6 ~ North Shore News ~ Sunday, January 23, 2000 ——=VIEW POINT: Fountain funding | HE runners and walkers raising money for the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation at last year’s 9-1-1 Relay would probably have loved to cool off in a fountain after their efforts. It remains to be seen whether they will be quite so happy when the possi- bility that the money they sweated for could be going towards actually build- ing one. The fountain will be part of a newly announced $500,000 remodelling job _Of the hospital’s 13th Street entrance. The hospital’s main entrance will remain on 15th Strect. The renov- tion is, apparently, a millennium pro- ject and, to be fair, will include a wait- ing area for Rehab patients and a drive-in drop-off point for patients. : So, at a time when Lions Gate is funding crisis, its community fundraising arm has prioritized a makeover of the hospital’s back door that will eliminate much of the grass that is there in favour of blacktop. We are told that a foundation donor wanted funds to go specifically to the 13th Street project, but we don’t know whether the donor is funding all or part of the renovation. Nor do we know whether foundation board members attempted to persuade the donor that while gifted moncy cannot be used for hospital operating sosts, it can be used on staff training. Nursing shortages exist at Lions Gate. Not all nurses can work all areas of the hospital. Specialized training could help in some areas. What would you choose: qualified nurses or watching water and money go down the drain? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INTRODUCES FOUGH, NEW CIGARETTE PACKAGING PROTOTYPES suffering in the middle of a health- yeu said it “The public will be obliged to live with the Lions Gate Project for decades to come and, if compteted as designed, it will be a monument to stupidity and incom- petence for gencrations to marvel at. Is this to be your madilennium to Greater Vancouver?” : “Acting West Vancouver mayor Allan Williams, in a letter to the BC Transportstion Finance Authority. (From a Jan. - 19 News sory.) - 000 ‘ wYeah, I'm pissed.” : , Accordins to a search. warrant obtained by the News, what: North’ Vancouver RCMP Const. Paul MacGregor allegedly told Vancouver police officers after being stopped ia the company of a prostitute. (From a Jan. 16 News story.) 200 “(The Dundarave Cafe) is not a West Vancouver pub. It’s sold as a neighbourhood pub. The neighbourhood - ‘has spoken and we have said overwhelmingly that we -don’t want it. How many more people are going to be _ invited to the party?” Friends ‘of - Dundazave Improvement Society treasurer Michael McMahon, casting aspersions on the idea of a pub- - Hig hearing involving other West Vancouver residents. (From A a Tam Vy News vf story. ) ; aa 00a. Oe “We, elected you people to do what's right. There’s ” not one of you people lives down Dieudarave. §11, ae , That's peanuts! I've got my life savisiss in my pro “and so do my friends. This thing shoud end tonight.” “ Dundarave resident Erwen Smith, showing no a for. the survey’ costs incurred by the " Dundarave Cafe in its * efforts’to- become. a neighbourhood pub. (From the same Jan. Wg Nees story. ) . og OG - +, SIE we : don’t do something like this | we can kiss the 2010 Olympics g goodbye.” West Vancouver councillor John Clark, the man fronting the latest proposal to build a tunnei under Burrard Inler, ts blunt. about the .need for improved rail.and_road linkage between the Vancouver area and the Sea to Sky corridor to Whistler. (From a dened 21 News story.) North Store Hews, Sosnded in 1959 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified . _ Undet Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the * Ewerse Tax Act, is Dublished each Wednesday. © Friday and Sunday by HCN Publications Company and distributed to every door on the arth Shore. Cartada Post Cenadian Publications Mai Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailng rates available on request. Riwsearras Comrttmon * Barbara - ._- Distribution Manager “5 SBR-1S3? (124) * bema@asnews.com Best bet for a new IF I bad the misforrune to be a dedicated NDP meinber at this juncture in the party’s woes, ['d have no problem deciding whom