Government and the forest industry have gone to incredible lengths, spending enormous amounts of taxpayers' money to try to convince the world that they are not destroying our forests. This public relations campaign has been one of the most elaborate and expensive ever seen in British Columbia.

Since November 1993, the B.C. Government has spent at least $3.5 million promoting the Forest Practices Code at home and abroad.⁶⁰ During the 1990s, Canadian federal and provincial governments, in partnership with three forest industry lobby groups, have together spent at least $68.7 million to tell the world of the "sustainable forest practices" underway at home.⁶⁴

In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Ministry of Forests revealed in March 1997 that it has spent $756,173.53 since 1993 in promoting the Code within the province through brochures, media ads, mailouts, information packets, consultant fees, and other forms of promotion.⁶⁵ Most of that sum ($493,4l6.03) was paid to NOW Communications for billings up to 7 November 1994.

But according to published reports, another $205,000.00 was owed to NOW for its Code promotion work after the 1994 contract ran out, and in October 1994, the NOW contract was extended to March 1995 and its value doubled to $1.1 million.⁶⁶ Neither of these figures was included in the MOF's FOI response.

As well, at least one major campaign to promote the Code domestically was reported at $120,000 in June 1994.⁶⁷ This billing was similarly left out of the MOF's FOI response.

The PR Jet-Set

Since 1993, there have been at least seven (known) major promotional trips by B.C. government officials abroad just to promote the Code: [then Premier] Mike Harcourt in Washington, D.C. in Nov. 1993; Investment Minister Glen Clark in Malaysia in Dec. 1993; Harcourt's $80,000 l0-day mission to Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and England in Feb. 1994 -- where he claimed the Forest Practices Code would be "strict" with "fines up to $1 million";⁶⁸ a July 1994 trip by Harcourt to California; Forests Minister Andrew Petter's 4-country European trip in September 1994; Petter's trip to Sweden in October 1994; and a cross-country U.S. tour in 1995 by the B.C. Government's International Relations Unit (IRU) on Forestry & the Environment.

As well there has been a stream of official visitors coming to B.C. to "see for themselves" what is happening in B.C.'s forests.

In 1992 the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers set up a federal program to head off any trouble internationally about forest practices in Canada. Called the International Forestry Partnership Program (IFPP), its activities since then have included: "monitoring international initiatives related to forestry and international interest in Canadian forest management practices and policies; organizing forestry tours to Canada; arranging speaking tours by Canadian forestry experts; and international communications."⁶⁹

By February 1997, the government of B.C., through the Ministry of Forests, had contributed a total of $1,318,265.00 to the IFPP.⁷⁰ The amount of federal contributions to this program is unknown. Under the terms of the IFPP, the B.C. government has hosted 14 IFPP tours to British Columbia -- including 5 German tours, 1 Dutch tour, 2 UK tours, 2 U.S. tours, 1 Belgian tour, a European Parliament Tour, a "Mixed German and Austrian Study Tour," and a "Forest Scientists & Academics to Canada" tour.

But those were only the IFPP tours.

According to a February 7, 1997 MOF response to a Freedom of Information request, in 1996 alone, the B.C. government played host to 33 other international tours by forestry-related delegations -- from as far afield as Finland, El Salvador, Thailand, Tasmania, Italy, China, Indonesia, Colombia, Uruguay, Denmark, Japan and Oakland, Calif.⁷¹

If these tours were like the IFPP tours, all delegates, including many journalists, were thoroughly briefed on the "tough" Forest Practices Code.

More International PR

In addition to the federal-provincial IFPP international public relations initiative, there is a little-known forestry market development partnership called the Cooperative Overseas Market Development Program (COMDP).

The COMDP is a partnership between the federal government, provincial governments and the private forest industry to "maintain and expand" markets for Canadian wood products in Japan, the U.K., the European Community, India, Korea and Eastern Europe.⁷²

The industry partners in COMDP are three forest sector lobby groups: the Bureau de promotion des Industries du Bois Inc., the Alberta Forest Products Association, and, in B.C., the Council of Forest Industries (COFI).

