a 6 — Wednesday, June 5, 1991 - North Shore News Post mortem HE RECENT reprieve from post- age rate hikes afforded Canada’s rural community newspapers by the federal government represents only a tem- porary break in the pounding being dished out to small newspapers by Ottawa and _Canada Post. Communications Minister Perrin Beatty announced last week that the 420% hike in postage rates for community newspapers would be delayed until the spring. The rate hike results from an earlier federal government decision to drop the special postal rates offered commusity newspapers, a move decried by all ticse who value community newspapers for ine vehicles of free speech and local news they provide. The reprieve only temporarily commutes death sentences for many of the country’s small and marginally profitable publications. But skyrocketing postal rates are enly one weapon in Canada Post’s assault on Canada’s free enterprise newspapers. Even move insidious is Canada Post’s campaign to pirate the delivery of advertis- ing flyers from the marketpiace. Community newspapers, wiich must compete in the seal world of the free enterprise marketplace, are currently lock- ed in a battle to maintain their share of flyer delivery business against a Crown corporation behemoth that can use the revenues exacted from taxpayers and first-class mail to subsidize flyer delivery and steal the business and income from community newspapers and, ultimately, communities themselves. Canada Post was set up to deliver the mail, not knockout punches to Canadian free enterprise. BC. voters want referendums Dear Editor: British Columbians are fed up with politicians forcing Jaws on them which they oppose — and -they want a change. That’s the clear message in a recent poll of 800 B.C. voters by the Angus Reid Group, commis- sioned by The National Citizens’ Coalition. The results show that an over- whelming majority want the right to decide major public policy issues directly, through citizen- initiated referendums. In response to one question, 80% of B.C. voters said they would like to have used a citizen- initiated referendum to vote di- rectly «n the Goods and Services Tax; 77% would have liked to have voted on the Meech Lake Accord and 78% wished they could have voted directly on the Free Trade agreement. The poll also shows that B.C. voters —- by an amazing 10 to one margin — would be more likely to support a political party that em- braced citizen-initiated —referen- dums. Clearly, the peopie of British Columbia want their voices heard and heeded. Last year, the B.C. government introduced a_ bill providing for government-initiated referendums. We urge your readers to write to Premier Rita Johnston and ask her to do the right thing and in- troduce a bill providins for initia- tives in B.C. David Somerville President The National Citizens’ Coalition Publisher : : Peter Speck Display Advertising 980-0514 = Distribution 986-1337 North Snare Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscuptions 986-1337 Associate Editor. Noel Wright Advertising Director Linda Stewarl Comptroller . Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an Tt vases oF moar 0 neat wemcouvEn Classitied Advertising 986-6222 Fax 985-3227 Newsroom 985-2131 «Administration 985-2131 MEMBER independent suburban newspaper and qualified - ‘shore under Schedule 111, Paragraph I!! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Weanesday. Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid and Gistrbuted to every door on [ha North Sho: ‘Sewanee Second Class Mai! Registration Number 3885 Subscnuptions North and West Vancouvel, $25 per 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, i cs, SN a AS SF as 504 DIVISION year. Mailing tales availamle on request Submissions ate welcome Dut we Cannat accept North Vancouver, BC responsibilty far ungoleied matena! inciudng V7M 2H4 61,582 (average circulation Wednesday. Friday & Sunday) manuscnpis and pictures which shoulda be accompanied by a stamped. atic:essed enveiope Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Pross Lid Ali rights reserved Lunatics hatch cross-border sales tax plan PREMIER RITA Johnston faces quite enough prodlems without the latest bird-brained scheme hatched by Trade Ministry bureaucrats to help them keep looking busy. They want to charge B.C. resi- dents the 6% provincial sales tax on goods bought in the U.S. The brilliant plan is for Canada Customs, after taking its own pound of flesh from returning shoppers, to pass on the names of its victims to the B.C. govern- ment. Victoria will then bill the latter for the amount of sales tax due. All perfectly legal, of course. If you order something from an On- tario firm, you must add the 6% B.C. tax to your cheque. Alter- natively, the firm will add it to your VISA. On the other hand, you don’t pay Ontarto sales tax. But cross- border shoppers have already paid the Washington State sales tax by the time they get back to the customs port. So right away there’s an obvious unfairness overlooked by the heavy thinkers whe devised ‘free trade.’’ The peri-pushers managed to convert unfairness into bureaucratic luna- cy. Items bought in the States by British Columbians are counted in the thousands daily. Consider, then, the $14 tablecloth you buy in Bellingham as a gift for Aunt Maude. Weeks later you receive a gov- ernment bill for 98 cents — delivered to you at a cost of 43 cents for the postage alone (in- cluding GST). So what happens when you sensibly consign it to the garbage bag with the junk mail? Would they keep on billing you, adding overdue interest monthly to the 98 cents? Would they stop your ICBC until you paid? Would they finally hau! you into court or unleash the bailiffs on you? Even if you splurged $140 below the border, all caught and reported by customs, in how many cases would paltry $10 sums ‘‘ow- ed”’ to Victoria ever be collected without squandering hundreds or even thousands of tax dollars in civil service time and legal! costs? And what about the many smail purchases Canada Customs itself never catches? Yesterday brought the welcome news that Trade Minister Howard Dirks at last seems to be awaken- BASHIR JAFFER... teaching multicults about the United Way. Noel Wright HITHER AND YON ing to the idiotic implications of the scheme. ‘‘The main target,’" he now says, will be truckloads of goods “brought across the border by common carriers.”’ So hopefully you'll hear nothing from Mr. Dirk’s boys after all about Aunt Maude’s tablecloth, even though sales tax is legally due from you. But don’t yet count on it com- pletely. As long as Canada Customs files you name with Vic- toria, who knows what some bu- reaucrat may do one day to while away the time? TAILPIECES: Saturday, June 8, brings a great new ‘‘fun’’ way to dump all your junk profitably — and for buyers to find treasures -among it — while helping a wor- thy cause. Just drive your overloaded chariot to St. Monica's Car Trunk Sale at Gleneagles School lower field (Marine Drive near Horseshoe Bay) by 9:30 a.m. and operate your own ‘‘store’’ until 2 p.m. The $10-per-car seli- er’s fee is refunded in return for a tax-deductible donation of 25% of your sales for St. Monica’s outreach programs. Pre-register by calling 921-9370 or 921-8757, or pay at the gate ... East of the Capilano Saturday is also Edge- mont Village Day with all the traditional hoop-la, including the / North Van Kiwanis Club’s pan- cake breakfast from 9 a.m. to noon at the Edgemont Chevron Station ... Chairing the first multicultural committee of the United Way is North Van Chartered Accountant Bashir Jaf- fer. The group’s job is to promote the UW among new immigrants unfamiliar with this North Ameri- can concept ... Annual elections to the Lions Gate Hospital Board take place at next Wednesday's a.g.m. You can look the can- didates in the eye this Thursday, June 6, at 8:30 p.m. on Shaw TV Cable 4... And from the Better Late Dept. birthday greetings to West Van’s Margaret Dalton who turned 80 on Monday, June 3. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Solving problems can sometimes be easier than living with the solutions. AMEE EO A