6 - Wednesday, June 9, 1999 —- North Shore News north shore news VIEWPOINT rong rally ULTIVATING sound judg- ment is apparently not high on the curriculum of local schools. Witmess the recent high jinks involving Sentinel secondary grads. As part of a student-organized road rally scavenger hunt, grads were chal- lenged to “make out” with senior cit- izens. Other challenges in such gradua- tion rallies apparently involve appear- ing in public in various stages of undress. In early May, for example, seven West Vancouver secondary stu- dents were arrested and later released after they were caught in the buff during another road rally. Hey, what’s all the fuss? Just high- spirited youth letting off steam after spending 12 years in the public Maybe not. The results of the latest rally include the arrests of two Sentinel students who now face sexual assault charges after female seniors were allegedly groped. . The seniors apparently failed to see the humour in the element of the rally that used them as scavenger hunt targets. The humour was also lost on schoel district officials, who condemned the grads’ alleged acts as “extremely disturbing.” If sexual assault charges are laid in the incident, the episode will be more than extremely disturbing for school district officials; it will be extremely disturbing for the students charged, their families and their friends. It will be an extremely disturbing way to end school days and embark EMISSION TESTIN PLEASE KEEP ENGINES RUNNING _ school system, right? matibox Prostate pledge perturbing Dear Editor: I was starting to gain a little more respect for Mr. Jim Pattison following his huge donation — $20 million — to speed up the research for a cure to prostate cancer. Even more wonderful was the fact that no one close to him suf- fers from the usually deadly illness. ~~ I thought to myself: “What a generous man! A wealthy person giving something back for the well-being of others; ow altruistic!” And then I received my May 30 North Shore News, shattering a bit of this beautiful image: this most wealthy man is putting a condition to his donation! - Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe most people who ‘donate winat they can don’t put conditions on their offerings and eserve a lot more credit than what this businessman of ours is getting with the help of the media. Louis LeBlanc ‘North Vancouver ~ Rethink district tax hike Dear Editor: ; Re: North Vancouver district property tax hike — unac- ceptable and unaffordable. . . Many North Van District homeowners must have been - shocked to receive their property tax notice for 1999. There is no justification nor need for this 6% hike when inflation is so low and most residents are happy with the level of munic- ipal services provided last year and would like at that level. Sure; it’s nice to beautify our district --- have new pave- ments, blooming corner gardens and flower beds for road divides — if we can afford it. Perhaps we could go at a slow- er‘pace and spread these improvements over a number of ears. We would request the council to reconsider their deci- sion or have a public hearing to accept this hike. If there is fo money in the coffer don’t spend — simple as that! Dr. Batu K. Dutt oe batudutt@hotmail.com north:shore f x Worth Store Mews, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qual“ed under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is pubkshed each Wednesday, ” Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd and disinbuted to every doce on the Noh Shore Canxta Post Canadian Publicatons Mal Sates Product Agreement No. 0387238. Maxling rates available on request. SGEMTESMERSEER coe Barbara Emo Distribution Manager ‘905-1357 (124) 985-2131 (127) 61,582 faverane crnuiation, Wecresaay. Fritay & Sunday) Tha North Shore News Is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Pater Ss on life in the real world. Harris victory a wake-up call LAST week's decisive re-election of Mike Harris’ Ontario Tories sends a wake-up call to every other province except Alberta — as well as to Ottawa in particular, he message: Canadians are fed up to ~ the back teeth with crushing taxation that seizes half their annual income and are in no mood to stand for ix much longer. Despite a first term notable for major con- frontations with labour and vicious union oppo- sition, the Conservatives — campaigning with tax cuts as their key platform -— su.. ‘romped home to a second term with 45% of the popular vote and 59 seats in the new 103-seat legislature. Liberals gained four seats (up from 31 to 35), but the union-backed NDP dropped to nine seats from 16 — thereby, under the present rules, losing official party status (12 seats required). While governments elsewhere in Canada — with the dismal exception of B.C. — concentrate on the laudable goal of balancing budgets, all except Alberta’s Klein and Ontario’s Harris continue to do so on the back of the defenceless tax- payer. And all but the latter two get away with it by exploiting the bogeyman of cuts to our cherished health care. educa- tion and other social services unless we pay up. What no government outside Alberta PETER SPECK Publisher rages $85-2131 (101) 985-2131 (177) - Torry Photography Manager sia Stephenson Classified Manager 985-2131 (180) 988-6222 (202) 9 General Manager 985-2131 (133) Enlite contents © 1999 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved : eck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue Worth Vancouver, B.C., V7M 284 and Ontario — least of all Orrawa — will acknowledge are the two truths thar could significantly ease the tax burden with no threat whatsoever to health, edu- gation and our social safety net. The first being a drastic reduc- tion in the size of gov- ernmerts and the shameless waste of tax dollars by their bloated bureaucracies. This column recently gave examples of such waste totalling $7 bil- lion. Vancouver Sun business columnist Mici:ael Campbell added fir her horrors last Saturday, among them the following gems: A 257,635 Ottawa grant to L’Anse va -Baptiste, Quebce, to create a landx., °° °¢ of Jean Baptiste. A $250,000 tows.; uloture of deactivat- ed firearms from all over the world. Advice costing $60,000 from a spin-doc- tor firm on Paul Martin’s February bud- get. A $44.000 bill for having his budget speech written. Plus billions doled out in subsidies to businesses. And millions spent on govern- ment advertising, golden handshakes to patronage appointees and obscure, con- troversial Canada Council projects. Worst of all, even such figures extract- ed from government files under the Freedom of Information Act may well represent only the tip of the iceberg of total government waste and incompe- tence. . If those wasted billions were used, instead, to enhance medicare and child © "the groceries. care, widen educational opportunities and support other vital “people” programs, income taxes could be slashed across the board tomorrow without the slightest danger to Canadian society's sacred cows. The second truth none of our tax- and-squander governments will face is that lower individual taxes lead to higher overall tax revenues. Such has been the experience of every government in modern history daring to take thar secmingly dangerous plunge, the most recent example being the 1980s Reagan administration in the U.S. Yet the logic under our frec enterprise system is perfectly simple. : Leave more money in individuals’ wal- lets and they will spend it — thus boost- ing economic activity and increasing sales taxes, along with tax-paying jobs to mect the demand. Likewise, ease the tax burden on com- panies and they will expand by hiring - more tax-paying employees. . You'd think Paul Martin could grasp thar crystal-clear equation, wouldn't you? * But then, in addition to presiding over . untold wasted billions, it seems he can’t even write his own budget speech! gna we MANY HAPPY RETURNS of Friday, ° June 11, to West Van's Stewart Symons ... Wish them again Saturday, June 12, to North Van’s Muriel MacLeod and West: Van's Bill Jackson. a . 000. . co WRIGHT OR WRONG: Variety may ~~ be the spice of life, but monotony buys _- mwright@uniserve.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must include your name, | full address & telephone umber, VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca Managing Editor 885-2137 (115) Roc pee Agios Promonans Manager 985-2131 (218) David Whitman Display Manage: 80-0611 (317) Cee Gai! Savigrove ‘General Office Manager 985-2131 (105) intornet- bttp://www.nsnews.cam Michael Becker - News Editor _ 985-2131 (114) Andrew NicCredie ~ Sports/Community Editor ~ 985-2131 (147). -