oar worse ere T think Ws a “taxpayers big et? reuse wierarmedrd Bee Ry Spe eae ALL IT a budget of blarney. For theugh the pleasant taxpaying folk of this blessed realm might be mopping brows with relief that Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull’s 1995-96 budget brought with it mo new visible taxes, it came wreathed in layers of NDP fiscal hokum. Cull delivered her new budget early Tuesday after government leaks delivered the budget the previous evening to a Victoria newspaper. So much for high-level bureau- cratic security. Budget ballyhoo included the claim that the government would enjoy a $114 million budget surplus — this even though B.C.’s accumulated debt will, at the same time, increase nearly $1 billion to $27.86 billion. Even for the numerically challenged, those figures do not add up, no matter how much voodoo spin doctors apply to them. The socialists in Victoria also proudly pro- claim that taxpayers will be spared any new taxes. But this too is more fiscal spin — get- ting dizzy yet? — because the budget. also includes $3 million in new user fees and licence charges that are taxes by other names. Worst of all, however, is that the public call: for decreased public spending has been ignored again. The NDP government will actually increase overall spending by 2.9% to : $20.2 billion. if this is the first step in its 20-. year debt-reduction plan, then we are headed for worse trouble than we think. And.a debt- reduction plan with a 20-year prefix based on B.C.’s Gross Domestic Product is not accept-_ able: 20 years in the world of high finance i is. , an eternity. The socialists are playing the old fiscal shell-game and the losers will again. ‘be the: province’s taxpayers. : mailbox s DO THEY have different drinking water than the rest : of us in North Vancouver - District? Or is someone "putting something funny into NVD council hey, NV District - and City, why don’t you two stop fooling around und get hitched?) decided this week to hold a public hearing over the question of allow- ‘ing video lottery terminals. Nuts.) sf : One, I thought councils were - elected to tnake decisions. , Two, | anyone notice a groundswell of public opinion - . demanding VLTs? Or a costly pub- ‘lic hearing about them? Three, the only detectable “groundswell” for these insidious poor and the hopeless gambling addict is coming from Victoria. The pusher is the New Democratic Party government. The entire 18-municipality Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) rejected VLTs. A number of GVRD municipalities have individually enacted bylaws to ban them. ; ’ Victoria insists there are thou- sands of illegal VLTs creeping like a cancer over civilization as we know it. All it intends to do is to replace the wicked, illicit, scur- ° rilous VLTs with its own decent, upright, law-abiding VLTs — of course raking profits off the top for “ the house. Which brings us to Point Four; No one has stepped forward to tes- tify as to having actually seen these wicked, illicit etc. machines — except provincial government fac- totums. . The VLTs appear to be phan- toms.. Ghosts. Or possibly visions, visible only to the truly faithful — such as those who firmly believe that there really is a Mike Harcourt. My own municipality, Greater ~ Tiddlycove (aka West Vancouver), has audaciously enacted a bylaw prohibiting them, even after hearing from a 8.C. government represen- ‘ tative who assured councillors that illegal VLTs are skulking around. As Coun: Pat Boname drily put it: “We're going to save ourselves from something nobody's heard of" Anyone on the North Shore have a good word to say about the railways and their workers? The natioriwide rail strike cost the por and lumber and grain industries and their workers heavily (and the Bloc Quebecois, blockers of the back-te-work legislation, any - remaining shred of popularity out- side of Quebec, it giving not a damn _ for the rest of the country). ‘The rail companies and their employees should have as their motto: “A hundred and fifty years of being pampered. eee Bob Stall of the Province wrote a column a few weeks ago that should cause great indignation. He stated that in Vancouver-by- the-Gommorah, the wicked city acruss the waters, parking-ticket writers avoid writing tickets for certain cars parked near their own Howe Street office. Why? Because of “an unwritten commandment ... thou shalt not ticket thine own bosses and brethren.” (Surely, Bob old boy, also “sistren.” One must not be sex- ist.) “How do the parking officers” — you remember that in the bad old days before feminist correction they were dubbed meter maids — “know it’s a co-worker’s car?” Bob asks, Heilpfully, he answers him- self: “There are different signals ranging from subtle to brazen.” Subtle is a scrap of paper on the dashboard bearing the parking enforcement employee's number (ranging from 10 to 190). Brazen is an outdated tag reading “City Hall Employee Parking,” which has no ‘Jegal standing whatever. That's the kind of stuff we expect from decadent Vancouver. Except that, coincidentally, | was told months ago that.a varianc of this preferential system happens in West Vancouver. A usually well-informed source assured me that some of the explo- “sive parking problem in Ambleside is caused by off-duty police from North Vancouver parking with impunity for long over the posted limit. Their vehicles are recognized - — subtle or brazen signs? — and aren't ticketed. 1 want to go on record as stating that I don't believe this preposter- ous allegation for a moment. Maybe I’m last to know, but it’s news to me (via by Douglas Fetherling in Western Living maga-- zine that federal Foreign Trade Minister Roy McLaren, a / Vancouver native, still maintains and occasionally visits the no- phone, no-power Hollyburn Mountain cabin he bought for $600 as a boy in 1949, Heir p- wanted. Dear Editor: | : I have read yet another let: ter (Feb. 19, page 7) assailing parents who dare leave their children in the car while they trun into: the store or. bank — machine for a few minutes. Where have we gone -in society that we would rather . point fingers than offer help or assist in some way? : Why «didn’t: Mr. Simmons | --and Ms. Simmons stand near- by and ensure that the children - they. were so concerted about were safe until the guardian . returned? Why can we not live in a community that looks out , for one another, especially pro- tecting the children? ‘ The poor harried , parent who ran into the store could: have used your help, not your condemnation. ; Show each other some com- . passion and respect and save your anger for the peopie who make our community . unsafe... and frightening for our chil- dren. 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