6 - Wednesday, December 17, 1986 - North Shore News

’ ; News Viewpoint

Charity at home

here’s some concern on the part of the (vo vol-
unteer organizations that look after the North

Shore's
Christmas.

neediest families and individuals each

Up to fast weekend, with only 10 days Ieft, dona-
tions (especially of non-perishable foods to make up
hampers) were being significantly outpaced by applica-
tions for assistance. Last year over $8,000 worth of

food was

handed out to

make Christmas a little

brighter for those North Shore residents to whom it
would otherwise have been a bleak and cheerless occa-
sion. This year—due to continuing high unemployment
and a still fragile B.C. economy—the amount of food
needed to make up the hampers is even greater.

At a season when so many good causes are seeking
help, generous-hearted citizens may sometimes wonder
about just how much they can be fairly expected to
give away to strangers. However, in the case of those
served by the North Van Christmas Bureau and the
West Van Santa Claus Fund, we are talking 2bout
NEIGHBORS rather than ‘‘strangers’’. Both of these
hardworking volunteer organizations are prime cases
of charity beginning at home.

This year you’re never too far from one of the 43
businesses displaying North Shore News banners that
identify them as collection points for food gifts. Larger
gifts can be picked up from your home by calling
984-XMAS (North Van) or 922-6522 (West Van).
Money aad food gift certificates are also needed.

North Shore folk have never yet failed their less for-
tunate neighbors at this season. We’re confident they

_ won't fail them during the next seven days.

THE LADIES ARE ON THE MARCH AGAIN. They
want wages for housewives. I agree heartily. Nothing is im-
- possible for the person who doesn’t have to do it.

The latest demand for a twice
monthly pay cheque to remunerate
mom for coping with the micro-
wave, the vacuum cleaner, the
washer-dryer and the teens comes
in a release from: Ellen
Woodsworth.

She's the PR lady for a group of
nine Vancouver women calfed
“Housewives in Training and
Research’? which has just com-
pleted a nine-month door-to-door
survey of 1,200 households. Its
findings are impressive.

For the average western house-
wife, says the report, unsafaried
hours slaving away in the kitchen,

the laundry. room and everywhere _

in the home that needs to be clean-

ed — pluslooking after the kids, if
any — amount to between 3, 600
and 4,000 a year.

That's 60 to 80 hours a week, up
to half of which would be paid
time - and - a - half or double
time if mom was unionized.

Of Canada’s 13 million females,
6.5 million are full-time unpaid
homemakers. This
translated into terms of the Gross
National Product, the total value
of all goods and services produced
in the country each year.

fact is,

“Jn 1978,” the report declares,
“Canadian women’s housework, if
counted, would have accounted for
40 per cent of the GNP. It would
have been at least 53 per cent if
women’s wages rose equal to

THE VOICE OF NOWSH AND WEST VANCOUVER

SUNDAY . WEDNESDAY a FbaY
1139 Lonsdale Ave,
North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

58,287 (average. Wednesday i‘ccap

Trediay A Suridays

| HEAR THAT YOU CAN

BE ROBBED WHEN USING

THOSE NEW SUPER
MAIL BOXES.

Display Advertising 980-051t
Classified Advertising 986-6222
Newsroom 985.2131
Distribution 986-4337
Subscriptions 988-1337

SOC DIE Hoty
mae a

iy MEAN

ives send their |

repercussions of not doing so.’’
Until I receive my full copy, I can
only assume, therefore, that my
calculator has gone on the blink.
First, however, let me say I
think Ellen’s main thesis is dead
right. That the only salary many
moms and other household slaves
normally receive is a peck on the
check, a pat on the posterior and
the odd hamburger at McDonald’s

Noel Wright

That's heady stuff. Since the
growth of the GNP is the basic
measure of Canada's prosperity,
Ellen and her ladies are presum-
ably saying: ‘‘Pay housewives and
overnight we'll become twice as
prosperous.”

