6-5 1993 ~

North Shore News

EET

NATURALS, WE DIDNT

GET PAD OF NG
FROM THE PriEViOU

ADIMNISTRATION ....

stitute for
a full tummy?

WHATEVER THE CUTCOME of this weckend’s summit, ° .
Boris Yeltsin’s plight raises a disturbing and, for the West,

ey

Lis

IAG

a

SER
‘ta;

WS VIEWPOINT

HE PROBLEM with this NDP

government’s budgetary inclination

to eat the rich is that much of the
meal is spent chewing on scrawny tax-
payers lacking in real mionetary meat.

Many North Shore homeowners are
property rich but cash poor.

Many seniors on fixed incomes live in
komes valued above the $400,000 limit at
which the government has chosen to start
‘cutting the provincial homeowner’s grant.
At $447,000 the basic $470 grant is com-
pletely eliminated. In West Vancouver,
6,300 homeowners will lose a portion or all
of the grant. -

Above $500,006, a new school property
tax surcharge bites in. In West Vancouver,
‘for example, there are 4,200 homes werth
$500,000 and more.

in West Vancouver the school surcharge

CURATORS ERIS ecb ree

QUOTES

and homeowner’s grant phase-out removes
about $12 million from West Vancouver
pockets this year sione.

Add in an average 4% increase in resi-
dential school tax collected by the province
from al! homeowners this year, and ir.
West Vancouver, add in a 15% school tax
increase already planned prior to the
budget.

This grasping tax grab is not based on
ability ¢(o pay. The government is basing its
premise of suppori for this initiative on a
perception that the seething proletariat will
applaud the measure as an example of
making the sich pay for their greed-headed
ways. _ .

The rich aren’¢ necessarily stuck with the
bill. The injury is compounded by the
shameless insult of a government that
chooses to spend with abandon.

ESRI

OF THE

PUTT ROT Ri ar ey TNS

EBREIC

“‘l’s more than a good news .

budget, news
budget....””

North Vancouver-Lonsdale
NDP MLA David Schreck, on the

NDP’s budget.

it’s a great

“Pm offended by it.”
West Vancouver-Capilano Lib-

Mark Sager, on property tax in-
creases contained in the NDP’s
budget.

“If Campbell can manage to sep-
arate herself from the record of
the present government, that will
be a Houdini act. I can’t believe
that Canadians are gullible enough

Campbell and her party’s record
as government.

“Our system of parliamentary
democracy is a lot like love. It can
survive all attacks except indif-

. ference or negleci.’’

West Vancouver-Garibaldi

eral MLA Jeremy Dalton, on the
NDP's budget.

“It’s an outrage.’”

West Vancouver District Mayor party

Publisher Peter Speck
Managing Editor. . Timothy Renshaw
Associate Editor Noel Wright
Sates & Marketing Director. Linda Stewart
Comptroller Doug Foot

North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an
independent suburban newspaper and qualilied
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_ Newsroom

‘V7M 2H4

to swallow that.’”’

Brian Smith, National Party of
Canada president of. the B.C.-
Yukon region,
leadership hopeful

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Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Ail rights reserved.

almost unthinkable question.

Which comes first in impor-
tance — democracy or prosperity?
Freedom or a full tummy?

Yeltsin, like his cautious
predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev,
figured that political liberty -— in-
cluding democratic elections and
freedom of the media — is vital
for a market economy. But did fie
put the cart before the horse by
underestimating the effect of 70
years of rigid, centralized control?

In fact, unfamiliar political lib-
erty can all too easily thwart and
distort the carly stages of a mar-
ket economy. Removing the
iron-fisted discipline of the state
throws the door wide open to
black-marketcering and other
abuses of a system that has not
yet had time to establish its own
economic disciplines.

The sudden emergence of noisy
special-interest groups can con-
fuse and mislead a government
which has no prior experience in
handling these warts on the body
democratic.

Moreover, ‘‘instant’’ democracy
invariably faces the problem of a
corrupt and inefficient bureaucra-
cy determined to hang on to the
privileges it enjoyed under the
former totalitarian regime.

it can sabotage privatization ef-
forts. It can obstruct taxation
reform and foreign investment,

. leaving the government short of

funds. And it solves financial
problems simply by printing more
and more money — lending to
Russia’s current 25% per month
inflation.

Worst of all, no matter how
many billions the West now pours
in, the very real risk remains that
these same forces could nullify
such aid by swallowing it up like a

severe)

ine i:

BORIS YELTSIN...
underestimated 70-year legacy.

Wright

Heat

black hole, before it could bring
any tangible benefit to the average
suffering Russian. -

By contrast, China, now grow-
ing at a record 8.5% per year, is
doing it the other way round:
strict authoritarian rule until the
market economy is firmly in place
and only after that some possible
easing of the political yoke. Simi-
larly, Asia’s ‘‘little tigers’? —
South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong-
and Singapore — all of which
achieved their spectacular growth
under autocratic one-party gov-
ernments. ;

Meanwhile, the region’s most
troubled economies — India,
Australia and the Philippines — | -
happen, alas, to be three which
share the political blessings of
Western-style democracy.

Food for thought as we watch
the Kremlin power struggle. Did
Salvation Army founder William
Booth get it right after ali when
he said you can’t save a man’s
soul until you fill his stomach?

'

TAELPIECES: Internationally

, renowned Canadian pianist and
: Director of the UBC School of

Music, Robert Siiverman performs
at 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 7, in
the North Shore Community
Concerts series at the Centennial -

_ Theatre — for 1993-94 season .

subscription information call
985-1608 ... Victoria College
freshman classes of 1959-62 are
holding their 30-year reunion
Saturday, April 24, at the U of
Vic’s David Lam Auditorium —
write Ken Leighton, P.O. Box
3060, Victoria, B.C. V8W 3R4 or
call 1-721-7635 for details ... ,
Happy anniversary greetings to-
day, April 4, to Horseshoe Bay’s
Brian and Wendy Hanna, and
again to West Van’s Bob and
AnveMarie Graham ... Tomorrow, :
April 5, it’s more of the same to
North Van’s Ernie and Mariiya
Earnshaw ... And wish many
happy returns of Tuesday, April
6, to North Van's Rev. Ray Mar-
in. ;

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Age is
only important if you’re a cheese
ora wine,