By 1993, Canada's federal and provincial governments had collectively committed at least $36.6 million to COMDP for overseas industry PR campaigns totalling $54.6 million. The money was to be applied to PR campaigns conducted up to the year 1996 -- all administered by the industry lobbyists. The biggest segment of the money ($46.8 million) has been administered by Vancouver-based COFI between 1991 and 1996.⁷³

But even this taxpayer-funded contribution to the industry PR cause was considered too low.

In April 1993 federal Forestry Minister Frank Oberle committed $6 million for another three-year campaign to help Canada's forest industry polish its tarnished image overseas.⁷⁴

Simultaneously, the federal Department of Industry, Science and Technology promised to invest $1.5 million to share the costs of the Canadian Pulp & Paper Asociation's office in Brussels.⁷⁵ The private-sector CPPA represents 54 forest companies across Canada, including 13 in B.C.

By August 1993, Canadian federal and provincial governments had beefed up their help for the private-sector CPPA lobby, promising $4.5 million in funding for the Brussels office to improve the industry's image overseas.⁷⁶

In February 1995, federal Trade Minister Roy MacLaren's international trade business plan for the forest industry announced further support for the COMPD, and an additional plan for "developing a communication strategy to accurately portray Canadian forest management to counteract misinformation, primarily in the European market, that could seriously harm Canadian forest product exports. There is a need to monitor developments in the United States and Japan on this issue."⁷⁷

As well, MacLaren promised to "increase customers' knowledge of Canada as a leader in developing environmentally friendly forest products" by committing more money to "supporting [industry] association offices in conjunction with Canadian embassies," and "co-ordinating federal-provincial activities into a more cohesive strategy that is industry led."⁷⁸ McLaren called for Canadian federal and provincial governments to co-ordinate their efforts with those of the Canadian Pulp & Paper Association office in Brussels, the Council of Forest Industries offices in London and Aachen, and the B.C. Forest Alliance.⁷⁹ McLaren did not reveal the amount of his designated financial support for all this co-ordinating.

But by late 1996, all this Canadian taxpayer money for overseas industry PR was deemed insufficient by the editor of Canada's only financial daily, who claimed the forest industry just hasn't been "nurtured" and "coddled" enough by Candian governments.⁸⁰

Nurturing the Industry Front-Group

In May 1994 the B.C. government provided a three-year grant to the B.C. Forest Alliance to help the industry front-group set up an office in Europe.⁸¹ Simultaneously, the government gave the Alliance's new senior advisor, Eric Denhoff, an estimated $200,000 to cover his leave-taking from a public post as former head of B.C. Transit.⁸² As well, the government agreed to pay $1,500 per month for Denhoff's condominium while he tried to sell his home in Victoria.⁸³ All this government largesse obviously raised the ire of B.C. environmentalists.

Vicky Husband, chair of the Sierra Club of B.C., wrote to Forests Minister Andrew Petter on May 2, 1994: "The Forest Alliance has done its share of deliberately misleading the public. A major case in point is the full page ad that they ran in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that they claimed were the 'facts' [saying] 'B.C. has l8.6% of its total landbase permanently preserved as parks, old growth preserves and wildlife habitat, or in protected areas under study.'⁸⁴ Husband wrote in her letter, "Wouldn't we like to have that much of B.C. protected but that is not the truth and is deliberately misleading."⁸⁵

The Disinformation Experts

The B.C. Forest Alliance was created in 199l by the biggest PR firm in the world, New York-based Burson-Marsteller (B-M) -- which is also the world's biggest anti-environmental corporate "greenwasher."⁸⁶ B-M is best known for its "crisis management" expertise for corporate clients such as Union Carbide during the Bhopal disaster of the mid-1980s,⁸⁷ and the Exxon Valdez oil-spill off the Alaska coast in 1989.⁸⁸

In 1990, B-M was hired by 12 forest companies and the IWA-Canada union to advise on handling the image crisis confronting B.C.'s forest sector.⁸⁹ One result was the industry front-group called the B.C. Forest Alliance, which has played a major role in promoting the Forest Practices Code, both in Canada and abroad.

