Wednesday, February 19, 1897 — North Shore News - 7

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StatsGan’s snooping stormtrocpers

HOW MUCH did you

spend on booze last
year? On smokes? On
going to the movies?
On restaurants?

If the pokenoses trom
Statistics Canada come knock-
ing, you're supposed to tell
them. If you don’t, the penal-
ties can be a $500 fine or
three months in the clink. Or
both.

Whar we do with our own
money should be nons of
their business. But they say
it’s in the national interest for
them to know.

"* ‘What is the national inter-
est?. Mainly their interest. For
one thing, this project and
others like it are make-work
projects. The sky’s the limit.

For another, they sell the col- .

lated information to corpora-
tions.

The mind boggled when
Mrs. Mary Mercier told me

i

Dear Editor: ;

“~ T usually agree with
Noel Wright but I’m afraid
he’s got it wrong this time.
_ His. recent: column
“Help. wanted: = Tory-
Reform Leader” ‘is right-
on in many respects. We
definitely need -a new
leader in this country and
certainly not one from
Quebec, :

It is also true that
Preston Manning and Jean
Charest can’t cut it, but to
suggest Ralph Kicin as a
federal leader shows a lack
of understanding of what
makes Raiph tick.

' He only won the last
election because the

about all this last week.

She was fuming.

“What people do with
their after-tax dollars is noth-
ing to do with them,” she
said. So she's going to make
things as difficult tor those
busybodies as possible.

Dr. Scott Cornell of Lions
Bay has also been targeted.
He’s equally angry and says
he’s not going to go along
with it.

Good. It’s nice to know
there are two
people in this
country willing
to stand up and
be counted. |
was beginning,
to have my
doubts.

This insane
exercise is
called the
Survey of
Family
Expenditures.

They want
recipients to
answer 47
pages of questions. It could
take days and people would
probably have to guess at
many of the rotals. So they
would be fiction.

T’ve had my doubts about
StatsCan for some time. Sure,
we want to know how many
people die, how many are

“Sometimes I
think we are
building the

pyramids. And
wherever we

look there are
overseers,
known now as
public servants.”

born, what languages are spo-
ken, and so on. But we don’:
want them poking around to
find out how much tooth-
Paste we use or what we cat
for breakfast.

There’s enough govern-
ment garbage already. We are
bent double under it.
Sometimes I think we are
building the pyramids. And
wherever we look there are
overseers, known now as pub-
lic servants.

The bureaucra-
cies are like
industry. Always
looking for new
business. But
with less justifi-
cation.

There's a massive
StatsCan head-
quarters in
Ortawa. Plus
4,600 employees
across the coun-
try and a budger
well in excess of
$288 million a

year.

We could et rid of half of
them and be better off.
Increasingly, their energies are
directed towards sociological
psycho-babble.

They tell us, for instance,
that women suffer more pain
than men. But how do they
know? They never asked me.

And they believe our day
won't be complete unless we
know that immigrants are less
likely to smoke than others.
Which is probably more fic-
tion. Have they ever been on
a plane flying 400 people to
Hongcow +r from Hong
Kong?

Other vital SratsCan intel-
ligence is that we are watch-
ing more TV than we used to.
Once again, they didn’t ask
me. I’m watching less.

They'll soon be wanting to
know how often we get our
hair cut, whether we wash
behind our ears, how many
times a day we go to the
john, and whether our kids
have pimples.

Thus there was a StatsCan
report on “critical factors
affecting the development of
children,” plus what many
critics damned as a phoney
report on violence against
women. It was mainly anec-
dotal. Any story would do.

Michael Waiker of the
Fraser Institute — an impec-
cable researcher himself —
has been quoted as saying
that a lor of StatsCan research
does not stand up to scrutiny.

The only way ro beat these
meddlers is to fight them.

