News WE'VE GOT THE BEST YET, AIDS IS HEALTH CARE SYSTEM SPREADING IN THE WORLD © : & LAY-OFFS AND LUNEMPLOYMENT ARE. RISING MORTGAGE AND LENDING RATES ARE. FALLING LIKE WILD-FIRE ENVIRONMENTAL “THE FOREST AWARENESS INDUSTRIES IS GROWING = ARE. SUFFERING So ARE Two BUuS-LOADS OF RELATIVES FROM BACK EAST CHARI STMAS ( COMING GIRDAL HE NDP government’s rush to [ vanquish the evil Bill 32 Compensa- tion Fairness Act looks increasingly ‘ill-considered. ‘The bill allowed compensation commis- sioner Ed Lien to roll back any public- ,Sector wage settlements he deemed to be excessively out of line with. private-sector ‘wage settlements. ” Although its aim was laudable — to put - ‘some’ controls on public sector wage set- ‘tlements and spending :-—. the Socred gov- ernment must surely have sealized that Bill 82 would be highly provocative lesislation. -”. But the NDP’s action to torpedo Bill 82 has left Iecal school beards kolding the fi- nancial bag. Nerth Vancouver's District 44, for example, is facing a $5.5 million deficit, having spent the money it thought it had saved after Lien rejected . the: district’s « collective. agreement -with its | A bad bill made worse unionized teachers. And West Vancouver’s District 45, whick had previously managed to avoid the Bill 82 quagmire because its teachers had signed a contract before the legislation became law, faces a smaller but still significant deficit because its teachers’ contract was based in part on settlements in other districts that were affected by Bill 82. The NDP’s solution to allow school boards to run 2% deficits is ill-conceived: the 2% will not cover District 44’s short- fall and it raises the legitimate question from those districts that have not run def- icits as to why they too should not get more. money. The only sure thing that will come out of the Bill 82 mess is that tax- payers will foot the bill and education will suffer again. “LETTER OF THE DAY ‘Christ. the reason for the season Dear Editor: soos I could not agree more with Helen Brown of North Vancouver who bemoans the fact. that Christmas greeting cards are in- creasingly leaving out any mention of Christmas. Amen, amen! Isn't this the season of Christ’s Publisher Managing Editor Associate Editor. . Peter Speck imothy Renshaw ...-Noel Wright birth? Christ is the reason for the season. So why do millions. of cards come spewing forth inanely babbling about ‘‘Happy Holi- days,’’ ‘‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘“‘Winter Break’’? It’s sickening. I can count on one hand now the cards which have any mention Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 965-6962 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Su Distribution Fax of Christmas in them. Is this some dastardly plot to exyunge everything Christian out of cards? 1 am so fed up that 1 now make my own cards;] am_ celebrating CHRISTmas. Dulcie Baxter West Vancouver 986-1337 Gay 986-1337 § 985-3227 North Shore scriptions managed Our jobless and Gorby share a . common problem ‘FATE HAS 2 quaint sense of humor. How else to interpret the close link between Mikhail Gorbachev’s praiseworthy goal and the some three million Canadians whom that same goal is now badly huriing? Gorbachev, until almost yester- day the second most powerful man in the world, suddenly finds hiniself irrelevant, presiding over an empire that’s ceased to exist. The prime reason is perestroika — his bid to free his people from 70 years of communist economic bondage and give them all the blessings of a market system. The three million-odd Cana- dians — 1.4 million jobless on UI plus their families and unknown thousands who've simply given up seeking non-existent work — are the victims of precisely the above blessings. So far perestroika has been a disaster. It has brought Soviet cit- izens only block-long line-ups scrabbling at empty stores fora loaf of bread or a few potatoes, when available at all. This winter it threatens millions of them with, actual starvation. Today’s Canadian victims are obviously better off than that. But they’re still suffering badly rela- tive to the benefits our system is supposed to promise everyone. And the basic problem both here and in the rapidly disintegrating U.S.S.R. is the same. The free market economy de- veloped since the Industrial Revo- tution in western countries has eventually given a lot of their people, for much of the time, the highest living standards in history. But it still has two serious defects. First, you can’t transplant it overnight to societies starting trom scratch, because a handful of smart-off-the-mark operators will always rob their neighbors blind until the latter wake up and smell the coffee. Gorbachev has always recognized this. That’s why he is now being sidelined by Yeltsin and other radical reformers, who delude themiselves they can complete in a couple of years 4 job that took the west a couple of centuries. Nasty sur- prises await them. Second, wherever market economies fuelled by free enter- prise are established, they con- sistently follow a boom-and-bust rollercoaster course. When the rollercoasier dips, most riders manage to hang on but quite a number always fall off and get severely bruised. At the root of both defects, of course, is simply human greed. So the ultimate question becomes . HITHER AND YON this: What kind of compromise between unbridled free enserprise . and public control over its ex- cesses can best smooth the ride, while preserving — in Russia’s case, creating —- the human incen- tives and energy vital to keep the economy moving? : From Moscow to Manitoba the. . truth, as usual, is that there ARE no economic problems. Only peo- ple problems. : ene YULELINES: Tenor-comedian Roland Hunter enteriains tonight, Friday, Dec. 13, at Sitver Harbour Centre's second Christmas Dinner starting at $:30 p.m. — cali $80- - E374 for any remaining reserva- tions... West Van Presbyterian Cisch, 2893 Marine Dr., is sell- ing holly, baking and crafts from © 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow Saturday, Dec. 14, with coffee and muffins for all... Sunday, Dec. 15, at the “Silk Purse,’’ 1570 Argyle Ave., West Van Aris Council holds its Christmas Party © from 6:30 p.m. with a delicious ‘supper as you watch the Carol Ships sail by, plus entertainment, and dcor prizes — phone Lynn Flipse, 922-1110 to book... And happy birthday wishes tomorrow, | - Dec. 14, to West Van Kiwanian Jeff White. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Good ideas not acted on are as useless as bad ones. Advertising Director ...Linda Stewart Newsroom 985-2131 Administration 985-2131 Comptroiier Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an MEMBER independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Scheduis 111, Pas: graph Hl of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Ey SN’ . Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and . 4 = distzibuted to every door on the North Shore. . . . : Second Class Mait Reaietration Number 38585. = Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, ~~ SDA DIVISION North Vancouver, B.C. : year. Mailing rates available on request. V7M 2H4 Submisstons are weicome but we cannot accept Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. ‘Ties VONCE OOF ORTH Ade WEST VANCOUVER NEWS photo Mike Mranetield and terminally ill children finds (left to right) NV paramedic-Glenn Braithwaite, RCMP Cpl. Peter Farnell and Cst. Barry.Hicks entertaining young Luke Thomas. SUNSHINE FOUNDATION party for disabled responsipility for unsolicited material including 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope.