A6 - Wednesday, August 24, 1983 - North Shore News

EEE editorial page

Unfix this fence

A simple communication failure has kill-
ed, for this summer, a popular North Shore
tourist attraction and an important source of
revenue for financially troubled Grouse
Mountain Resorts.

Over the previous six years the annual
Grouse Mountain hang-gliding champion-
ships had developed into a world-class event,
bringing together flyers from near and far,
and enticing as many as 15,000 spectators to
the mountain. The ultimate goal is to build it
into a major international competition to
coincide with Expo 86.

But this year -- with entrants expected
from as far afield as Japan and Argentina --
the event had to be abandoned because a fix-
ed fence recently erected by North Van
District at the Cleveland Park landing site
made the site too dangerous for hang-gliders
to use.

Had there been prior consultation
between the District parks department and
the hang-glider organizers, the answer would
have been a collapsible fence which could
have been removed for the three days of the
meet. But apparently nobody became aware
of the problem in time and Grouse Mountain
Resorts can’t presently afford the $5,000 cost
of converting the District's fixed fence to a
movable one.

So not only has Grouse lost thousands of
extra customers this month but the drive to
establish the mountain as the world’s hang-
glider capital | has lost momentum.

That‘ momentum must be recovered, and
quickly. A $5,000 fence shouldn't be allowed
to bar the North Shore from such a spec-.
tacular and potentially profitable tourist-

season highlight.

Over the hill

Vancouver was shut out of this week's
Miss PNE Contest because, as in some other
B.C. communities, the City’s contest allows
entrants up to 21. But the PNE age limit is
20, so Wanny Wong, Miss Vancouver '83
and an_entrant for the Miss Canada Contest
(age limit 25) this fall, was denied a crack at
B.C.’s own crown. That's dumb. The PNE
rule book that put her over the hill at 21':
should be rewritten.

UR VOSUE SF HOST AND wheT VanICeRve

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MAINSTREAM CANADA tC

FINALLY, a Canadian
political leader is talking
reason and acting on his
beliefs.

The issue? Something call-
ed “tenure” in public sector
employment. For those of us
who are not academics or

civil servants, “tenure”
essentially means that some
people holding specified
jobs can’t be fired, laid off,
or in practice, even
demoted.

Think about it. Effective
lifetime job security. No
threat of layoffs. A pay raise
that is as good or better than
those received by other
workers. In addition, the

Pees

. - ‘
. :
tm t
wey . : : x
A uu ee

PUTTING THE CART before the horse can
cause a lot of trouble if your aim is to get moving.
Bill Bennett, B.C.’s embattled premier, is a text-
book example at the moment.

Mr. Bennett's basic pro-
blem for the past seven
wecks has not been the alleg-
ed toughness of his restraint
package.

Nor, fundamentally, is it
the noisy coalition of outrag-
ed civil servants, teachers,
bleeding hearts and union
day-trippers making hay in
the sunshine under the
Operation Solidarity banner.

They are mercly a symp-
tom of the premier’s pro-
blem, not the cause.

No. The real reason why
Mr. Bennett's urge to restore
B.C. to prosperity has land-
ed him in his present mess is
that he produced the answer
without bothcring to ask the
question.

You can argue until tho
cows come home about the
odd $10 million here or 320
million there in tho govern-
ment's July 7 budget figures.
Solidarity picnickers are
tossing such morsels around
all the time to keep
themselves nourished.

The fact remains,
however, that — give or take
a few million — B.C. stands
to be around $1.6 billion in
the glue by next March
unless quite a lot of things
change very quickly one way
or the other.

THREE OPTIONS
Since the government has
to have that amount of cash
to carry on, and doesn’t
possess a single cent of its

own, it has only three op-
tions.
One is to bleed the

citizenry for an extra
billion in extra taxes, im-
mediate and/or future. The
second is to slash expen-
ditures by $1.6 billion as
soon as possible. The third is
any combination of the first
two that adds up to the same
figure.

(if you know any other
way to crase $1.6 billion
worth of red ink, please send
a telegram without delay to
Mr. Bennett at Parliament
Buildings, Victoria.)

Now, there's pretty
general agreement that the
recession we're just beginn-
ing to pull out of was caused
to a considerable extent by
businesses being unable to
afford expansion and by con-
sumers hoarding their sav-
ings for fear the rainy day
might turn into a typhoon.
Hence, B.C.’s 215,000
uncmployed.

