6 ~ Wednesday, August 27, 1986 - North Shore News

News Viewpoint

Emergency airlift

ritish Columbia doesn’t have its own medically
equipped air ambulance,

That fact may nol alarm you unless one of

your relatives or friends has been involved in an acci-

dent or is in need of medical treatment and time is of

the essence.

The provincial government ciaims it doesn’t need to
buy its own helicopter because the Lower Mainland
has a thorough road ambulance network. Officials
from the government’s Emergency Health Services say
if a helicopter is needed one can be chartered.

But not all commercial helicopters are medically
equipped, and the availability of the appropriate
coramercial craft is not guaranteed.

Specialists ia the field say air ambulances are needed
when a ground ambulance would take 15 minutes or
more between transporting a trauma victim from the
scene to treatment at a major trauma centre.

If this is the case a medical helicopter based in Van-
couver would have a great role to play, especially in
the evacuation of trauma victims from such places as
the North Shore’s isolated wooded areas.

Also the helicopter could be called upon in the event
of a disaster, such as an earthquake.

For instance, in Los Angeles 26 helicopters would be
ready to assess earthquake damages.

Vancouver has none.

isn’t it about time that situation was improved?

Post

Office messa

HERE we go again. There are unpleasant noises emerging from

Ottawa about the post office.

Specifically, Michel Coté, the
minister responsible for Canada
Post, says the bloated Crown cor-
poration is considering cutting back
mail delivery to every third day.

That’s good news only if you’rea
courier company. To the rest of us,
it’s another warning that those in
charge of the post office still haven't
come to grips with the root
problems.

The purpose of the service cutback
is to meet a target to eliminate the
postal deficit by March 31, 1988, a
target set up by Finance Minister
Michael Wilson in his February
budget.

Coté said every-third-day delivery
is only one of a number of options

| By Tony Carlson |

being considered as the post office
Prepares a new business plan.

But watch out. Their last business
plan had the post office using sub-
sidized buildings to sell products that
have nothing to do with the mail, in
direct competition with local
business people who help to support
the postal money pit with their tax
dollars.

The last business plan had the post
office reducing the deficit in other
ways too. You remember those
postage increases, don’t you? Why
it seems like just five years ago or so
that a stamp cost a paltry 17 cents.

BUTTING OUT THE FREE ENTERPRISE WAY — 1

Let business decide on smok

CIGARETTE SMOKERS are now an endangered species.

No smoking zones have been
established in hospitals, office
buildings, recreational! centres, shop:
ping malls, and other places of
public congregation. Cities and
municipalities from coast to coast
have amended their health by-laws so
as to further proscribe the limits
within which smoking is still allow-
ed. In many cases, outright bans
have been imposed.

Tobacco product advertising has
long been severely limited, and there
are now calls from otherwise respec-
table quarters, for its outright
elimination. Federal Health and
Welfare Minister Jake Epp has even
gone so far as to suggest that is
government would soon prohibit
smoking on a country-wide basis.

The reason for this spate of activi-
ty is not hard to discern. Smoking
has long been regarded as harmful
to those who indulge themselves in
this habit. But recent medical

By WALTER BLOCK
Fraser Institute, Vancouver

evidence would now appear to in-
dicate that people who inhabit the
same (enclosed) rooms as do the
smokers are also endangered by the
secondary effects of this practice.

it may be rather hypocritical for
a government which still subsidizes
tobacco growers to climb onto the
anti-smoking bandwagon, and even
attempt to lead the parade, but in the
furor to wipe out this ‘vile’? habit,
logical consistency has been one of
the first victims.

There are basically two ways to
solve the problem of smoking. One
is by government fiat, and the second
is by allowing the institutions of the
free enterprise system to deal with
the problem. Unfortunately, the
political leaders of our society are so
philosophically rccustomed to using

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

ae ety

SUNDAY + WEDNESDAY - F Dav
1139 Lonscale Ave.
North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

57,656 (avetage Nednesduy
Fosay B® Suncinps

Sure it’s a tough job running an
organization that must serve such a
huge, underpopulated country.

