INSIGHTS

Friday, April 26, 1991 - North Shore News - 7

The art of reverse prognostication

HERE COMES bad news
for somebody.

By Brian Swarbrick
Contributing Writer

I am now about to beat all of
my colleagues to the gun and
make my prudent prognostication
of the winner of the upcoming
tribal elections. Which means that
lam putting the kiss of death on
at least one candidate.

The reason for this is that | am
never right. Not as in ‘frequently
wrong,’* but as in never right. If I
say somebody is going to win,
count on it; that somebody will
stumble at the starting gate. He
may even be arrested before the
balloting. I do not boast. This is
not an on-again, off-again talent.
Ihave a perfect record.

I have never chosen a winner in
any political contest wherever it is
waged, anywhere in the world. If
it has my blessing even an ac-
clamation is shaky.

This record of mine is generally

considered to be a liability. Not
so. Properly used, it is a weapon
of great power. Think about it:
merely by suggesting that so-and-
so is a likely comtender, I?
automatically doom that candidate
to the ranks of the also-ran.

Just knowing that my _ im-
primatur will confine someone
truly noxious to a career on
school beards has brought me
many a night’s sleep. What's
more, if my predictions are
recognized in time, | can save a
hapless fundraising chairman from
wasting his 1OUs. ‘f 1 like his
man, the size of ..e war chest
ain’t going to help.

So. Read my lips. This is im-
portant,

First: I predict that Bill Vander
Zalm will come on BCTV some
time in the next two weeks, casu-
ally pre-empting a vital NHL
playoff game, to announce that he
was just kidding. He and Lilian
have talked it over, and he is not
going to quit after all. Far from
it. He is going to run Fantasy
Gardens on Mondays, Wednes-

days and Fridays, and the rest of
British Columbia on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays. (This,
he will say, should certainly
remove any conflict-of-interest
concerns. And besides, Tuesdays
and Thursdays are off-days at the
Gardens anyway.) Sunday will be
reserved for pro-life meetings, and
informal barbecues in honor of
Hong Kong businessmen who may
drop in with cheques.

Second: Mr. Toigo «vill an-
nounce that he is taking an arm’s
length position from owning any-
thing alcoholic west of the
Rockies, and is thus able to accept
Liffian’s offer to install him as
Premier-elect.

{A press release will be issued to
this effect. It will make it clear
that this act of king-making is
Lillian’s decision, and not Bili’s,
because like everything else of
monetary value in their lives, she
is really the one who is running
things. A monthly newsletter in
Bella Coola will actually run this
press release verbatim.)

Third: In a fireside chat, Lillian

will tell Doriana Temolo that the
reason the precedent-creating
Toigo decision got such poor
media support is further proof of
the press and TV tords’
discrimination against her  hus-
band. As a gesture of her own
good faith in media, she will pres-
ent Ms Temolo with a sweatband
and the name of her hairdresser.

Fourth: Rita Johnston’s cam-
paign chairman will immediately
go out and buy a gross of sweat
bands. Great idea, but she will
stil come in behind Lillian and
Doriana. And Grace (who, it will
be leaked, uses Margaret That-
cher’s hairdresser).

Fifth: In an emotional an-
nouncement at the end of May,
Elwood Veitch, John Reynolds,
and Claude Richmond will declare
themselves unavailable for can-
didacy in the upcoming Socred
leadership convention, to be held
in Salmo.

It will be discreetly leaked that
the convention dates conflict with
their gig as a quartet doing the
rounds of the Elks and Eagles

lodges. Someone will point out
that there are actually four people
in a quartet, and Claude Rich-
mond will adroitly cover this goof
by springing the news that they
are negotiating to bring Jimmy
Pattison in as lead trumpet.

Sixth: Jimmy, in keeping with
long-standing policy, will fire the
bottom man in the group.

Seventh: David Poole will an-
nounce that he was approached to
“tun openly for the position he
filled with such discreet distinction
for so long.”’

But he will decline in order to
work ‘‘tirelessly and without
remuneration’’ for the New Dem-
ocrat Party because ‘“‘the NDP’s
for the ordinary working man.”
(This news will also be fully
reported in Beila Cvola.)

Eighth: Asked for comment,
Mike Harcourt will fire back that
he doesn’t even use a hairdresser.

Ninth: Mel Couvelier will not
figure in any way in these political
happenings. On the other hand,
Bill Bennett will keep his record
intact by doing the same.

