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NEWS VIEWPOINT

Trees beat tees

delivered to West Vancouver District

Council: residents in the municipali-
ty do not want a golf course in the Cypress
Ridge area.

And if a golf course has been deemed
unsatisfactory for the 350-acre site of
municipal land, then it is unlikely that a
development of any kind would be accept-
able to West Vancouverites in what is ob-
viously a unique section of North Shore
mountainside wilderness.

While controversy continues as
to exactly how much —_ald-growth
timber is on the site, there is nc doubt that
it contains some rare and massive trees
that stand as a natural memorial to the
great forestry heritage that once belonged

‘ke MAJORITY message has been

to the North Shore.

The residents of West Vancouver should
not have to mount another call to arms in
the future te save the Cypress Ridge site
and the unique resource it encompasses.

It is therefore up to West Vancouver
District Council to preserve the Cypress
Ridge site for succeeding generations of
West Vancouverites by dedicating the area
as a park, now.

Only then will the area be assured of
surviving in its present state.

The time and money invested in explor-
ing the viability of building a golf course
at Cypress Ridge and measuring the public
feeling toward such a project should not
be wasted.

LETTER OF THE DAY

Healthy burdened with tax

Dear Editor:

Recent increases in the District
of North Vancouver’s recreational
facilities have discouraged a
number of individuals and fami-
lies who were once regular par-
ticipants.

I fully endorse the views ex-
pressed by Mr. T.E. Peck in his
letter to the editor published in
your Oct. 24 issue. It is ironic that
the government is spending
astronomical sums for medical
services, probably one of the best
in the world, but are taxing people

Publisher

Associate Editor

Peter Speck
Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw

Noel Wright
Advertising Director Linda Stewart

North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent
suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111,
Paragraph {ll of the Excise Tax Act. is published each
Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free
Press Lid. and distributed to every doar on the North
Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885.
Subscriptions Noritn and Wes! Vancouver, $25 per year
Mailing tales available on tequest. Submissions are
welcome bul we cannot accept responsibility for
unsohcited maternal including manuscripts and pictures s
which should be accompanied by 4 stamped, addressed

envelope. e
Entire contents © 1990 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

who want to remain healthy.

In one of the meetings Mr.
Rupert Downing, District Planner
for Social Development, mention-
ed the youth problem on the
North Shore. We are all aware
that we have not offered our
youth proper facilities or an alter-
native forum where they can ‘‘so-
cialize’’ and channel their energy
in a constructive way.

I suggest that Council and par-
ticularly the Recreation Commis-
sion, review their policy of regu-
larly raising their charges simply

THE VORCE OF MOTTE AND WEST VANCOUVER

north shore

SUNDAY « WEONESDAY - FHIOAY

1139 Lonsdale Avenue,
North Vancouver, B.C.
V7M 2H4

59,170 (average, Wednesday
Friday & Sunday)

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to reflect the ‘‘trend’’ or the cost
of living index.

The cost of swimming should
not be much more than a dollar
for the youth up to age 21, not
18, as currently scheduled. A fam-
ily swim should not be more than
$3.50, while an adult swim $1.50.

You will be surprised at the
number of participants at these
rates. The District will gain by
higher attendance.

Dr. B. Dutt
North Vancouver

980-0511
986-6222
985-2131
986-1337
986-1337
985-3227

MEMBER —————

sx: @

North Shore owned and managed

The $2b. killer
that pervades
Kastern Europe

MOST OF what is happening in Eastern Europe comes as
no surprise to me — with the exception of one problem
whose dimensions are considerably greater than expected.

Iam not surprised to find
Mikhail Gorbachev driven by the
state of collapse in the Soviet
Union to seek perestroika or eco-
nomic restructuring. | must say,
however, that | was not prepared
for the extent of the environmen-
tal degradation which had been
brought about by the communist
system of economic direction. The
extent of the environmental dam-
age occasioned by communism in
the East Bloc is being documented
in an increasing number of pert-
odicals, but a particularly effective
demonstration of it is evidenced in
a recent issue of Time magazine.

In an article entitled Darkness
at Noon, Frederick Painton
documents some of the human
costs associated with the utter
disregard that communism has
had for the environment. (The
headline author also had a fine
sense of irony in the selection of
the story tile. For, it was the
name of a famous book by the
former Communist Arthur
Koestler who sought to warn
others of what he had seen about
the dangers of Communism.)

Notes Painton, for example, in
Hungary one out of 17 pecple dies
from environmentally induced
causes. At Leipzig, an East Ger-
man industrial centre, life expec-
tancy is six years less than the na-
tional average. On cold winter
days drivers must turn on their
lights at noon to see where they
are going. (Hence the title.)

In Czechoslovakia’s coal mining
and industrial region children are
taken out of the region each year
for a month as a health measure.
In the Romanian town of Copsa
Mica horses can stay only for 2
couple of years and then they
have to be taken out or else they
die.

The bottom line on the extent
of the pollution has been drawn
by a study by the West German
Institute for Economic Research
that $200 billion will be needed
over the next two decades to clean

TABLES TURNED on North Van’s Dr. John Adair ...

By Michael Walker
Guest Columnist

up industrial pollution in Eastern
Europe.

The litany of difficulties, in-
cludes: the fact that 95 per cent of
Poland’s river water is unfit for
drinking; that East Germany alone
produces 2,500,000 tons of
sulphur emissions per year; and,
that 71 per cent of the forests in
Czechoslevakia have been poison-
ed by acid rain.

While our reaction to this is
likely to be ‘'so what else is new’’
there is in all of this a lesson for
us as we attempt to deal with our
own environmental problems in
North America. That is, to
recognize that the problem in the
Communist system that made it so
disrespectful of the environment is
the complete lack of private own-
ership of the land that was being
polluted.

Lack of private ownership,
together with a lack of respect for
ownership rights, together with a
system of arbitrary centralized
decision making, doomed the en-
vironment to collapse. Our pro-
gram for environmental protection
in North America ought to incline
to the opposite. Namely, the pro-
tection of private property inter-
ests, the maximum involvement by
private individuals in the care and
tending of the environment, and a
minimum amount of involvement
by the public sector.

As is evident from considering
the Communist Bloc, it is not
profit seeking per se which
destroys the environment. What
destroys the environment is the
lack of any private interest in pro-
tecting it.

Dr. Michael Walker is director
of the Fraser Institute, a free
enterprise economic research
organization based in  Van-
couver.

NEWS photo Cindy Goodman
LGH nurse

Sue Resehr checks his pulse during University Hospital's recent
“Affair of the Heart’ outreach program attended by many LGH

health care professionals.

NOEL WRIGHT BACK SUNDAY