6 — Friday, August 14, 1998 — North Shore News

Call to

S there really a municipal account-
ability crisis looming in B.C.? In a
ecent report on municipal
accountability and democracy in B.C.,
researchers with Simon Fraser
University’s Institute of Governance
Studies concluded that we are losing
or have lost control of our mayors and
councils in larger municipalities.
-, . The report, Making Local
Accountability Work in British
Columbia, was conimissioned by the

tions mong of support: replacing the
is Greater Vancouver Regional

article informing us of the experience of

“North Vancouver's Real Canadian
filed.

north shore news

VIEWPOINT

Vancouver Authority; extending con-
flict of interest legislation to cover
raunicipal officials; extending freedom
of information legislation to cover
some aspects of in-camera meetings to
ensure maximum decision-making
transparency.

Yet if there truly is an accountabili-
ty crisis it is mot entirely a matter of
structure,

Accountability is directly propor-
tionate to the degree of voter apathy
existing within a given community. It’s
up to us to get involved. It’s very sim-
ple. We ensure elected officials are held
accountable to the public for their
actions by our actions as voters.

I€ more of us were to exercise our
right to run for office and vote for
those who choose to do so, the mnnic-
ipal political scene would be more rel-
evant.

If you think that’

the taxpayer is outrageous — my
colleague Noei Wright has done

WHEN HE SALMON ARM

FIRE 1S FINALY AND ToTAu'y
UNDER CONTROL, WE MUST
REMEMBER THE MOST

JMPORTANT

THING...

" Driiid religious 1

- Faith, not fact,

the big picture, ‘Timothy Renshaw Th

the local one, so well
that I have little to

add -— this Dance of
the Fat Government

AS least few deny; that «
Indians were shabbily treat-
edin the past. What, in
contrast; is the rationale for
the obscene victory of the

~~. Public Service Alliance of
‘ Canada that will cost some-

where between $1 billion and. $7 billion to
“compensate” 50,000 PSAC union mem-
bers; niostly women, supposediy urder-

’ paid, since the mid-1980s?.

Sez who? Says a Canadian Human.

~ Rights Tribunal. (All such kangaroo courts

should cither be scrapped or limited to a
mediation role which, if that fils, should
the issue on to the courts. )

. Of all the abuses heaped on ordinary

citizens by these elites, this is perhaps the
worst. For the case ed on the most slip-

pery, shifting, smelly dogma of all: The
concept of “equal Pay for work of equal
valuc. You is truncated in the
press as “... for equal work .” There’s a
world of difference.

» cites some of that vocabu- °
«dary in the aibunals pon-—

derous report , articu
f OfF PSAC Cee 7 —

which at times earns its
of “Canada’s national n

out, the parties to
the unionists arc all gov ment A Aa

Soy

paid
beat up on the Canadan xpayer :
their overwhelmingly, non

this goes back 5]

International ; ne
influenced by the powerful. Soviet bloc at’
the time..So taxpayers will pay a bin

as much as $1,500 per mi ile-income fam...

Because, of COUFS,, this tosses the mar- _ily ie for ari “offence” that didn’ ts

ket place out ‘of the issue and throws it to
the collectivist feminists. and ¢ consultants

: Werth Shore ks odes i 1980282:
indepéndent suburban newspaper and qualtied
under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the

~ excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday,
Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press
Lid, and distributed to every door on the North
Shore. Canada Post Canadian Pubticaons Mail