6 — Wednesday, March 11, 1992 ~ North Shore News NEWS VIEWPOINT Emission mission are going to have to try harder to find a site for a local auto emission testing station. Establishment of that site took it on the chin March 2 when North Vancouver District Council’s planning and develop- ment commitiee recommended that council withhold the development permit for an auto emission testing site south of the BC Rail tracks between Philip and Pemberton avenues. The two-acre property was to be home to the North Shore’s AirCare testing station. The AirCare program has been estab- ished by the provincial government to reduce emissions from area automobiles, which account for a staggering 75% of all Lower Mainland air pollution. It is part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s commitment to cutting aute emissions by 50% by the year 2600. But the district committee recommended Nee SHORE municipal councils against the site because of the predicted traffic delays caused by passing BC Rail trains. According to 2 report by an independent consulting firm, those delays could range from an average of 3.3 to 5.3 minutes and all the way up fo 28 minutes. The delays would likely affect 15% of the estimated 120 cars per hour that could be handled by the facility. Such delays could prove extremely annoying and ultimately erode the efficiency of the testing station. But forcing North Shore commuters to ieavel to Burnaby or elsewhere in the Sawer Mainland to have their vehicles iested for auto emissions would un- mecessarily increase, rather than decrease, local air pollution by adding approximately 250,000 auto trips per year to local com- muter routes. That is the last thing our air and roads need. | LETTER OF THE DAY Is moth spraying program necessary? Dear Editor: I support Judith Myers’ sugges- tion that more zesearch be done to determine whether the Asian gyp- sy moth is 2s great a threat to Vancouver as some orficials would lead us to believe. Crop dusting a whole city seems premature and rather drastic when you consider the following: (1) There is no solid evidence that this moth can winter suc- cessfully in our damp climate. (2) All types of caterpillars will be killed thus endangering our local butterflies, moths and bird Publisher Managing Editor .. Associate Editor Advestising Director . Comptroller Peter Speck . Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright . .Linda Stewart Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualilied under Schedule 111, Paragraph III of the Excise populations (birds that eat cater- pillars). (3) So few moths (about 48 adult males) have been found that it seems a bit alarmist to be spraying repeatedly the whole city. Where forest areas might be thresiened, perhaps spraying will be called for, but why in the city? (4) Foreign ships have been coming inta the Vancouver har- bors daily for decades — do we spray for each new species? (3) | understand that spraying Bacillus thuringiensis kurstacki (Bt) over heavily populated areas Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertisina Newsroom 985-2131 Tiel VOCS OF NORTH AND WET WANCCUER north shore. Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and a: & distributed to every door on the North Shore. ‘cond Class Mail Registration Number 3585. fest Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept tesponsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envetope. l Subseuptions North and SUNDAY « WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Distribution Subscriptions 988-6222 Fax Administration 965-2131 is unprecedented and targely unresearched. Are we the guinea pigs? (6) There is the possible infec- tion of ill and/or elderly people. (7) it will cost taxpayers $4 mil- lion, It has been suggested by some that a bounty system be used for locating egg masses. This would be helpful to determine the actual level of infestation and possibly to eradicate the moths and avoid any types of spray programs. Karen Patrick West Vancouver 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 Nosth Shore managed SDA DNSION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday} Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press L.td. All rights reserved. economic woes I LUNCHED last Friday with the world’s top banker and I’m glad I’m not seeking a loan from him at the moment. Wearing my Maple Leaf pin, I suspect the terms would be tough — if I got it at all. Not that he’s short of cash. Michel Camdessus, former gov- ernor of the Bank of France, ad- ministers a US$123.5 billion loan portfolio as managing director, since 1987, of the International Monetary Fund. It’s just that he thinks we Canadians aren’t yet digging hard enough to get ourselves out of our financial and economic glue. Of course, he didn’t put it QUITE that bluntly as guest speaker at the $45-a-plate Fraser Institute lunch meeting. But his message to the 300-plus business movers and shakers who packed the Hyatt Regency ballroom was inescapable — and dismally farnil- iar. We owe too much, publicly and privately; our national debt keeps on growing; and we often don't produce goods efficiently and cheaply enough to meet foreign trade competition. “Significant reforms have al- ready been introduced but more needs to be done,” was the tact- fully worded warning from M. Camdessus. (Translation: we still have to smarten up a heck of a lot.) One needed step, he said, is to drop provincial trade barriers, which would make Canada’s economy more resilient. Another piece of advice will win him no friends in the Fraser Valley, where growers are howling for protection against cheap Californian vegetables. The IMF chief preached the ex- act opposite — encourage agricul- tural productivity by opening up Canada still more to competing products from abroad (does that, one wonders, include countries benefiting from two growing seasons to our one?). And although inflation has dropped dramatically, he warned that it could still return — urging “the need for caution in allowing further easing of monetary condi- tions.’ (Translation: interest rates - may have to rise again — as they did, in fact, the day befcre.) The only way we can invest enough in business to resume 1980s-type growth, he stressed, is by increased private and public saving. (Translation: salvation may projong the recession — if so, so be it.) With 156 member-countries, the MICHEL CAMDESSU phy would have approved. Mur- Noel Wright HITHER AND YON IMF's job i is to advise them on economic and financial policies. If it lends them money, they are re- quired to bite the bullet and clean > - up their act for everybody’s sake. . So its boss — with his “tough ©. ,° love’’ answers to our economic |< woes — earned his lunch doing precisely what he’s paid for. Murphy the law-maker and M. Camdessus would have hit it off - fine. Murphy’s Golden Rule reads: ‘‘He who has the gold makes the rules!’* *” 1 @ WRAP UP: For North Van com- poser Michael Conway Baker the - honors just keep coming. ‘His: : Concerto for Piano and Orchestra : - has been nominated for a 1992 Juno Award. And his f music __ . : scores were also heard on two new | TV shows which premiered Mon- «* day — The Jellybean Odyssey on © CBC-TV and The Spirit Of. The: : Mask on Knowledge Network °. With almost 100 business and community sponsors led by ' Save-On-Foods, plus $57,000 in prizes, North Van Rotary Clab’s -.- annua! Capilano Duck Race Sun-: day, March 15, has become one of. : the Lower Mainland’s major” community service events -~ with even a splashy I1.a.m. promotion - _ this Friday over in Pacific Centre . .. «Meanwhile, in more restful vein, West Van artist Robert . Florian’s works — inspired by the colors and style of Monet —- are ~ on display until March 31 in West ag Van Library. . e - e - WRIGHT OR WRONG: Ifi it wasn’t for the last minute, . . nothing would ever get done. : MICHAEL CONWAY BAKER... the honors keep coming. :