Mailing address:
3536 - 106 Street
Edmonton, AB T6J 1A4
403-436-5652
FAX: 403-437-0719
July 30, 1993
Enclosed for your information are:
a press statement and newspaper article pertaining to the
continuing boycott of Daishowa paper products,
an exchange of correspondence between Daishowa PR man James
Morrison and Lubicon Settlement Commission Co-Chair Father Jacques
Johnson,
a so-called "Fact Book" on the Daishowa boycott being sent to
Daishowa customers by Daishowa Executive Vice President Tom Hamaoka
(offering among other things legal and public relations assistance
to "any customer experiencing boycott pressure"), and,
a resolution supporting Lubicon Settlement Commission
recommendations and outlining a strategy for the up-coming Federal
election which was unanimously passed at the annual assembly of
some 600 Indian Chiefs from across Canada. (Lubicon Settlement
Commission recommendations have already received broad support from
across the country and internationally, including both of the main
Canadian opposition political parties, organized labour in Canada
and the major Canadian churches.)
The reason that information on the Daishowa boycott and Lubicon
Settlement Commission recommendations are included in this pre-election
package is that they're complementary and both tactically related to the
up-coming Federal election. By effectively blocking the exploitation of
natural resources from unceded aboriginal lands until there's a
settlement of outstanding aboriginal land rights the Daishowa boycott
will hopefully provide the Canadian and Alberta Governments with enhanced
motivation to settle. And by offering the Canadian and Alberta
Governments broadly supported recommendations for settlement the Lubicon
Settlement Commission will hopefully provide the Canadian and Alberta
Governments with clear-cut, responsible and already well-received means
for achieving that settlement. Both the Daishowa boycott and Lubicon
Settlement Commission recommendations should therefore receive as much
support as possible during this pre-election and election period.
The Morrison letter and Hamaoka "Fact Book" are typically both full of
outrageously self-serving distortions, misrepresentations and outright
lies carefully expressed so as to leave the liar with ways to try and
explain or qualify himself out of the fallacious impression which he has
deliberately fashioned -- should he ever encounter someone who
absolutely knows better. Those kind of lies make clear that the liar
just isn't ignorant of the facts but knows that he's lying, and that he's
lying with calculation and deliberation -- in this case as a function of
conscious corporate policy and strategy.
The Morrison letter, for example, repeats the company line which first
appeared in an April 12, 1991 letter to the Chairman of the Toronto-based
Task Force on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility that there was
never "a verbal understanding between Daishowa and the Lubicons involving
the Lubicon traditional territory". Mr. Morrison makes this knowingly
fallacious statement in response to the conclusion of the Lubicon
Settlement Commission that Daishowa has indeed breached an agreement with
the Lubicons to stay out of the traditional Lubicon territory until
there's a settlement of Lubicon land rights and an agreement negotiated
with the Lubicon people respecting Lubicon wildlife and environmental
concerns. In other words Mr. Morrison creates one quite distinct
impression for one audience, one purpose, one set of circumstances;
namely, he creates the fallacious impression that there supposedly never
was "a verbal understanding between Daishowa and the Lubicons involving
the Lubicon traditional territory".
The Hamaoka so-called "Fact Book", on the other hand -- addressing a
different audience with a different purpose and in the context of a
different set of circumstances -- deliberately fashions a quite different
but no less conscious deception. Responding to a Daishowa-conjured
question "Has Daishowa failed to honour a pledge given to the Lubicons
not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area of concern until
the land claim issue is settled with the Federal Government", Mr. Hamaoka
states that "Daishowa believes that it has honoured its commitment (to
the Lubicons) not to harvest on the proposed Lubicon "Reserve Area" and
to consult with the Lubicons prior to harvesting near the reserve area".
Mr. Hamaoka goes on to say that this "proposed Lubicon Reserve Area... is
the area that the Lubicons negotiated with the Alberta Provincial
Government".
Thus contrary to the fallacious impression deliberately created by the
Morrison letter that there never was "a verbal understanding between
Daishowa and the Lubicons involving Lubicon traditional territory", Mr.
Hamaoka deliberately seeks to create the equally fallacious impression
that Daishowa has "honoured a pledge (or commitment) given to the
Lubicons not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area".
