6 - Sunday, January 31, £987 - Nocth Shore News

News Viewpoint |

..and after Polar?

s the B.C, shipbuilding industry headed for th<
same fate as the dinosaur?

While Ottawa dickers over the

award of the

$400 million Polar 8 icebreaker contract, employees of
the industry’s biggest member, Versatile Pacific Ship-
yard of North Van, have now been cut to 350 from a
peak potential of 3,000. The yard has no more orders
of any imporiance on its books and other ‘big-vessel”’
shipbuilgers are not exactly booming, either.

if, as hoped, Versatile finally gets the Polar 8 con-
tract, its immediate problem will, of course, disappear
for a year or two, with beneficial results for the focal
economy. But relative to the industry’s long term
future, even the huge icebreaker job is only a band-aid

solution. What happens next?

Unlike other countries, Canada has no merchant
marine in the accepted sense. The main source of ma-
jor shipbuilding work is the federal government which,
for political reasons, must always divide its favors be-
tween cast and west. Locally generated ship repair
work cannot, alone, replace the major construction
projects for which Versatile and similar B.C. yards are

primarily equipped.

The ently eventual answer may be for them to diver-
sify into areas of marine products and services other
than their traditional ones. In this coastal province the
demand for such products and services clearly exists,
but to meet it competitively would likely mean heavy
capital investment for retooling.

This thinking leads to Victoria. If the provincial
gevernment wants a viable B.C. shipbuilding industry,
it may sooner or later have toe helm create it.

NEWS photo Nel! Luconte

SPACE-AGE HOUSEHOLD HELPS ... Marlene Buck (foreground)

presents Alex Bezemer with his ‘‘Robie Sr.’’—watched by the five other

winners: (J to r) William Protopappas, Bonnie Boyd, Doug McConnell,

Annie Bezemer and Arlene King.

LETTER OF THE DAY

Patent
sanad

I am writing in support of Bill
C-22 — an act to amend the Patent
Act. 1 realize that there is a great
deal of opposition to it because,
for some new pharmaceutical pro-
ducts, the cost will be higher for a
period of time.

However, we need to encourage
pharmaceutical development and

THE VOCE OF NOHTH AND WEST VANCOUVER

ie, a E .
SUNDAY * WEONESDAY - FRIDAY
1139 Lonsdale Ave.
North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

58,287 (average, Wednesday
Frday & Sunday)

Display Advertising 980-0511
Classitied Advertising 986-6222
Newsroom 985-2131
Distribution 986-1337
Subscriptions 986-1237
Nottn Shore

SEA DIVISION

SMALL RIBBON but big smiles Monday at LGH as (1 to c) head nurse
Elaine McGlenister, D-:. Brian Hunt and hospital administrator John
Borthwick officially open the new hali-million dollar neurosurgical ward.

Noel Wright

SIX HAPPY VISITORS to a
North Shore car dealer wound up
with New Year's gifts in the form
of space-age ‘‘household help"’.

On Dec. 31 they were presented
with their prizes in an imaginative
six-day promotion held by Duve
Buck Ford. An entry form could
be put in by any visitor to the
Marine Drive showrooms—with
nothing to buy (they weren't even
required to kick tires, says DBF’s
Barry Good) and one winner
drawn each day.

As a result, Alex and Annie
Bezemer, William Protepappas,
Bonnie Boyd, Doug McConnell
and Arlene King each went home
to their New Year’s festivities with
their very own ‘‘Robie Sr."’
robot—a $270, 30 in. high
miniature clone of Expo Ernie,
who walks, talks, brings you your
slippers (among other chores), is
computer progranimable and fully
remote controlled.

