6 ~ Sunday, Decembar INSIGHTS Jean’s crazy goal may cost Grits dearly HOW DO we get a better bunch of elected politicians, which heaven knows we need? Liberal leader Jean Chretien is determined to try — but unfortunately by doing the ff wrong thing for the wrong reason. £ CANADIAN Party candidates are traditiona)- ly chosen by local nominating Wright meetings. But last February’s Lib- eral convention voted by more than 90% to allow its leader, at , his discretion, to ignore “ai : constituency associations and ap- AWA mA THE point candidates directly. F EDERAING (1 Wor en FROM H. Chretien is already up and run- eee” ning with his new powers to bypass that tiresome, unpredic- table malarkey known as grassroots democracy. He's parachuted former Toron- to mayor Art Eggleton into the DR NEVER MIND... WOMEN USUALLY - sink OUT OF GLASSES AND MAY FE THiS Boryte. ow 7S LABEL: Reece, NEWS VIEWPOINT ‘WOOP it up ONSIDER THIS the official launch for @ new acronym: WOOP (Where’s Gur OverPass). Members of WOOP are a reasonable bunch of North Shore residents who nor- mally spend much time being pleasant on the phone and quietly shaking their heads at the latest contradictory statement made by elected politicians. But they are fast running out of reason- ableness on the issue of the Upper Levels Highway overpass at Westview Drive. The intersection is currently the last knot in the Trans-Canada Highway. An overpass was therefore announced for Westview back in October 1985 by the Social Credit government. It was to be part two of the two-part North Shore highway overpass system that began with the Lonsdale Avenue interchange. NEWS QUOT ‘think I'm calling Ker."’ The two were announced together because one without the other wouid large- ly be a wasted investment. The NDP government, however, has put the project on hold. Fiscal restraint, they say, while approving over $15 million in highway projects in 12 NDP ridings since October alone. The Westview interchange has the bad Juck of being split betwee: two ridings: North Vancouver-Lonsda!:, held by New Democrat David Schreck, and West Vancouver-Capilano, held by Libera! Jeremy Dalton. In a letter to a concerned citizen in January, Schreck called the Westview in- terchange ‘‘the most pressing highway im- provement project in my constituency...” Yet it remains what it has been for the past seven years: 2 pressing project left to languish. It’s time to WOOP it up. “We'd need «a shoehorn to fit insure the destroyer HMCS Conversationa! bon mot from Barbie, circa mid-1960s. “I really didn’t want just a bench on the seawall — I wanted to do something more practical, to save at least one other person out there. Jean Wiebe, on her campaign to raise bicycle safety after her cyclist son was killed in a head-on crash. Publisher... Managing Editor Associate Editor. . Comptroller . . Peter Speck . Timothy Renshaw . Noel Wright Sates & Marketing Director Linda Stewart _ .Doug Foot anybody else in.'’ Hans-Karl Piltz, music director for the Pro Nova Ensemble, on playing in the tight confines of West Vancouver’s Ferry Building. ‘First we looked at this and asked what are you going to insure a ship that’s going to become ax ar- tificia] reef against? Fleating?”’ North Vancouver lawyer and Artificial Reef Society (ARS) president Jay Straith, on having to Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Newsroom 585-2131 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax Administration 985-2131 Chaudiere before sinking it and making into an artificial reef. “Well, I'm new to Vancouver, and from what I understand, everybody here takes beautiful sunny weekday afternoons off.” Vancouver resident Ernie Douglas, to the News {nquiring Reporter question: How did you manage to get a sunny Monday afternoon free to ski? Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 988-1337 Printed on 10% tecycled cewsprint 925-3227 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspapet and qualified under Schedule 311, Paragraph 1 of the Excrse Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Registration Number 3985 Subscriptions Noth and West Vancouver, $25 per eat. Mailing sales available on request. utmissions ae welcome bul we cannot accept fesponsibility for unsolicited material inckuding manuscnpis and pictures wtrch should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope V7M 2H4 "north shore. SUNOAT HOT OMEDGAY © PROAY : 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, ~ North Vancouver, B.C North Shore managed MEMBER cox, SR SOA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved, strongly Italian-Canadian riding of York Centre — sidelining the nomination front-runner Peter Li Pretti, whose supporters are furious. Businesswoman Mila Velshi has been given another Toronto riding without putting the locals to the bother of choosing for themselves. Several more ridings are reported- ty on the ‘‘father-knows-best’’ ist. The theory, presumably, is for Chretien to make sure of a cabinet slate composed of Canada’s brightest and best. Whether Grit voters in the chosen ridings will be ready to back candidates dumped on them from on high is another matter. And more than a few may wonder about the stumbling Chretien’s own credentials as 2 one-man selection committee for the brightest and best. Admittediy, nominating meetings themselves are not always shining examples of un- sullied democracy. tn practice, an untold number have been won by nominees sign- ae JEAN CHRETIEN... thing, wrong reason. wrong MANSUR LALAN with the money. HITHER AND YON ing up the most instant voters and stuffing the meeting hall with the most warm bodies. Enrolling ineligible supporters with phony names and addresses, confusing an opponent's sup- porters about the meeting time and place, and a full deck of other dirty tricks are far from unknown when power is the name of the game in the local uigh school auditorium. But none of this excuses the sheer folly of a party leader trying to hijack the whole process. In York Centre Li Pretti is challenging his oustes in the courts and plans to run as an indepen- dent. Few doubt he'll take a solid bloc of one-time Chretien Grits with him. The answer to abuses at the local level is obvious —- a tighten- ing up of the entire eligibility pro- cedure, supervised on tke spot at nomination meetings by party HQ . observers. Or even have Elections Canada regulate it, waving the Criminal Code at naughty nominees. . That, however, is not what real- ly worries Jean. What he wants is simply to anoint his own. And the reaction to date suggests the Grits may pay dearly for the crazy goal he’s pursuing. SIGN-OFF: Richer last month was Lions Gate Hospital by $4,305; its Medical Research Foundation by $1,845; North Shore Home Sup- port Services, the Alzheimer Society and the Vancouver Food Bank by $1,230 each — just five of the denations totalling $12,300 made to