Shore Free Press {td., Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avence Worth Vancouver, B.C., 7M 214 PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) Linda Stewart Sales & Mexcting Director $80-0511 (315) 9880-0511 (103) Distribution Manager Creative Services Manager 986-3337 (124) 985-2131 (1 : canes 985-2131 908-0611 Accounting & Mela Office Fax Barkee-News 985-2131 (114) 885-2191 (147) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must include your name, full address & telephone number. VIA Intemet: trenshaw @ direct.ca North Shore News, founded in 1909 25 an mepeniaw Sdyeban newgxper and qualifed under Schedule HE, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is putisho! each Weddnesilay, Friday anal Sundsy by North Shure Free Itress Lid. and distributed to every door an the North Shore, Canad Ped Canatian Publications Mail Sales Product Agrement No. Entue cortents © 1996 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Alt rights reserved T is literally a sign of the times. business in North Vancouver City displays a sign, presumably adver- tising the wares available inside. No big deal, you say. The sign, however, is written entire- ly in Farsi. Again, no big deal. The North Shore is home to one of the largest Persian populations in Canada. Signs in Farsi, the language of Persian immigrants, would naturally reflect that population concentration. The problem is that the sign is writ- ten only in Farsi. Those who speak English, one of Canada’s two official languages, are out of luck. 5 The sign underlines the changing face of Canada and the North Shore. It also underlines the roadblocks communities face in integrating and assimilating the flood of immigration into this country. Farsi signs for Farsi folks; English signs for English folks. Not much assimilation there. And over in Surrey, battling factions of Sikhs have inflicted injury upon each other in a dispute over tables and chairs in a Sikh temple. In the process they have inflicted serious injury on the good public image of the entire Sikh community. They have imported into NDP GOVERNMENT DPoOES A Quick StTupy OF CASINO-STYLE GAMBLING 30... WHAPDA VA THINK 2 GOVERNMENT and Other Thieves Dept.: As known by anyone who is sentient and pays taxes, which certainly describes the North Shore’s middle class, not all the bandits wear masks. ’ The tax collec- tors stage holdups non-stop to fee the insatiable appetite of the big spenders in Ottawa and the other gov- ernments that relentlessly seek control of people, throttling our liberty slovly so that we won't notice, or tolerating it as long as it’s just harm- less talk that lets off social steam. Take the planned Seniors “Benefit,” another government robbery with an Orwellian name. It won't “benefit” the thrifty and the provi- dent and, yes, the lucky. On the contrary, it will check their wallets and remove what the govern- ment will deem as “excess.” More diplomatically, the replacement of Old Age Security payments (and Guaranteed Income Supplements for the less well-off) by the Seniors “Benefit” will have “a profoundly negative impact on Canadians who have saved for their renremene” and “impose a punitively high effec- tive rate of taxation” on them. So says a Canadian Real Estate Association study, the Latest to see through the Liberal government's shell game. First, to quell the anxieties of those already on pension, and anyone who turned 60 by Dec. 1, 1995, vou can opt to stick with the present system when the Seniors “Benefit” begins in 2001. (In case this piece seems selfishly motivat- ed, I’m among that fortunate lot. For now. I confidently predict worse ahead.) Also, as you’d expect from any redistributionist scheme, SB will marginally benefit, for example, a couple with present pension income of $20,000, adding $559 a year. But if the coupie has retirement income — pensions plus any other income including RRSP — of just $26,000 a year, it will lose. And lose progressively. And lose big time at, say, $70,000 a year, when the couple will be taxed $6,496 more than at present. It is, as the experts say, a dis- incentive to save for one’s old age. One such expert craftily sug- gested: So why not take out the money from your RRSP and use it to buy a condo in Florida? You reduce your Canadian income, reduce tax, and — [ think this is implied — you can rent the condo out and bank or spend the money in the U.S. Of course you must declare that income or face the penalty. Bur I suspect many people would try to find ways around thar. And B.C.’s New Democratic Party government naturally has anticipated any loophole-seeking — and is scar- ing away the affluent, especially Asians — by demanding that people declare all their foreign assets, not just income, Se Orawa will hit the usual victims: the prov- ident, the law-abiding. And } haven't space to fulminate about another outrageous squeeze: Ottawa's proposal i NEE JOHN Reynolds ... former Socred to run for Reform? Canada the religious violence that undermines quality of life in their native India. If Canada is to survive as the best country in the world in which to live those who choose to live here must leave their political and religious bag- gage behind in their native lands. Canada must be embraced for what it is: a place of tolerance, good manners and optimism — enviable characteris- tics that are currently under siege from all quarters. Those who can not or will not recognize what the country stands for shouid go elsewhere. There’s no room for them here. eres x Angry with WV arborist Dear Editor: My friends and I are both sad- dened and furious. We have just returned from what used to be a very pleasant walk along Park Lane past Secret Beach. No longer is this a pleasant walk. Several beautiful evergreen trees and maples that grew just north of Secret Beach have been beheaded. (We thought tree topping was a practice of the past.) We talked with another walker — along Park Lane. He told us that the West Vancouver arborist OK'd this massacre. If we the taxpayers of West Vancouver are paying 2 so- . calle! arborist to make these types of deasions, we are furious. We feel that us. time has come to review and possibly abolish the arborist’s West Vancouver Gov't bandits target sensible seniors — to tax even the smallest rowboat, annually. That’s why we lock up the place and fill the moat with alligators when someone knocks on the door and says: “I’m from the government, I’m here to help you.” 900 Not that private scams are any better. . Case in point. A West Vancouver residenit’s water pipes broke during the recent cold weath- — er. He got three estimates. They wildly ranged from $2,000 to a boggling $15,000. ; The latter from a contrac- tor who said he’d starr work that day. (And no wonder it’s called “take the money and run.”) The homeowner got a fourth: $1,700. But he’d have to wait a week (good compa- nies get lotsa business). He did, saving a bundle. And the work proved flawless. Let's name that honest, excellent firm: Modern Drainage, North Vancouver. Q00 Stop press: Look for former Socred heavyweight John Reynolds — fresh back from Arizona — to seek (and win) the Reform nomination in retiring Herb Grubel’s Capilano-Howe Sound riding. ~~ The North Shore News believes strongly in freedom of speech and the right of all sides in a debate to be heard. The columnists published in the News present differing points of view, but those views are not necessarily those of the newspaper itself.