6 - Wednesday, Ju 2 pe Clee pr Ko we \ ee KNOCK IT OFF KIDS... » NOURE ACTING LIKE NEWS VIEWPOINT Dingbat demands gy MIVEN THE opportunity to digest ysome of the demands on the (able in Bihe current contract negotiations between District 44 and the North Van- couver Teachers Association, most private-sector employees would have a tough time working up much sympathy for District 44 teachers. They also might have a tough time comprehending how the union’s oft- vaunted battle for children’s education quality has any connection with the list of union demands contained in a May 17 Board Bargaining Newsletter. The newsletter stated that the two sides had reached agreement on a!! but 27 of the 119 articles in the current contract. Contentious union demands include hav- ing the cash-strapped District 44 board provide up to six days paid leave for a teacher upon the death of a close friend OF and up to two months paid leave for teacher distress brought on by a job- related crisis; class-size reductions that, according to board calculations, would total $13.5 million; provision for a teacher to be given experience credit to qualify for salary increases and seniority for up to two years while on child-care leave; provision for the board not only to pay 100% of the costs for providing substitute teachers for 35 days for six union bargainers, but to pay 50% of those costs beyond that 35-day period. The issue of wages, according to the newsletter, will not be discussed by the teachers’ union until all of the foregoing issues and more have been settled. Upon such unrealistic demands, then, does the future of North Vancouver education and the quality of focal classrcom instruction hinge. cuavatirs Wages pet issue of ‘the misinformed’ Dear Editor: I was. disappointed in Bob Hunter’s article in the Wednesday, May 19 edition entitled ‘‘Educa- tion system needs the attention.”’ Disappointed because yet anotner columnist falsely simplifizs the issues between school boards and teachers to one of wages. The author cites a ‘‘true story” in which a child has purportedly slipped through the cracks of the Had he taken the time to read the enclosed brochure (published by the North Vancouver Teachers Association) he would understand that teachers are asking for con- tract articles that would prevent such scenarios. The three key issues outlined in the brochure are realistic class sizes, resources for special needs students, and specialist support services. Unfortunately, the word “wages’’ has become a pet issue dressed by Vancouver Sun colum- nist Douglass Todd in ‘‘To tell the Truth,” Jan. 9. Todd discusses the ethical re- sponsibility journalists assume when reporting. He cites Vincent Di Norcia, a media ethics pro- fessor at the University of Sud- bury: “The key test is whether the copy you’re producing is true to the event you’ve investigated.’ ‘Clearly, Bob Hunter has failed the test. public school system. Perhaps Hunter fails to see the irony of his article. : ethical The article Publisher Managing Editor Associate Editor Sales & Marketing Director Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore News, founded :n 1969 as an Independent suburban newspaper and qualitied under Schedule 111, Paragraph Wi ot the Excise Tax Act. is published each Wednesday, Friday and .Sunday by Notih Shore Free Press Lid. and distnbuled to every dour on the Norih Shore Canada Post Canadian Publications Mai Sales Product Aqreemant No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Submussions ie welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited maternal inciuaing manusenpts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stumped, addressed envelope. Peter Speck Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Newsroom V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax THE VOICE 08 RORTH AND WENT WANT OUY EF of uninformed columnists. raises a question previously ad- David Barnum Gibsons serious Distribution 986-1337 Gey Subscriptions 986-1337 ARS tris newspaoer 985-3227 contains Administration 985-2131 5 recycled fibre ~——+ MEMBER <> SR 980-0511 985-2131 Say emtonenDAT mony b 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, © North Vancouver, B.C. SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday} Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved. rums pol POLITICS WILL never become an honorable profession until we end the blackmailing of governments and politi- cians by “special interests." As with private individuals, the only wiy for governments and politicians to end blackmailing is to refuse fo pay. But if you're ac- customed — as are every govern- ment and politician in the and — to BUYING votes, that’s easier said than done. Canada today is rife with polit- ical blackmailers ~ from bankrupt industrial projects, Crown corporations and underde- veloped regions of the country to labor, multicult, feminist, welfare and scores of other milstant single-issue groups. All clamoring for handouts of taxpayers’ dollars or other favors in rciurn for their support. : Individually, some may be rela- tively small compared with the noise they generate. But collective ty, the sum of their votes ap- parently is enough to scare any government into caving in to their demands. This ongoing, immensely costly blackmail has not only landed us in today's perilous debt crisis. Worse stil!, it subverts democracy. which in the end is always greater than the sum of its parts. That fact was proven beyond all doubt by last fall’s referendum on the Charlottetown Accord — backed by many powerful special-interest groups from labor leaders to the entire business establishment, yet resoundingly defeated by the ‘‘silent majority”’ coast to coast. How do we stop.this special- interest blackmail which has brought the nation to the verge of financial ruin and is the root cause of today’s public disgust with the entire political process? Obviously, the only way is to stop special-interest handouts and favors altogether. If governments simply refuse handouts and favors to ALL such minorities, ballot- box blackmail becomes impossi- ble. This is a guiding principle in the Reform party plan to eliminate the federal deficit in three years. it would end or drastically cut regional development grant pro- grams, ‘‘bail-outs”’ and tax breaks for business, and subsidies for Crown corporations and special-interest groups of every kind. Why, ask the Reformers, should taxpayers fund business projects Noel Wright ASS: 4 HITHER AND YON so shaky that business itself won't finance them? And why should - special-interest lobbies rob the public purse instead of raising their own funding from the people they claim to represent? Whether Preston Manning and his followers -- given the power — would actually have the guts to carry through their drastic nev fiscal concept is another matter, of course. @aeo SIGN-OFF: The North Van ; branch of Met Hurtig’s new Nae . tienal Party of Canada will be of- . ficially born tonight, Wednesday, at 7:30 p.m. in the Leo Marshall Curriculum Centre, 810 West 24th St., with the party’s B.C./Yukon president Brian Smith in the chair. ... Last call for the West-Van | Chamber of Commerce Presi- dent’s Dinner Tuesday, June 8, in the Hollyburn Club — traditional- ly the most entertaining a.g.m. on the North Shore calendar'with pollster Angus Reid as this year’s guest speaker. Call 926-6614 by June 4, LATEST to book. ... En- tries are still being accepted for North Van’s June 26 Canada Day Parade up Lonsdale — details and entry forms from Gord, 929-7033. ... And birthday greetings Thurs- day, June 3, to West Van's Margaret Dalton. . eee WRIGHT OR WRONG: Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else. (Thank you, Oliver Wendell ; Holmes!) , . NEWS photo Paul McGrath PROUD RECIPIENTS last month of their All Round Cords were 24th Seymour Troop Girl Guides Cara Valli, Christina Park, Katheriee Merrie, Arieanna Foley, Lindsay Pinkerton, Christina Baxter, Anne Nae and Kirsten Talic.