1139 Lonsdale Avenve Horth Vancouver, B.C. H4 PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) Doug Foot Comptroiter ‘ Operations Manager 985-2131 (133) Cuneifiad, Accoscting ” & Mann Difice Fax Worth Shere News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 311, Paragraph 111 of the *” Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday end Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Cansdian Publications Mail - ; Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. “Mailing rates avsileble on request mots Entire contents ‘ * © 1996 North Shore . Free Press Ltd. ~. Allrights reserved. S 965-2131 (165) CONGRATULATIONS ! You HAVE JUST WONA ICONDO IN BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA. To COLLECT Your ‘LUCIEN REACHES OUT To THE QueBec ETHNICS | @uotes S$ of the hast because I expected it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s incredibly stupid and a bit mean- . Spirited.” North Vancouver District 44 board chairman Guy Heywood, on the firing of the board by ; ‘ Education Minister Art : _ Charbonneau. (From a Jan. 19 News story.) “Anyone who lives in North. Vancouver probabiy knows their _ taxes are going to go through the 7 . roof.” West incon Mayor Mark mailbox Lread with a great deal of amuse- ment North Vancouver-Ionsdale MLA David Schreck’s’ phony attempt at portraying fiscal respon- , sibility by calling for the;dismissal . of North Vancouver District 44 School Board (Jan. 12 News). Now that he has clearly delineat- ed the bottom line accotintability for - public spending, I have the utmost confidence. that he will apply the same high standard io his own gov- emment .and call for the finance minister's resignation. ‘ She has allowed ministries to overspend taxpayers’ dollars like drunken sailors. Fat chance though! If you caught the 1'V shot of Gien mews viewpoint - Education ni wreaks Sager, at 4 meeting on the future of the recreation centre planned for the westem portion of West Vancouver, responding to com- ments frorn the audience that North Vancouver has more recreation facilities than West Vancouver. © (From a Jan. 21 News story.) eee “I was the first to break that sound barrier.” West Vancouver artist Daniel Izzard, celebrating the 10th anniversary of his heart transplant, on being the first Canadian over 55 to receive a new heart. (From a _ dan. 17 News story.) ate et ioany orate met MLA’s ; phoney fiscal call | “Dear Editor: Pate, Clark’ announcing his candidacy to : lead’ the. ‘Bingogate’’ party, you - would have seen a smiling oppor- tunistic sycophant Schreck mugging - the camera while patting his hero —. “Shovel money off the back of a truck” — Clark. Loyalties change quickly in pol- itics and having failed to gain any prominence in the Harcourt regime, he now climbs a fresh bandwagon. Fat chance again, Mr. Schreck, because you won't be around next time, for no other reason than Bill 33. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! A.T. Beleski North Vancouver FOR A snapshot of the brave new world of global- ization and cyberspace try a 69-year-old swimsuit factory on Kingsway. In April Jantzen Canada Inc. will close the plant it has operated there since 1927, throwing out of work 280 employees earning aver- age hourly wages of $9. Its U.S. parent company is giv- ing their jobs to “lower-wage oper- | ations in Central America.” Small stuff, of course, compared with the 40,000 being laid off by AT&T and the tens of thousands by other corporate giants. But still, one more close-to-home reminder of what futurists like Stanley Aronowitz and William DiFazio (The Jobless Future: Sci-Tech and the Dogma of Work, University of Minnesota Press, 1994), and Jeremy Rifkin (The End of Work; Putnam, 1995) are warning us fo prepare for. Aronowitz, sociology professor at New York City University, says three things will kill the 9-to-5 workday with base pay, benefits, promotions and pensions at 65: they are technology, globalization and consolidated. industry owner- ship through mergers and acquisi- tions. For the moment globalization may be the bigger threat. - Aronowitz points to engineers in ° India paid $200 a month for doing . the same work — and just as well — as American engineers making $3,000 a month. - But technology is the real job- killer. Rifkin thinks blue-collar | workers will be reduced to a mere 2%. worldwide by 2025, thanks to “near-workerless factories” where ‘machines work faster and cheaper.’ / _ By then he foresees only an elite 20% of the work force holding full-time jobs — mainly scientists, computer whizzes and entertainers (if your kid wants to join a rock band, encourage him to the fuli!). , Aronowitz is more pessimistic. He thinks such a scenario is only a decade away —- unless govern- ments and labor groups worldwide can come up fust with answers to the looming and unprecedented cri- ~ sis. Immediate answers ‘lie in job- sharing, shorter work weeks, flexi- ble hours, lower wages and the banning of all overtime. en namddaena diame inahronmneatasemmemaaiemberntenmaretienen htmare SSA ea ln TEEPE tps these measures offer he a Ban Aid remedy, If we're ultimately facin world with conventional, for only one in five { peo ing the other four too poor to, bu: their potenti afford their. goods? ; -. Or if, in desper, 80% finally revolt Kiwanis veteran, Lionel Lewts.. = HE BOARD has been bounced, » but the financial mess in North ‘Vancouver School District 44 remains.' . Education Minister Art Charbon- eau. announced on Thursday that District 44’s seven trustees, unable or unwilling to deal with the district’s esti- mated $5 million accumulated: deficit, were out of a job and subsequently replaced them with a single govern- ment-appointed trustee. The District 44 board forced the min- ister’s hand by refusing to deal with its $2.6 million deficit from last year and its $2.3 million deficit from this year, there- ‘by defying provincial. regu! ') and Charbonneau’s own directives. Its inability to deal with the district’s derailed budget situation warranted the board’s dismissal. But there is more to the issue than an inept school board and a mismanaged schoo! district. . North Vancouver has continued to argue that it is the victim of an inequitable provincial government funding system that has short-changed ‘District 44 an estimated $1.5 million per year since the mid-1980s. But it is also the victim: of unionization that has kneecapped the district with contracts too rich for the system to away bureaucratization that has ‘stran+ gled the district’s ability tao ffi 44 financial mess back n the’ gc ment’s lap. i The education minister h to overturn contracts snd has said’ths the North Vancouver board); failec imake the difficult decisions necessa deal with the district’s fiscal sit District 44 residents eagerly await ministry’ s action on those difficult de sions to end North Vancouver’: ‘bad school district nightmare.