Baiting Aside, Salmon Talks Expected To Restart Soon Alaska’s Sen. Stevens, B.C. Premier Engage In Nasty War Of Words, Including Program Threats

Talks to resolve the salmon dispute between Canada and the United States could be back on track soon, despite continuing acrimony on both sides.

The United States is expected to deliver a paper outlining the American position early next week. Negotiators from both sides will then make plans to restart talks, said a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy.

“Both sides are interested in getting beyond the current impasse,” said the spokeswoman, Catherine Lappe.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright contacted Axworthy shortly after Axworthy was re-elected to his Winnipeg seat in Parliament in the Canadian election Monday.

Still, some threats continue to be exchanged in the dispute.

On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the United States should withhold $100 million in cleanup funds for four former military bases in the Arctic in retaliation for British Columbia’s decision to cancel a lease that allows the U.S. Navy to test weapons at a range off Vancouver Island.

“While I appreciate the importance of helping with these cleanup activities, the United States is under no legal obligation to reimburse Canada for the cleanup,” Stevens said in a release.

British Columbia Premier Glen Clark responded with a strongly worded letter, calling Stevens’ threat “hostile and unconscionable.”

Clark likened Stevens’ threat to withhold environmental funding similar to “the continuing destruction of Pacific salmon pursued by your nation.

“(It) cannot be taken as anything more than a continuation of behavior that has become all too common and predictable,” he wrote.

Now, Clark said he plans to scrap programs in which British Columbia sends the United States animals such as wolves and grizzly bears to re-establish those species south of the Canadian border.

British Columbia also could cut the water flow going south under the Columbia River Treaty. Currently, the province manages the water flow to ensure there is water in reserve during the months when power demand is at its peak.

Lappe refused to comment on the escalating war of words, or on whether the Canadian government agrees with Clark’s tactics.

British Columbia’s pressure tactics may help get negotiations back under way, but they won’t force the Americans to their knees, say analysts on both sides of the border.

“The United States has far more ways of punishing us than we have of punishing them,” said Tarzival Copes, with the Institute of Fisheries Analysis at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. “In a serious tit-for-tat, we can’t win.”