The premier and his col-
leagues figure that sticking
business and its customers
with hundreds of millions in
additional taxes is just about
the best way of ensuring that
215,000 or more British Col-
umbians remain jobiess.

That's why. to date,
they're concentrating on cut-
ting expenses rather than
borrowing more moncy on
the taxpayer's = signature.
Any sane family up to its
cyebrows in debt would

$1.6

ow Bennett bit the bullet

; By Ww. ROGER WORTH

jobs offer a lucrative pension
scheme.

Enter the wonderful, uto-
pian, yet unreal life that ex-
ists for most of Canada’s
public sector employees. For
many, it's a dream come
true.

In recent weeks, though,
the system that coddles
public sector employees has
come under attack, and with
good reason. British Colum-
bia Premier, William Ben-
nett, has indicated in no
uncertain terms that he is
about to get rid of thousands
of civil servants who are
overpaid, underworked and
many times less efficient
than their counterparts in
the private sector.

While Bennett is introduc-
ing legislation that will allow
the province to dump the
employees, the regulations
will, more importantly
perhaps, let B.C. retain hard
workers, no matter their
seniority, and fire those that
are the least effective.

Naturally, Bennett has
been under fire from labour
leaders and various groups
from British Columbia and
across the nation. But he’s
also received support from
Organizations such as _ the
64,000 member Canadian
Federation of Independent
Business.

Bennett's

plan is
“economically

sensible,

morally responsible and an —

act of leadership in an area
where governments have
been negligent for too long,”
says CFIB president John

Noel Wright

rs

presumably figuro things the
Samic way.

Or would it? That brings
us to the question Mr. Ben-
nett has so far omitted to
ask

ASK AGAIN

B.C. has just over onc
million households. Divide
that oumber into $1.6 billion
and you come up with a
deficit cquivalent to more
than $1,500 per houschold.
So the question Mr. Bennett
still has to put to cach in-
dividual B.C. houschold runs
something like this;

“In order to avold Laying
off amy government
employees and cutting any
services, will you pay an ex-

- become so

' Bulloch. “This is an example
which Ottawa and other
governments, provincial as
well as municipal, should
follow.”

Bulloch is right.
sector

Public
employment has
secure and
lucrative that it’s hard to
dispute the reasoning behind
the surge in applications for
civil service jobs.

A study by no less an
authority than the federal
government’s Labour
Canada, for example, found
civil service office clerks,
computer operators, systems
analysts, telephone
operators and even office
boys and girls to be the
highest paid in the country in
their categories. And in a
great many other categories,
the government workers
fared much higher than
average in competition with
their private sector counter-
parts.

The civil service game, of
course, has gotten out of
hand. Public sector unions
have managed to force
governments to lead the field
in salary negotiations by
threatening yet another
strike that may hold up pen-
sion cheques or another
government service that af-
fects millions of people. And
private sector companies are
forced to meet government
competition when it comes
to setting wages.

Premier Bennett deserves
a great deal of praise for his

action on tough, yet
CONTINUED ON PAGE A7
r. Boe

‘tra SI 900 in taxes this year -
or, if we have to pay interest
on further borrowing, up-
ward of an extra $2,000 over
the next four or five years?”

Who knows? If Solidarity
is right, they might say “yes”.
In which case Victoria could
cancel all those pink slips.
tenure could be restored to
the Rentalsman and_ the
human rights martyrs, the
uncmployed could- watch
their job opportunities
disappear into the tax man's
money bag and Solidarity's
noisy legions could retire
happily back into the wood-
work.

If, on the other hand,
B.C.'s million-plus
houscholds responded to the
question with a resounding
“no — are you nuts?” Mr
Bennett would know he had
the right answer from the
start.

Presumably, he belicves
he already asked the quces-
tion in the May 5 election.
Maybc. But I don't think he

got the wording right.
I think he should ask
again. A direct $1.500-

$2,000 question put to every
houschold budgetkecper in a
formal, province wide
referendum.

A referendum would be an
infinitely better way of blow.
ing a million or two than try-
ting to match Solidarity's
lavish ad campaign. commer-
cial for commercial, as Mr
Bennett is now threatening
to do

In fact, a referendum may
be the only way to get him
off the hook — and B.C
back to business after a
summer of futility