6 ~ Friddy; Maren 1; 1996 ~ North "1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, 3.C. PETER SPECK Publisher 989-2131 (101) " Sales & Marketing Director Managing Editor 880-0511 (219) “905-2181 {116) Siscercam Pox & Réein Cities Fax , Math Shere Mowe, founded Jn 1969 as an indeperdent suburban newspaper end quulified under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the » Eache Tax Act, fs published each Wednesday, Fridsy and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. und distributed to every dour on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Msil Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. aaa i Coritetneti ds oe Entire contents © 1996 North Shore Frea Press Ltd. -. All rights reserved. A Shore News aR og : signe . CASH. ones ee es , H ied T MUST be contract time on the B.C. education front. The B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) is rolling out the big public relations guns to sell their story io the B.C. pubtic. Main target for the teachers union: choice in education. Initial financial out- lay: $1.6 million. The advertising campaign kicked off Feb. 23 and is scheduled to run two months. Along the way it will attempt to convince parents that the public school: system is doing a great job. No need for charter schools or other threats to the BCT education monopoly, is the message underlying thé campaign. -.§MALL-TOWN CHARM. ' Smalt-town neighboriiness. ‘ ‘That was the good feeling generated by the B.C. Winter Games in North Vancouver last weekend. Having paid $117 — no, that’s not a misprint — for a pair of super-suite tickets to watch the Vancouver Canucks (fortu- nately on one of their better nights) this season, I couldn't help but notice the good value the Games spectators received. The cost of their shoe-leather. Thad time for only a brief !ook-in — 1 was basy gutting my home office, a task that re-cre- ated the conditions of the Saskatchewan Dust Bowl of the 1930s. But that small sample was delightful. It was entertaining — and excruciating — to watch pretty, and doubtless terribly tense, young girls doing their figure-skating stuff, Lots of falls. Like life itself. (1 really felt for the embar- rassed girl who skated on to the ice and fella few feet from the boards — just skating in a straight line.) Why do human beings insist on doing things the body wasn't designed for? Sheer courage, maybe. And | was astonished that Saturday afternoon some 60 spectators were absorbed watching ‘curling -—- a game I rate second only to waich- ing dust settle on a home office in sheer excite- ment. - : It’s a cliche, but the Games could only hap- _ pen through the contribution of dozens of busi- nesses and volunteers, like business furniture mogul Colin Cameron, who incidentally made a Trevor Leutens He Es But it is going to take much more ‘than slick advertising and spin-doc- ‘tored pie charts.to convince parents that they need not worry about public education. . On the North Shore, for example, one local school board has already. been fired for failing to do away with a stag- gering budget deficit that has far more to do with. the contract structure of B.C.’s unionized school system than the management thereof. The BCTF is fighting a desperate bat- tle to keep the forces of education choice fromm being heard and being considered. BCTF president Alice McQuade has” hilarious remark about righteous politicians: “If they don’t smoke and they don’t drink, I always wonder if they hang around school yards with candy'i in their ~ pockets.” There's no dust on that lad, who, come to think of it, is $ from Saskatchewan. ; oe... Meanwhile, West Vancouver is occupied with drier but also worthy matters, Like designating Lower Caulfeild as a conserva- tion area. This gorgeous slip of land is one, or Greater Tiddlycove's quiet delights — more English than England, or anyway most of England today, — It has a wonderful cohesion and sense of continuity, cosily nestled around St. Francis-in- the-Wood Church. Which is, appropriately, Anglican, Town council seems unanimous about pre- serving Lower Caulfeild's character through a process marshalled by planner Laura Lec Richard. : ; Essentially, it interjects into the normal build- ing permit process the approval of any alteration by an advisory panel. Good idea. This is no place for the New Barbarian Rich who have defaced sa much of the Vancouver area, including our own town, with their bloated tasteless monuments to their own supposed success. And here's a funny historical note, new to me: The area, when purchased in 1899 by Francis Caulfeild — not the saint named in the . church, but near enough — bore the deflating moniker, Skunk Cove. Dear me. Not in Greater Tiddlycove. We ™ =< Hewpeint Oy ae Fag Se Pee SP been quoted as saying, “We! re, not against people who want choice. We're against people who say there is no. choice.” Educated doubletalk. » 2. in many instances, public education does the job, but in many instances’it « doesn’t come close. The BCTF can shoy-, el as much of its members’ funds away as it wants on advertising’ campaigns. selling the mediocre. product of public: education. But. the exercise: does not now public education has nO- compet ‘tion. And it needs it desperately pays in.one year: “$139,035 to .Viking ship (29 faxpayer. #1 $500,000 to Nevtoun a He hole x , taxpayer years). g 18,214 for a fens _ Seen on Marine Drive, week b A ‘pedestrian gingerly beg (well-marked) pedestrian cross valk just west of: Park Royal at rush hour, ;: : " Your reporter dutifully braked his chariot toa ” stop in the curb lane. * » Whereupon two luxury cars, a Lexus‘and. z:) Jag, imperiously barged right by without even, slowing up.-and despite hom ‘music from said chariot to wart both the pedestrian and the mis. creants, ! Well, I was mad enough that I flashed amy. lights at both. And, as it happened, F caught up to them when the 13th, Street tralfic light’ turned ' The Lexus was driven bya young Oriental , woman, with Oriental female companion. The! Jaguar, was driven by an elderiy (meaning, by. my definition these days, almost as old as: Tarn . Oriental raan. Know what? I wasn’t surprised (and maybe you won't be either). In fact I'd half-made'a-, mental bet with myself. that that would be so. Is this a racist commient?:Not intended. - ‘The harsh fact is that there; sa fot of it. Be ing” : around these days. And J don’t blame the drivers — who of : course may have been i in Cariada for five genera~ tions, and thet: <:7ain are more likely to be” among thé/a\any sewcomers to these shores — ‘so much as {a} the driving schools and (b) the driver's test officials. Both are obviously not firmly stressing t that we have pedestrian rights here, and that, more.“ broadly, good driving requires not only technical ability “but is also about “reading” the traffic, around you, judgnient — and manneis. ©" Enough said? Hope so: