ay.

News Viewpoint

Rear-end safety

UBLIC hearings by the Canadian

Transport Commission, beginning next

Monday in the Hotel Vancouver, are of
very direct interest to citizens of North and
West Vancouver, through which heavy rail
freight traffic constantly nioves.

The subject of the hearings is the applica-
tion of the railway companies to dispense:.
with the caboose and rear crew on Canadian
trains, replacing their functions with an.
automated ‘“‘end of train unit’? (ETU). Ac- -
cording ta the companies, the ETU
technology will provide equal efficiency and
safety, with significant cost savings com-
pared to the caboose and its personnel.

The United Transportation Union disputes
this claim. It maintains. that the ETU per-
forms.only ONE of the many essential safety
. tasks required for mniie-long freight trains,
and that there is, in fact, still no effective
replacement for the rear crew. The union
points to the roughly 300 derailments alone
in Canada each year and the 1982-83 record
of 159 to 170 annual train wrecks involving
_ hazardous cargo such aS propane and chifo-
rine.

Self-interest, of course, must obviously be
an ‘additional factor with the union, which is
notin: the . business of encouraging’ the
elimination ‘of -jobs,\ and. the. hearings may
reveal its fears for the safety of communities
through which the trains pass to be exag-
gerated.

Nevertheless, ever WITH cabooses, simi-
lar fears have long concerned: many ‘North
Shore residents. Those. who wish to have a *
voice in the hearings about rear-end safety
ean phone the:union at 942-1122 for farther
“information. ;

meee § saying it!

‘sigh of. relief | was heard around the
- World - ‘Tuesday, following the news

: L that nuclear:arms talks between. the
two superpowers are on. again. U.S. State
Secretary ‘George Shuitz-said he and Soviet :
‘Foreign Minister- Andrei Gi ‘omyko has: agreed
: that. the objective. of ‘the talks should be “the .
complete ‘elimination of. ‘nuclear. arms every- ;
where’: Pessimists inay comment that we've:
‘heard that before. Optimists will retort: “True
enough — = but! we, can’t. hear it too often”.

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VIEW FROM. THE MIDDLE .

(OLE
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SORRY FELLAS... YOU
HANE 1D

OITTING.....

MAKE OOM
EXT

Question for non- ‘fanatics:

RITISH COLUMBIA POLITICS can usual-

ly be summed up

: By GRAHAM LEA .
ind. MLA Prince Rupert

confrontation.

We have’ a. tendency .‘to
choose up sides and start
bashing each other. Every
election is a no-holds-barred

’ political contest, and the only

tule is winner-take-all.

Between elections. the par-
ty-in power ignores the op-
position. Jt even ignores the
legislature, preferring'to rule
by orders in council that are
worked out behind closed
doors. ;

Except. for the odd crisis,
the legislature sits seldom and
then only for as jong as it
takes the government to
force-feed it a budget.. The

budget and any accompany-
‘ing legislation are rammed

through the parliamentary
process with plenty of
theatrics, but little sub-
stantive debate.

The opposition is shut out
from any real role in deciding
public policy. About all it can
do is to stand on the sidelines
and fling invective at the par-

‘ty in power, hoping that

public opinion can be turned
against the government in
time for the next election.
WAY OF LIFE
Confrontation politics
have been around so long in
British Columbia, that many
people think it's the normal
way to conduct the public’s
business. The idea of

LETTER OF THE DAY

Health
service
dollars
diverted

tions:

in one word:

cooperation between govern-
ment and opposition scems as
strange as the thought of two
football teams agreeing to
share touchdowns in a Grey
Cup game.’

Confrontation becomes a

political way of life, drawing
more and more people into a
“*them or us’’ frame of mind.

Many people find themselves.

in the middle, with no place
to stand.

- The middle grounders lose
their enthusiasm for politics,
like sports fans whose team
didn’t make it to the play-
offs. At election time, they.
cast.their votes for the party
they see as the lesser of two
evils. *

Every election besomes a
contest. between two. groups
of true-believers, with the
rest of us being drafted to
take a stand in somebody

_else’s battle. And when the

election is over, the winning
party will govern to please its

.own supporters, while we in
the middle will be forgotien

until our votes are needed
again.

Against this background, I
have to ask two basic ques-
is confrontation a
natural way for human be-

ings to deal with their con-

Dear Editor: ;

The News may deserve
credit for its lukewarm
editorial support for Lions
Gate Hospital and” health
care generally (Dec. .19). But
the logic and economic views
are narrow and flawed.

The editorial claims that
any increases in health care
costs require increased
revenue or cuts to ‘other
sacial services’’. The obser-
vation is wrong for two
reasons: it ignores (he provin-
cial deficit; and, more impor-
tantly, the News continues to

_ break apart.

cerns;. and does coinfronta-
tion work?
GETTING ALONG:

Most of us know front ex-
perience that confrontatisn is
not built into human. nature,
As kids, we would generally
rather play together than
fight. As nations, we prefer
to trade with each other than
to go to war.

Cooperation, not. confron-
tation, is the main theme run-
ning through human history.

* Cooperation has built our

civilizations;. confrontation
has mostly "worked to pull
them down. >

“Page after page, the book
of history is mostly the story
of how new ideas, tools and
techniques spread
throughout the ‘world. The
wars and conquests are just
occasional: exclamation
points on those pages.

tn our daily lives, at home,
at work, with our friends, we
don’t look for confrontation,
and we don’t welcome. it
when it finds us. Mostly, we
want to get along with each
other.

We choose to cooperate,
because we know that
cooperation works better
than confrontation. Societies
based on confrontation,
from ancient Assyria -to
modern Lebanon, eventually
Societies based
on cooperation, like ancient
Egypt or modern Japan,
build something that lasts.

‘ignore the other relatively

unrestrained non-social costs
to the taxpayer.

Messrs. Bennett and Curtis
are pumping money into
megaprojects. They have sold
money-making government
enterprises. They paid B.C.
Rail’s debt. They send back-
benchers on African trips and
other jaunts. They bail out
private developers. The
Auditor General reports
“failure to exercise respon-
sibility throughout all levels
of the expenditure pracess”’
when reviewing government

British Columbia has now
had yeats of confrontation. -
In those years, we have lost

. our sense of community.-And

we have lost our prosperity.
Despite all our resource

‘wealth, we have become a

have-not province with. an
economy little better than
NewfoundJand’s.

WASTING TIME

Now; ata time when we
need to get together, we are
divided by a decade ‘of. bit-'
terness. At a time when the
economic world faces us with .
a .common problem. —.
change or.go under — we are
stil wasting time and energy
in attacking each other.

The hatred between left
and right in ‘our province has
been years in the making, and
it will take years to dispel. No
one will ever be able to bring
the real true-believers on
either side onto common
ground.

But those of us who are not
fanatics of either right or left
now. have to: answer another
question. Having seen’ the
damage that choosing up
sides can do to our province,
are we going to keep playing
the same old game?

Or are we going to find a
way to put confrontation
behind us, and get on with
the job of rebuilding our.
province?

The next couple of years
will decide how we answer
that crucial question.

expenditures under con-
sulting agency contracts.
Apparently we are soon to
be deluged by an advertising
campaign praising this
government's achievements,
perhaps because we now have
Canada’s most unpopular
government. Rational,
responsible policies would
win more respect than adver-
tising will. Many of us would
rather see our money go to
our underfunded health
system.
D.S. Maas
North Vancouver