A6 - Sunday, November 14, 1982 - North Shore News EEE editorial page Last week’ s gloomy revelation by Finance Minister Hugh Curtis that B.C. is broke should give “he Teachers Federation and would-be free spending school trustees fresh food for thought. Curtis disclosed that the government will be out of cash before the year ends and will have to borrow $516 million to meet ex- penses. To cover the shortfall, the hallowed Socred principles of pay-as-you-go and keep out of debt are being thrown to the winds. For the first time, a Bennett government finds itself forced into hock merely to sur- ce. However much teachers’ leaders and education”, it doesn’t alter the basic fact that -- for now and the immediate future - there is NO MORE MONEY. ~ In the private sector numberless firms are still managing to survive today only because employees have gone along with an in- definite wage freeze (or even cutback) and often inconvenient economies in every other area. When the-employer has no more money, it’s better than having no more job. Im the case of teachers and other public employees, the ultimate employer, of course, isn't the government at all. It’s the beleagured taxpayer -- and until things improve, HE has no more money, either. “No: more money” is 4 situation simple enough for any Grade 1 pupil to understand. Why, we wonder, is it so difficult for teachers’ union leaders and their school trustee allies to grasp? Listen hard! By this time next week there'll be 14 happy winners and 21 dejected losers in the North Shore. elections. As their campaigns enter the home stretch, we salute all 35 candidates for their personal effort and sincerity in offering to serve our communities. The least we can do this final week is pay them the compliment of listening carefully and ob- jectively to each and every one. sunday news! north shore new 1139 Lonadale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 ‘ Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-chief Robert Graham Advertising Director Noel Wright Tim Francis Peraonne! Director Circulation Director Mra. Berni Hilliard Brian A. Ellis Office Manager Photography Manager Oonna Grandy Terry Peters North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent community newepaper and qualified under Schedute Ill, Part Ili, Paragraph fli of tne Excise Tax Act, ia published each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Claas Mail Reglatration Number 3885 Entire contents “ 1982 North Shore Free Prese Ltd. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and Weat Vancouver, $26 per year Mating rates available on request No responsibility accepted for unsolicited matenat inctuding manuscripts and pictures which should be accompaniad by a stamped addressed anvealope VERIFIED CIRCULATION 64,643 Wednesday; 64,093 Gunday Gu aq iQ THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE Car wars hurt Canadians By WALTER BLOCK When Federal Trade Minister Ed Lumley laun- . ched his “car wars” summer, with a_ vehicle inspection slowdown of Toyotas and Hondas, most people thought the primary victims were the Japanese. But in reality, trade restrictions fall primarily on the consumer. It was the Canadian auto buyer who was restricted from pur- chasing any of those thousands of cars which piled up on the docks of such places as Annacis Island. These trade interferences, moreover, were an implicit subsidy to Canadian auto manufacturers. If less of the last and wax emotional about “the quality of more” higtity Japanese automobiles were purchased, the Canadian consumer would have fewer alternatives - and be en- couraged to patronize the less efficient local product. But where is the case for supporting inefficient Canadian enterprise? And these subsidies have a price. The benefits received by the Ontario auto industry, and by their powerful and highly organized unions. must be paid — by taxing other Canadian industry. A commercial “weak sister” is strengthened — by weakening numerous more viable enterprises. Such a policy renders our other industries less able to compete on a_ world-wide SEASON excitement candidates of WELL! In the of an elecuon unquestion- able integrity sometimes make claims that sophisti- cated voters have learned to take with a good-natured pinch of salt. That's why | asked West Van mayoralty hopeful Bert Fleming last week about his impressive statement that he “and his neighbors” had = saved Tiddlycove taxpayers $12 million in school taxes. Bert's explanation (get out your pocket calculator) went like this. Early this year, he said, the average West Van homeowner's school taxes were set to rise from $729 (in 1981) to $884, an increase of $155. Then the education ministry brought down its new school financing for- mula which reduced the average 1982 figure to $240 — a saving of $644 as against the earlicr $884 worst-case scenario. Multiply by ap- proximately 12,000 home- owners and you get $7.7 million. Bert was a bit hazy about where the other $4.3 million saving came from, but was confident he could find the figures somewhere. Allowing that) Bert's numbers are correct (not everyone does), the basis of his claim ots that) Victoria eased the bomcowners’ burden primarily because of preferred