The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 19

I I I II I Business Observer: hrA, See what's replacing the beavers at Bell Canada Sayinggoodbye to the PHONE BOOTH THE GAZETTE I MONTREAL I FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 2008 I BUSINESS EDITOR: BRYAN DEMCHINSKY I 514987 25121 bdemchinthegazette.canwest.com CO i hi. DOWT NASDAQ DOLLAR 94.97 0.48 TSXT 13,385.17 68.34 B3 Strictly Legal B4 The Trading Day B5 Canada OIL A $120.02 $1.44 PRIME 4.75 JULY 15 11,431.43 Bell charges ahead with pay texts 15c PER MESSAGE DESPITE PROTESTS Affected clients 'should be on a plan': firm get unlimited incoming texts and 250 outgoing ones. For $15 per month, customers receive unlimited outgoing and incoming messages. Laszlo said Bell customers have been most concerned about paying to receive unsolicited spam messages, but he said the company has top-notch anti-spam protection on its networks. If spam somehow slips through, the charges will be adjusted.

Since news of the fee started spreading in May customers and critics have vented their frustra Customers whose cellphone bundles don't include text messaging will be charged 15 cents every time they receive a text message, and Telus cellphone users will face the same fate on Aug. 24. The companies already charged 15 cents for outgoing messages sent by users not on a text plan, and they say the added premiere of Journey to the Centre v. 224.64 2,355.73 22.64 charge for incoming messages will only affect a minority of customers. "About 95 per cent of text messages on Bell's network are sent and received by clients on text bundles.

Anyone who plans to send and receive a significant number of text messages really should be on a plan," Bell's associate director of media relations, Jason Laszlo, said in an email yesterday The company has adjusted its text bundles and, starting at $5 extra a month, subscribers can of the Earth in June. Fraser has year in an effort to recover the wages and overtime pay Rand told The Gazette yesterday from Hollywood that he's in constant contact with Fraser Meteor was formed in 2000 with two US. companies Ever- 1 oft 11 I GOLDV $877.90 $5.10 tions on blogs, signed an online petition initiated by the New Democratic Party, and joined a Facebook group which had more than 35,000 members yesterday and two Quebec residents have each launched a lawsuit against the telecom giants. The uproar caught the ear of the federal industry minister who, in early July described the new fee as an "ill-thought-out decision." Please see TEXTS, Page B3 A slmpl-tr campaign, Pag B3 Lumiere president Aaron Dem, former vice-president of production at Meteor who over saw effects work on Journey, couldn't be reached for comment yesterday But he told Canadian entertainment magazine Playback in July: "There is no affiliation be tween Lumiere VFX and Meteor Studios, nor any of Meteor's past owners." "Discovery Communications held a passive non-controlling shareholder interest in Meteor Studios, an independent company incorporated under the Que bec Companies Art," Katie Wolf gang, vice-president of interna tional communications at Discovery said in an email from her Maryland office yesterday "All matters related to the management of Meteor Studios, its employees and operations have been handled directly by Meteor Studios principals since the inception of the company' Evergreen spokesman John Hernandez wasn't available for comment at the company's Den Fbrestry sector is left out of booming resource party PETER HADEKEL enville "At the top of the list is the continuing housing slump south of the border. It's perhaps odd that with commodity prices booming until recently, forest products haven't joined the party This part of the resource sector remains mired in a deep slump, caused by a unique set of problems.

Nowhere are those difficulties more acute than in Quebec, where many regions depend on the forest industry to sustain their economies. In a recent analysis, economist Joelle Noreau of the Mouvement des Caisses Desjardins lays out the factors likely to delay recovery in Quebec's forest industries. At the top of the list is the continuing housing slump south of the border. Softwood lumber prices had been rising steadily until 2004, when housing starts in the U.S. peaked.

