A RECENTLY-formed North Shore-based move- ment is rallying local op- position to the federal gov- ernment’s proposed nine per cent goods and services tax (GST). By TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporter The Save Canad2 Campaign (SCC) was founded approximately three weeks ago by North Shore residents John Bunch and Deanne Peitsch. In addition to lobbying local MPs, the group has produced an anti-GST T-shirt, written a satir- ical Save Canada ode to the GST, and launched a petition decrying the tax and the effect the group says the GST will have on Canada’s future. Scheduled to be implemented Jan. 1, 1991, the proposed GST would affix a nine per cent sales tax to most goods and services. It would replace the current 13.5 per cent federa! manufacturers’ sales tax and will raise an estimated $24 billion annually. It will be applied in addition to provincial sales taxes. An estimated 5,000 civil servants will be needed to administer the new tax. LOBBYISTS LAUNCH AWTI-GST CAMPAIGN SCC, according to the peiition, is out to save Canada ‘‘from fur- ther economic decline caused by oppressive taxation and irrespon- sible government spending.” The GST, it states, is not the solution to Canada’s economic provlems and will only fuel infla- tion and deal crippling blows to Canadian business, especially Ca- nadian small business. As of Thursday, the SCC had collected over 1,000 signatures on its petition. Bunch apolitical. “It doesn’t really matter what political affiliation you have, everybody is concerned about this tax,’’ he said. But while he conceded that the tax was ‘‘painful,’’ North Van- couver Conservative MP Chuck said his group is Cook said, ‘‘it is absolutely neces- sary. We are living beyond our means. We have to get the national debt (now at $320.9 billion) under contro!.”’ Both Bunch and Peitsch are employed in smal! businesses, as are 80 per cent of Canadians. The focus of SCC is therefore on the negative impact it maintains the GST will have on Canadian small business. In letters to Capilano-Howe Sound MP Mary Collins, Bunch points to “‘the disastrous effect this new tax could have on our major industry of tourism...’ and the complexities of administering a two-tiered tax system. Peitsch said the tax will un- necessarily increase the burden of tax and bureaucratic red tape al- ready borne by the country’s small businesses. “This (the GST) could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back," Peitsch said. The complexity of administering the tax and the resulting confusion it will create, Peitsch said, are especially distressing prospects for small businesses, which have limited resources to draw upon. In a recent survey of the 82,000-member Canadian Federa- tion of Small Business 96.8 per cent of its membership were op- ‘Turbocharged’ microbes to eat H. Sound pulp mill's pollution HOWE SOUND'S Woodfibre pulp mill has launched an $800,000 pilot project to reduce its effluent toxicity through accelerated biological treatment. The project was initiated ap- proximately four months ago and involves the use of ‘‘turbocharg- ed”? micro-organisms to eat poilu- tants contained in pulp mill ef- fluent. Woodfibre spokesman Wayne Hartrick said that while the con- cept behind biological treatment of pulp effluent is not new, the mill’s research into which acceler- ated method would be the best for a pulp mill like Woodfibre, which has limited site area for such treatment facilities, is the most comprehensive thus far conducted in the Canadian pulp industry. Under Woodfibre’s pilot micro-organic effluent treatment project the micro-organisms, simi- lar to those that occur naturally, are combined, in one tank with pure oxygen and in another with air. Temperature, oxygen and air levels, pH, nutrients and contact time are all controlled, allowing the micro-organisms to consume various mill effluent pollutants faster than they would under un- controlled natural conditions. Larry Adamache, manager of Environment Canada’s forest pro- ducts program, said Monday the process being used by Woodfibre has been used in various mills in the United States and will also be installed at Howe Sound’s Port Mellon pulp mill. He said his department has seen promising preliminary results from the Woodfibre project. “They are doing good work up there,”’ he said. The process, Adamache said, helps reduce the harmful effects of pulp mill effluent in three main areas: by cutting up to 90 per cent discharge of organic matter that would normally absorb dissolved oxygen in receiving waters; reduc- ing by up to 100 per cent effluent compuunds that are lethally toxic By TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporter to fish such as resin acids; and by reducing the amount of chlori- nated organics in the effluent. While Adamache said he did not know the precise figures for the overall reduction of chlorinated organics, he said similar methods have resulted in reductions of be- tween 30 per cent and SO per cent when used in mills in the United States and Sweden. Similar methods have resulted in reductions