G — Friday, May 2, 1987 — North Shore News

A sticky

OUND one is over in the

much-anticipated match-up

etween incumbent Reform

MP Ted White and Liberal newcomer
Warren Kinsella.

No knockout punches were landed,
but Kinsella definitely stumbled in the
first week of his bid to become North
Vancouver’s representative in Ottawa.

The Liberal contender has made
much noise zbout getting away from
‘politics-as-usual,’ yet his performance
fast Tuesday at a Capilano College
photo-op with Prime Minister Jean
Chretien- displayed some familiar tac-
tics from elections past.

Kinsella and his supporters bused in
over 100 high school students for
what he cailled a lesson in the political
process. ,

’ They got a lesson all right: politics is
a manipulative and cynical game. Just

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

the thing our next generation of voters
needs.

To identify the students involved in
the field trip, the Liberals adorned
each student with a sticker. You’d
think a Canadian flag or Vote ‘97
sticker would do the trick.

Instead, they were forced to wear
‘Youth for Kinsella’? and ‘Youth for
Peck’ (a Port Moody-Coquitlam
Liberal contender) stickers on their
clothes. No sticker, no bus ride home.

Had this group of students been
Young Liberals, no problem. But in
using impressionable teenagers to fur-
ther his political ambitions under the
guise of an educational field trip,
Kinsella displayed the cynical nature of
politics the voting public longs to put
behind it.

Round one to Reform, and White
didn’t even have to throw a punch.

. FEDERAL FLOOD RELIEF

Segmapas aes fe a a ee

ore ectoe

Stetina enn a ph AY

coer ans

vale Tonge:

Tax tension rising in West Vancouver.

( $55,000
«Eo .. press
wei

mice

‘Thursday, am

donations

. from News

readers and

” free ‘speech supporters to the,

‘find stood.:at $55,127.34.
., Donations to the North Shore
~tNews Free Speech Defence

Fund ¢an be sent to the News ,

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Speech Defence Fund.
— trenshaw@direct.ca

Mnorth shore

bee

AFTER weeks of in-camera hardball,
West Vancouver councillors have reached
agreement on the town’s property tax
rise. Or have they?

Scratch Day — when council voted informally
behind closed doors to accept the budget —
occurred fast week. Decision Day — when counci}
must vote publicly on the numbers — is Monday.

Based on my own powerful state-of-the-art lis-
tening facility, EARWAX 97, which can pick up (as
P.G. Wodehouse would say) the sound of two but-
terflies making love in a distant meadow, I suspect
that council won’ be in smooth agreement. It’s
possible that Mayor Patricia Bonamie will be forced
to cast the deciding vote in a three-three split.

Council has had to cope with a prospective bud-
get shortfall of around $3 million and the floated

. figure of a 9.5% tax rise — which ought tu have

property owners heating up the tar and plucking a
lot of fowl feathers.

Suppose council has chiselled $2 million out of
that shortfall. Suppose that the remaining $1 mil-
lion or so is still in dispute. Suppose that ratepayers
have to choose between (a) further cuts in services
or (b) a rise in taxes or (c) some combination of (a)
and (b) to account for that million.

- Some creative way might be found to do that.
Councillors might be closely scrutinizing a recent
MarkTrend report as a fair indicator of taxpayer tol-
crance of shelling out more to run our municipality
— the most lavish per-capita spender in the Lower
Mainland.

Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time that
some last-minute compromise was worked out, and
Monday’s meeting could be a snorer. The tension is
almost unbearable, isn’t it? New Westminster school
board is suing the province over underfunding.
Worth imitating?

o00

Turning now to less important politics: A federal
election has been called.

North Shore Mews, founded in 1969 2s an
independent suburban newspaper and quaivied
tevder Schydute 111, Paragraph 117 of the
Excise Tay. Act, is published each Wednesday,
Friday arvi Sunday by North Shore Free Press
Ltd. and distributed to every doo: on the North

‘Sales Product Agresment Ne. 0067238.
Mating rates available on tequest.

