operations

ANGRY LAID-off Versatile Pacific Shipyards Inc.
_(VPSI) employees confronted Premier Mike Harcourt in
-North Vancouver on Monday and demanded the provincial
government hold a public inquiry into the operations of
VPSI and its parent company Shieldings Inc.

’ The group met later with North
Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP MLA

1 David Schreck, who said he had

spoken to Finance Minister Glen
Clark’s office and” the Marine
Workers and Boilermakers Indus-
trial Union about the issue.

Schreck said he will do
whatever he can to secure some
answers for the former shipyard
workers.

The former VPSI employees
want the provincial government to
ask VPSI officials why the com-
pany is not paying severance
packages to its displaced workers.

Joe Brown, a spokesman for
the group, accused the provincial
government of ‘‘passing the
buck’’ on the severance pay issue,
and he rejected Schreck’s sugges-
tion that the group work with the
executive of its union.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

“David Schreck keeps saying we
have to have the executive of our
union here. The executive of the
union has not been telling us any-
thing, and that’s why we’re here,”
Brown said in front of a North
Vancouver restaurant where Har-
court was attending a breakfast
meeting of the North Vancouver
Chamber of Commerce.

“We asked Mike Harcourt
about the story in the North Shore
News on Sept. 25, and he just
swept it right under the table.
Right now we have (North Van-
couver MP) Chuck Cook and
(Capilano-Howe Sound MP)
Mary Collins up on a pedestal.

Now we have David Schreck up
there too,” said Brown.

In the Sept. 25, 1991 News
story, Harcourt, who was in the
midst of the provincial election
campaign, said the then-Social
Credit government should com-
pensate laid-off shipyard workers
on the North Shore and elsewhere
in B.C.

“I think shipbuilding, in a pro-
vince that has 17,000 miles of
coastline, is absolutely essential
where it has been neglected very
badly by the federal government
and the Social Credit government.
I’m. not prepared to let it die,”
Harcourt said at the time.

On Monday, Harcourt said his
government ‘‘would have a good
look’’ at the issues the displaced
VPSI workers have raised.

“1 didn’t promise that we
would have an inquiry. I didn’t
promise that we would be able to
wave a magic wand and deal with
the injustice they face,’’ said Har-
court.

“IT said last September the pro-
vince is willing to participate in
dealing with some of the problems
they face with the question of
severance pay. I said at the time
it’s primarily a federal responsibil-
ity, but the province is willing to
participate.’’

Wednesday, February 26, 1992 - North Shore News - 3-

orth Shore
gypsy moth
hunt proposed

Agriculture Canada considers
offering bounty for egg masses

AGRICULTURE CANADA is considering a proposal to
offer a $5,000 bounty for any moth hunter able to locate
Asian gypsy moth egg masses locally.

The bounty offer stemmed
from a Feb. 17 discussion in
North Vancouver on the impact a
local aerial spraying program of
the insecticide Bacillus thuringien-
sis (Bt) would have on indigenous
butterflies and moths.

Said Phil Millerd, an en-
vironmentalist and the organizer
of the gathering, ‘‘They
(Agriculture Canada) said that
they are considering it (the boun-
ty). I. don’t know what they’re go-
ing to do with it. It’s not going to
cost a lot of money, and it’s a
very pro-active way to find out
whether this organism exists at ali.
It would get the community in-
volved,’’ he said.

Said Agriculture Canada Asian
gypsy moth project spokesman
Owen Croy, ‘‘We are considering
it, but it hasn’t gone ahead yet. |
can’t tell you what the amount of
the bounty would be, but we cer-
tainly are planning it.”’

While individual Asian gypsy
moths have been trapped in West
and North Vancouver, egg masses
have yet to be found locally.

The moth, brought to the area
aboard freighters from Siberia,
can eat more than 400 types of
plants and trees, including oak
and some types of needie-bearing
trees.

But said Millerd, ‘‘There is no
proof that this organism can last
in this damp climate. They bring
these old rusty freighters in here
with egg masses on them, they
hatch and they blow ashore, but
there is no conclusive proof that
this thing can over-winter.”’

George Paclawsky, a Lynn

Valley naturalist, told the group

that of the 28 species of butterflies
found on the North Shore,
16 live above the 1,000-metre level
and would not be directly threat-

Mayors remain opposed to watershed logging

WEST VANCOUVER Mayor and Greater Vancouver.
water committee member Mark Sager says he is stick-
ing with his original decision against clear-cut logging
in the three local watersheds despite last Friday’s
last-minute submission by the International Wood-
workers of America union (IWA).

Following the IWA’s sub-
mission, the water committee
reversed an earlier recommen-
dation to halt watershed logg-
ing at the end of 1992 and
voted 4-3 in support of con-
tinued logging in the Capilano,

_ Seymour and Coquitlam water-
sheds.

