Govt. blamed for layoffs FROM PAGE A1 we don't have any,” says Ferguson. “We have the longest coastline in the world but we don't have any merchant marine and no navy to talk of.” Both are maddened by the procrastination of the feds in putting out for tender shipbuilding projects it has on the books. “The government has set aside money for six vessels to be built this year,” says Ferguson. “Why the hell do they not get on with it?” Their frustration is due to the fact that even once the contracts are awarded there is a six to nine-month start- up delay during the drawing- up of blueprints, the or- dering and cutting of steel before and shipbuilding can even begin, during which time most of the North Shore's shipbuilders will be unemployed. But both unmon officers also blame the provincial Social Credit government for the impending crisis in shipbuilding yards Each insists there should have been a clause providing for shipment by Canadian- made vessels in the north- cast coal deal with Japan Fitzpatnck says “Because of the financial stakes in- volved - with 8700 milhon tn 198O-dollars (now 10s over $1 billion) -— there should have been some moncy sct aside for the manning of Canadian vessels ” “We would be looking at steady work for quite a while, with four full size ships to be built.” says Ferguson Instead, he complains bitterly, the shipbuilding benefits as a result of BOO os coal deal are going to Korca Belgium and Malaya Fitzpatric praises the shipbuilding actions of former Socred premict W ¢ Bennett, whose government built up the B ¢ system in the (960s “They built up the most modern ferry system toa the world.” he says He says Premicr Bill Bennetts government pales In CoOompanson “If they fermes. why cant they do at with the caporting of non renewable resources’ He asks He says of uhe previous Bennett government “They took the bull by the horns hermes could do oat) for and built a ferry fleet. They took chances then - but it paid off.” Fitzpatrick ts encouraged that NDP leader Dave Barrett has stated in public that if elected his govern- ment would renogotiate the north east coal deal to ensure that 25 per cent of shipments would be in Canadian-build hulls. Back in July last year Fitzpatrick made exactly the same recommendation in a letter he wrote to provincial energy minister Bob Mc- Clelland. At the beginning of the year Fitzpatrick’s union had 2,300 members’ working. Since then 736 became unemployed, before the layoffs of last week even began at Burrard. NDP candidate for North Vancouver Seymour David Schreck echoed the sen- uments of the unions - in a NEWS photo Eric Eggertson statement he released last week. He said the layoffs “might have been avoided if the Social Credit government had negotiated ship building contracts as part of the northeast coal deal with Japan.” Schreck claimed: “Social Credit mismanagement has cost these people their jobs, and possibly the jobs of men at other idle North Van- couver shipyards.” COMBINED SERVICES civ. MAJOR APPLIANCES ON THE NORTH SHORE SUPER SPECIAL o Vir VOLUME INDEPENDENT PURCHASERS GENERALQPELECTRIC Service on the North Shore since 1955 normale ggg nal a ———— st Aid 1008 CONVEH TIBI E MODEL, ONL Y BUI T IN MODEL SUPER PRICE. CcCOoOmMBineD 1590 Martne Or... North Vancouver SERVICES 1... Use your VISA Or MASTERCARD POTSCRUBBER Il DISHWASHER AT A REMARKABLY LOW SPECIAL PURCHASE PRICE J level wash action Multi orbit wash arm Sell cleaning titer Soft toad disposer Ainse agent dispenser 16 cycles with the energy saver option eoe?# 6¢ @ ‘729 $689 987-2251 1315 Cotton Drive Pave ir All - Sanday, April 24, 1983 - North Shore News ALL IN THE SAME BOAT, management and unions discuss ways to create more work. Pictured at Burrard Yarrows by the newly-completed Terry Fox icebreaker are (left to right) Burrard President Don Challinor and union representatives Ron Ferguson and Jon Fitz- patrick. CRASH PAD NEVWS No. 15 24 April 1983 Vol. Len Macht The Great Car Mother The idea that cars have souls is not a new one - bikers and racing car drivers and other car fetishists have been talking to their machines for years now, with largely undocumented results. Now there is new proof that this biomechanical phenomona may really exist. You know that I keep extensive records of this kind of thing in my Crash Pad office, and in on-going research I have uncovered a new quirk in the pattern; it seems that owners of import cars suffer from an overwhelming urge to bring their cars back to the import dealership for body work. Consider this with the knowledge that no import dealership on the North Shore has a body shop, (save one - Mercedes Benz), and something tells me other forces are at work. Some kind of salmon homing instinct, the cars retuming to the womb, the Great Car Mother of the dealership. Help me, Honda, Dept. Fortunately, the thing seers to be loosing its grip we have been flooded, innundated, with Hondas lately. which proves that cars do have a herding mentality. We're buried in Accords, Civics coming out of our ears, and we love it. The strike isn’t making it easy, but we are braving all difficulties so far Happy Honda did us a big favour recently by driving down to Seattle to pick up a door This ts not to say we don’t have a host of Toyotas, which we have always been big in, and yes, we even do Mer cedes Benz It does my heart good to see these owners taking matters into thetr own hands and bnnging their imports into a body shop for body repairs, which 1s where the dealer sends them anyway Bite My Tongue, Dept. Last week | reported that Gateway had closed its duors tn Surrey Ao phonecall last week assured me this was definitely not the case, and the noise in the background sure sounded like the bang and clatter of a busy body shap My apologies, lads. | will have to check that unimpeachable source Where the Cloverleaf Grows, Dept. You may have noticed the flumy of construction on Brooksbank thatis. if you know where Brooksbank ts This ts the farmer drag stip connecting Ketth Road with Cotton Ditve which ts really 3rd Street, which runs into Main Street and blah blah blah Phe government has come to the rescue tin all this confusion, a little, by slating this innocuous little street to become a big four laner, part of a new transportation system to cary the North Shore into the 2) st century It will somehow be connected with a massive Cloverleaf to be erected in the area of the Coach House and all this ts in atd of carry through traffic from Deep Cove through the Park Royal and beyond And what will these thousands of motonsts be seeing as they whiz past on thet dally errands? Why, our whirling, spinning, bnghth bt and tnendly Crash Pad sign of course the place to stop in fore quick Coffee if the trattic gets tomuch and talk amtable car talk VS Cotton Dr Ne vans 980-4581 OPEN SATURDAYS! ark & Tilford)