Delaying Al-Pac mill will hurt Native people - Cardinal

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Athabasca-Lac la Biche MLA Mike Cardinal says the decision to delay construction of a hotly disputed bleach kraft pulp mill will be costly to northern Alberta Natives hoping to take advantage of the mill's economic spin-offs.

The provincial government has delayed development of a $1.3 billion pulp mill proposed for the Athabasca area by Alberta-Pacific until more environment tests are conducted.

The announcement by Alberta Environment Minister Ralph Klein to delay construction of the mill came in response to recommendations by a government-sponsored environment review board.

The eight-member panel said the mill should not be approved until more studies are done on the Athabasca-Peace River system where high levels of toxic dioxins have been found.

But Cardinal said many of the Natives can't wait another year for the tests to conclude.

"That's just another year they'll be on welfare," he said.

Cardinal told Windspeaker that Natives and non-Natives in the area of the mill are living in depressed conditions and need large industry to spark economic growth.

There are about 1,699 people in the Lac la Biche area alone receiving social assistance - more than 80 per cent of them are Native, said Cardinal.

"What's happening now is a lot of our young people have to move out of the area to work elsewhere," he said.

The review board members recognized the Al-Pac mill - proposed to be built 47 km from Athabasca - as the "least polluting bleach kraft mill in the world." But they said uncertainty remained about the effects of the additional pollutants on the Athabasca River system.

Chief Chucky Beaver of the Bigstone band in Desmarais said as long as there's apprehension abut the environmental impact of the mill, it shouldn't be built.

He said economic growth was never promised to the people of his band, 100 km downstream of the planned mill.

The industrial expansion would have "disastrous" impacts on the social and economic futures of his 4,000-member band, he said.

Beaver insisted the environment can't be sacrificed for the sake of jobs.

An economic report commissioned by the review panel in January, said Al-Pac based its job projections on "weak" assumptions, which "exaggerate the regional employment benefits of the proposed mill."

The initial Al-Pac proposal said the mill would directly create 1,100 jobs and another 825 indirectly in the service and supply sectors.

But two Calgary economists concluded Al-Pac grossly over-estimated the number of jobs to be created.

The study also said any local logging or servicing jobs created would be low-paying.