Another corporate welfare bum: hide the family silver THE PIPER aircraft company is the latest corporate welfare bum to knock at our door and ask for a handout. No doubt we’ll invite Piper to come right in and put feet under our dining room table. Canadians are feeding so many corporate bums now that more will hardly be noticed. Maybe it’s time we did notice. Maybe some of the ordinary, common, garden variety Canadian taxpayers, who happen to be pay- ing for those groceries, should clamber up on our hind legs and say that if there’s going to be any more charity around here, let’s give it to the poor people. Piger Aircraft had its chance to compete with Cessna and, by the Jaws of the marketplace to which al! free enterprisers are supposed to subscribe, it lost. So many people are suing the company that bankruptcy pro- ceedings have begun. Cyrus Eaton Jr. of Cleveland proposes to take the name, licences, technicians and some other assets of Piper and set up a plant in Canada. What, he says, in the manner of all such bums, is he bid? How much tax relief from Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal? How many million in develop- ment money for his fledging com- ‘pany which is less than a century > old? Ideally, Mr. Junior Eaton will . get Ontario’s Bob Rae bidding against B.C.'s Mike Harcourt and Quebec’s Robert Bourassa, each of them trying to pour the most money down the rat hole. This is the new style, in case _ you haven't noticed. A few years ago, corporate welfare bums were old well- established Canadian companies who had too many chiefs, too few ‘Indians and the bare-faced audacity to demand public sub- sidies instead of asking for them. We have bailed out one sick old company after another, Massey tractor company (which took the welfare money and ran away to the United States with it), Algoma Steel, de Havilland aircraft and ~ the Lions footba!l team, to name just those who come quickly to mind. If the drain these corporate welfare bums place on tax reve- nues could ever be eliminated the federal deficit would not be $30 billion and more a year. There might be no deficit. The bums’ response is, ‘‘Yes, and maybe there wouldn't be any companies.”’ This is a con. The factories - would still be there and there - would be peopie te run them. “What would be gone would be the overpaid, underworked executives who ran the original company into bankruptcy. It’s the high-priced staff our welfare dollars rescue, and nothing could be healthier than that they be replaced by managers paid less to do more. That process of replacing failures with successes is supposed to be the very heart and essence of free enterprise and it was a sad day when we interfered with it by instituting welfare programs for Paul St. Pierre | PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES the big corporations. The new breed of corporate bum showed up more recently. He’s the one who wants to be bailed out before he even starts business. Almos! every new large enter- prise in Canada now goes from province to province, shopping. They want subsidies, grants-in-aid, low-interest loans and forgiveable loans, tax. holidays and tax reditc- tions and anything else a province or a city can gouge out of its tax- payers. Rita Johnston, during her brief period as premier of this province, raised the hopes of some of us when she spoke out publicly against governments competing with one another to give away tax money in this way. Whether she would have followed through on this, we can never know. We do know that this province has had a bad record of feeding corporate welfare bums. One method was a fund ad- ministered during the last gov- emmment by Bud Smith. He wasn't considered suitable for attorney general, but it was thought all right to give him control of a few score million dollars of industrial charity donations. This province is also home to a program euphemistically called Partners in Indusiry. Very few people asked what Partners in In- dustry meant. It was quite simple. To attract new companies, B.C. municipalities offered thera reduc- ed property taxes. Partners in Industry sounded good. Soak the Homeowner wouldn’t have flown. If Piper or any other company can come into Canada and operate under the old, almost forgotten free enterprise rules, they are 2 thousand times wel- come. May caravans of peacocks, apes and ivory adorn their balance sheets. May all their executives drive BMWs. May every worker be able to afford orthodontists for the kids and holidays in Cancun. But if their first demand is to be tol. what kind of grub we serve at our table and whether the beds are soft, let them stay broke down in Florida. ARDAGH HUNTER TURNER Barristers & Solicitors ofKTER, HOURS FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION i B28. 38° [ 986-4366 996-3268 #300-1401 LONSDALE, NORTH VANCOUVER, BC. NOTICE TO MOTORISTS LIONS GATE BRIDGE SINGLE LANE TRAFFIC The Ministry of Transportation and Highways announces there will be single lane, alternating traffic on the Lions Gate Bridge from Sunday, November 24 until Friday, December 20. Single lane, alternating traffic is needed to allow replacement of the expansion joints on the bridge and will be in effect as foilows: Sunday to Thursday 11:30 PM - 5:00 AM Motorists should expect delays or plan to use an alternate route. For fur- ther information, please call the Ministry of Transportation and Highways 24-Hour Road Report at 525-4997 (Greater Vancouver), 938-4997 (Whistler), 371-4997 (Kamloops), 860-4997 (Kelowna), 855-4997 (Ab- botsford), 380-4997 (Victoria), *4997 (Cellular). in all other areas please cai! 1-800-663-4997. Province of British Columbia ! 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