Since then, the inventory of unsold homes has climbed by more than one-third. That's meant a rapid fall in lumber prices, although the weak housing market is just one reason that business is tougher. The trade dispute with the U.S. over softwood lumber and the rise in the Canadian dollar since 2004 can also be blamed. As well, heavy cutting in British Columbia, undertaken to limit the devastating spread of the pine beetle, wound up flooding the lumber market Quebec sawmills, hampered by their small size from realizing economies of scale, found themselves losing money Prices aren't high enough to sustain them, and many face rising supply and transportation costs, Noreau says.

As for pulp and paper, all the growth continues to come from outside North America. U.S. demand for newsprint has fallen by a third since 2000. Concentration in the media industry has reduced the number of newsprint buyers, while publishers at newspapers and magazines have cut back on paper to reduce costs. Please see HADEKEL, Page B2 I Abitibi in downward spiral, Page B2 INSIDE BUSINESS Secrets in marketing Coca-Cola has always jealously guarded its recipe.

But in a campaign introduced in Britain last month, Coke divulged a few factoids about the formula, assuring health-conscious consumers the drink has "no added preservatives or artificial flavours." Details, Page B6 mm 4 -1- 3 i Mill MEACAN FITZPATRICK CANWEST NEWS SERVICE Ottawa Bell Mobility's plan to charge some cellphone customers for incoming text messages takes effect today, despite the consumer backlash, a lawsuit and an intervention by the federal industry minister. Actor Brendan Fraser arrives at the LABOUR DISPUTE Wal-Mart case to go to top court ALLISON LAMPERT THE GAZETTE The Supreme Court of Canada yesterday agreed to hear two alleged cases of union busting brought by former employees from a Wal-Mart store in Jon-quiere. Workers in both cases allege Wal-Mart Canada Corp. violated the Quebec Labour Code and their right to freedom of association when the retail giant closed the store in April 2005. The closing raised controversy and made headlines around the globe, since Wal-Mart's announcement came at a time when the store's unionized employees were negotiating their first collective agreement Wal-Mart said it had to close the store terminating the employment of 190 workers because it wasn't profitable.

Theyorkers appealed to Canada's highest court after the Quebec Court of Appeal sided with Wal-Mart, rejecting employee Jo-hanne Desbiens's arguments. Please see UNION, Page B2 1 i r'iw ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ GETTY IMAGES gone to bat for former Meteor employees seeking back pay. Centre of the Earth effects artists file suit to recover their lost wages 130 CLAIM THEY ARE OWED $1 MILLION Meteor Studios blames bankruptcy on lack of contracts because of writers' strike pay up," Rand said. In its Quebec Superior Court bankruptcy filing, Meteor management said their company suffered significant losses because of the absence of new contracts because of the strike by the Writers Guild of America that started Nov.

5 and lasted until Feb. 12. While the court documents filed by trustee RSM Richter Inc. list 92 employees as unsecured creditors owed nearly $599,000, Rand pointed out it doesn't include freelancers like ARTIST DAVE RAND himself. The Maine native who worked on two other projects with Meteor, 2005's Fantastic Four and 2006's Slither, is owed $15,000 for Journey Some of the artists have been hired by Lumiere VFX, a visual effects studio that opened in the former Meteor location in "(Brendan) Fraser has been making calls speaking directly to the people responsible.

HIKE KING THE GAZETTE About 130 mainly Canadian special-effects artists who worked on one of this summer's biggest blockbuster movies are seeking the $1 million they claim is owed to them. The Montreal studio closed in November after wrapping up Journey to the Centre of the Earth without paying, the artists say Brendan Fraser, star of the 3D action film that has grossed more than $102 million U.S. worldwide to date, has even gone to bat for the former Meteor Studios Inc. workers by making personal calls to the shareholders of the local company, which filed for bankruptcy in March. Dave Rand, the lead effects artist on Journey, formed the Meteor Employees Union this LEAD EFFECTS green Digital LLC and Discovery Trademark Holding Co.

Inc. as 50-50 shareholders. The provider of animation services to film, television and online producers had the Discovery Channel as its main client "Fraser has been making calls to Evergreen and Discovery, speaking directly to the people responsible and asking them to ver headquarters. mking thegazette.canwest.com.