A6-Wednesday, April 23, 1980 - North Shore News editorial page NEWS VIEWPOINT Time to think This year’s municipal elections are still seven months away. But that curious body politic known as the West Vancouver Electors Association, following its spring annual general meeting, will soon be swinging into action again. So it is not too early to set the record straight once more for West Van voters. The stated aims of the WVEA are to encourage the best qualified people to run for municipal office and, in the final few weeks, to endorse those candidates whom it regards as the cream of the crop — backed by the association’s considerable advertising and publicity clout. In themselves, of course, these aims are pure motherhood and the WVEA is always at pains to stress that it is “non-political”. Frankly, we find that claim hard to swallow. By its very existence the WVEA is a political group. It endorses the candiates who find favor with its membership — and, more particularly, with its 12-member board of directors. If the association doesn't like your background or the way you think, you're “rejected” and on your own. This might be fine if the WVEA were truly representative of the community. {n fact, however, its 150-200 membership amounts to a mere one per cent or less of the West Van electorate. That hardly justifies the association's self- assumed role as the political conscience of West Vancouver. We suggest the time has come for the WVEA to rethink its whole fumction and explore more modest ways of serving the 99 per cent. af voters it DOESN'T speak for. Dollar ai bars The Canadian penitentiary system has a costly new problem. It can’t fill its minimum- security prisons, farms and halfway houses — the cheapest establishments to operate — because qualified inmates in medium- security prisons don’t want to move. In minimum-security institutions they have to work harder for less money. Maybe those jail cell bars are no longer needed. Dollars, it seems, work even better. sunday news north shore | news 1139 Lonsdale Ave North Vancouver BC V7M 2H4 (604) 985-2131 NEWS ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED CIRCULATION 985-2131 980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chiet Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright Erne Cardwell Classified Manager & Office Administrator Berm Hiliard Production Tam Francis Faye Mc Crae Managing Editor Andy Fraser News Editor Photography Chris lloyd E lisworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Barbara Keen North Shore News, founded in 1964 as an imdependent © ormmiuns ty newspaper and qualited under Schedule Il Part itll Paragraph Wot the Excise Tax Act is publisned each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press ttd and diatributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Reyistration Number i645 Subscriptions $20 per year Entire Cottents 1YRBO North Store Free Press ltd Allnghts reserved No responsitoiity ace epted manuscripts and pac tures foot vatatecode eect Sstrcrraled foes rrveaters seal tere beac Sten wie by stamped addressed refucn envelop Goa SN - r Cxops eC CMTUpaattesa) toy VERIFIED CIRCULATION 50,870 49,913 Wednesday Sunday THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE Climate alert WASHINGTON (UPI) - The will affect the globai climate vagaries of climate can have HOW OLD AM 1 ?. PRET OLD | GUESS... | CAN REMEMBER WHEN ‘CRYING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK’ MEANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT ' an enormous influence on the lives of people and even nations around the world, yet scientists understand little about its behavior and even less about what to do about il. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has just Come up with a five- year plan aimed at unravelling some of the mysteries of the year-to-year and even decade-to-decade variations in our weather. The plan, a preliminary proposal for a National Climate Program, calls for a coordinated research ap- proach by federal agencies. state groups, pmvate in- terests, colleges and universities and in- ternational organizations. Special emphasis is placed on the effects of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas by energy-hungry peoples. The climate study plan submitted to Congress said most scientists agree that increased carbon dioxide — probably by increasing temperatures — but the precise consequences are not known. The plan noted that few options to burning fossil fuels appear tolerable. “To ignore the problem, however, is the least tolerable option of all,” it said. The plan defines three major areas of study — the assessment of the con- sequences of climate changes, research to develop a better understanding of the processes that affect the climate, and pathering and disseminating data on climate conditions. A high priority of the climate program will be to idenufy and assess all of the societal, economic and pohncal consequences of chmate changes, and ways to respond to long-term weather changes. {In addition, the plan said scientists must go beyond merely -eacting to changes: “One must also