How Much Political Power Should Corporations Have in a Democratic Society? by 
Andy Shadrack (ashadra@pop.kin.bc.ca) Last Saturday, April 10, front page headlines 
in the Vancouver Sun reported that Deputy Premier Dan Miller had proposed "privatizing" 
BC's forest lands. This statement, made to 1,000 northern forest industry delegates 
in Prince George, followed closely on the heels of a decision by the BC NDP cabinet 
to grant MacMillan Bloedel $87.8 million in compensation for the environmental 
"costs" of the Vancouver Island Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) 
process. Such a "grant" is the first of several that will also see Canadian Forest 
Products, Slocan Forest Products and probably others similarly "compensated". 
Currently the BC government is so broke that it cannot afford to pay any of these 
compensation "costs" with cash. Subsequently Dan Miller is paving the way for 
the government to do land for "debt" swaps. While Forest Minister Zirnhelt denied 
that he knew anything about Miller's speech and says he personally opposes selling 
off public forest land, how likely is it that a Deputy Premier would make such 
a speech without cabinet colleagues knowing in advance that a major departure 
in government and party policy was about to occur? Such a situation existed in 
the New Zealand Labour Party, just prior to a decision to abandon traditional 
social democratic policy in favour of a full blown neo-liberal one. More than 
a decade later the New Zealand government (having sold off the best of the country's 
forest land) now has a lower revenue return than when transnational forest companies 
simply paid stumpage. Here in the Kootenay Forest region the latest revenue figures 
indicate that there was a shortfall of $72 million in the operations of the Ministry. 
The Silviculture budget in the Kootenay Lake Timber Supply Area (TSA) has been 
cut from $4 million to $700,000, and up to 40% of the much touted Forest Renewal 
BC staff have been cut. The government's much vaunted "jobs for timber strategy" 
has joined the scrap pile along with the Forest Practices Code and the Kootenay-Boundary 
Land Use Plan. All are remnants of promises made by an opposition party during 
the last days of the former Social Credit term. Unless the cabinet declares the 
emasculated Kootenay-Boundary Land Use Plan a "higher level plan", all of the 
governing NDP's words and press releases promising changes in forest policy will 
turn out to be only so much hot air. Even if he wanted to, the current Kootenay 
Lake Forest District Manager, Al Bradley, does not even have the legal power to 
enforce the biodiversity guidelines that would grant the ever diminishing Woodland 
Mountain Caribou some respite from Slocan Forest Products logging of their habitat 
at the northern end of the TSA. Herbicide spraying is supposedly being reintroduced 
because the Kootenay Lake TSA cannot "afford" to continue manual brushing in an 
employment climate where at least 20% of our youth are without work. On February 
14 I appeared before a legislative committee hearing (investigating the transfer 
of 115,000 cubic metres from Crestbrook to Tembec) to request that the mandatory 
5% "clawback" portion of Crestbrook's forest licence be granted to the three community 
forest licences inside the TSA. I then demonstrated, using figures from the previous 
Timber Supply Review, that the remaining 95% should be withheld from the new licensee, 
Tembec, until the current Timber Supply Review is completed. The last time the 
province's Chief Forester set the Annual Allowable Cut he reduced the Forest Reserve 
in the Kootenay Lake TSA from 70,000 to 7,000 cubic metres. In effect the reserve 
was cut from 7.8% to 1%. I ask readers to name one business which operates on 
a 1% margin of error. Yet the Chief Forester continues to maintain Annual Allowable 
Cuts across the province that are anywhere from 25% to 50% above what is ecologically 
responsible. Increasingly the Ministry of Forests is using highly controversial 
computer modelling to predict faster regeneration of previously planted second 
growth forests. Such a policy follows a familiar pattern that closely parallels 
the pseudo-science which led to the collapse of the East Coast cod fishery, a 
policy that is subsequently leading to the collapse of the Pacific Coast salmon 
fishery. For over a decade inshore fishermen wanted to lower the catch while the 
large transnationals and offshore foreign fleets would constantly bully the Canadian 
government into maintaining ecologically irresponsible harvest levels. On February 
14 I was at first taken aback by the applause that I received for my presentation 
in Creston and then surprised by subsequent presentations from local loggers, 
forest industry workers, the Mayor and two local mill personnel which supported 
my concern for ongoing local employment within the Kootenay Lake TSA. As I left 
the hearing I noted that it was unusual for such a high degree of unity among 
environmentalists and loggers, but was informed by more than one person that is 
was time the government stopped granting licences for harvesting of non-existent 
timber. Subsequently the 5% was not granted to the community forest licensees, 
but retained by the new licensee, Tembec, along with the other 95% of the proposed 
cut. For over a decade we have known that the forest industry was going to hit 
a "falldown" effect if ongoing attempts were made to maintain current harvest 
levels. Instead of using CORE and Forest Renewal BC revenues to reorient the forest 
