6 - Sunday, June 6,

WE PLANTO DEVELOP THIS
LONELY PIECE OF REAL ESTATE
SENSTTIVELY, AROUND ALL THESE
MENIFCENT NATIVE TREES
» ONTHE SME.....

Dutt bouquets

jeading cause of premature death in
Canada; over 43,000 Canadians die from
smoking-related illnesses annually.

For that message to reach more reci-
pienis, it must come from sources that
most people regard with some respect,
which, on the whole, is how municipal
governments are regarded.

And the message is not jusi for smokers,
who are a notoriously hard of hearing, lot
when it comes to warnings about smokig,
it is for non-smokers, prospective smokers
-and victims of smokers.

oD OUQUETS TO North Vancouver
, District Council for banishing butts

a2" from district buildings. ;
_ Whether it convinces nicotine addicts to
ebandon their foolhardy habit is not really
the object of the exercise.
The message of the motion passed May
25 by. council declaring all municipal
buildings be classified as smoke-free is that
_ smoking is no longer a socially acceptable
_ pastime. a
in the. words of Brian O’Connor, the
North Shore’s chief: medica! health officer,
‘smoking and its effects should no longer
be treated as a nuisance, but rather as a
_“mnajor health risk.”’ °
The statistics backing such a statement
. are. legion: tobacco use is by far the

In short, it is a message from society in
general that the majority is fed up with the
social, environmental and financial costs
of cigarette smoking.

NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK

. |
summer lawbreakers.. ‘From :a
June 6 News story.)

revitalize the Lonsdale business
area — on the drab SeaBus ter-
minal and its billboard-plastered
entrance to North Vancouver.

. “Say no to violence. Don't accept
it. Reject it. You guys have to
-work to. make your streets and
your community safer.”’

RCMP Const. Mike Lidstone
— addressing a public meeting on
youth violence ‘in Pemberton
Heights: —.on the community ef-
fort needed to combat local crime.
(From a June 4 News story.)

“We've gone to great trouble to
recreate the New York subway
above ground.’’

Unidentified speaker at a Mon-

(From a June 2 News story.)

‘We're going to vigorously and
aggressively pursue any violations
of the law. We do it all the time,
but we do it more in the summer
because we get a bunch of fools
going around raising havoc for
everyone eise who is enjoying
themselves.”’

RCMP Insp. Peter Wlodarczak,
on a local police crackdown on

‘I'm viewed as a little different in
Ottawa, having been a journalist.
} mean, I did give Michael Wilson
30,000 letters saying he was a bum
after he delivered his first
budget.”

Tory leadership long-shot Garth
Turner, on how he is regarded in
Ottawa. (Fromm Trevor Lautens’
Friday, June 4, Garden of Biases
column.)

“day, May 31, unveiling of plans to

7
ue
This newspaper
contains
recycled kbre

jorth Snore managed

Distribution 986-1337 (es
Supscriptions 986-1337 Rie
Fax 985-3227 Been

Ni

Display Advertising 980-0511
Real Estate Advertising 985-6982
Classified Advertising 986-6222
Newsroom 985-2131

Peter Speck
hy Renshaw
Noel Wright
Sales & Marketing Director Linda Stewart
Comptroller . . ..Doug Foot
North’ Shore News, founded in 1969 as an
independent suburban newspaper and qualified

under Schedule 111, Patagraph Hil of the Excise 4 ; ; if & ee e

Administration 985-2131 p
MEMBER

Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and cope? &
Sunday by North Shore Free -Press Ltd, and
distubuted to every door on the North Shore.
Canada Post Canadian. Publications Mail Sales
Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates
available on request. Submissions are welcome but
we cannoli accept responsibility for unsolicited
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should by accompaned by a stamped, addressed

envelope. .

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North Vancouver, B.C.

V7M 2H4
Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved.

61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) .

a

recipe

for extinction |

FUTURE HISTORIANS may well describe the recent
school strikes as the preliminary death rattle of a dinosaur
— which Canada’s public sector unions in the 1990s often

seem determined to emulate.

When an NDP government
which owes its life to organized
labor is finally compelled to
legislate public servants back to :
work, the writing is on the wall.

As it was in Britain under the
Labor Party, until Maggie That-
cher took over and brought the
unions to heel, And as it was —
much more disastrously — in New
Zealand 10 years ago. ‘

Truc, the teachers have new
problems these days — English-
Second-Language students, the
mainstreaming of ‘‘special needs’'
students and disciplinary head-
aches. But the recession has
brought new problems for many
other workers, too —- not least for
the jobless 11 %-plus.

The problems of well paid
teachers with enviable job securi-
ty could be solved, of course, like
everyone else’s problems, with
large gobs of money. But ina
couniry which now owes almost as
much 4s all its citizens earn in an
entire year — nearly half of it to
foreigners —- problem-solving
with money is no longer an op-
tion. :

As a result, Mike Harcourt and
Moe Sihota are now in organized -
labor’s doghouse for ‘‘betraying’’
sovne of their staunchest union

“supporters by ordering them to

return to the classroom. But
there's worse to come, unless the
unions heed and learn from the
story of how New Zealand
defaulted and went broke in the
*80s.

When the whistle blew, New

! Zealand’s foreign debt was

roughly the same percentage of
the Gross National Product as
Canada’s is today. Total govern-
ment debt was an appreciably
LOWER percentage than ours.

‘Suddenly, overseas lenders
lowered the boom. No more off-
shore money could be borrowed.
For day-to-day cash to carry on,
everything had to be sold off to
foreigners — Air New Zealand,
the state phone service, govern-
ment insurance and holdings in
the biggest bank.

Interest rates soared. Real estate
crashed. Farm subsidies ended.
The NZ dollar was devalued 20%
— in effect a 20% national wage
cut,

In one day 732 post offices were
closed. The state railway cut staff
from 22,000 to under 6,000. TV
New. Zealand staff was halved,
Health, welfare, pension and
unempioyment benefits were all
slashed. The living standard

HITRER AND YON

dropped from third in the world
to 22nd.

Despite their size the dinosaurs
perished when their tiny brains .
failed to cope with hostite new
realities in their environment.

Food for thought from New “
Zealand for strike-happy teachers
and other public sector unions
which ignore hostile new realities!

SCRATCHPAD: *‘Tricked”’ by
their fundraising chairman Alex
MacQuarrie, Evergreen Kiwanis |
members recently paid $10 a head
for a promised ‘‘gourrmet”’ lunch
-- only to receive designer lunch
bags and be told to bring their
own best ‘‘gousmet sandwiches”’
to share at the next meeting.
Result: $419 for the Food Bank —
part of almost.$11,000 donated by
the club so far this year to Lions.
Gate Hospita! ($5,000), the North
Shore Arthritis Assn. ($1,500),
Cedarview Lodge ($2,000) and
high school grad Citizenship
Awards ($2,000). ... ““Women for
Sobriety’’ meet at 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday evenings at North Shore
Women’s Centre; which has mov-
ed to 3093 Lonsdale Ave. — call
984-3213 for info. ... And from |.
the Better Late Dept., many hap-
py returns of June 1, to Pearl...
Leathem, at 85 a North Van pio-
neer for over 50 years.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: If you
plant a tree, don’t keep pulling it
up by the roots to see how it’s

growing.

a BT