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& ~ Sunday, December 18, 1988 - North Shore News

INSIGHTS

rong Kong gold setting
for our Pacific jewel

MURPHY’S GOLDEN RULE — slightly different from the
original — says: ‘‘Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”’
A man of remarkable vision, Murphy, considering he’d

never heard of Li Ka-shing.

Li is the Hong Kong billionaire
owner of the Expo lands, site of a
massive new development over the
coming years. Looking after Dad’s
interests here in Vancouver is his
son Victor Li, head of Concord
Pacific Developments, who last
week hit the headlines by selling —
in just three hours in Hong Kong,
sight unseen — almost al! 216 units
in a new condo complex on False
Creek. He didn’t trouble to tell the
Vancouver public that it was even

on the market.

The deal had Municipal Affairs
Minister Rita Johuston up in arms
and even Premier Bill Vander
Zaim edgy. Is this how the vast
residential and commercial ac-
commodation on the Expo site wil?
eventuaiiy be sold — with the
natives (that’s US!) denied even a
chance to be the losing low bidder?

You don’t have to be tainted
with any trace of racism to be
worried about the mushrooming

buy-out of Lower Mainland real
estate by Hong Kong residents for
whom money is apparently no ob-
ject. Kerrisdale and Shaughnessy
know all about it, as do British
Properties in West Van. With pur-
chasers so loaded that they snap up
houses and condos at asking prices
or better without even bothering to
see them, prices all round soar too
— increasingly shutting out first-
time Canadian home buyers.

But worrying, alas, seems about
as near as you'll ever get to a solu-
tion.

Even banning non-resident off-
shore ownership, as the Aussies try
to do, wouldn’t work, with Hong

AY

Kong money free to move in and
out. There are now plenty of Hong
Kong entrepreneurs here like Vic-
tor Li who are already Canadian
citizens and can hold property in
trust until their buyers in the
*‘suitcase colony’’ jump ship and
settle in B.C.

That’s how free enterprise works
and as long as we preter it to so-
cialism, nothing is likely to stup
Canada’s Pacific jewel from win-

ding up encased in a heavy setting
of Hong Kong gold — from the
world’s supreme free enterprisers.

In the meantime, expect to see
more and more young Lower
Mainland families heading towards
Hope in their search for a roof
over their heads somewhere that
they can afford. In obedience to
Murphy’s Golden Rule!

tee

SIGN-OFF: Only four more giving
days left, reminds chairman Pat
Orr, for donations of food and
cheques to the North Van
Christmas Bureau, which will close
down by noon Thursday. Similar
deadline for Ruth Stout’s West
Van Santa Claus Fund. In both
cases your gifts stay right here in
the community -~ and there can
never be too many of them to
brighten the season a little for up
to 1,500 needy North Shore fami-
lies ... A pre-Christmas treat for
the youngsters at 1:30 p.m. today,
Sunday, at North Van’s Silver
Harbour Centre, 144 East 22nd,
where they’re showing the two-
hour video ‘‘E.T. — The Extra-

EASIER ON THE LEGS tee Happy North Van seniors greet the recent opening of the newly installed elevator | Terrestrial.’' Children S0¢, non-
at Lyna Valley Centre, which will save them stairs when visiting the professional offices on the upper floor, members $2 ... Congrats to Grade

Cutting the ribbon is Centre manager Scott Keller.

Ounce of prevention

HE RECENT exposure to asbestos of Versatile
Pacific Shipyard empioyees working on 2 Rus-

panies must be more aware of such prospective health
hazards and take more preventative measures.

The Workers Compensation Board has recommend-
ed that Versatile be fined $15,000 as a penalty for 92 of
the shipyard’s employees being expesed to airborne
white asbestos fibres when they were removing a
cement-like substance from the Russian vessel.

Bat a $15,000 fine will do little to solve a serious and
complex health hazard for shipyard workers.

Although Versatile is not responsible for the
asbestos-lined Russian ship, it is responsible for its
workers; and as a shipbuilding expert, knowing that
asbestos could be present on some ships, it should set
up preventative procedures to avoid similar exposures
in the future.

An asbestos expert, properly attired with the neces-
sary breathing apparatus, should thoroughly examine
ships to see if they contain the cancer-causing
substance before workers are dispatched. If a full
check cannot be carried out, then workers themselves
should be provided with protective gear.

The result of asbestos exposure may not materialize
for 20 to 30 years, but when it does, it could do so in
ihe form of asbestosis, lung cancer or mesothelioma, a
very rare malignant cancer affecting the chest and ab-
dominal lining.

Today’s cost of instituting proper preventative
measures far outweighs tomorrow’s prospective toll on
shipyard workers’ health.

sian fishing vessel shows that shipbuilding com- '

10 Crofton House student Kathy

TH YONCE OF NORTH AND WEST AncOUVER

Publisher ... ...Peter Speck ass cee acer
Managing Editor... Barrett Fisher Males tiie ss
Associate Editor . Noel Wright “|

Advertising Director Linda Stewart

North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent
suburban newspaper and qualited under Scheaule 111, 1139 Lonsdale Avenue.
Paragraph Il! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each North V: B.C .
Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by Nertn Shore Free 9 ancouver, &.C.
Press Lid, and distributed to every door on the Noh V7M 2H4

Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3685 170

Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year 59, {average, Wednesday
Mailing rales avatadle on tequest Submissions are Friday & Sunda: )
welcome but we cannol accep! 1esponsibitiy for y
unsolicited maternal including manuseripts and pictures

which snould be accompanied by a Stampec, addressed LJ

envelope. SDA DIVISION

Sunpav - WEONESDAY s PRIDAY

PAT ORR ... Four more giving
days.

McLellan of North Van on winn-
ing an honorable mention prize in
the Truck Loggers Association’s
1988 essay contest on the impor-
tance of the forest industry to B.C.
She was one of the 23 winners out
of 1,000 province-wide entries ...
And West Van has done it again.
Latest tax statistics show that Tid-
dlycove is still Canada’s wealthiest
community with the country’s
highest average income — $33,982.
But don’t think West Van has no
poor. Just as an example — if 30%
were in the $50,000-$60,000
bracket and 30% ranged from
$30,900-$50,000, the remaining
49% at a poverty-ievel $13,000
would give you the same average!

Rae

WRIGHT OR WRONG (tipping
our hat to Oscar Wilde): Experi-
ence is the name everyone gives to
their mistakes.

IN
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Keor®) Sau] tcbsh

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