mame SN ce een BEA ga Te, ae RRC Ee 2‘ -when: some 5 500 North Van shipyard. workers have joined the unemployed over the past four or five mon- ths. At the moment, and likely well into 1984; the North Shore's five yards are ekeing out a bare existence from available repair jobs, with their work force slashed to the hone. B.C. has been promised in total for: two: icebreakers anda couple of ‘coast guard vessels. But the big money - and big, job. opportunities - obviously lay with the navy frigates, eakh. B.C, soleus are as well equipped to build. Equality of the sexes doesn’ t look: so 5 good when you're a woman over 65 living alone, below the official poverty line of $7,975, sharing a filthy rooming house with male Skid Road’bums. An NDP report claims there are 600,000 elderly women in similar dire straits, often through no fault of their own. Sounds like a rare case for a little government pension discrimination. In favor of the womien. sunday news north shore jInews 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 8.C. V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Classitied Advertising Newsroom Circulation 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 086-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright Tim Francis Personnel Director Classified Director Circulation Director Mra, Berni Haliard taabefie Jennings Brian A. Elis Production Director Orlice Manager Photogeanny ner Chris Johnson Donna Grandy Registration é 1982 North Shore Free Prevs Lid. All rights Subscriptions, North and Weet Vancouver;"325. per year Maliing rates avallatie on request. ed for unsolicked material No responsibility manusctiptea and pictures should De accompanied by a addressed envelope. VERIFIED CARCULATION $4,480 Wedneoday; 54,278 Sunday SS THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE y ut surely, govern- ments in Canada are effec- tively killing the Canadian ' small business geese that lay those valuable golden eggs ealled jobs. Naturally, there’s no of- ficial “let’s get the, enfre- The Organizers University of B.C. ‘Dear Sisters: At the risk of having The News picketed by a . preneur” policy, but the ef- fect of some government rh ‘for ning big profits. “Women and Words” Conference g trouble breaking even, let alone The i issue, of course: ist 1 “pay each. worker. to $8.85 per week. But ‘the companies that hire-these workers pay even more, . : * Their maximum rates soared to $12.40 per employee per week from $8.09, a staggering 53 per- _» cent increase. That means a *- small business with, say, 10 : employees earning $385 per- ‘week is now paying an extra $43. 10 per week, or $2, 241 "Per. year. “:... ‘orkers’ . Compensation - Shes Canadians don't ful- platoon of placard-bearers from the North Shore Women’s Centre, I am venturing to offer a few kindly-intended thoughts about writers’ get-together you held last weekend at_ UBC. That was the conference you wouldn't allow a single male to get anywhere near — not even as a silent, hum- ble observer thirsting to discover where our own wretched sex has gone wrong. Rather a pity, maybe, because according to women reporters covering the affair, you gave us men quite a bad time again. If we'd been able to take it all in, we might have picked up a few helpful tips on how to mend our ways. I gather you were par- ticularly mad at the men who allegedly run the media and accused us of “practically ig- noring the collective lobby- ing efforts of women's groups”. This has me a little puzzicd. To the best of my recollec- tion, women lobbying for specific and timely causes rarely, if ever, fail to get the full’ media’ treatment — whether it’s attacks on potn oc prostitutes, Pro Life or Pro Ghoice crusades, cam- paigns against wife-battcring or Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Honestly, ladies! Just check the newspapers and ‘movement = in the women TV for yourselves over a three to four-week period. They're laden with stories of women ‘saying and doing significant things, and carry- ing the feminist banner pro- ud and high. In other words, women making news. In fact, as newsmakers, women are not only on a completely equal footing with men; they quite often have the edge on them: who remembers the names of any of the astronauts on the Challenger’s last space flight — except that of Sally Rider? Since you warned me to stay clear of your UBC podatch, I'm left to figure out, as best a dim-witted male can, exactly what you mean by the “collective lob- bying efforta” of the feminist movement which we're charged with neglecting. I can only guess you're . talking about the absence in the media of an ongoing pro- paganda program for the general, regardless of its news value or reader interest. Not that there's anything wrong with such a program, provided you buy the space for its messages from the advertis- ing department. y ly understand: that employers other’ hand, pays one” S10. 04 per $100 of earnings, oy : Noel Wright Frankly, however, I have a bit of a problem trying to imagine what those “gener: messages would say — in short, what the feminist movement really wants — when you're not beating the drum on specific issues. for which we're glad to give you ink and air time for free. Personally, I haven't had much help from women friends and colleagues I've consulted on this point. To be honest, many of the ladies Ive quizzed tell me they, too, haven't a clue what tho feminist movement is ultimately secking and say it's a bore, anyhow. Obviously, I may be mix- ing with the wrong type of a Employers” sea their workers’ céntribution to: | percent { tax on. yro the province. The ‘effect? A ‘business s employing 10 peo- ple earning,. say,. "$385 per week, is forced to pay an ex- tra $57:50 per week or a nice, round $3,000 per year. Administering all these tax schemes, of course, is time consuming and costly, to say nothing of. having to deal with the government inspec- tors that oversee the various plans. ; -As a result of the con- tinuing concern about the rapid expansion and effect of payroll taxes, the Canadian - Federation of Independent Business is-funding a $20,000 project to accurately. assess the damage that is being done to small business. “Simply put, these taxes are unfair, and. they are costing: ‘Canada a. great-many jobs,” CFIB. President. John Bulloch: recently told ‘mem- CONTINUED ‘ON PAGEA7 4 1 women, but if so, there does seem to be an awful lot jof them around. Most of them are con- tributing as much to the good things of life as men — often more — and appear totally unaware that we despicable males continue to ruthlessly rob them of their rights. Actually, I suspect most of them are quietly having the laugh on our own sex, though they’re too well man- nered to let it show. All through history, from Cleopatra and Bodicea on down, any woman worth her salt has always known how to get what she wanted — by using men to do the work for her, too. The fact that, in re- cent years, you've taken to doing more and more of the work yourselves may, in- deed, be temporarily a backward step. Anyway, there's no ques- tion left today about the historical eriority of womankind. “3 life on this planet were reduced to a single sex, you're clearly much better equipped to sur- vive than we would. You're oven in a position now to repopulate the carth without any direct help from _ us faltering males. All of which makes at- tacks like last weekend's more than somewhat confus- ing.. The real truth of the matter, ladies, is that you outnumber us, you outsmart us (always have) and finally, with the sid of science, you've got us on the run. How about a little tender loving kindness to males — ’ while we're still around? Yours penitently, NOEL.