6 - Wednesday, August 14, 1991 ~ North Shore News “aANOW | WILL HAVE TIME TO TALK IN GARAGES AND GROCERY STORES..” ~BiLLVANDEA 244M. AAAS Y =) FR} S INSIGHTS =<) Do Socreds have the ‘discipline of power’ still? MULRONEY’S TORIES have now acquired ‘‘the discipline of power,’’ says Financial Post columnist Alan Toulin, summing up their Toronto convention last week. WHAT ID WEDO To DESERVE THAT®.. SAW Niessen ny MANY NEWS VIEWPOINT Life and death HE TRAGIC error of an am- bulance dispatcher in Victoria highlights the need for a decen- tralized ambulance dispatch system. The B.C. Ambulance dispatch traince resigned following an crror made in relay- ing the correct location from which a life-and-death call originated in Duncan. Police and ambulance responded to the wrong location. Four hours later a man was found dead. While a caller requested response to a gravel pit that would have been recognized by a Duncan area resident, a transcript of the call between the Victoria operator and the dispatcher shows that neither Goce recognized the name of the gravel pit. Tke B.C. Ambulance dispaich system for alt Vancouver Island is dispatched from Vic- toria. The costly mistake shows the superiority of the enhanced 9-1-1 system which serves the Greater Vancouver Regional! District municipalities, Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. With the enhanced 9-1-1 system, the ad- dress and phone number of the cail is automatically displayed to the operator at control centre, enabling the call’s location to be traced even if the caller hangs up be- fore the call is dispatched to the emergency service requested. Police and fire stations are gradually developing computer systems which will receive calls from the 9-1-1 con- trol centre. Human error will scmetimes occur in the delivery of emergency services, but B.C. Ambulance Service should take a second took at its centralized dispatch service to minimize the potential for such mistakes. LETTER OF THE DAY Pulp mills are doing their best Dear Editor: below the current and that effort will be continued regulated so that a balance is ensured be- It’snice to see that Terry Jacks has seen fit to highlight the Cana- dian Pulp and Paper Association’s message that ‘‘we’ve made mistakes, but we've changed’’ in 15,000 pamphlets recently distributed to the Howe Sound area. The fact is, by the end of the year in B.C., all pulp mills will have virtually eliminated dioxins. By 1993, all mills will be operating Publisher Managing Editor Associate Editor Advertising Director Comptroller Peter Speck Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Linda Stewart Doug Foot organochlorine levels. While overnight success may apply to Terry Jacks, it does not apply to the pulp and paper in- dustry. The huge expenditures re- quired to retool a mill take months of effort to complete. Terry Jacks believes that ‘‘these public relations campaigns are a sin.’’ His own history should have taught him better. The reality is this — the industry is being clean- ed up at a rate second to none Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Fax Distribution Subscriptions Administration tween our desire for a clean en- vironment and our need to sustain jobs. If communications campaigas are what it takes to get the facts out, then so be it. The public, after all, has a right to objective information, and we should all strive to supply them with it. Bert Gayle West Vancouver North Shore managed 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualihed under Schedule 111, Paragraph lif of the Excise Tax Act. is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shote Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subsenptions North and Wes1 Vancouver, $25 per year. Mating rates available on request Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for urcedicited maternal including manuscripts and piclures which stould be accompanied by a slamped. addressed envelope V7M 2H4 Thal YORCE OF SOOT AND WERT WUNCOUER ‘north shore 1139 Lonsdale Avenue. North Vancouver, B.C. MEMBER SUNDAY + WEOMESOAY + FRIDAY SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents «© 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved An intriguing phrase, that. it means the grassroots Tories have grown up politically. Their party has now held power for almost seven years with two large parlimentary majorities. Power is no longer a novelty. They like its taste and it has already become an addiction. So the essential message out of Toronto is simple. Whatever family differences Tories have on specific issues, they are united rock-solid on their TOP priority — to hang on to power regardless of the screaming mobs of protesters outside. And despite their 17% in today’s polls, they might yet succeed in 1993. True power, which Hénry Kiss- inger called an aphrodisiac, has that effect on parties. It feeds on itself. It means much more than a single election victory, as Joe Clark and Dave Barrett know. It means winning AGAIN — and, better still, winning again and again. Hence, the federal! Liberals who to date have governed Canada for two-thirds of this century. Like- wise, the Ontario Tories’ Big Blue Machine which, up to 1985, ruled there for 42 years. And, of course, the Socreds who've run B.C. for all but three of the past 39 years. Once the power momentum gathers, there can be riots on the street between elections without affecting the result on polling day. Even in W.A.C. Bennett's prime there was an old joke about the difficulty of finding anyone who would actually admit co voting Socred. The only viable explanation is that a good many voters are still like racetrack punters. When it comes down to the wire, they mostly check the election track re- cord and bet on the proven win- ners. Mostly — though they DO oc- casionally risk a brief fiutter on long shots like one-time Dave Barrett or nine-month Joe Clark. And then again, longtime winners do eventually become due for the pasture. Those are the two big question marks hanging over Rita Johnston’s battered party as it prepares for the electi~.1 just weeks away -~ it’s 36-year momentum slowed to an awkward trot by July's divisive leadership battle and the still untried jockey it put in the saddle. By contrast, and despite all Noel Wright HITHER AND YON their current woes, the federal Torics with their new-found ‘‘discipline of power’’ emerged from Toronto at a brisk canter — like a three-year-old sniffing its oats. eee TAILPIECES: Inducted recently at a Hollyburn Country Club cer- emony along with Ron Merritt, incoming president of West Van Rotary Club (Hither and Yon, Ju- ly 21), was the 1991-92 president of West Van Sunrise Rotary Club, Kart Krokosinki. Past district governors Mel Spowart and Jack Hutchins did the honors... Lots of free music during West Van’s Harmony Arts Festival — offtoa damp start Monday — with daily concerts at 12:30 noon at Ambleside Landing, 7 p.m. in Ambleside Park and 8:30 p.m. through Saturday at Dundarave Pier. Performers include Ancient Culture, Lance Harrison’s Dix- ieland Band, Soul Survivors and an outfit called She Stole My Beer... And now we know where to find Rupert Downing when we need him. NV District’s former social planner, who walked out of a council meeting recently in pro- test against its fumbiing of hous- ing policy, has been named exec. director of the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C. WRIGHT OR WRONG: A con- viction is that admirable quality in ourselves that we call plain pig- headedness in others. photo submitted CONGRATS TO incoming West Van Rotary Sunrise Club presi- dent Kari Krokosinki (left) from former Rotary district governor Jack Hutchins.