_ “The joke of this motion
(passed by the Greater Van-
couver water committee  Fri-
day) is that it would effectively
grant a new logging contract to
a company whose contract has
expired,” Sager said on Mon-
day.

The recommendation supp-
porting continued logging (in-
cluding clear cuts) will be pres-
ented to the Greater Vancouver
Regional District board on
Friday. The board has the
power to make a final decision
on the issue.

By Anna Marie D’Angelo
News Reporter

“The IWA’s position was
clearly thought out,’’ Sager
said. ‘‘They said they sup-
ported the water committee’s
resolution to remove unstable
forests, and no one argues with
that.

‘*But then they go on to say
the water board must continue
to remove forests that may
become unstable,’’ said Sager.

Sager, along with North
Vancouver District Mayor
Murray Dykeman and Surrey
Ald. Gary Robinson, opposed
the recommendation.

Among the four water com-
mittee members voting in sup-
port of the recommendation
was Burnaby Ald. Doug Evans,

who has worked for the IWA
in thé past.

Pitt Meadows Mayor Bud
Tiedeman, Richmond Mayor
Greg Halsey-Brandt and New
Westminster Mayor Betty
Toporowski aiso supported the
logging recommendation.

Said Sager, ‘‘I asked to take
the issue of jobs off the table.
There are about 30 people
employed, and they could do
selective cuts. There are things
to be done (in the watersheds) _
that don’t include wide clear
cuts.”’

Dykeman -said Tuesday he
was disappointed in the water
committee’s vote.

“‘The committee appears to
have disregarded all the work
done last year on the basis of a
last-minute submission which
was based on job protection,”’
said Dykeman.

“‘Qur initial reasoning was to
change to a water management
focus and eliminate the logg-
ing concepts. I have not
changed my position,’ said
Dykeman.

He said he had a file of
papers on the issue at least a
foot high that was accumulated

from April to November last
year through the hearing pro-
cess.

Last November, Sager and
Dykeman proposed unsuc-
cessfully to the water commit-
tee that watershed logging be
stopped at the end of 1991.
The mayors’ proposal came
after extensive public hearings
on the subject.

Logging companies currently
cutting trees in the watersheds
include C&R Logging Ltd.,
whose contract expires in 1992,
and Hanslee Timber, whose
expired 1991 contract was ex-
tended this year. Booming ser-
vices in watersheds currently
provided by Marsh Logging.

Society Promoting En-
vironmental Conservation
(SPEC) vice-president Paul
Hundal was angered by the
IWA_ presentation which he
said contained false informa-
tion about pre-logging turbidi-
ty data and watershed fire his-
tory.

Hundal said SPEC will ask
the board to defer its final
decision until his group had an
opportunity to rebut the [WA
brief.

Greenpeace vice-president,
‘adopted the citizens’ forum rec-

By Michael Becker
News Reporter ;

ened by the spraying program.

Of the remaining species,
Paclawsky anticipates that the
Orange Tip Admiral (Limentis
Lorquini) would have difficulty
re-establishing itself following the
Bt spraying.

The naturalist said it was im-
portant to eradicate the Asian
gypsy moth. He believes that most
butterfly species hit by the spray
would re-introduce themselves
within a two- to three-year
period.

But butterfly collector and
cultivator Roger Ashton proposes
that Agriculture Canada use
Disparlure, a synthesized Asian
gypsy moth pheromone, rather
than Bt as a means of preventing
the spread of the wood-eating
pest. .
Said Ashton, ‘“‘It’s a version of
the hormone produced by the fe-
male to attract the male to mate.

“There are two ways that this
can be done — set an enormous
number of glue traps treated with
Disparlure. In some areas the tree
tops would have to be sprayed .
with it. It doesn’t affect any other
species of moth or butterfly.”’

But regardless of the measures
used to deal with the moth,
Ashton believes it could be too
late. :

“The Asian gypsy moth female -
can fly. Some of them may have
deposited egg masses far beyond
the area which Agriculture
Canada proposes to spray. With
our prevailing winds and with the
lights on the local mountains, fe-
males may have gone very far up
Lynn Valley. or Indian Arm, at-
tracted by the lights and assisted
by prevailing winds. Theoretically
they may have gone far. from the
spraying area, ’’ he said.

Meanwhile lawyers, doctors and
environmentalists opposed to. the
proposed spraying program met
Monday in North Vancouver.

Said Rod Marining, a former
“We

ommendation to encourage that
whole process of a reward system.
We are doing work on a number
of fronts, including the legal
front, to stop the spraying pro-
gram.”’

———
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