North Yan resident
has sinking feeling

Dear Editor:

I would fike to make a few
comments and corrections regard-
ing your article ‘‘Housing hor-
rors’? (concerning homes built on
unstable land) in the Friday, April
19 issue.

The deputy director of engineer-
ing services of North Vancouver
District, Harry McBride, either
misunderstood or was misinform-
ed when he stated that the district
applied for funds on behalf of the
Vodnak family. I should know, I
am a member of that family.

The district applied to PEP
(Provincial Emergency Program)
for funds four months after the
problems started, and did so only
after numerous meetings and
agreed only to apply funds to
stabilize their own property which
happened to be the south end of
Lynn Canyon municipal park.

Surely they are not applying in
my name to stabilize slopes in a
municipal park? My own property
is above the district’s.

On the other hand, if they do
not stabilize the slope then the
lives of hikers and users of that
portion of the park might be at
risk.

{ have met with our aldermen
and the mayor to no avail. Several
of the aldermen were sympathetic
to the cause but effectively silenc-
ed by Mayor (Murray) Dykeman

and the district’s solicitors.

As elected officials and public
servants I would have thought
that they are supposed to work
with us and for us rather than
making our problems more com-
plicated and harder to resolve.

Apparently, the district knew
about the massive 1961 slide im-
mediately north of my property
which also destroyed the district’s
sewage treatment plant. Consider-
ing the proven instability of the
site, lack of any stability testing
and/or remedial work and subse-
quent issue of a new building
permit (1964) is it possible that
Mayor Dykeman and the district
are trying to cover up an error in
the past? ‘

Mr. McBride said that all
documentation for the property
somehow got lost.

It would be good to see an in-
ternal investigation into who (and
on what basis} authorized a new
building permit despite the ground
being unstable and unsafe.

Further, the refusal of the
district to guarantee the future
stability of the site indicates non-
confidence in the remedial
measures suggested by the SRK-
Robinson firm of consulting
engineers,

Ivo Vodnak
North Vancouver

Replace the bridge instead

Dear Editor:

In the Sunday, March 24

News was an article with a
diagram showing extra lanes on
Stanley Park causeway.

the
What else are they going to do,
festoon the bridge itself with
fancy lights and garlands?

The problem is the bridge
itself, a narrow, aging, dan-
gerous stritcture that all parties
seemed obsessed about not
replacing. The longer they put

it off the more it will cost and
the more strain will be put on
booming North Shore real
estate, business and Whistler
and ferry traffic.

1 once heard some Australian
and English tourists on a bus
going over the bridge refer to
this embarrassing, rusting
bridge as the ‘*ninth wonder’’
of the world!

T.E. Peck
Vancouver

DISTRICT ALARMED OVER SINKING HOMES. |

[NORTH SHORE NEWS APRIL iF )

Seymour roads always under construction

Dear Editor:

Here's to the patience and un-
derstanding of all residents east of
Seymour:

As 2 resident of this area for 41
years I’ve been looking forward to
good, clean access to the east end
of the North Shore.

For the past couple of years the
Dollarton, Deep Cove and Mount
Seymour Parkway roads have all
been in constant stages of

unheaval. There have been killer
pot holes and manhole covers;
streams; long detours; roads and
sidewalks laid, torn up and relaid;
eroded yards; curbs and street
lamps installed and re-installed;
hydro lines buried too close to
expediate the widening of exiting
roadways and polluted beaches.

Just when it looks like the dust
has settled and we can see the
light at the end of the tunnel, it

appears that Mt. Seymour
Parkway is going to be torn up
again starting in May.

if this is progress — so be it,
but at what cost? We east of
Seymour may be paying for these
improvements with our cars and
patience, but are all taxpayers
paying for these repeated changes
and/or mistakes?
Penny (Thornley) Thompson
North Vancouver

Collins put complaint in proper perspective

Dear Editor:

I hate to admit it, but I read a
Doug Collins’ column (April 17,
‘‘Whining and dining with
Harry'’), regarding Harry
Rankin’s complaint against a col-
umn in the North Shore News. I
congratulate Mr. Collins -— he

turned a trivial matter into an
amusing, trite matter.

One of the B.C. Press Council
members told me_ before this
complaint of Harry Rankin’s hit
the light of day that it would have
to be dealt with, but it was no
more worthy of treatment than

the question of whether we should
abolish the law of gravity,

Thank you, Doug Collins. In-
stead of attacking the under.
privileged, you have exposed the
ridiculous.

Jeremy Dalton
West Vancouver