& - Friday. January 22, 1U8x - North Shore News ee Plan to give clout needs ‘packaging’ WESTERN CANADA'S NEWEST POLITICAL PARTY — dedicated to getting a better deal for the West by ending the economic domination of central Canada — has a built- in problem. The sheer weight of detail in the three-month-old Reform party's program could prevent it from ever taking off. That was the impression from a lengthy interview in West Van with the visiting party leader, 45-year- old Edmonton management con- sultant Preston Manning. A sincere and likeable man who's never yet held elected political of- fice, he admits that communica- tion is the RP's bigget initial obstacle. The party plan is to give the West a much stronger voice in running the nation by reforming Parliament in four spevific ways: “A “Triple-E" Senate with an equal number of elected repre- sentatives fram each province and velo powers Over Conmmons bills. * Referendums to decide all ma- jor issues (¢.g., capital punish. ment, immigration policy, etc.) i: te 4 PRESTON MANNING ... “‘packaging’* needed. * Free (as opposed to party-line) voting by MPs on motions other than non-confidence. * Recall of MPs who fail to sat- isfy their constituents, The RP platform also inchides such vague motherhood planks as “economic justice for resource- producing regions’’ and revitalized agriculture. Lacking, however, is any single strong focus. H such reforms ever came about, they would clearly give the West what it has long sought in Onawa — a roughly equal clout with Ontario and Quebec. But with a shopping list this long, and given the diversity of problems within the four western! provinces themselves, just what da veu can- centrate on first fo win the hearts and minds of voters? Rene Levesque and the party Quebecois had it casy with the single emotion-packed word “ut dependence’. They didn't get it but they scared the rest of the country enough to get almost everything else Quebec wanted. By contrast, the RP rejects western separatism, its slogan to date being “The West wants int — a bland statement of the obvious unlikely to put fire into anyone's belly, Let alone make Ottawa tremble in its shoes. IC's a shame, because the RP has figured out pretty accurately the nuts and bolts of achieving what the West needs. Hut selling the mechanics of the process to the electorate is going to need a con- siderably simplified — and sexier! — “packaging’’. INSIGHTS POSTSCRIPTS: If you wondered whether your eyes were playing you tricks when they lighted Tues- day upon those #0) pink Mamingos on the lawn of 1155 Sutton Place, West Van, not to worry, Home- owner Jaseph Ray, who's tived in West Van all his life, turned 60 that day and his family decided to say it with birds! ... Making quite a splash at the UBC Music School is 1984 Cap College grad Doug Smith who's recently won the Norah Black Memorial Schalar- ship for writers of lyrical vocal music and the Ernest Wesley Cubitt Sharpe Memorial Scholar- ship for composition ... Olympic challenge facing North Van's Pamela Culver is an uphill one. This Sunday, Jan.24, the Vi-year- old mother of three carries the Olympic Torch to within two kilometres of Cleveland Dam, site of the civic ceremony — a lap which includes the steep Capilano Road hill north of the suspension bridge. Granddaughter of late Vancouver mayor Gerry MeGeer and a second cousin of former Socred minister Pat MeGeer, Pamela says 'f just hope I don't keel over and die — it would be most embarrassing!" ... And hap- py “retirement to 86-year-old North Van Lewonnaire Gearge Scholes, inventor of Branch 118°s famous Saturday Meat Draw raf- fles which, during his 10-year emcee-ship, have earned some $50,000 for Legion activities. eee WRIGHT OR WRONG (with thanks to President Ronald Reagan): A government program is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on the carth © EN ch aes a NEWS photo Mike Wakelieid DREAMING OF A CRUISE?.,.Debbie Tejeur polishes up the glass cause of the “Royal Viking Sea" cruise ship model exhibited during Expo at the Norwegian Pavilion and on display this month at BCAA in Park Royal. HOD IT BUSTER! THAT KNIFE HAS 10 60! United front EGOTIATIONS between Versatile Pacific Shipyards and its unionized employees appear to be heading toward a bleak dead-end. The recent 96 per cent rejection by workers of the company’s final offer after six months of contract negotiations indicates the sour mood of employees faced with uncertain futures in a dramatic shipbuilding dry spell. But neither side can afford a protracted labor- management squabble. Though confidence in Ver- satile’s workmanship and (echnical abilities remains high, confidence in its financial stability remains suspect. The shipyard’s separation from its parent Versatile Corp.’s grim financial morass was only the first step toward its recovery. Bids to buy the shipyard and uncertainty over where best to reinvest its vast talents have increased speculation over that recovery. Though Versatile’s $350 million contract to build the Polar Class 8 icebreaker will surely provide temporary revival of the shipyard’s past boom years, vessel con- struction will not begin until mid-1989 and will be completed in mid-1992. It is the years immediately before and after Polar 8 construction that will be crucial for Versatile and its future. The company maintains that it must cut wages to hone its competitive edge in a dwindling world ship- building market; unions argue that wage cuts unfairly penalize workers and do not address efficiency in a partially antiquated yard. The battle, then, is not between Versatile and its unions, it is between Versatile and its extinction. Success in so serious a struggle requires the combin- ed forees of management and labor. 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Managing Editor... Barrett Fisher Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director . Linda Stewart North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified undar Schedule 111, Paragraph fH of the Excise Tax Act, ig published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every decor on the North Shote. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 par year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannoli accept rusponsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures s which should be ac ied by if d, addressed envelope. ‘companied by a stamipe Tess S04 DIVISION North Shore owned and managed Entire contents © 1988 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Ali rights reserved. Hank Rl etter Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions MEMBER 58,489 (average, Wednesday Friday & Sunday)