Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 5, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free september 1981 Winnipeg free press Freedom of Equality of civil rights Liberty of religion published Flotd printed Days a at 360 is retort we nips 3c1 by Canad Wrt company lined 9439331 oonau8 n1col Mattw Murray Burt manage Reg editor Ruby Redekop controlled editorials theology Over economics after pondering the matter Tor several nip Leader Howard Pawley has determined that Manitoba should do without an mean smelter rather than allow the company the part ownership of one of the provinces Hydro plants it says it since no new evidence about the Atman Deal has come to Light since last Pawley has presumably based his belated decision not on facts but on a perception of what the Manitoba Public will accept what members of his party will at any it is Clear that the nip leaders position has a Good Deal More to do with theology than there is a somewhat mystical Faith in the Power and purity of our Rushing Waters and a mom substantial Faith in the general benefits offered by Public ownership of Hydro that Faith can be used to substantiate the position in Public ownership should never be tampered with however great the benefits to the that Faith conflicts with the More practical and sensible View that Manitoba Hydro resources offer this province one of its Best Hopes for future Prosperity and that those resources ought to be used to to ensure that in the Case of an aluminium the Prospect of secure and reasonably priced Hydro Power overrides Manitoba sub Stantial disadvantages of distance from markets and raw materials and the Lack of a year round in the Alcan Deal is a prime example of How this province should use its natural advantages to overcome its natural the Deal is no Alcan will put up the Money to build its share of a Power Plant and will pay Manitoba for management and water in it gets the assured Supply at a predictable Price of the vast amounts of Power it needs to run a similar deals apply in British Columbia and both provinces which guard their Hydro resources every bit As jealously As does both of which of been ruled by governments which consider themselves to be social demo neither of which considers itself to be a banana Republic and neither of which have found the arrangement unfair or that is not to say that Manitoba is should accept the Alcan Deal it raises questions which deserve to be debated smelters do create pollution and there is a need for a thorough environmental assessment of the Atman that assessment is going to take there ought to be Public debate Over the details of the Alcan agreement to ensure that Manitoba is getting fair value for its the people of the province should not be presented with a fait a comply before there has been an Opportunity for full Public there is an obvious conflict Between the need for full Public information and the governments responsibility to carry out effective but a committee of the legislature should be Given a full Opportunity to study the Deal and to question both the ministers responsible and representatives of the it is one to debate the Alcan Deal on its merits and another simply to reject it out of hand on some ill conceived philosophical arguing that our Hydro resources Are too precious Ever to be used to create Industrial development makes As much sense As hiding your Money in a rebuilding the Csc if the technicians at the Csc accept the tentative agreement that has been worked out to Settle their three monthlong the National broadcasting and television network should begin to return to its Normal operations sometime next the effects of the strike will be apparent to and will cause problems for the network for far longer than three no labor dispute can continue As Long As the strike at the Csc without taking its toll of people who Are lured elsewhere in the if the usual pattern has been then the first to be enticed away were those with the greatest other casualties in the prolonged dispute Are members of the audience that was built up through diligent program particularly the audience habit of setting a radio dial or a television Channel is a valuable commodity in the entertainment and is not tampered with there is no doubt that the main Issue in dispute the right of the Csc to employ nonunion particularly in the Field of news and Public affairs is a serious the Union thought it serious enough to keep its members on the picket line for a Quarter of a the management at Csc thought it serious enough to put at risk the future of the National canadians generally did not seem to appreciate the importance of the As is so often the the Public cared More for its daily diet of entertainment than for the nearly Lefea Eddeath struggle that was being waged Between those who manage Canadas National communications net work and those who work in Early reports have put the wage settlement some thing More easily understood than the More Complex Issue of jurisdiction at 40 per cent Over three the figure will be criticized As another example of a government being generous with the taxpayers a closer examination of the wage which Calls for pay increases of and 12 per cent Over three reveals that it is Only sufficient to Cope with the inflation that has been built into the Economy by rising Oil it has been a strike that could have been done without by the Csc the Union members and the listening and watching it will be refreshing to see a return to Normal particularly in the Field of Public affairs where the Csc sets the Canadian the