A6 - Wednesday, October 20, 1982 - North Shore News rd editorial page This Wednesday evening. the Vancouver Electors Association begins once again its curious yearly ritual with the first of its two. 1982 “all candidates” meetings. A week: today (Wednesday, Oct. 27) the association’ of the election ¢ its second, and last, West council ‘and school Board \ vacancy, will be endorsed. From that point onward the chosen six or seven will benefit from the vertising clout. All “rejected” « candidates will be left to fend for themselves... In previous years this organization, which presumes to tell West Van how to vote, has rarely consisted of more than {200 paid-up members -- numerous of whom pay_—up for the first time at the door as an admission fee to the aforementioned meetings. Thus, the endorsement of WVEA candidates has come from around one per cent of eligible West Van electors. The danger, of course, is that many of those electors may be led to believe the WVEA is much more widely representative than is actually the case. Since there is no counterbalancing political group in West Van, they may even assume the association has some quasi-official status and, therefore, attach undue importance to its slate. The WVEA has endorsed certain good candidates in the past and may do so again. But the only endorsement that matters takes place in the polling booth on November 20. Meanwhile, West Van voters should look carefully at ALL candidates and be aware of annual publicity trap the WVEA prepares for them. Good for Di! The blazing row reported between Prince Charles and Princess Di, because she was ‘bored stiff vacationing amid Scottish mists and rain, may. be.the best news about them since the royal wedding. Fairyales are as fragile as they're beautiful. The kiss-and- ‘make-up following the first flaming fight is often the signal that the lasting fun of marriage is finally about to begin. WUE WENO OF WOT AND WEST VANCOUVER sunday news Display Advertising 980-0511 north shore Claasified Advertising 986-6222 n ew S Newsroom 985-2131 Circulation 986-1337 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Robert Graham Editor-in-Chiet Noel Wright Advertising Director Tim Francis General Manage:, Administration & Personnel Mrs Berni Hilliard Circutation Olrector Bran A Ells North Shore News, tounded in 1960 as an independent community newspaper and qualified under Schedule tl Part iil Paragraph fil of the Excise Tax Act. ts published sach Wednesday and Sunday by North Snore Free Press Ltd and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mall Registration Number 3685 Entire contents 1982 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and West Vancouver $26 per year Mailing rates available on request No reaponsibility accepted for unsolictted matenal including Manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped addresacd envelope VERIFIED CIRCULATION 64,643 Wednesday, 64,093 Sunday fe Cary SN THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE WVEA's considerable publicity:. and ad- . By W. ROGER WORTH Now that Canada’s labor leaders have managed to sign up most of the nation’s public servants and a great many employees of larger companies, they are eyeing workers in smaller firms. which is perhaps natural. ! a fa. | \ they cower Fl! Vu ith: amen x n ay ie ite > Welt MAINSTREAM CANADA Labor plan a Pan What's worrisome is that in at least one province the government appears set to give unions a more than helpful assist, also eroding the individual freedom of choice that has been under attack for years. Here is what's happening in Quebec, and. if labor Se meee, TAAL eis! COMPROMISE is often rated as one of the peculiar. Canadian virtues -- or faults, according to your viewpoint. It’s odd, therefore, that we've built so little machinery of compromise into the all-powerful institutions that run our lives. Those institutions, of course, are our various levels of government. And another name for the machinery of compromise as applied to governments is “checks and balances”. In practice, we have remarkably few workable checks and balances to keep our clected masters from pushing us around as they will during their statutory terms of office. If we goof on election day, soothed by the enticing pitches of political snake oil salesmen, we're stuck with the rascals for the next two to five years. To all intents and purposes, until our next chance in the polling booth comes around, we're their elpless slaves -- regardless f how big a mess they're aking of things. The trouble is that there's virtually no provision at any level of Canadian govern- ment for effective “second opinions”. No practical built-in devices for forcing the popularly — clected majority to think again and, in many cases, hopefully think better TOOTHLESS Only at the federal level is there even as theorencal device for that purpose in the form of the Senate, a largely toothless debating society whose members represent only the govern- ment parties which ap- pointed them with tenure to age 75. Since the Liberals have managed, with superior campaigning techniques, to win most of the Commons majorities in this century. the Senate is also a predominantly Liberal chamber No way the present Canadian upper house is evet gotng to seriously modify -- let alone block -- any Grit Icgislation. Functionally, the Senate is a long way removed from even its Britush counterpart, the House of Lords. True. the latter still represents only landed gentry. But some of them are pretty bright lads and lasses these days, with a much stronger tradition of thinking for themselves rather than as party-political hacks The Canadian Senate ts even farther removed from the American system = of checks and balances, where (as in the case of Ronnic Reagan) the boss man as often as not has to com- promise with a Congress majority of the opposing party. It differs sharply from European democracies like West Germany. too, where the upper house consists of ' that. ‘.