basis. lt might imply future balance of payments dif- ficulties. And it might distort our industrial structure. This policy does encourage us to concentrate on those things for which our talents, abilities and natural resource endowments give us a comparative advantage. Instead, government tends to artificially promote those things which can be more cheaply and more efficiently manufactured abroad. As programs of this sort become more fully entrenched in our economy, our industrial structure becomes more and more like an edifice built on sand. What of the claim that the “Japanese, too, maintain-— restrictive practices, and that therefore Lumleyism is justified as a means of wringing our trade con- cessions? To be sure, the Japanese do engage in tariff and non- tariff barriers to trade. Their complaints about our economic nationalism thus come with particular ill grace. The tand of the rising sun restricts the importation of autos, steel, computers and other items too numerous to mention. But this is all beside the point, as far as the welfare of Canada is concemed. To refuse to embrace free trade until and unless other nations also do, is to cut one's nose off to spite one’s not - face. It is tike a child who craves friendship refusing to play with other children unless they make the first overture. Now surely the child in question will benefit if other children initiate a friendship. But if they do ‘not, he will still be better off if he continues to be forth- coming. If he does not, he loses out. In like manner, Canada would benefit if the Japanese fully embraced a policy of free trade. But if they persist in their error, there is no justification for us to emulate them. We would still be better off by remaining fully open to trade. For trade, like friendship, benefits both parties, otherwise it would not take place. No Canadian would be likely to give up several tons of wheat for a car, if he didn't value the latter more than the former, In any case, Canada is roughly twice as dependent upon foreign trade as is Japan. For that reason alone, we should be in favour of frge trade, even if they are not. (Dr. Block is Senior Economist. with the .Van- couver-based Fraser In- stitute.) “I'm going home to mother!” sunday brunch by Noel Wright the October 1981 Howard Jarvis protest meeting in West Van which Bert helped stage. With due respect to California's roving tax crusader, it’s doubtful that it was Mr. Jarvis's one-night stand which melted stoney hearts in Victona — when you recall the concerted screams about school taxes by every Lower Mainland municipality from last fall onward. West Van school board, strongly backed by council, was in the forefront of the outcry that eventually brought) rehef to home- owners (though clobbcring businesses) — and that’s on the record A \tablespoonful of salt this ime, please .. oee Making a TV debut tomght (Sunday, Nov. 14) 1s the resident down-home philosopher of The News, columnist Bob Hunter — or. more accurately, his type writer A manof many parts, Bob is now also writing scripts for The Beach- combers. His episode “Father Was A Truck Driving Man" will be aired at 7 p.m. this evening tn the popular CBUT Channel 2 series one Better safe than sorry with Fido Veterinarian Earnie Earnshaw warns that a parti- cularly nasty doggy disease called Parvovirus is showing up increasingly on the North Shore. Happily, vaccination with annual boosters can apparently safeguard your pooch ... ene FOLK TALES: West Van aldermanic candidate Don Griffiths is disturbed to dis- cover that many Tiddlycove business tenants are not on the voters list, even though there are ways open to some of them if they'll check with Returning Officer Doug Allan at municipal hall Celebrated humorous play. right Erfka Ritter (“Auto- matic Pilot") gives readings this Thursday (Nov. 18) at 8 p.m. in the south campus cafeteria of Cap College Tory West Van is well repre- sented in the B.C. Progres- sive Conservative Associa- tion — of which Dorts Dungey was acclaimed v-p and Martin Dayton federal v-p at last weekend's con vention ... Capilano Socreds ‘(and “everyone else wel: come”) take breakfast next Saturday at 9 a.m. tn the Avalon to hear Housing Minister Tony Brummet Oldtimers in these parts will remember Sid Young, a pioneer of the Tyce Ski Geoup on Grouse Mountain and member of the UBC ski team in the 1940s, who's running for mayor of Whistler in next Saturday's election Salute North Van's Nick Gomersall, gold medal winner of the Certified General Accountants Association of B.C. (plus $1,000) ... Likewise, Hillside grad Vivian McAdam, now at U of Vic, awarded a Nancy Greene scholarship Naila Moloo of North Van, winner of a B.C. Government Employees Union scholarship and currently at UBC ... West Van's C.O. Brawner, winner of an American Institute of Mining award for his book Stability in Surface Mining And poet Gurcharan Rampuri, a North Van resi- dent, honored by the Punjab Arts Council for his out- standing contribution to Punjab literature — he travels to India next month to receive the award. ene WRIGHT OR WRONG: Two thoughts are worrying people these days. One ts that things may never gct back to normal. The other 1s that they already have.