6 - Sunday, January 3, 1999 - North Shore News

Tax load

ORTH Vancouver District

residents just got into the

shippinz business. Not that
they had any say in the matter.

They are the long-suffering taxpay-
ers who will be paying the freight on
the NDP government’s latest foray
into fiscal politics.

We all know this sickeningly famil-
‘ar song: announce a plan to kick-
-aart the ailing provincial economy;
nromise new revenue sharing to prove
it: then find a way to grab more than
the same amount of cash from the
<axpayer without having it appear as
part of the provincial budget deficit.

In this case, the song is one of the
sea.

Vancouver Wharves has been argu-
ing against paying higher grants in
lieu of taxes to North Vancouver

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

company is now owned by BC Rail
and is exempt from direct municipal
taxation. It pays a grant set by the
province.

BC Rail got its municipal taxes
slashed in 1996 in order te kick-start
the province’s rail business.

The district was one of the hardest
hit municipalities in the province in
that sleight of hand, and guess who'll
be paying for Vancouver Wharves’
$723,000 Christmas present.

The gift is one that keeps on giv-
ing, since the lower grant is capped
and will allow the company to com-
plete a $100 million expansion with-
out paying 2 penny more in taxes.

No argument that the shipping
industry needs help, but the logic of
this “plan” would require Richmond
to subsidize Vanconver International
Airport out of its local tax structure.

f Guess IT CAN

| HAPPEN To ANYONE...

ONE YEAR YowRE THE TOAST

B OF THE Town—THE NEXT,

A You'Re TOAST.

District for the last two years. The

Maiwox

ret ennai ri AAR and Per nit

Action on animals
is commendabie

Dear Editor:

Virginia...City Hall docs have a heart.

Pet and animal welfare has become a busy topic at city coun-
cil over the past few weeks and will continuc to do so as as cit-
izens express their concern that little has been done to improve
the lot of our four-footed friends and more.

First the Pet Shop Regulations bylaw that passed smoothly
through the district council under the sponsorship of longtime
animal rights pioncer Doris Orr and Coun. Erni Crist. The ini-
tial purpose was to ensure that puppies offered for sale would
come from legitimate breeders rather than puppy mills which
often sent out undernourished and diseased pets, City council
embellished the regulations when presented to them to include
snakes and reptiles, but not without a lot of opposition. The
brlaw has yct to be approved.

Then in September a resident sent in a letter pointing that
there were no areas in the city where dogs could be legally exer-
vised “offleash” whereas both the district and West Vancouver
cach provide nine or 10 sites. An area on the trail bordering the
west side of Mosquito Creek was supposedly available tor doz;
off leash, but it does not appear so in the city parks maps and st
the start of the tail there is not only no notice to inform dog
waikers bur a sign suggesting that dogs must be leashed.

it has been proposed that certain areas in some local parks
rat fenced off to avoid dogs bothering pedestrians and where
“ev-can- run at will, A meeting is scheduled with tix: parks
department to further ezplore this possibility.

2Next came the proposal by councillors Perrault and Sharp to
have a registry of cats with possible spaying requirements to
prevent over population of unwanted felines.

All these initiatives are prompted by an awareness in several
areas of Canada and the U.S. that animal companions play an
important part in the lifestyle of many people not only for com-
panionship but also for security. It is commendable that local
governments are responding.

R. Earnshaw ~
North Vancouver

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donathan Bail
Creative Services Manager

985-2133 (127)
61,592 {z.crage citewlakun, Wednesday, Fridey & Sunday)

(Qn

Al

Wagging the dog, Canuck-style

IN those happier days when
democracy was still in full blos-
som, a few career misfits were
always beefing about “the
tyranny of the
majority.”

Today they're hav-
ing their revenge in
spades.

Everywhere you look,
the majority of us are
now cowering under the
tyranny of the minority.

Often — thanks to those
modern Star Chambers
known as Human Rights
Tribunals -— the tyranny
of a minority as tiny as
one,

The healthy old principle of “the
greatest good of the greatest number” is
ruthlessly subordinated to the Draconian
law that no once person’s feelings must

ever be hurt, however slightly or uninten-

tionally. Except, of course, if that person
happens to belong to the majority — in
which case feel tree.

Christianity — still by far the majority
culture of Canada — emerges as a special
target. ‘

As recently as 1993 an Angus
Reid/Maclean's poll found 78% af
Canadians considered themselves
Christians, regardless of church atten-
dance. Nineteen percent professed no
religion,

All the non-Christian religions com-
bined added up to a teeny-weeny three
percent of the population.

In light of those statistics. three items
trom the 1998 Christmas season remind

PETER SPECK Doe Dhaliwa
Publisher Hurnan Resources Manager

985-2131 (10%) 985-2131 (177)

Tory Peters.
Photogsaphy Manager
985-2131 (160)

Classified Manager
986-6222 (202)

‘Doug Foo
Comptroller
985-231 (137!

Entire contents © 1997 North Shote Free Press Ltd, Ail rights reserved.

us how fast and far down the slippery
slope of minority tyranny we are sliding.

For starters, | wasted more long, min-
utes than ever this time searching
through “Happy Holidays” greeting

cards that studiously
ignored the slightest
reference to Christmas
before finding one that
dared te mention the
forbidden word.
Minority-brainwashed
bureaucrats in govern:
ment oftices dithered
over whether public
Christmas decorations
were politically correct.
Vancouver Art Gallery
displayed the world's
biggest Jewish menora, but nary a
Christian symbol.

Public schools panted to eliminate alt
traces of Chrisumas from their renamed
“Winter Concerts” — some of which
reportedly icatured Jewish songs, Sikh
traditions and native Indian spirituality.

Then, just before Christmas, B.C.
Supreme Court Justice Mary Saunders
slapped down Surrey school board’s ban
on using three homosexual propaganda
books in Kindergarten and Grade 1 class-
rooms,

She ruled the ban was influenced by
religious views and thus contravened the
“strictly secular” principles demanded by
the Schools Act.

That the board was demucratically
elected and shown in a survey to be sup-
ported on this issuc by 61% of parents
carried no weight. The minority Gay &
Lesbian Educators group laughed all the
way back from the courthouse.

Finally (for the moment) the almost
unbelievable action of super politically
correct federal protocol bureaucrats in
charge of the inter-faith service shortly
before Christmas for victims of the

- Swissair tragedy. They forbade Christian

clerics to mention Jesus or the New
Testament. Mcanwhile, Jewish and
Muslim religious leaders at the ceremony
spouted freely from the Talmud and the
Koran.

Frankly, the nwo gagged clerics —
Rev. Carolyn Nicholson (United Church)
and Rev. Duncan MacMaster (Sacred
Heart Parish) —- deserve censure. They
should have told the protacol boys to get
stuffed, refused to participate on those
terms and told the 70%-plus of Canadian
Christians why.

Christianity, of course, is only one of
the many areas of national life where the
minorities are rapidly seizing control,
using fear and intimidation disguised as
“political correctness.”

How about making it your personal
millennium project to help stop the tail
wagging the Canadian dog?

eee

JUST 12 days left ro nominate your
personal candidate for a 1999 West
Vancouver Heritage Achievement Award.
For information call Joel Lawson, West
Van Planning Dept., 925-7236 .-. . Wisk
happy 89th Birthday today, Jan.3, to
retired but long remembered Province
columnist Himie Koshevoy . .. And .
many happy returns of Tuesday, Jan.5, to
West Van Kiwanian Frank Wilson. .

ove : . vt

WRIGHT OR WRONG: When the
piano has to be moved, don’t rush to’.
carry the stool. : .

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