wounds left by the dispute with take a Long time to and May leave scars that can never be fully soviet muscle flexing the appearance of four soviet warships Well within the limits of Canadas economic zone along the West coast contains two the first is that the soviet Navy has Long ago ceased to be one designed and capable Only coastal the soviet Navy is a Bluewater Navy in every sense of the and there should be no Surprise that it has decided to provide proof of this in an area where it has not appeared during the past the second message is the failure of Canadas defence policies during the Trudeau Canada was Able to put out two the destroyer hocs and a Supply hocs provider to Shadow the More powerful soviet As rear Admiral William the chief of Pacific operations for the Canadian Navy this country does not have enough warships to protect its own or its own economic it would not be comfortable for the Captain of the Kootenay to witness the gunnery practice carried out by the soviet Force while in the Canadian economic he was probably much More comfortable when he was providing an escort for the ferry boat that carried the ten provincial premiers from Victoria to Vancouver after their annual conference last no Law was being since the International Law of the sea does not recognize economic and the gunnery exercise was carried out in International what happened was essentially an exercise in muscle the Kootenay Brian said on television that one of the soviet vessels had edged closer than his established Shadow the soviet commander was making a there is Little Canada can Short of calling on the United states for if a foreign Force decides to carry out manoeuvres in an area this country has reserved for without the Means to enforce the they Are Little More than empty theory delayed the Oil pact by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa nothing in the new can Adaalbert Oil pact should have pre vented reasonable and realistic men from agreeing on its terms without the Long bitter controversy that went on for almost two explanations for that damaging Dis Pute must be sought elsewhere for they Are not to be found in the 22 pages of the memorandum of they lie in the area of philosophy and it was Only when rigidities at that under lying level were eroded by the necessities and realities of the times that the practical agreement could be negotiate two elements there were two main elements in the philosophic one was the conviction of prime minister Trudeau and the men closest to him that the nature of Canada demands a very High level of control Power to override regional Dif the other was the Ottawa conviction that the flow of wealth to Alberta inherent in its ownership of great Petroleum resources would Cre ate grave regional imbalances which must be the determination to reduce the flow of wealth to Alberta was As great As its the intense desire for greater Federal reve Nues from rising Oil the first of these theories fell victim to Canadian the time is Long past when Central Power can Mold regionalism into some National that approach today be comes More divisive than the differences Between the regional components of the Canadian federation the term has almost fallen into disuse but Only cooperative federalism will work in contemporary the second that growth of wealth in Alberta should be was the wrong answer to a major change in the wrong be cause it was essentially Static and the real answers can Only come through the change is taking place and it is but the Federal Side was wrong in believing that it is Withim human capabilities to sit in Ottawa and devise a blueprint for the that will have to As the future Al ways must in human it cannot be even in these Days of financial the billion that will flow to Alberta during the life of the agreement is vast treasure and it will come from the pockets of other if that Money were simply to be withdrawn from the this development would indeed be a disaster but it was always a fallacy to think of it As if it were going to be converted into Gold and locked away in some Rocky Mountain fort it will circulate As Money always Al though the government of Alberta will be the it will simultaneously be part of the National passing through Many hands and playing its proper part in building the Economy of the the greater worry by far is not the Money that will go to where the government has shown prudence in its use of great but the almost equally great treasure that will fall into Ottawa it is right and necessary that much of the Money from the new prices should go to the National Treasury that is not the spendthrift the reason for viewing this Prospect with uneasiness is that the Federal even without great wind fall has been spendthrift and fiscally it has no record of a Quality not highly esteemed in Ottawa in any the influence of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany on Pierre Trudeau during and after the Bonn Summit of 1978 was As great a Factor As painful circumstances in bringing Ottawa around to fiscal the German Chancellor is a socialist but he is also a fiscal regardless of the party affiliation of the men who hold Federal Power from now this huge Windfall profit to government demands the approach of fiscal developments in the world of Oil have permitted governments Here to impose huge new sales taxes on the Canadian that is what the new taxes Are and existing sales taxes look paltry by any return to the lord Bountiful spend ing practices of the 1970s would be a contemptuous government response to the real sacrifices which the Oil