& ~ North Shore News — Wednesday, June 28, 2000 VIEW POINT: Levy lament ARK the levy. That’s the unani- mous message from the driving public to the TransLink brain- trust. And that’s been the consistent message from that public ever since the $75 vehicle !evy was announced as part of the Greater Vancouver Regional District’s transportation plan. A June 5 telephone referendum con- ducted: by the North Shore based Coalition _ for Accountability _ in Government resulted in a convincing 95% of the over 2,000 respondents opposing the levy. Apart from the. difficulty Lower Mainland residents have with swallow- ing another tax from another level of government, whatcver its proposed destination, the levy has a host of flaws. '. First and foremost: the levy, along with the rest of the TransLink trans- - portation plan, was not examined by mailbox MP White pilloried = pension mn approval the GVRD’s finance committee before it was approved at the end of June. Thus its viability on a regional basis has never been tested. As to the levy itself, there’s current- ly no formula as to how it will be applied. If that formula involves assessed property values, which is the basis for other GVRD levies, then West Vancouverites are going to like the levy even less than they do now. Regardless of what the levy is, all North Shore residents will be subsidiz- ing transit improvements that'll take place elsewhere around the Lower Mainland. The North Shore’s share of those improvements under the TransLink pian is minimal. Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum vowed last week that his municipality would not pay the $75 levy. Other municipalities should foliow suit. gap between the two remaining con- tenders, with Stockwell Day. leading Preston } Manning by eight : points. ~ On a roughly 55% voter turnout Day * emerged with 43.9%, - THE only surprise in Saturday’s Alliance leadership vote was the oneeeesenserneseaccsecccccesovcssccousasoseces take years, ue matters fs amore “personal” nature pass vith’ | the House on the day of the vote. ° » Secondly, it ‘would seem it ing : ae :you-would have. thought ‘they were being ublic path in front of the centre block. ere made conspicuous. ¢ house in two han Changes cting endangered species legislation can ficial opposition benches. Our own the ihatter so. important that he. was not was so busy ridin ‘that buying bac ld not be as onerous as he would* it would cost about $50,000 ernment. is offering to pay, ‘that ite and oaerk MPs over r20 0 years at the, bar- hat Mr. v Manning with 35.7% while Tom Long, as predicted here, trailed - well behind (though I'd hardly expected him to drop to his lowly 18.7%). So what's the outlook for the July 8 runoff vote? If for nothing else, the Alliance can be congratulated for narrow- .- ing down its final leadership choice to the ; _ two best possible candidates — both of them undeniably adequate for the job, one of them definitely more adequate than the other in three important areas. More on that in a‘moment, but first a’ look at the figures that will dominate the next 11 days of campaigning by Day and Manning. First, Saturday’s modest 55% voter turnout, due at least in part to the glitch- es, technical and otherwise, in the hastily organized mix of phone-in and polling station voting. Hopefully, this and voter-- verification | rocedures will all have been cleaned up by July 8 — which'could mean, despite runoff votes traditionally showing a lower turnout, that the July 8 turnout could actually be bigger. ~~ On that first vote ‘Tom Long clearly *. ‘delivered the vital Ontario vote, while fai Day, firmly - ensconced in Alberta, also did better than anticipated in Ontario, while Manning, his major power base in B.C., fared iess well there, So which of .. the two can now grab © the most Tom Long supporters in the short two weeks between the votes? And how many of them will still be around? Remember those earlier newspaper stories about Ontario Tories signed: - up by Long’s campaign who, nevertheless, : threatened to quit if Long lost? . . One other theory about Saturday’ s results is that some of Manning’s sup- porters were overly confident and simply neglected to vote. -If so, they re unlikely to repeat their sloth on July 8: : there you have all the variables the Stockwell and Preston campaign teams . will be struggli tage for their final appeal to the member-" ship — which must include, of course, re- * emphasizing the personal qualifications of their sespective candidates. .. - ing to bend to their advan- the key tow weiding the west, Ontaio and “the east into a winning national party; tal ents like Preston’s are absolutely incis- ‘» pensable for the Alliance’s future. ~~ Second, his seven years parliamentary experience, the las three as prime-minis- ter-in-waiting. With all due respect to Stockwell, berta Treasurer and © : Opposition Lcader in Canada’s: Parliament ar: not the same thing. Stockwell would have a steep learning © curve there, stretchin g beyond the next election. Preston is ly equipped to. step into Jean Chretien’ 's shoes tomor- Tow. ‘ ; _> Finally, the personal courage ‘that defines all true leaders: Having buite:. Reform from scratch, Preston then suc- ' cessfully morphed ir, in face of heavy’ opposition, into the Alliance and finally, to. give his new creation genuine indepe dence, laid his own job on the line with the present I¢adership race Should Preston lose o fuly 8, Alliance will wind up with a good | man bur still only a second best for a challenge that demands nothing short of the best Stockwell has successful experience, ae . an Alberta cabinet minister with a proven J _ record on tax-cutting; telegenic, he’s an’: excellent speaker with a pleasant sense of. - humour and passable French. At‘49, his“: E -ou.ward image as a trans-generational - leader for the new millennium could hardly be better... Preston, while lacking certain of. ". Stockwell’s personal attributes, neverthe- less beats him in three vital areas. First, his unique gift for consensus-building;., demonstrated by the Reform party’s suc-~ cess over r 10 short years. With consensus Rosemary ock ... Ait wish th gain . Friday, June’, 30, to the:: * birthd irl, West Van Mary 5; _ strengthen your.- back: than burden.