of between 30 per cent and 50 per cent when used in mills in the United States and Sweden. Hartrick said Woodfibre’s pilot project has been achieving results comparable to those outlined by Adamache, but added that while biological pollution control had **some effects’’ on reducing such organochlorines as dioxins, real dioxin reductions resulted from such factors as substituting chlo- rine dioxide for chlorine in the pulp bleaching process. He added that final figures from the project should be available by January. Areas around Howe Sound's two pulp mills were closed in- definitely to commercial and rec- reational crab, shrimp and prawn fishing Dec. 1, 1988 and commer- cial crab fishing was closed throughout the sound June 14 because of high dioxin and furan levels found in area sea life. Results from a Canadian Pulp and Paper Association survey released last month showed that Woodfibre had reduced the amount of dioxins in its effluent by 90 per cent from previous levels. Hartrick said the Woodfibre project, which cost approximately $800,000 to set up and currently processes about one per cent of the mills effluent flow, was designed to determine which of the two methods — pure oxygen or air — would be best for reducing the pollution in the mill's effluent. Hartrick said Woodfibre has set aside $50 million for a full micro- organic effluent treatment plant capable of processing all the mill’s effluent. The plant, he said, could be in place in two years. Estimated an- nual operating costs would be $2 tnillion. Hartrick said Woodfibre wants to determine which micro-organic effluent treatment method will best reduce the pollution in its effluent, and has therefore notified the pro- vincial government that it will miss by one year the government’s first deadline requiring all B.C. pulp mills to conform to tougher ef- fluent pollution regulations. Under those regulations, ail B.C. kraft pulp mills must reduce the amount of organochlorines in their effluent to 2.5 kg. per tonne by Dec. 1, 1991 and to 1.5 kg. per tonne by Dec. 31, 1994. Woodfibre has notified the pro- vincial government that it will meet the Dec. 1, 1991 deadline by Dec. 31, 1992. The owners of both Woodfibre and Port Mellon mills are currently being sued by Howe Sound fish- ermen who are alleging that the fishing bans imposed in the waterway because of pollution were the result of negligence by the mill’s owners. Public tours of the Woodfibre biological treatment plant began Monday, Oct. 16 and run twice each Tuesday and Thursday until early December. For tour information call 682- 5461. 3 - Sunday, October 29, 1989 - North Shore News N. Shore group declares war on Ottawa's proposted GST posed to the GST, and 96.6 per cent of small and medium-sized business in B.C. were opposed to the imposition of two retail sales tax systems on the province’s business and consumers. Said Peitsch, “If the GST had been brought in with cuts in gov- ernment spending and a reduction in income tax, then a goods and services tax might have made sense.”” businesses with annual sales of less than $30,000 will not have to charge sales tax on what they sell. But they will nave to pay it on what they buy from other com- panies. Cook added that Canadians earning between $40,000 and $50,000 annually will have their income tax reduced from 26 per cent to 25 per cent under the GST. “So it will be almost totally aay fn a recent survey of the 82,000-member Canadian Federation of Small Business 96.8 per cent of its membership were opposed to the GST. Cook said North Shore groups he has met with over the tax have indicated that the GST would be more acceptable if it were lowered from nine per cent to seven or six per cent and if the federal gov- ernment reduced its own spending. In response to those concerns, he said, the tax could be cut from nine to six per cent, even though Federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson has been adamant that it remain at nine per cent. Cook ad- ded that federal spending would be cut “‘even more” than it has been. Cook also pointed out that small neutral for those people,”’ he said. “*te (GST) replaces a very regressive tax (the manufacturers’ sales tax), which will make it easier for Canadian manufacturers to compete in the world market and create new jobs in the manufactur- ing in Canada.”’ Cook said the federal govern- ment has thus far done a poor public relations job with the GST. “The government hasn't done a good job in selling it or explaining it,’” he said. For SCC information call 986- 9860 or 925-1986. EWS photo Nell Lucente WHEN IT rains, it pours. North Vancouver City employee Rick Winters clears a drainage grate of an accumulation of autumn leaves at the corner of Marine Drive and Bewicke Avenue. Torrential downpours on Thursday caused massive flooding in many parts of the North Shore. Gary Bannerman........ 9 Business .... Classified Ads Horoscopes Lifestyles Travel What's Going On %. r Sunday through Tuesday, cloudy with sunny periods and a chance of showers. Highs near 12°C. Second Chass Registration Number 3885