6 ~ Wednesday, February 17, 1999 ~ North Shore News

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

ORTH Shore communication

skills need an upgrade. Look

no further than the Feb. 7
News for an illustration as to why.

The Squamish Band __ recently
announced a massive 318-unit housing
project for band members, which is
good news. The trouble is that some
major local players were surprised by
the project. West Vancouver Mayor Pat
Boname, for example, apparently knew
nothing about it.

So what say you? What happens on
Squamish reserve land is the business
of the Squatnish. That it is, but it is
also of keen interest to the North
Shore’s surrounding municipalities
who will be supplying the Squamish
with such infrastructure services as
water, police and fire.

The issue is further exacerbated by
the imminent passage through the fed-

eral parliament of Bill C-49. The legis-
lation will give the Squamish the
power to control development on its
reserve lands without having to go
through Ottawa. But it doesn’t require
the band to consult with municipal
neighbours over the development of its
reserve land code or any major devel-
opment plans. In effect, it provides for
an independent nation within a nation.

The Municipal Act requires munici-
palities to consult with their neigh-
bours if they are planning develop-
ments on bordering lands. That
requirement ensures that development
surprises are kept to a minimum.

Communication is the key to ensur-
ing the North Shore remain a harmo-
nious place to work and live for both
native and non-native residents. Bill C-
49 does ncihing to promote that har-
mony.

2)

THEN'VE GONE

gout

mailbox

Paint job shouldn't
he a transit priority

Dear Editor:

As a consistent 8.C. Transit user, I’m always curious and,
quite frankly, frequently disgusted by the lack of common
sense by those who are “in control” of this operation.

For example, for the past week or so, I have noticed curi-
ous alj-white “ghost” buses floating around Phibbs
Exchange. I asked a few drivers what was hapoening, and
was told the first step of the transition for B.C. Transit to
GVRD was a new colour scheme for the buses and new uni-
forms for the drivers.

Of course, how stupid of me not to realize that common-
sense things like a serious review on improving routes, badly
‘needed beefed-up security and maybe a pay raise for the long
suffering transit operators (who have to bear so much pub-
lic abuse) would not be top of the list! I have to remember
I five in “LoonyLand B.C.”

1 did a rough calculation while I await the actual costs
from B.C. Transit, and this is what I guess: Approximately
800 buses throughout the Lower Mainland, cust of painting
each bus $1,000 equals $800,000. Two thousand drivers,
cost of uniform for a year ($500) equals $1,000,000. Total
cost: $2. million. I will be willing to ber big bucks that my
estimate is well below the actual cost.

We are supposed to be in a recession, but what the hey,

‘ou and I are so wiiling to keep aying, paying and paying.
Maybe you should let your MLA know you have had
cnough, and since they are so goad at hiding (I’m willing to
wager a bet that over 50% of the peonie do not even know
who their MLAs are) I will tell you: North Vancouver-
Lonsdale, Katherine Whittred; North Vancouver-Seymour,
Daniel Jarvis; West Vancouver-Capilano, Jeremy Dalton;
West Vancouver-Garibaldi, Ted Nebbcling.

* Let them finally work for their pay cheques as much as
you and I work for ours. .
Sue Cook

North Vancouver

‘north shore’
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3. independent suburban newspaper and quahted

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Ud. and disthibuted to every door on the North «

WILE 45,

‘Bottom-line’ gov't now the goal?

DON'T hold your breath for
Preston Manning’s “United
Alternative” convention this
weekend in Ottawa to achieve
much beyond some
high-sounding

blasts of hot air.

The goal is
admirable: the creation
of a right-of-centre party
or coalition capable of
defeating the Liberals,
the “natural governing
party” in power for 68
of the past 99 years. Nor
can Reform leader
Manning be faulted for
his personal efforts — declaring his will-
ingness even to lay the Reform name and
his own leadership on the fine, if this
could give Canadians 3 viable govern-
ment-in-waiting.

The party pooper, of course, is Tory
leader Joe Clark who has flatly rejected all
pleadings by Manning and even Tory

arty members involved in the, UA to at
east attend the convention, where he’s
been offered prime time TV coverage.
Clark — his fifth-place party with 19
Commons seats to Reform’'s 58 —
regards Reformers as dinosaurs deserving
the same fate, and his own decimated,
debt-plagued Progressive Conservative
rump as the sole conceivable alternative
to the wicked Grits.

There’s more to the issue, however,
than a simple spat between party leaders.
For starters, small ‘c’ conservative voters
— the target of the UA drive — tend to
be much more individualistic than cen-

PETER SPECK
Publisher Human Resources Manager
2131 (101 ) S8S-2131 (177)

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Va ‘Stepbectot
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Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Alt rights teserved.

trist and left-wing voters. The latter make
betrer ream players. The former more
often march to their own private drum-
mers. Liberal and NDP supporters can be
highly pragmatic about principles if that -
serves their party. For
Tories and, in particu-
lar, Reformers, princi-
ples tend to be non-
negotiable.
Which leads to a tough.
question for policy
wonks like Manning
and Clark. Do the
political terms “right”
and “left” in relation to
“centre” any longer
have any real meaning,
for today's educated,
well-informed vorers? Have voters already
moved well beyond the idealized self-por-
traits with which political parties try to
woo them? Is their primary interest now
simply COMPETENT government of
whatever stripe, serving with maximum
efficiency its citizens’ practical needs and
wishes? [n short, has the electorate
become deaf to idcological pitches?
Consciously or subconsciously, does it
now judge government like sharcholders
judge a corporation — purely by the
“bottom-line” economic and social divi-
dends it pays in return for the “shares”
they buy in it at the ballot box?

You can’t put bread on the table or
pay the mortgage with noble policy pro-
nouncements. Which may expiain why
the Liberals with their highly flexible
principles — promising (and sometimes
appearing to deliver) ail things to all peo-
ple — have ruled us for almost seven of
the past 10 decades.

So what the UA gabfest delegates will
really be talking about (though they may
not know it) is not about replacing a lett-
centre government with a right-ceatre
government. The true issue this weekend
in Ottawa will be how to launch a new
political “corporation” capable of giving
Canada’s electoral “shareholders” a better
economic and social “bottom line” than
Chretien: & Associates Inc.

Even if they succeeded, the task of
selling the new, more rewarding offering
to the electorate in the next two years —
with Reform and Tories each presently
mired at around 12% in the polls —
would be daunting.

If Joe Clark persuades most of his
party co hold out, label ic “Mission
Impossible.”

So what’s the UA's only long-term
hope? That Chretien & Associates Inc.
niake catastrophic blunders in the next
two years. And that Joe may yet follow
Paul on the road to Damascus.

aoa

BRIT SENIORS who immigrated after
retirement could learn something to their
advantage at ovo information meetings
being held by the Canadian Alliance of
British Pensioners in West Van Seniors
Centre, 21st and Marine, Saturday, Feb.
20, at 11 a.m. and again at 2 pm. wee
Meanwhile, wish happy birthday tomor-
row, Feb.18, to North Van Kiwanian
Wally Mulfigan ... And the same again
tomorrow to North Van’s bureaucracy-
fighting Seven Seas skipper Diamond

mas at 60.

- 000

WRIGHT OR WRONG: One sure way
to get into trouble is to be right a¢ the
wrong time.

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