The Alliance has a $2 million annual budget -- most of which is provided by the B.C. forest industry. In April 1995, Alliance spokesman Patrick Moore admitted that $1,930,000 of the $2 million budget -- or 97% -- came from the forest industry.⁹⁰

B-M subsequently changed its name in Canada, but continues to advise the Alliance, as well as other major industry players.⁹¹

The B.C. Forest Alliance and its PR advisor may well have had major input on the writing of the Forest Practices Code. Minutes of an Alliance/Burson-Marsteller June 1991 meeting state that their Forest Practices Committee "have been moving quickly in order to have something in place soon, as the possibility of a legislated code becomes more and more imminent."⁹²

Later in 1991, a member of the Alliance's Advisory Board, Mike MacCallum of Price Waterhouse, told the Pulp & Paper Journal (Sept. 1991) that within the Alliance, "the key committee right now is the forest practices committee because it is developing a code of forest practices. Hopefully we will be able to influence the government. They're looking at a code of practices too."⁹³

As recently as March 1996, Alliance chair Jack Munro told the press with regard to U.S. protests about B.C. clearcutting that "Americans aren't yet up to speed on the progress British Columbia has made" in its forest practices.⁹⁴ And in October 1996, a B.C. Forest Alliance advertising supplement in Air Canada's En Route magazine claimed that the B.C. Forest Practices Code is "perhaps the most comprehensive forestry law in the world," and it "regulates all aspects of forestry, including stream habitat and biodiversity protection; cutblock size and harvesting practices; and road building and deactivation."⁹⁵

But for another audience, the B.C. Forest Alliance has been trashing the Code.

In 1994, the Alliance hired accounting firm Price Waterhouse and William Stanbury, a professor at the University of B.C.'s Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, to tally the projected effects of forestry reforms in B.C.⁹⁶ The resulting study, released in September 1995, estimated that between 23,000 and 72,000 jobs in the woods will disappear over the next five years due to forestry reform -- especially the Forest Practices Code, which Prof. Stanbury called "a grotesque overreaction to real problems...costs are bound to go beyond what we calculated".⁹⁷

Based on an economic model provided by B.C. Forest Alliance founding director Clark Binkley (dean of U.B.C.'s forestry department), the study claimed that between $4.3 billion and $5.1 billion a year would be lost from the provincial economy within 5 to l0 years.⁹⁸

Alliance chair Munro told the press, "Unless we recognize that job loss and a general slowdown in our economy are coming, we're not going to be in a position to deal with the consequences."⁹⁹

Ironically, Munro himself co-chaired a 1992 federal forest industry study, conducted by the corporate-driven Forest Sector Advisory Council, which advocated "labour adjustment" for the industry's "long-term competitive reasons".¹⁰⁰

In order for the industry "to be world-class-competitive in the future," this Advisory Council in 1992 found it necessary that: "Direct loss of employment in the forest sector will occur both from closures in the short term and investment in modern technology over the longer term and will reach 25,000 to 40,000 employees" across Canada.¹⁰¹

Now, however, Munro is blaming the (so far ineffectual) Forest Practices Code for his own industry-mandated job-losses quietly determined back in 1992.

Munro has claimed that in B.C. "tree cops [are] running around doing all sorts of nonsensical things. We're psyched up to go down."¹⁰² That's the Alliance message for the local (B.C. and Canadian) audience: that a "tough"and "costly" Code is causing economic chaos in B.C.

For another audience abroad, however, the Alliance continues to support the Code as "perhaps the most comprehensive forestry law in the world".