But why is the government even
looking at cutting back service when
there are gaping holes in the produc-
tivity picture which could profitably
be closed.

And what about Canada Post's
new management? Do they honest-
ly believe that the way to salvage a
service-based business is to cut back
on service?

legislation as a bludgeon fer all dif-
ficulties, that the second type of solu-
tion has never even been publicly
contemplated. Indeed, it is no
exaggcration to say that most peo-
ple have never even heard of it. How,
then, would the market deal with the
problem of smoking?

Although it is always risky to an-
ticipate the workings of a free
marketplace, one scenario would
have each business firm deciding for
itself whether or not to impose a
smoking ban, and if so, of what
type. Some might allow smoking in
all areas, at all times. Others might
set aside special zones, which might
vary with the time of day or day of
the week. Still others might be temp-
ted to deal with the problein in ways
that are not yet known.

Given this panoply of different
smoking rules at different establish-
ments, customers would then sort
themselves out accordingly. They
would patronize those which pleas-

PSR Cae

NGEL WRIGHT - ”
ON VACATION ~

Display Advertising 980-0511
Classified Advertising 986-6222
Newsroom 985-2131
Distribution 986-1337
Subscriptions

WELL GVE'EM ANOTHER
FEY DANS ......TH
HEAD SOUR...

Where is the discussion of ways to
cut absenteeism among postal
workers which runs double the na-
tional average for private sector
employces in comparable jobs?

Where is the managemen! agenda

for a more sensible approach to us-
ing part-time and casual labor, in-
stead of being cowed by union
demands that push the overtime bills
into the stratosphere?

Is it being too cynical to think that

”

ed them most, and by so doing, they
would reward and penalize the
business concerns imposing them.
Firms, in other words, would now
compete with one another not only
with regard to their primary good or
service (restaurant, department
store, etc.) but also as pertains to the
smoking rules they have set up.

And the same analysis applies to
the work place. There would be an
“invisible hand”’ in operation here,
too, guiding employers t< set up
smoking rules which would best suit
their respective employees. How
would this work?

Let us suppose that a given in-
dustry is composed of people who
are avid anti-smokers. Allowing this
practice to take place cn the factory
premises, even in small and strictly
limited areas, would thus be for them
a strong negative non-pecuniary ef-
fect; it would be equivalent to impos-
ing upon them any other undesirable
working condition.

Publisher:
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Advertising Director

Entre contents *
: 1986 North Shore
Free Press Ltd All

woes Fights reserved

ie all too familiar

this idea of every-third-day delivery
is a trial balloon — albeit a lead one
— aimed at softening up the public
so that when five-day-week service is
retained we'll all be filled with
gratitude?

Let's hope not.

Let’s hope the postal heavy
thinkers come up with more ideas
such as franchising postal stations,
another option apparently being
kicked around now, but one that has
some potential.

Let’s hope Canada Post manage-
ment listens to the recommendations
of the private sector task force which
studied the operation last year — and
maybe even gets tougher than the
task force in dealing with this na-
tional embarrassment.

Let's hope. But don’t hold your
breath.

ing bans

In such a case, the workers would
be more likely than otherwise to quit
and take jobs elsewhere. They would
only maintain their former high at-
tachment to their present employer
if compensated for this — by higher
pecuniary wages. In such circum-
stances, it would clearly be to the in-
teres: of the firm to prohibit smok-
ing throughout the premises.

Now consider a business concern
which employs people who are quite
oblivious to the dangers of smoking.
A ban on the practice in this case
would be viewed as an undesirable
working condition, just the opposite
of its interpretation in the previous
example. Here, the forces of the
market would work in the direction
of allowing the widest range for
smoking. Otherwise, t'1e employees
would be attracted elsewhere, to
places that better cateicd to their
habit.

(To be continued Sunday.)

Peter Speck
Noel Wright
Barrett Fisher