to support for leader, come February. It wauld, of course, have to be a candidate with unblemished loyal- ty to the party and some record of solid achieve- meat in serving it. A candidate person- ally untainted by the scandals of Bingegate, gaming licences, the fast fer- ries flasce and allt the other ethical and . political pratfalls of the Glen Clark regime. A candidate capable of giving the New Democrats a fresh, interesting and promising face. To achieve all this in time for an October 2000 provincial election — on which the smart money is now betting — he (since, sadly, there’s no longer a she in the leadership race) will need to com- mand support alike in the metro areas and the buonies. He'll also have a major job on his hands taming the snarling, backbiting upper echelons of the party represented by Glen, Moe Sthota and Harry Lali. For all these purposes he'll need, first and foremost, to be an outstanding com- municator with rank-and-file party mem- bers and supporters. He must have the gift of using words not only to inform and pitch, but to motivate. As did Winston Churchill — of whom President John Kennedy wrote: “He mobilized the English language and sent it forth to . Deo Bheliveal HRPromations Manager S95-213% (219) ddhaliwalg@nsnews.com PETER SPE Publisher 985-2135 (101) Dspeck@nsnews.com Mark Fancher Creative Services Director 985-2131 (127) --.., miancher@nsnews.com 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Suncay) ~ General Manager $85-213t (133) dloot@nsnews.com —_ tre! war.” Nor is the parallel with Churchill — fighting i in the early 1940s for the very survival of Britain — too far-fetched. In these early 2000s, B.C.’s New Democrats are equally” fighting for their very survival, ° Personally I’d love to see them fail and vanish + forever from B.C.’s political map. But if my task were to help choose the new leader best able to avoid that fate, Pd say: Forget smooth-talk~ ing three-time partv-hopper Gordon Wiison. Forget (if you even remember) union tough Len Werden. Tip your hat respectfully to dully virtuous Ujjat Dosanjh, patron satne of the B.C. Human Rights Commission. The only possible candidate for any sane NDPers (if they exist) is Agriculture Minister Conrad St. George (“ carky” to his friends) Evans. Wilson, Werden and Dosanjh look what they are: scowling or solemin-faced (take your choice) party apparatchiks. Corky, in his smiling mug-shats, | happy ard positively cuddly. And when he speaks, it gets better and more enter- taining by the minute. “Now is the time,” he urges, “ to declare that the head-in-our-hands phase is finished, and to choose a leader and give a name to the reat opposition in this” province, because it isn’t us.” With Churchillian-style wit he dismiss- es the B.C, Liberals as “really the witness protection program for old Socreds.” And again, “I’m not going to tell you. ; how to vote because \ know that you . side of the TV screen,” Corky.” Who can't love a guy like that?. ~ know and that everybody else is starting “ to figure out that democracy is coming to. the NDP.” : With this kind of oratory he’s been’. owing audiences during the closing’ — leadership debates. And never more so” than with the fun-filled analysis of his own name: If the party wanted a sophisti- « : cated, urbane leader, he told them, they” -* could “vote for Conrad,” If they wanted.“ a “dragon slayer” to go after the Liberals, i ther“ vote for St: George.” “ If they wanted a leader who feached out to “the ordinary peo l¢é on the other -*' en “vote for. “- Right now, cf course, Dosanjh is com- fortably ahead of Corky én in the conven-:. iion delegates count, ¢ Corky has strength ia the Interior and his conimuni- cation skills are starting to hit home in» the metro areas. He remains the ND?’s best chance of : assuming a completely new, atcractive. “Bur i in the end, of. course, they'll reject him and, thank heaven, lose. the next:; Pi lingers on. Pity. With Corky in charge even I might one x day B have vored boy Jim Reavill, . ong, WRIGHT OR WRONG: "Nev plac period where God has Placed a "LETTERS 0 THE EDITOR ‘ Letters must include your name, full address & telephone UMDE, | VA e-mait venshaw@nsnaws. fom 7 Managing Egitor. > 9OS-2131 (116). NSHAWASNEWS.COM