However, in order to create that impression without actually locking
Daishowa into a commitment to act accordingly, Mr. Hamaoka purposefully
answers a quite different question than he asks. While the question
which he poses to himself pertains to the 4,000 sq. mile so-called
"Lubicon area of concern" which the Lubicons discussed with Daishowa on
March 7, 1988, Mr. Hamaoka's response pointedly refers only to the much
smaller 95 sq. mile so-called "proposed Lubicon Reserve Area...
negotiated with the Alberta Provincial Government" on October 22, 1988 --
over 7 months later. (Needless to say it wouldn't have been possible for
Daishowa to agree to stay out of an area which wasn't delineated until
over 7 months later. And it wouldn't have made any sense in any case for
the Lubicons to make such a "proposed reserve area" agreement with
Daishowa prior to final settlement of Lubicon land rights over the entire
4,000 sq. mile traditional Lubicon territory. But those are the kind of
logical and logistical inconsistencies one creates by taking such gross
liberties with the truth. Things get all twisted-up, confused, non-
sensical, out-of-order and require further lies to try and explain.)
Similarly, after earlier trying out a half-a-dozen differing
characterizations of the relationship between Daishowa and Daishowa
contractors or subsidiaries in the Lubicon area -- including one company
which is wholly owned by Daishowa -- Mr. Morrison's letter to Father
Johnson repeats the company line which first appeared on October 17, 1990
in the form of claims to the media that "these companies are not
considered Daishowa sub-contractors in that they'd normally be harvesting
the spruce and leaving the aspen to rot on the ground (instead of
providing that aspen to Daishowa's giant Peace River pulp mill)". He
writes that "the logging companies referred to are in fact sawmill
operations that have logged in the region for many years". He claims
that "the logging equipment that was torched (on November 24, 1990)
belonged to a contractor for an independent sawmill that is totally
unrelated to Daishowa-Marubeni's operations". And he concludes that "it
is therefore incorrect to imply that Daishowa-Marubeni has control over
independent sawmills and their contractors, WHICH OF COURSE HAVE SEPARATE
CONIFEROUS TIMBER QUOTA AGREEMENTS WITH THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT
(Capitalization added)." (Mr. Morrison of course here fails to mention
that there has never been logging in the Lubicon territory of the
horrific scope and magnitude now contemplated by Daishowa, or that the
"separate coniferous timber quota agreements" to which he so cryptically
refers in fact stipulate -- as a convenient function of Daishowa's
extremely advantageous agreement with the Alberta Provincial Government -
- that these supposedly "independent, totally unrelated" companies must
provide Daishowa with the aspen which they cut down when they clear-cut
unceded Lubicon territory.)
Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book", on the other hand -- addressing a
different audience under different circumstances and again wishing to
create a different deception -- doesn't try to deny the obvious
relationship between Daishowa and the network of small companies which by
design and agreement with the Alberta Provincial Government feed
Daishowa's giant Peace River pulp mill. Rather he denies, in another of
those disingenuous questions which Daishowa carefully chooses to ask
itself for the supposed elucidation of anybody dumb enough to take
carefully constructed Daishowa propaganda at face value, that "Daishowa-
Marubeni (or its subsidiaries or contractors) practice harmful and
unrestricted clearcut logging". Instead, Mr. Hamaoka says, "Daishowa-
Marubeni uses a two pass harvesting system whereby we patch cut less than
1% (5,000-6,000 hectares) per year of our productive forest area in about
150 scattered blocks which average about 40 hectares each in size". (The
actual percent of the Daishowa lease to be "patch cut" annually by and/or
for Daishowa is a matter of controversy. Some information suggests that
the Provincial Government has overestimated the "productive forest area"
in other parts of the Province by 30% with the result that Daishowa's
annual allowable cut could be as much as 7%. The term "patch cut" used
by Mr. Hamaoka to counter charges of clearcutting is in fact just a
cynically calculated euphemism for clearcutting, indicating a bunch of 40
hectare clearcuts instead of simply one continuous clearcut. For those
unaccustomed to thinking in terms of 40 hectare plots, something upon
which Mr. Hamaoka is of course counting, he's in fact talking about
clearcutting 150 areas each about the size of 80 football fields,
"harvesting" about 11,000 trees a day to produce 1,000 metric tonnes of
dehydrated pulp per day -- volumes and numbers reportedly about to be
doubled to 300 areas each the size of 80 football fields and some 22,000
trees daily to produce 2,000 metric tonnes of dehydrated pulp per day.)
Other self-serving questions posed by Daishowa to itself in Hamaoka's so-
called "Fact Book" further illustrate and underscore the nature of the
Daishowa forest monster and Daishowa's deceitful propaganda campaign.
Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks "Is Daishowa-Marubeni cutting or
using forest resources from anywhere within the Lubicon area of concern?"
