ew AG - Wednesday, August 26, 1981 - North Shore News - renters will p pay. Ottawa’ s failure to control the economy. .;: The crazy. leap ‘in ‘mortgage rates from around 14% last August to-the current 20% ‘or more means that eyen.a modest monthly be AFTER-TAX. dollars. The ide $325, ‘more: ‘per. ae before tax, or almost $4,000 extra. per year, in order to cover the’ increase. And. Our. government. : interest tax-de incoas ncré When the homeowier eventually sold, of approach might se We; ‘suggest st: Finance Minister McEachen should give “ft: urgent consideration. Thousands of voters threatened with losing their homes spell political dynamite. Eight ‘months oh laconvenience. ‘and loss to the mass|of innocent ‘citizens. How much longer. must | they: be helpless hostages to small management s and labor groups? vital public services must cease. 1139 Lonsdale Ave. north shore news V7™ 24 (604) 985-2131 ADVERTISING NEWS 980-0511 985-2131 CLASSIFIED " 986-6 CIRCULATION 222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Robert Graham Noe! Wright Managing Editor News Editor Andy Fraser Chris Lioyd General Manager Administration Berni Hillard Production Director Rick Stonehouse Advertising Director Eric Cardwell Sports Editor Patrick Rich Creative Director Tim Francis Photography Ellsworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Circulation Director Purchaser Barbara Keen Brian A Ellis Faye McCrae North Shore News, founded in 1069 as an independent community nowspaper and qualified under Schedule Ill Part Il. Paragraph I of the Excise Tar Act. ta published each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mall Registration Number 38865 Subscriptions $20 per year. Entire contents © 1981 North Shore Free Press Ltd All rights reserved. No responsibilty accepted for unsolicited maternal mctuding manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by o stamped addreased onvolope VERIFIED CIRCULATION 63,470 Wednesday, 62.760 Gunday sn mete - THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE dian “ homeowners’ and. cree payment -0f:$500 will likely soar to . “Just ‘as’ long ‘as’ it’ takes ‘them to tell. governments loud and clear that stoppages in | North Vancouver, B.C. re “Nothing could be... ‘more _graphic éxample of past federal government mistakes than the postal strike of the long hot summer of 1981, It-was, after all, a federal. Liberal government which gave the : public service the right to strike. It happened back in the days when Lester B. Pearson | led a succession of minority Liberal governments, and he needed the support of the federal New Democratic our noses in it party to survive. New Democrats feeling the way - they do about the right to strike, we got it in Canada - for the entire public service, essential services or not. Every time there’s a mail strike, an. air traffic con- troliers’ strike, or a_ rail strike, the prime _ minister seems sagely to wag his finger at Canadians in ad- monition over the situation which allows strikes in essential services. It's as though he figures it’s our fault. It was a Liberal govern- ment just like yours that handed the right to strike to the public service, essential ,services or otherwise; so -.- don’t get preachy with us. As If you're waiting for Ottawa to do something about easing your personal financial burden when parliament reconvenes October 14 (or possibly earlier), may I advise you not to hold your breath. Aside from that, the next session also looks like being the most acrimonious and disruptive in Canadian history. The dismal fact is that apparently nobody on the |. government benches has a clue about how to control an economy rapidly beginning to run beserk -—— as was amply demonstrated by Jim Coutts, the late, unlamented Grit candidate defeated in the Spadina byelection. If anyone should have had some answers, Coutts should. As Prime Minister Trudeau's closest adviser for several years, he was after all, a leading architect of our present state of affairs. Running in the = safest Liberal seat in the country, Coutts revealed himself as an cconomic straw man with no solutions to offer. The good voters of Spadina concluded the same must be true of the government he had dominated in the PM's name — and sent them both packing So ths fall watch for Finance Minister Allan McEachen to pay lip service to the problems of the cconomy by increasing income tax and other federal taxes in one more desperate attempt to halt the govern. ment's escalating $14 bilhon deficit. Watch, too, for him to cut back paymeats to the provinces -- meaning further higher taxes at the provincial and municipal level. CONFRONTATION Count on no relief from usurious interest rates and rising inflation. Nurse your ailing pocketbook as best you can and.turn to the other items of drama. The first of which (in case you'd forgotten) will be the constitution, If the Supreme Court finally rules in Trudeau's favor, the stage will be sct for an all-out confrontation between the cight dissenting provinces and Ottawa, as the latter sets out to ram the constitudon according = to Pierre through the UK parliament. Court-watchers, however, arc speculating on the possibility of a split decision which might endorse part of the PM's package but not all of it — maybe calling for the Charter’ of Rights to be renegotiated with the provinces In that sccnano there's a good chance Trudeau might call a national plebiscite Such a referendum could prove cven more divisive to the country than 2a traditional federal clection Two other issues are likely to keep the political pot at boiling point during the new arly as the second week of “this summer’s mail strike, it ‘ was patently obvious that the country as a whole badly ~ wanted the federal govern- ment to pass ‘Iegislation - workers back to their jobs. Prime “Minister ‘Trudeau, however, told us there was no government intention of legislating the postal workers back onto the job. Neither was there any government intention of replacing the strikers with the military. You had to wonder about government motives. The post office was not too far away from becoming a na ahead on The Hill by Noel Wright session One is proportional representation on which the PM 1s beheved to have set his heart The PR bill which = the heavy thinkers in the Grit hierarchy are working on could add as many as 100 additonal MPs — elected on the basis of the popular vote, with no individual con- slituencies and responsible only to their party chicfs. The Tories would gain some scals in the cast but the Liberals would gain) even more in the west The course of that fight — in terms of national unity and smouldering western scparatism — ts not too hard to figure out Finally. there's tho ’ Ottawa Crown corporation, which would see the postal workers and mailmen under different labor laws. Could it be that the government was concerned about the strength of a union like CUPW and: leader Jean Claude Parrot? There may well be a legitimate case fof attacking a union leadership like that of CUPW. Reports from Toronto when the = mail workers voted on whether or not the union leadership should have a mandate to strike, indicated ‘that about 800 out of 5,000 local CUPW members ‘actually voted. That's disgraceful. - The government, ap- parently, made a decision as to the answers to those questions and decided to rub the nose of every Canadian into the labor situation. That may well be a justified tactic, but it should be shouted from the tree tops that the Trudeau -govern- ment is making Canadians pay for the mistakes made by a Liberal government. more than 15 years ago. The post office labor situation is not the fault of Canadians. It’s the fault of bungling federal governments that too-often give more importance to power than to the good of the nation. question of party leader- ships. It's an open secret in that a growing number of the Conservative caucus — convinced that Joe Clark's “wimp” image would guarantee the party yet another election defeat — are helibent on forcing an early leadership convention. By fair means or foul, so to speak. Touted as front runners for Mr. Clark’s job are Quebec's charismatic (but so far seatless) Brian Mulroney, former Tory finance minister John Crosbie, former Toronto mayor David Crombic, Alberta Premier Peter Loughced dnd Ontario Premier Bill Davis. Davis, who has been doing a little quiet legwork in B.C. recently, is presently scen by some pundits as the best all- round bet for a Tory sweep of the country in 1984. Meanwhile, the crystal- gazers on The Hill have Trudeau retiring next spring and naming McEachen as interim prime minister for a year After which, a leadership convention would be called to anoint a per- mancnt new Liberal chicftain from (you guessed it!) Quebec. All in all, the new session isn't going to make life any more comfortable for us Almost certainly the op posite. But if ‘you enjoy naked political drama — complete with cliffhangers and blood-letting — you should love the show opening October 14 Remember you read about it here first