Jonsthea Beil
Create Services Manager

Serbara Emo
Distribution Manager
985-2151 (127)

966-1337 (124)
61,562 (average cacudation, Wednestiay, Friday & Sunday)

285-2131 (166)

Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Worth Chore Rews is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Spe

Warren Kinsella, lawyer and one-time aide to
Prime Minister Jean Chretien and otherwise the
total Ottawa insider, so relatively new to these parts
that he’s still untanglting his parachute, leaped out
of the gate with a splashy campaign ad last Sunday
— the very day Chretien called the election. Gee.

What

foresight.

How did
Kinsella
know
that?
He will
have a
tough
assign-
ment
carrying
the
Liberal banner — or using it as a shillelagh? — in
North Vancouver riding against incumbent Ted
White, one of Reform’s most solid MPs and an
outstanding constituency man.

This could well be one of the most mud-sling-
ing contests in the country. You'll remember that at
a televised meeting on Quebec separatism last
October, Kinsella, author of Web of Hate , a book
on extreme right-wing movements in Canada, mus-
cled in with a question about White’s long-ago
connection with the separatist Western Canada
Concept when White was still a relative newcomer
from New Zealand. Kinsella was lustily boued and
White cut him off, later apologizing.

An entirely different battle seems likely in the
new West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast riding
reshaped from Capilano-Howe Sound, held by
retiring Reformer Herb Grubel — a world-class
economist probably relieved to be out of it.

The contenders are polar opposites: neophyte
but smoothly well-connected Phil Boname, the
mayor’s husband, and classic tough old pro John
Reynolds, who has made more political leaps since

Managing Editor
985-2131 (318)

Display Manager Classified Manager
880-0511 (103) ‘986-6222 (202)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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VIA Internet: trenshaw @ direct.ca
COMPUTER 8BS - 980-8027

Promotions Manager
905-2151 (216)
fnternot- hitp/Awww.azcews.con:

ck, from 1139 Lonsdale Avence Worth Vancouver, 8.C., V7M 2H4:

breakfast than you could follow without ‘scorecard

— from Ottawa to Victoria to Arizona for a couple —

of years of R&R, from federal Tory to provinci
Socred to Reform.

This contest looks to be about as equal as Lions
vs. Christians. But Boname has heavy backing. _
Classy Barbara Brink, whose high-profiie public’ ser-
vice includes chairing the United Way and being a
big mover behind Science World. thought hard
about seeking the Liberal nominstion herself (as
mooted in this space) and decided she'd rather not,
but instead her husband Russell is running.
Boname’s campaign. There’s an up-market power
base there, in the richest part of the riding: .

And Reynolds has a too-opportuaistic, too-
crafty-by-half air about him that unsettles some ..
people.

At least one disgruntled Reformer mounted a ~
mini-campaign against him, but Reynolds won the

_ Homination at a meeting that my politically savvy”

spy, X (EAR'WAX $7 was down for a cleaning),

escribed as the best and most energetic nominat-
ing mecting of his experience. In contrast, the
Liberal meeting induced sleep. ;

Q00
I'll tell you this, lads: With the doctors (and °

who knows best?) solidly on her side, I'd automati-
cally sympathize with dismissed Lions Gate |:
Hospital chief operating officer Lynette Best’

against North Shore Health Region chief executive |”

officer Inge Schamborzki — who has “Anointed «.-”j
and Bullet-Proofed by Your New Democrat c
Government” tattooed all over her. Health Minister:
Joy MacPhail’s politicizing of the system is blatant
and therefore average for the NDP.

— The North Shore News believes strangly in free-
dom of speech and the right of all sides in a debate to
be heard. The columnists published in the News pre-
sent differing points of view, but those views are not
necessarily those of the newspaper itself.

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