agree ment will impose on the Canadian has the Alcan question already been settled aluminium smelter environmental risk the Public is concerned about environmental Quality even at the expense of worthwhile commercial act that is the Clear conclusion of research conducted last year by the Council of environmental Quality of in Manitoba peo ple have this concern and Are worried that possible pollution from the pro posed Alcan smelter May override the benefits of creating 700 jobs at the Plant and a spinoff of 500 More Canadas largest International business is also concerned about the it stresses that the new smelter should not be com pared with the old with outdated it has spent million on environmental controls at its smelter at Grande the first new one it has built in Canada in 25 it is aware of Public anxiety about Industrial pollution and in its films on the project emphasizes it is in Harmony with the in Manitoba it has a full time environment Serge one overriding concern is the emis Sion of fluoride a byproduct of the which has been known to be injurious to livestock and vege and Brian Public affairs say Alcan will do its utmost to limit the emphasis will be on environmental Friar says Alcan is still in the process of assembling the techno logical package and that there Are no definite answers yet on the dissemination of Friar says that Grande Bale meets the Quebec government regulations for new allowing the emission of kilograms of fluoride for each metric ton of aluminium pro we Are using a technology a few years ahead of Grande says Val Werier and should do better than there is a planned output of metric tons for the Manitoba under Quebec regulations for Grande this would result in the emission of 820 kilograms or about pounds of fluoride the plan is to do better than that but at or even pounds there would be a substantial Quantity of Friar says that the Plant expects to be about 97percent efficient in containing fluoride in the electric cells or pots where aluminium oxide is reduced to the cells Are covered by Gas within the hooding is directed to a cleaning system or scrubber which has a this would have an efficiency of 99 per he so approximately four per cent of the fluoride will be if this involved up to pounds of fluoride per will this not be a substantial danger to the Environ ment the Plant will be located on a site of four Square Miles to contain any imme Diate says Dave environment re search specialist for the provincial government based on findings into fluoride effects on i dont anticipate widespread this is one others say there will be Long Range effects on vegetation and this Issue and How the Gas will be dispersed will have to await an environmental Alcan has already contracted two environmental studies with local con at a Cost of several Hundred thousand dollars Maclaren plan for a study on the effects on the physical environment inter group consulting on a social economical the guidelines for these two studies have been discussed by Alcan with the Manitoba the latter Mak ing the final the guidelines will be made Public and will be the subject of Public the consultants assessments will also be aired at Public it is anticipated that Public hearings on the environmental assessments will be ready next Alcan will build within 25 Miles of and Only on a site which has the approval of the local says the Plant will be built close to Winnipeg to be assured of an adequate Supply of skilled it will be a huge involving the shipping to the site of tons of Alumina and tons of Carbon products what will happen to the waste this and the Supply of water will also be the subject of the there is some legitimate concern that the hearings will not look into the Issue of whether a Meg project itself is whether it is in the Best interests of the province that 10 per cent of present Hydro capacity be contracted to one a legitimate part of a review would be to look into alternative uses for this from talking to Many people in i get the feeling that it is already a fait one question for an assessment review is whether to proceed with a if the decision has already been made to go then the assessment process would have a bit of a hollow ring to in a the assessments Are being one consultant is looking at the physical another at the social and economic and Hydro is negotiating with Alcan on a Power All these issues Are the physical environment is part of the economic which in turn is an integral ingredient of the Sale of this deficiency will be met Only if there is a thorough assessment allowing the Public time for a full the Public should also be Given a concise report on the review process and How it can something lacking some officials too Are alarmed about the apparent haste of the says one in getting the feeling that there is a time Factor involved and that any step conceived As consuming too much time be looked upon it is common practice to have the Industry hire and pay consultants to conduct the environmental it would be preferable for government to choose the consultants Ana so achieve a More Independent Howe the wheels Are in motion and this cannot be one Way to enable a More critical review is to provide funds for responsible Public groups to seek expert advice at the this has been done in Justice in his inquiry into the Mackenzie Valley also took the View that Public participation would be ineffective with out professional he funded the native groups to obtain advice on this Complex the Alcan project is a Complex mat Ter and All the issues should be thoroughly debated in the Public ;