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Park plan questioned: 3

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

Guiding
Birthday
Party
PAGE 3

Three
Million!
PAGE 27.

“May 26, 1985

News 985-2131

Classified 986-6222

NORTH SHORE taxpayers from all walks will be
feeling the crunch of Thursday’s federal budget.

' By BARRETT FISHER

And that includes top
West Vancouver wage
earners, recently polled as
the highest bread winners in
Canada, as they will be hit
with a deficit reduction sur-
tax. ;

But while individuals may

feel their paycheques are go-
ing to be stretched too far,
others feel the budget didn’t
hit hard enough.

North Vancouver
Chamber of Commerce
president Graham Crockart
said he was surprised the
government didn’t make a
greater effort to decrease the
deficit.

Ciccalation 986-1337

52 pages 25¢

“We have to do some-
thing to reduce the deficit,’’
Crockart said. ‘‘It's time we
swallowed the pill. I'm just
surprised the pill wasn’t
Jarger."’

But David Schreck,
former NDP candidate for
North Vancouver-Seymour,
said he finds it hard to
understand why anyone
would be pleased with the
budget.

Schreck

said the short-

term effect of the budget will
cause one per cent higher
unemployment, and he said
lower income people will be
hit with the phasing out of
Family Allowance and Old
Age Pension, middle income
people will be hit with high
taxes, and upper income
business people will have
their interests harmed by a
loss of consumer spending.
Speaking from Otiawa,
Capilano MP Mary Collins

ES Vancouver beach: was littered with an unusual piece of debris Friday morning, a dead sea lion. The animal
shed ashore on the beach between 23rd and 24th Avenues, Bud Griffiths of the West Vancouver Parks Dept. is seen

trying to decide what to do with the, animal.

said she was pleased with the
budget, saying it was tough,
but fair.

Collins said the budget
will encourage private initia-
tive and productive invest-
ment, “and will emphasize
job creation through the
private sector.

“The capital gains tax ex-
emption of up to half a mil-
lion dollars is a tremendous
thing,’’ Collins said.
“Money is freed up to invest
in small business. Rather
than the government direc-
ting money, the emphasis is
on the individual to en-
courage people to invest —
people who want to take
risks to promote jobs."*

But Schreck said the capi-
tal gains exemption might be
good for stock market in-
vestments, but it doesn’t
translate into new construc-
tion, ‘All efforts are on the
savings side, not the invest-
ment side,’* he said.

Decreasing the
debt is a priority,
said.

“Everyone is affected to
some exient,’’ she said, ‘‘but
we're also prepared to bring
the government in Une.
through trimming gov-
ernment expenditures and
managing government more
appropriately. About 15,000
government jobs will be cut
by the end of che decade.”

Crockart said of personal
income tax increases, ‘‘]
think the public has had to
bite the bullet. We have to
decrease the deficit some-
how."

Personal income tax hikes
will affect everyone from the
single 10,000-a-year earner
with an extra $87-a-vear in-
crease to the $200,000-a-year
earner with an increase of
$4,767 a year,

And income earners who
pay more than $6,000 in

national
Collins

federal tax will now pay a
deficit reduction surtax of
five per cent. Earners with a
federal tax in excess of
$15,000 will pay an addi-
tional five per cent surtax.

An indexation of personal
income tax exemptions, fam-
ily allowances and old age
pensions will bring higher
returns if the rise in the cost
of living is over three per
cent.

Schreck said the indexing
beginning above three per
cent will essentially eliminate
Family Allowance and Old
Age Pension, '‘because every
year they will fall behind
three per cent, and over the
course of 20 years Family
Allowance and Old Age
Pension will be essentially
phased out.’

Registered Retirement
Savings Plans have been in-
creased to allow for deposits
of up to $7,500 a year star-
ting Jan. 1, 1986, and Regis-
tered Home Ownership Sav-
ings Plans have been

eliminated.
Collins said she applauded

the emphasis on retirement
savings. “It encourages in-
dividuals to plan for their
own retirement, to start
younger.”

But Schreck said high in-
come earners will be able to
use the RRSPs as tax
shelters, whereas middle to
low income earners can't af-
ford to put money into
them.

Federal sales tax will now
be extended to items that
were not taxed in the past,
including candy, pet food,
and pop, and the tax will rise
by one per cent Jan. 1, 1986.

Cigarette’ taxes will jump
by one cent per cigarette, the
excise tax on alcoholic bev-
erages will rise by two per
cent, and gasoline will jump
by two cents per fitre Sept. 3.

CROWN TO APPEAL JUDGEMENT

SENDING a 24-year-old West Vancouver man to
jail would accomplish nothing, Judge J.B. Paradis
said Thursday in North Vancouver provincial

court.
By TIMOTHY R

Judge Paradis made his
comment in passing sentence

on Dean Alan Laurson,
Facing charges of ag-
gravated assault and assault
causing bodily harm in con-
nection with an incident that

occurred January 14 at the
intersection of Lonsdale and
2Ist street, Larson was ac-
quitted on the first charge but
found guilty on the second.
On January 14, West Van-
couver resident David Ram-
say and his brother Allan
were driving south on
Lonsdale in Ramsay's

Mercedes Benz. Attempting
to make a left hand turn on
2tst street, Ramsay was
caught in the intersection
when slow moving
pedestrians blocked his at-
tempted turn, Larson, north-

See Assault
page 9