economy, the NDP government has, for example, wasted over $400 million on maintaining 
an outdated Pulp Mill in Prince Rupert. The key question that must be asked is 
why is this government not only continuing to subsidize a bankrupt corporate forest 
policy, but initiating further compensation of corporate giants like MacMillan 
Bloedel, International Forest Products and Slocan Forest Products. At a time when 
the government is proposing to operate an $850 million general deficit, why are 
we as a society being asked to fork over the equivalent sum of money to corporate 
shareholders and directors? Should a British Columbian government, elected on 
a platform which included increasing the protection of intact forest land to 12% 
(not once but twice), compensate the very corporations which have created the 
ecological crisis the BC NDP were mandated to reverse? Should corporations expect 
and receive financial compensation when societal values change? Currently the 
number of persons eligible for the new federal Employment Insurance program in 
BC has been nearly cut in half. Ability to receive provincial income assistance 
has also been curtailed, even though the number of unemployed forest industry 
workers is the highest in years. Yet corporations continue to line up for subsidies 
and "environmental" compensation as if we are in the middle of an economic boom. 
When a government is so broke due to both ineptness and a collapsing global resource 
economy, why should corporations be able to line up and be the first to claim 
they need "assistance"? How far should corporate power be allowed to grow before 
it is in danger of undermining the basic principles upon which Canadian democracy 
has been built since the Second World War - namely that the economy should be 
managed for the betterment of all its citizens. While it is true that we need 
forest tenure reform, the declaration by the Deputy Premier that current NDP government 
policy resembles that of the former Soviet Union is a gross exaggeration. BC forest 
lands have been consistently, and continue to be, managed for the "good" of only 
a minority of British Columbians and foreign shareholders. At a time when BC is 
finally trying to reconcile the legitimate claims of First Nations to some form 
of compensation for the fact that they held original usufruct title to the land, 
it is an act of bad faith to suddenly announce that BC forest lands are for sale 
to the highest bidder. At a point in time when citizens, environmentalists, loggers 
and forest industry workers, in the Kootenay Lake TSA for example, are engaged 
in trying to build three community forest licences it is absurdly contradictory 
to limit potential community forest license expansion by organizing long term 
leases or outright sale of forest land. We need tenure reform which recognizes 
non-timber ecological values as proposed by ecosystem based planning, community 
based area tenures and local value added manufacturing within the TSA's where 
the timber is harvested. Throughout this transition to an ecologically responsible 
and democratically accountable forest policy we need to be able to maintain full 
public control of the land. Currently there is absolutely no legislative and environmental 
control over private land logging. So why would any responsible government Minister 
want to expand that situation? At a point when even the provincial Auditor General 
is calling on the government to create a single "lead" agency to deal with the 
rights of water users and the need to better protect water quality, why would 
any government want to decrease the amount of land over which it had legal jurisdiction? 
Compared to Europe, and other countries like the United States, we in BC are the 
envy of governments and their citizens because it is much easier to develop a 
single land policy when 96% of the land is publically held. Citizens living on 
Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands (who live adjacent to the largest tracts 
of privately held forest land in BC) know that once land is held in fee simple 
from the crown there is absolutely nothing to stop that land being taken out of 
long term timber production to become housing subdivisions, etc. The notion that 
any government would sell-off the most highly productive public forest land (the 
transnational corporations will not be lining up to buy marginal land), thus denying 
future generations their right to generate public income for maintenance of government 
infrastructure and programs, is tantamount to an act of treason. We have no "Forest 
Land Reserve" to control and protect what happens on private forest land and the 
Ministry of Environment has neither the person power nor the political will to 
enforce current regulations either. Such a land sale policy will not only deny 
First Nations the right to co-manage their traditional territories on behalf of 
their usufruct interests, but it will also automatically deny all citizens the 
right to expand the growing desire to exercise popular sovereignty over land policy. 
Basically, if the BC government were to sell off public forest lands, we would 
be forever governed by a corporate oligarchy that was in a position to permanently 
place their interests above those of the majority of citizens and the needs of 
every other species which resides in the province and along the continental shelf. 
[Andy Shadrack is a prominent member of the Green Party of British Columbia, Canada.] 
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