The HTR handout also assures
me that the report ‘looks al the
economics of paying housewives ...
wages for their labor — and at the

LETTER OF THE DAY

‘Dear Editor:

At first giaice, one might sup-
pose thac the inmates really are
running, the asylum. It would ap-
pear to any student of logic that
employing someone who would
clearly be unable to show up for
work is hardly good business prac-
tice.

A recent interpretation of Sec-

tion 8 of the B.C. Human Rights
Act by the B.C. Council of Human
Rights, who gave an award to a
woman who applied for a job in
her eighth month of pregnancy and
was turned down by her prospec-
tive employer, has shown that

making the right decision can be as -

expensive as making the wrong
one. _.
Under the circumstances it is not

@ focus ®

when there’s no hockey game,
ranks as an economic scanda!}.

Nevertheless, if mom and her
fellow slaves are owed half the
country’s payroll (right, Ellen?) I
can’t rid my mind of two nagging
little queries: who’s paid by whom,
and how much?

Does it mean everyone else must
be paid twice as much in order to
afford to employ the housewives

hard to see that employers are go-
ing to be even more circumspect in
advertising job openings, and no
doubt will try even harder to
reduce the number of employees
even further. Hardly the result that
critics of the high unemployment
figures would regard as desirable.
It is incumbent upon each of us
as individuals to discriminate in
our choice, whether in the pur-

ice

— and occasional househusbands?
Or, alternatively, would
everyone, including mom and the
slaves, have to settle for one half
of today’s going rate?
Rush me the report, Ellen, and
show me where I’ve gone wrong!
wet

Meanwhile, Forrest Taylor of
West Van slaps your faithful scribe
sharply on the wrist for his recent
column about Indian land claims,
where I accused Governor James
Douglas of having ‘simply grabb-
ed whatever land he wanted and
pushed the natives willy-nilly on to
reserves of his own making.”

Wrong, says reader Taylor, in
nine pages of closely typewritten
extracts from four B.C. historians
— adding that poor old James, if
still alive, would sue me for libel.

James, it seems, was actually the
good guy who treated the Indians
nicely and even made 14 treaties
with them on Vancouver Island.
The bad guy was one Joseph
William Trutch who became B.C.
commissioner of lands after James
retired in 1863. Trutch, say the

Sorry, James, though I’m not
the only one you’d have to sue.
Whoever spread all those rotten
quoted historians, grabbed the In-
dians’ lands and herded them on to
the undersized reserves.
tales about you?

chase of goods or services, and no
individual should be penalized for
carrying out that responsibility.
Errors in judgment are frequently
reflected very quickly in the bot-
tom lines of any business balance
sheet.

This extra layer of bureaucracy,
empowered as it is with quasi-
judicial status, will do nothing to

Publisher:
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Advertising Director

Peter Speck
Noel Wright
Barrett Fisher
Linda Stewart
Hae VDLaph UY ht
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2 rte Nebel

Entire contents «©
1986 Norn Shore
Free Press Lid. Alt
righis reserved.

FIVE
YEARS
AGO...

(From the North Shore News of
December 16, 1981.)

WIDE OPEN SHOPPING on
Sundays and statutory holidays in
North Van District was finally
given the go-ahead from Jan.1,
1982. Approval by council came
one month after a referendum in
which 53 per cent of the voters
supported open shopping, and
three weeks after it was authorized
in North Van City following a sim-
ilar referendum result there.

* * *
“SEPARATISM” reared its head
at West Van School Board which
voted to seek ‘‘independent”’
status for the schoo! district from
the Education Ministry. Trustees
made the move after being forced,
under a Victoria cost-sharing for-
mula, to contribute $400,000 to
other school districts.

* *

B.C. SUMMER GAMES bid was
dropped by North Van City.
Council voted not to apply for the
1984-85 event because of lack of
public support. .

create harmony in the workplace.
It can only pit employer against
employee, while providing a rich
new vein of wealth for the profes-
sionals who prefer endless litiga-
tion at taxpayer’s expense to the
prospect of having to compete in
the marketplace.

Bill Tominsen
North Vancouver