Doug Collins

® get this straight ®

ONCE UPON a time the British appointed a man to sit on
the white cliffs of Dover and watch for Napoleon’s inva-
sion fleet. If he saw it he was to light a beacon. Other
beacons would then be lit, and thus the message would
reach the admiralty in London.

‘ Forty-eight years later the wat-

cher’s post was abandoned.
That's how long it took to get rid
of a government enterprise that
had outlived its usefulness.

The story was told in Canada
recently by a bloke called Madsen
Pirie, who is Maggie Thatcher's
privatization wizard and president
of the Adam Smith Institute, big
brother to our own Fraser
Institute. ,

The unions are at the wailing
wall on this one because of the
dues they see disappearing. J am
almost afraid to turn on the TV
for fear of seeing some B.C.
Government Employees Union
leader cutting his throat in public.
But Mr. Pirie shows that the
dismantling of nationalized in-
dusiries in his country has been a
wondrous revolution,

“Inflation in the UK is at its
lowest fevel in 20 years, strikes are

“When the BCGEU leaders talk about the
| public interest and how privatization will

wreak ruin, what they really mean is that their

interests will suffer.”

I can’t help thinking about Pirie
> and what has happened in the UK,
s where the pound is strong,

economic performance high, and
“unemployment lower than for
“years. Because, daily, we hear
| cries of pain from the NDP and
y. the unions about the disasters that

7 await us if Bill Vander Zalm goes ,

the Thatcher route. ,
_ PRIVATIZATION: YOU
} WILL PAY THE PRICE!,
‘scream the full-page ads from the
B.C. Federation of Labor. ‘‘The
privileged few,’’ we are told, ‘will
benefit while the rest of us pay for
it.” Editorials in the parlor-pink
Evening Wimp give muted echo to
such stuff.

THE NORTH Shore Ai:porter will

continue picking up passengers at
the Plaza International complex
even though the Plaza Interna-
tional Hotel has officially closed.

- Company _ president Harry

Chand made the announcement -

” recently to assure North Shore res-

idents. depending’ on the service
that its route and schedule will not
‘change because. of the hotel’s
closure.

“The airporter tegins its North
Shore service each day at 5:45 a.m.
when .it leaves the Park Royal
Hotel in West Vancouver. [t picks
up at the Plaza complex five
minutes later.

‘For complete airporter schedule
information call 273-7210.

‘The: Plaza International Hotel
closed: permanently ‘Nov. 2 after
owners of the 152-room hotel cited
dismal occupancy rates and moun-
ting financial losses. ©

at their lowest level in 40 years,

and the income tax basic rate is at

its lowest level in 50 years.”’
Government businesses have

- been dumped by the dozen. Pirie
’ states, indeed, that the switch

from public to private enterprise
has been the largest transfer of
property in Britain since the
dissolution of the monastries
under King Henry VII. And it’s
not the ‘privileged few?’ who
have benefited, but the people as a
whole.

The man in the pub has become
an .investor. He is also a
homeowner on a greater scale
than anyone could have imagined
when The Thatch came to power

in 1979, Over 1,000,000 ‘‘council
houses’’ have been sold to their
tenants and that process
continues.

Pirie described how things used
to be:

“You went downstairs to pick
up the state monopoly mail and
with your British Stecl knife cut
into your marketing board egg for
break fast.

“On the way to your British
Leyland car you would say hello
to your state trash collector as he
spilt garbage on your street. You
would drop your children off at a
state school, your wife off at a
state clinic, perhaps. On the way
to work in the morning you would
listen to your state radio and then
go to your job where you worked
for the government...

“With your state telephone ser-
vice you would dial the state
airline to book a seat with the
state travel agency on a state-filled
airplane...’’.

Maggie Thatcher thought the
unthinkable and made it work in
the face of formidable resistance,
some of it from ‘‘wets’’ in her
own party. [ quote Pirie again,
who was talking tongue in cheek
about unnecessary government
programs that always turned out
to be necessary.

“In the entire history of the

British nation we have never
found an unnecessary program.
Every program is necessary to

those who work on it, those who |

administer it, and those who
derive benefit from it. They will
always fight to retain it.”’

It’s the same here in B.C. When
the BCGEU leaders talk about the
public interest and how privatiza-
tion will wreak ruin, what they

- really mean is that their interests

will suffer.

They have no objection at ail to
a guy watching in A.D. -1990 for a
fleet that never arrived in A.D,
1940,

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West Vancouver

9 ~ Wednesday, November 25, 1987 - North Shere News

Elderly weman robbed

AN ELDERLY woman was robb-
ed by @ hit and run thief just be-
fore 6 p.m. Nov. 14.

A man in his 20s approached the
woman in the north lane of the
100-block West First St. asking for
help to change a $1 bill. When she
removed her wallet from her purse,
the man grabbed it and ran off
with a considerable amount of
cash and all of the woman's iden-
tification.

North Vancouver RCMP remind

the public that this type of robbery
technique is common and ask resi-
dents to take precautions to deter
this type of crime.

Dr. Mark Cousins

Naturopathic Physician

#405-1124 Lonsdale Ave.
For appointment call:

984-0040 » 984-8863

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