To the Editor,
Catalyst Paper has filed for bankruptcy protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act because it could not get support for its restructuring proposals from all its unions and from its non-secured bondholders.
The unions were given a good offer, but the non-secured bondholders were going to be fed to the wolves. The unions may well have to settle for something worse than the 10 per cent wage cuts they were originally offered.
Under the CCAA, one company successfully applied for extensions eight times, so the whole issue could drag on for months. That leaves up in the air the question of whether Catalyst will pay more than $4 million in city taxes due this year.
Hopefully, the ostriches at city hall will pull their heads out of the sand and make a provisional budget that doesn’t include taxes received from the company and doesn’t again severely punish residential taxpayers.
As you recall, a couple of years ago they foisted an unnecessary 23.6 per cent increase on homeowners and kept our money even though Catalyst subsequently paid all its taxes in full.
Unfortunately, although a few cuts have been made, restraint is a word largely foreign to CUPE, city management and city council.
Richard Berg,
Port Albern