Daishowa then answers its own question by stating "No, Daishowa-Marubeni
does not harvest or utilize any logs or residual woodchips obtained from
the Lubicon area of concern". It says "In the past a small owner operator
sawmill which became a subsidiary of Daishowa (Brewster Construction)
traditionally harvested trees for 15 years without incident from an area
recently defined by the Lubicons as their area of concern". It says "The
Lubicons objected to this practice after Daishowa-Marubeni's acquisition,
therefore alternate sources of timber have been found for this sawmill".
Phooey!
In fact Daishowa is not "cutting or using forest resources from anywhere
within the (so-called) Lubicon area of concern" only because of a
herculean effort by the Lubicons and Lubicon supporters to block repeated
attempts by Daishowa to clearcut Lubicon trees -- attempts by Daishowa
which have included, among other things, Daishowa "acquiring" Brewster
Construction specifically to try and circumvent the now denied agreement
between Daishowa and the Lubicons. (At the time of the Brewster
"acquisition" Daishowa wasn't denying that there was an agreement with
the Lubicons but only that its subsidiary Brewster Construction --
purchased after the agreement with the Lubicons was made -- wasn't
covered by this agreement.)
As for the Lubicons only "recently" defining their area of concern -- an
interesting choice of words obviously intended to create another
fallacious impression -- it of course depends on how one defines the word
"recent". Certainly the Lubicons were asserting their legitimate
jurisdiction over unceded traditional Lubicon territory well before any
non-aboriginal person ever set foot in Lubicon territory; well before
there was a country called Canada; well before there was a Province
called Alberta and well before there was a Japanese forest monster called
Daishowa ravaging the world's forests. Moreover the Lubicon people had
specifically defined their traditional territory publicly and in the
Canadian Courts at least 8 years before Daishowa supposedly obtained
rights to Lubicon trees from the Alberta Provincial Government; the
Lubicon struggle had been front page international news for at least 4
years by the time Daishowa supposedly obtained rights to Lubicon trees
from the Alberta Provincial Government; the Lubicon struggle complete
with related maps of the traditional Lubicon territory was front page
news specifically in reaction to the announcement that Daishowa had
supposedly obtained the rights to Lubicon trees from the Alberta
Provincial Government, and the Lubicons themselves provided Daishowa with
a map outlining the traditional Lubicon territory pursuant to and
immediately following negotiation of the now denied March 7, 1988
agreement between Daishowa and the Lubicons.
Cascading fallacious illusion upon fallacious illusion, as though one
fallacious illusion has no relationship to the other, Mr. Hamaoka's so-
called "Fact Book" next poses the question to Daishowa "Has Daishowa-
Marubeni agreed not to cut or use forest resources from the Lubicon area
of concern until the Lubicon land claim has been settled with the federal
and provincial governments?" Daishowa's answer to itself, incredibly, is
"No, to agree not to cut for an indefinite time could mean the closure of
the Brewster sawmill...(and)...Daishowa-Marubeni does not believe that
the Lubicon people or Lubicon supporters wish to threaten the jobs of the
(Daishowa-owned) Brewster sawmill workers who had traditionally used a
small quantity of logs from the disputed Lubicon area of concern for 15
years without incident".
That's a bit much even for Mr. Hamaoka and more than anything suggests
his complete lack of regard for the literacy and intelligence of
Daishowa's Canadian customers. Nobody who knows anything about the
internationally publicized and well-known struggle of the Lubicon people,
or for that matter about the internationally publicized and well-known
misadventures of the Daishowa forest monster, could conceivably for one
moment believe that Daishowa is going through all of these top level
contortions over a few jobs in a small Daishowa-owned sawmill --
especially when Daishowa clearly didn't even buy Brewster for its
piddling little sawmill but as a tactic to try and circumvent the
agreement with the Lubicon people to stay out of the unceded Lubicon
territory until there's a settlement of Lubicon land rights and an
agreement negotiated with the Lubicon people respecting Lubicon wildlife
and environmental concerns.
Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Does the Daishowa-
Marubeni Peace River pulp mill utilize advanced protection technology to
meet environmental standards?" The answer Daishowa gives itself, not
surprisingly, is "Yes, our mill uses advanced process technologies that
reduce the amount of chlorine bleaching required". It says "These
systems, combined with modern effluent treatment equipment and processes,
ensure that the water and air resources are protected". And it claims
that "Daishowa-Marubeni operates well within very strict licenced (sic)
limits for major effluent quality parameters, including biological oxygen
demand, total suspended solids and absorbable organochlorides". (This is
a technical area where the Lubicons are advised by environmentalists that
Daishowa's Peace River pulp mill in fact represents the ultimate
development of the environmentally worst kind of outmoded pulp mill
technology; namely, a bleached kraft pulp mill. As for meeting "very
strict licenced (sic) limits for major effluent quality parameters",
Alberta Provincial environmental standards are in fact industry (self)
monitored (with predictable results), are generally recognized as
inadequate and are seldom enforced even when it becomes unavoidably clear
and publicly admitted that prescribed limits are being dramatically and
continuously exceeded.)
Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Does Daishowa-Marubeni
replace what it cuts down?" Again not surprisingly the answer Daishowa
gives itself is "Yes, all areas logged by Daishowa-Marubeni in Alberta
are reforested and must meet strict Alberta Government free-to-grow
standards".
In fact reforestation in Alberta is an internationally recognized scandal
and Alberta is known to environmentalists around the world, along with
the neighbouring Canadian Province of British Columbia, as the "Brazil of
the North". Exactly how much logged forest is actually being reforested
is another matter of continuing controversy but for sure reforestation in
Alberta -- like the monitoring of pulp mill effluent -- is officially the
responsibility of the involved forestry company; forestry companies are
given a ten year grace period before they have any responsibility for
reforestation and even the Provincial Government admits that nearly 40%
of reforestation efforts in the Province are a failure.
Mr. Hamaoka"s so-called "Fact Book" asks Daishowa "Is the forest
ecosystem in northern Alberta threatened by Daishowa-Marubeni's
management practices?" Again the answer which Daishowa predictably
provides itself is "No, on the contrary Daishowa-Marubeni is managing the
forest resources on a sustained yield basis through a well planned
harvesting and reforestation process, incorporating public input, which
parallels the natural cycle of burning and renewal" (or, as one wag put
it, "better than God himself").
In fact so-called "public input", like the monitoring of effluent and
supposed reforestation in Alberta, was again orchestrated by Daishowa
itself where and when and however Daishowa saw fit. Daishowa didn't see
fit to seek input from the Lubicons at all, for example, claiming that
they'd been advised by the Alberta Provincial Government that consulting
with the aboriginal owners of the land Daishowa was proposing to clearcut
might "jeopardize (non-existent) land claim negotiations".
Moreover to suggest that clearcut logging "parallels the natural cycle of
(forest fires) and renewal" is just simply long since discredited
hogwash. Dehydrating the northern Alberta forest and shipping it off to
Japan for processing into paper products is significantly different than
a natural process of forest fires and renewal, which, among other things,
doesn't ship the involved biomass out of North American altogether (or at
least until considerable value has been added providing Japanese jobs and
contributing to the Japanese economy).
Lastly Mr. Hamaoka's so-called "Fact Book" has the unmitigated gall to
have Daishowa ask itself "Is Daishowa-Marubeni cutting or using timber
from the Wood Buffalo National Park?" That's one which you'd think
Daishowa would like everybody to forget but apparently not if you believe
that your readers are complete illiterate morons and your purpose is to
simply and unabashedly to re-write well-documented history.
Daishowa's direct and straight forward answer to its Wood Buffalo Park
question is "No, Daishowa-Marubeni does not have a logging lease in the
Park, or manage a logging operation there". (Maybe not in the strict
legal sense or at the moment but Daishowa's infamous and duplicitous
involvement with the clearcutting of Wood Buffalo Park is in fact a
matter of incontrovertible public record.)
For those who don't already know it Wood Buffalo National Park is an area
to the north of the traditional Lubicon territory. It contains the
largest remaining stand of giant white spruce in Alberta and is an area
of international ecological significance recognized by the United Nations
as having the same World Heritage Site status as the Pyramids and the
Grand Canyon.
In the 1940s a company called Canadian Forest Products (Canfor) obtained
a 49,700 hectare (124,250 acre) logging lease in Wood Buffalo Park from
the Canadian Federal Government allowing it to clearcut 98% of the
harvestable timber. That lease contained none of the minimal cutting and
reforestation standards normally required today. In 1982 renewal of that
same lease was rubber-stamped until the year 2002 -- apparently without
any kind of critical review and still without incorporating the most
minimal cutting and reforestation standards.
In 1990 Daishowa purchased all of Canfor's Alberta operations with the
exception of the Wood Buffalo Park logging lease. The Wood Buffalo
logging lease was deliberately left in the name of Canfor in order that
Daishowa could avoid having to re-negotiate the extremely advantageous
terms of that lease. As a condition of the sale, however, all of the
logs clearcut in Wood Buffalo Park under the Canfor logging lease would
go exclusively to Daishowa.