“Robie”? doesn’t yet have his
driver's licence but no doubt
they’re working on that, too.
Hopefully he'll get it in time to
drive next New Year’s partygoers
safely home!

see

LITTLE LENA WILSON of
North Van, a five-year-old stricken
with cerebral palsy, is just one of

® sunday brunch ®

the hundreds of disabled humans
beings living a fuller, happier life
thanks to the effort of ‘‘The
Mothers’’. In the past two years
those efforts have provided hez
with two braces,2a child’s com-
mode, a flexistand and an electric
wheelchair--all paid for with ini-
tial funds from the Kinsmen
Rehabilitation Foundation.

A major source of those funds is
the annual ‘‘Mothers March’’,
launched in 1953 to help victims of
the polio epidemics then ravaging
the province, which takes place
again this year from Jan. 24 to
Feb. 3. Today, you don’t even
have to be a mother, and North
Shore supervisor Ted Hatton still
needs some more volunteers of
both sexes to knock on doors dur-
ing the last week of this month.

If you can help for a couple of
hours or so, call Ted at 987-3337.
And in any case, when the knock
comes to YOUR door, remember
Lena...

-*®

PROPHETS, goes the saying, are
sometimes least honored in their
own land. Last month Toronto
Star columnist Val Sears wrote a
piece called ‘‘Presenting Our 10
Finest MPs’’. Two days later, in
the Toronto Sun, Doug Fisher’s
column was headlined ‘‘Tomor-

ect amendment will

research which will bring curative
and life saving drugs to people
who suffer from rare diseases.
There is no incentive in Canada
now for anyone to invest in
research and development to find
the cures for these people because
the company doing so is not pro-
tected long enough for them to re-

cover some of their huge invest-

ment. Presently other companies
are able to copy the research
results without cost or penalty.

The passing of this bill will en-
sure increased investment and
employment in Canada in phar-
maceutical research and manufac-
turing. I have seen estimates of
more than half a billion dollars.

To further indicate the unrea-
sonable position which Canada has
taken in the past, it is noted that
Canada’s patent protection provi-
sions for pharmaceutical develop-
ments is out of step with those of
every other nation in the western
world. The passage of Bill C-22
will correct this irresponsible posi-
tion. .

Publisher:
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Advertising Director

Peter Speck

Noel Wright
Barrett Fisher
Linda Stewart -

fle ay an codebendent subutbatt Rewsbaper and quahhed under Schedule Ht Patagrapt HE ot the

S811 and Gistrbuted to exery doot on
and dest Vancouver, $25 per year Maing rates:
ty for uMOhcHed Material including manusc.niEt

Entire contents ©
1986 ' ‘th Shore
Free 1.205 Ltd. All
rights reserved.

NEWS photo Mike Wakelleid:
row’s Superstars’’. And whom do
you think both national writers in-
cluded among the pick of the
bunch?

Capilano MP Mary Collins,
that’s who—described by Fisher as
“certain for prominence’’.
Thanks, Margaret Maxwell of
West Van, for bringing this tidbit
to our attention.

aos

WRAP-UP: Retired veteran
newsman Les Rimes of West Van
collects foreign stamps featuring
famous ships. From tomorrow to
Jan. 24 his unique collection of
around 100—all of vessels that
have entered Vancouver = har-
bor — is on display at Vancouver
Public Library under the title
“Through the Lions Gate’’ ...
Seymour MLA and Energy
Minister Jack Davis had a unique
Christmas gift from his North Van
constituency staff. They donated,
in his name, two young jackfish (a
tropical saltwater species inhab-
iting reef areas) to the Vancouver
Aquarium to help replace the
specimens poisoned there last
month ... And watch out for a
strong focal interest at the kickoff
ceremony for the B.C. Heart
Foundation’s February fund drive
at B.C. Place complex Jan. 31!

ove

WRIGHT OR WRONG: It’s what
you learn after you know it all that

MARY COLLINS, MP ... the top
ten.

boost

ian pharmaceutical research

Certainly if there is any way in
which provisions of the act can be
written so as to minimize the in-
creased cost of drugs which will be
paying for our share of new
research and development in
pharmaceuticals, then these should
be carefully and fairly written.
W.D. Stothert
Vancouver