6 - Sunday, August 31, 1986 ~ North Shore News —________, News Viewpoint Bear facts LACK BEARS are being spotted near residential areas in record numbers this summer. One resident near the Premier Street dump in North Vancouver said he’s heard of as many as 24 bears visiting that location at one time. And already this sum- mer the North Shore conservation officer has had to kill at least ‘‘twoa nuisance’’ bears. Bruce Lemke, senior conservation officer from = the Ministry of Environment, describes a nuisance bear as one which poses a threat either to Auman life or property. Lemke admits the office is having a2 manpower pro- blem, and isn't able toe respond to all of the bear com- plaint calls. This year complaints have increased trom 100 the previous year to between 800 and 900 calls in the Lower Mainland, with the North Shore identified as a major probtem area. Yet the ministry has only one animal contro! officer for both North and West Vancouver, who is based in Surrey. There’s another officer for the Vancouver area, two in Maple Ridge, three in Squamish, one in Sechelt and one in Powell River. Lemke said the Squamish, Sechelt and Powell River officers are not having as big a problem controlling the local bear population compared to the North Shore, Co- quitlam and Maple Ridge. In Maple Ridge, he said, one of the officers is on holi- day while the only other officer there is off sick. The simplest solution would be for the ministry to increase conservation officers during the peak season. Maybe then more “‘nuisance’’ bears will be tranquillized and taken out- side of city limits rather than be shot dead. SMALL BUSINESS used to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the economic world. It didn’t get no respect, if you'll pardon the grammar. That situation is changing perceptibly today. Small business is ‘In’? as far as the media are concerned. You can hardly turn on the television news or open a paper without secing some feature on an entrepreneur who's turned an idea into a profitable little company. Political leaders, too, are con- stantly referring to the impor- tance of the small firm in the Big Picture. It has been well-establish- ed now that small firms create most of the jobs in the economy, upwards of two-thirds. And policy makers are aware that most of the new jobs in the coming years will BUTTING OUT THE FREE come from new enterprises, firms that do not exist today. That's the good news. But the disappointing fact is that the message is not getting through to the man, woman and child on the street as clearly as it should. What other conclusion can one draw from a University” of Michigan study in which almost two-thirds of the Americans polled said large corporations are the prime source of economic oppor- tunity. Yes, it’s an American study, but that does not necessarily Simit its applicability north of the border, After all, if anything, the United States has an even greater small ENTERPRISE WAY — 2 THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER ae . Display Advertising Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions North Shore News, +. WS i Wales | pe SUNDAY - WEONESDAY - FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Ave. North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 57,656 (average Wedoesday . ay % Sunday friday & Sundaye Mol DV anos, 980-0511 985-2131 986-1337 986-1337 Ce ma eo De business heritage than do we, in- heritors of a land originally developed by the Hudson's Bay Company and other massive con- giomerations. Of course, the general .public feels quite kindly toward small business people. More than 60 per cent regard them ‘‘very posi- tively’’, an approval rate that ranks only behind teachers (at 75 per cent) and farmers (76 per cent). Here again, though, the perception of the public is muddy, for what is NOEL WRIGHT ON VACATION a farmer if not a small business operator? By comparison, this study found only 30 per cent very favorably disposed to corporate executives, which put them behind federal employees (33 per cent) but ahead of union leaders who got good marks from only 20 per cent. So what, you ask. Well, people in small business can certainly feel pretty good that the general public has generally warm and cuddly feelings for them, But the lack of recognition of the effect small business has on the economy is a problem, for all the evidence of the last few years says the economy is shifting. The bias against smallness is disappearing as technology, specifically the nmiicrochip, gives the tiniest Publisher: Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Advertising Director Leer aesboapaet ared qe sail Pater Speck Noel Wright Barrett Fisher Linda Stewart oe GNU Bane guaph BL ot te cbt 16 a Entire contents ° 1986 North Shore Free Press Lid. AH nights reserved. HEWS photo submilled MISS NORTH Shore, Heidi Fraser, (centre) joins with Miss PNE cootestants Tamm; Gardner (left) and Debbie Rosen in tasting the sweet flavors of this year’s fair, The annual celebration winds up tomorrow. MAINSTREAM CANADA Perception gap dogs smail firms owner/manager giant potential. Because of that we must make small business and entrepreneur- ship a more credible career option for our children. The psychology involved is crit- ical if more people are going to create their own careers instead of despairing in the face of reduced payrolls in the big corporations. That's true not just in order that our offspring find jobs, but also so that our country can compete in the increasingly complex interna- tional marketplace. The implications are clear for all of us involved in the economic life of this country. We have a massive education job still ahead and there is much at stake. (CFIB Feature Service) Health tab argument doesn’t entitle gov't to ban smoking THE ADVANTAGES of allowing the market, not gov- ernment, to set up smoking rules — whether for the con- sumer or in the work place — are numerous. First of all, with each en- trepreneur making up his own tules, there may be in existence lit- erally dozens, if not hundreds of different methods of dealing with the problem of secondary smoke pollution. Secondly, the market process is more flexible than the government intervention. There can usually be only one set of legislation in a given geographical area, but under free enterprise, businesses may be able to tailor their smoking rules to By WALTER BLOCK Fraser Institute, Vancouver (continued from last Wednesday) fit their widely diverging clientele. Thirdly, and perhaps most im- portantly, there is the matter of freedom and individual liberty. Despite the desires of some peo- ple, and the failure of our recent constitution to even mention the concept, Canada is still a country buttressed by the institution of private property. if government is allowed to take over this realm, and to dictate pol- icy against the wishes of the owners of these establishments, then the liberty enjoyed by Cana- dians will be to that extent curtail- ed, There is one argument, however, that directly challenges the freedom of our citizenry, but still has appeal in some quarters. Under our present institutional ar- rangements of socialized medicine, if a person contracts cancer or emphysema or some other dread disease as a result of smoking, his care will be financially underwrit- ten out of general tax funds. Under such circumstances, it is argued, the state has a right to in- sist that people maintain their health if only to avoid becoming a drain on the public purse. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it puts the cart before the horse. The western democratic nations are predicated on the basic assumption that the state exists to serve the people's desires, not that the citizens exist in order to promote the interests of government, If people can be prohibited from smoking on the ground that the state finds inconvenient the resulting threat to their health, they can'be forbidden to engage in any number of other potentially dangerous activities. But do we re- ally want a super nanny society which outlaws football, soccer, hockey, marathon running, uiathalons, hang gliding, motor- cycle riding, ice-cream, candy, alcohol and any and all other behavior which might put us at tisk? Hardly. If push comes to shove, it would be far better to eliminate public medical care, or at least to allow people who insist on en- dangering their health in these Ways tO opt cut.