That's what Mr. Hamaoka means when he says "Daishowa-Marubeni does not
have a logging lease in the Park, or manage a logging operation there".
In fact that's the kind of slimy, deceitful word game he plays most of
the time making him both difficult and unpleasant to deal with.
According to an internal Canadian Parks Service report embarrassed Parks
officials had high hopes of renegotiating the archaic terms of the Canfor
lease prior to Daishowa's "acquisition" of Canfor. Those negotiations
predictably broke down when Canfor sold its Alberta interests to
Daishowa. Parks officials were quoted publicly as saying that they
"suspect(ed) that Daishowa is not interested in re-negotiating because it
arranged the sale so that Canfor retains ownership of the lease in its
own name while Daishowa gets exclusive rights to the timber". (You sure
can't slip anything past those stalwart guardians of the Canadian public
interest -- except maybe archaic lease terms in the first place.)
Following Daishowa's "acquisition" of Canfor the rate at which Wood
Buffalo Park was being clearcut nearly doubled -- from 130,000 cubic
metres to 220,000 cubic metres of wood per year. At that increased rate
it was expected that all of the remaining harvestable timber would be
clearcut by 1995 -- well before the end of the lease in 2002. The
Daishowa plan clearly was to clearcut all of the remaining timber before
the world community realized what was going on and put a stop to it.
The story about what was going on in Wood Buffalo Park hit the newspapers
in October of 1990. By December of 1990 all hell was breaking loose with
front page stories describing the pillage in gory detail, critical
editorials and appeals for the United Nations to intervene.
By January of 1991 public pressure had become so extreme that then
Federal Energy Minister Robert de Cotret felt compelled to announce that
the Federal Government was going to try and buy back the Wood Buffalo
Park logging lease. Daishowa responded by stepping up logging operations
in the Park to 24 hours a day and indicating through Canfor that Canfor
would be "receptive to the idea (of the Federal Government buying back
the lease) as long as Daishowa's interest in the Wood Buffalo timber is
satisfied by other sources".
In May of 1991 it was learned that Daishowa's terms for selling back the
Wood Buffalo lease to the Federal Government included a ten-year, $12.5
million interest free loan; money to cover the cost of replanting all of
the trees which it has harvested since 1982 and the right to continue
clearcutting Wood Buffalo Park for another year. Shrewd Federal
Government negotiators countered with an offer to allow "contractors for
Daishowa" to continue clearcutting Wood Buffalo Park for another two
years if they would pay their own reforestation costs. In the meantime
of course "contractors for Daishowa" were literally working 24 hours a
day to clearcut as much of Wood Buffalo Park as possible.
In September of 1991 Parks officials admitted that the clearcutting of
Wood Buffalo Park "will continue for at least another year...
(and)...could continue indefinitely if the current negotiations continue
as they have for the past few months". In fact there had been no
negotiations since the non-productive exchange of offers the previous May
"because no common ground for an agreement has been found".
In December of 1991, under burgeoning pressure from environmentalists,
New Federal Environment Minister Jean Charest took another unsuccessful
run at Daishowa. Following the meeting a senior advisor to the Minister
indicated that "the price for the buy-out is the chief stumbling block".
The Ministerial advisor said that the two sides "are really at an early
stage in the negotiations...(and that)...it would be adventurous if not
stupid to put a date on when the public might expect a resolution to the
issue". In the meantime of course "contractors for Daishowa" were
continuing to clearcut as much of Wood Buffalo Park as possible.
Finally in January of 1992, in a manner strongly reminiscent of
Daishowa's reluctant decision under pressure to at least temporarily stay
out of the unceded Lubicon area, Daishowa/Canfor announced that they
would not be proceeding with clearcut logging of Wood Buffalo Park at
this time. However, also in a manner strongly reminiscent of Daishowa's
position on clearcut logging of the unceded Lubicon territory,
Daishowa/Canfor made clear that they reserved the "option" to return to
clearcutting Wood Buffalo National Park at any time based on the lease
which they argue gives them the right to do so until the year 2002. The
"option" they were really reserving for themselves, of course -- again
like in the Lubicon case -- is to proceed again in either or both places
based upon their continuing assessment of what they think they can get
away with.
What Daishowa figures they can get away with depends on how the rest of
us react to their deceitful machinations. Let them know that people
haven't forgotten the increasingly desperate plight of the Lubicons by
supporting the boycott of Daishowa paper products. And let candidates
for Parliament in the up-coming Federal election also know that people
haven't forgotten the increasingly desperate plight of the Lubicons by
pressing them to publicly accept and support the recommendations of the
Lubicon Settlement Commission.
(Continued in part 2)