consider the possibiliies and costs of th Laut trying to prevent or minimize the changes.” The plan said research into the nature of climate processes must go beyond the atmosphere and delve as well into the oceans, the world’s ice and snow masses and tand vegetation. . “It is a complex system and our understanding of it is still too poor to support making reliable predictions of its future state,"” the report said. surfaces and ~ arde’s 10% mortgage plan Opportunities for patting Premier Bill Bennett's - government or its individual members on the head during the past year have been few and far bet- ween. So it’s nice at last to be able to offer a modest bouquet to Garde Gardom, Minister of Intergovernmental Relations, who has come up with the best idea since sliced bread for both the mortgage victim and the savings account brigade. stitutions. He also stresses that the idea ts his alone -- it does not represent B.C. government policy. AL! the more credit to him for daring to talk such sound common sense. AID FOR That's the good news. The bad news 1s that his brain wave is dependent upon the cooperation of the federal government. Mr Gardom’'s © starting point is that tens of thousands of Canadians are no longer able to afford a home of their own at todav’s usunmous 4 mortage interest rates -- while, at the same time, “small” individual savings in bank = savings accounts, term deposits and the like have never been higher Mr Gardom wants to get these two groups of worthy citizens together for their mutual benefit in a scheme that would cut out the banks, credit umons, trust com panies and other = con- ventional mortgage lenders currently demanding 16- 17% It would also cut a shice out of the tax collec: tor’s take -- which is where Ottawa comes in $1,000 JOKER The yoker in the deck 1s the present maximum in come deduction | of $1,000 in respect of income derived (ax from interest, dividends and capital gains Yhat) maximum would have to increased to deduction be greatly make the Gardom plan work Consider, by way of a simple example, a thrifty eizen with $33,000 stashed away inh & savings account and term deposits presently earning around 13% 1n- terest. The interest on the first $& 000 ‘approximately $1,000) is tax-free The interest on the remaining $25 000 ‘about $3,250) ts fully taxable Tf our thrifty citizen is ino a SO% tax bracket. he divides that interest with the government keeping only $1.625 for himself Suppose instead, he loaned the $25,000 to a homeowner by way of a mortgage at 10'2% and was permitted to deduct the entire interest from = his income tax His average annual interest would be $2,625, all of which he could retain) In other words, he would be a cool $1,000 a year better off than under the present system BILKED BOTH WAYS The relief homeowner receiving the 10'a% mortgage would be cven prealer for the His monthly payments on the $25,000 loan amortized over 22 years would amount to about $240 as against the $343 he would have had to pay a bank credit union or trust company for the same loan at. say, l6'a% His saving $1.2 30a year Between collector ventional them, the tan andthe Mortgage con lenders Noel Wright are currently bilking “small” our saver and our small homeowner unable, so far, to get together in the manner described — of a total of well over $2,000 a year The money is there in record “small” savings The crying need is there among tens of thousands — of homeowners of would be homeowners — who — simply cant cope with 16 17% lending rates rates ap proaching a level which not soo omany years have ago would invited criminal charges The only obstacies in the way of such a yet together are the National Revenue Department and the Bank of Canada, which sets the pace for the chartered banks and their mortgage pctitors loan com Mr Gardom freely admits that his scheme as not hkely to be welcomed with open arms by either Collector or beighborhood the tax your frendly lending on BUSINESS The principle behind his plan is not, of course, confined to homeowner mortgages. Exactly the same principle could obviously be apphed to direct investment by savings account holders in small local businesses and industnes with higher interest pay-offs for the former despite much lower interest costs for the latter. Admittedly, such in- vestments would carry a somewhat higher degree of risk than leaving one’s hard- earned bucks account or in a savings term deposits. But the point is that present tax repulations with everything over $1,000 fully taxable offer no incentive to the individual to take such risks By the time your savings account or term deposit money reaches the people who need wt the lending insitubon to which you entrust that moncy will have made an interest mark-up of around 30% on it. Mean- while, Nabonal Revenue will grab up to 50% of the in terest you actually receive There must be a better way for individuals with a modest amount of savings to lend money at less than 16- 20% to other individuals who need it temporanty for a worthwhile purpose That's how Canada was originally bualt Thanks. reminding us luck to you in Ottawa! Garde for and good