Open-liner Charles
Maclean tells the story of the
farmer up north who got per-

Animal activist gets

News reader’s goat

Dear Editor:

A few weekends ago I was
walking my dog along our
favorite Lynn Creek wail and
I saw a pleasant looking
young couple ahead of me
with what appeared to a very
large Airedale.

As I passed and got the
usual smile and head bob of
fellow “dog” walkers I was
surprised to see that the large
Airedale was, in fact, not a
dog but a goet. I smiled in
amusement thinking what a
great world it was when you

meet someone out walking their goat.
I didn’t, as Animal Rights Advocate Judy

no bonfire but | am willing to

- bet this was the same goat

that Ms. Stone witnessed at
the bonfire.

After all how many goats
does one see along Lynn
Creek? And yes these men
should nor have had an illegal
bonfire but as for Sonny (the
goat’s) mistreatment I don’t
think we should jump to con-
clusions before all the facts are
known.

As an animal lover I would
be quite happy to have these

ys punished to fullest extent

of the law if, there was something going on but
please ... standing around a bonfire with a goat?

mission from the feds to buy
and breed bison.

Then some other feds
appeared and told him he
couldn’r shoot any.

“They're mine,” he said.
“I bought them.”

“Shoot any of those
bison,” they said, “and you’l!
find yourself in jail.”

He promptly shot one, put
the carcass in his truck and
drove hundreds of miles to
Whitehorse, where he
dumped it on his persecutors’
front door. He was prosecut-
ed, and won the case. The
feds appealed. He won the

appeal, too. It cost him a bit,
but he bear the bueaucrats.

Over 2,000 pecple in B.C.
have had this survey inflicted
on them.

They should ail tell the
StatsCan stormtroopers to get
lost.

More on Sunday.

— The North Shore News
believes strongly in freedom of
speech and the right of all sides
in a debate to be heard. The
columnists published in the
News present differing points
of view, but those views are not
necessarily those of the newspa-

wr stself

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Ler’s worry more about the poor dog that
got tossed at the husband (accompanying arti-
cle “Dog tossed in dispute”) in a domestic dis-

The goat actually appeared to quite happy pute rather than something possibly quite
to be out for a walk wearing its goat bells and innocent although a little different.
trotted merrily along beside the couple (not HH. Chandler
that I am an expert on goat welfare). North Shore Goat Advocate

True it wasn’t getting dark and there was North Vancouver

Make North Vancouver the
S.S. Rotterdam’s last berth

Dear Editor: .

Regarding the article about bringing the S.S. Rotterdam per-
manently to North Vancouver.

I think it would be a tremendous asset to the North Shore.

This ship is a favorite with a lot of people from around the
wozld (one man I met on a cruise on her had taken 28 trips
aboard), and I’m sure that knowing she is moored here as a
hotel, many passengers would spend extra nights in the area
before or after their Alaskan cruise.

It would alse be a bonus having another good restaurant in
the neighborhood.

What better place than here for a grand old lady to retire to.

If Long Beach can have the Queen Mary, why not the
Rorterdanm: for North Vancouver?
Elizabeth Reynolds
North Vancouver

Stone did (as reported in the Jan 31 News)
fear for the goat’s welfare or think the goat
“didn’t know what it was doing in the woods.”

Yiberals were in total dis-
array, the NDP never had a
chance, and Alberta has
been a Progressive
Conservative stronghold
for decades. While Ralph
has done some good
things, his slash and burn
tactics Rave hurt many

‘ople, particularly in the
Frealth fed.

Don’t get sick in
Alberta unless you’re an
ex-premier or the mayor of
Edmonton. Ralph’s
extremism would be a dis-
aster federally and I can
only think of one person
who might be worse: Mike
Harris.

It's too bad our system
doesn’t allow us to choose
our Prime Minister, but
my vote would go to
Clyde Wells and sny sec-
ond choice would be Roy
Romanow even though he
favors “distinct society”
for Quebec.

RLL. Sheppard
North Vancouver

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