DouG
COLLINS

WILL THE two North Vancouvers show Ottawa that they
are not part of Wimpland, or will they buckle — and accept
the bonjour bilge that’s being shoved down the throat of the

local RCMP detachment?

It’s not the idiotic ruling in itself
that annoys. [t’s the whole bilin-
gual bungle in which English
Canada is supposed to crawl on its
belly.

Angus Ree’s words took my
fancy. “‘If the police in Quebec
will answer ‘hello,’ then I will not
object to bonjour,’ he was quoted
as saying.

Couldn’t have put it better
myself. But there will be no
**hellos’’ in Quebec. Only ‘‘good-
byes”’ to the departing Anglos.

Hasn’t its leader, Robert
Bourassa, told English-speakers in
his province to get lost? Hasn't he
dumped civil liberties in favor of
preserving the French Fact —. and
boasted about it? Isn't it inside-
outside democracy at work there,
as seen in that province’s perverted
business-sign laws?

Bonjour? English-speaking
visitors to Quebec even have dif-
ficulty getting service in resiau-
rants. As hockcy player Joc Sakic
has stated, ‘‘Whcen you go out for
dinner (in Quebec City) you have 5
tough time ordering your food.”’

Bonjour? Another visitor to that
city was quoted in the papers as
being told, ‘You're English. We
don't want to talk (o you.”’

Bonjour? Most of the ‘‘English"’
have left Quebec City. They know
when they’re not wanted. But still
our dailics and the politicians
salute ‘‘bunajour.’’ (So does the
CBC. But what else do you expect
from a state-supported jibcral
propaganda agency?)

The politicians you can under-
stand, in a wav. They like the idea
of drawing those nice fat indexed
pensions, and if they fight Baloney
on bilingualism they won't become
assistant ministers of defence like
Mary Collins, or get cushy little
appointments. Also, Brian might
not sign their nomination papers
next time round, and then where
would they be?

The local bonjour farce was
sicked onto the North Van
detachment by RCMP HQ in Ot-
tawa. And that move, in turn,
sprang from Baloney’s new Of-

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ficial Languages Act, which says
both languages must be offered
where there is ‘“‘significant de-
mand.’’

There are 107,600 people in the
two North Vans — 71,640 in the
district and 35,960 in the city. Or
so they tell me.

Of those, 1,084 or about one per
cent had French as their mother-
tongue, which doesn’t mean that
they still use it. According to the
1986 census there are only 50 who
speak French only.

That’s significant?

Quebec City has a population of
500,000. The ‘‘English’’ there
number 16,000 which propor-
tionately is a lot more than the
French figures here.

But there’s no ‘good day"’ for
them when they call the cops, who
belong to a French-only police
force. Quebcc is also the province
where the offices of English-
language organizations arc set on
fire, where people who show
English signs get rocks through
their windows, where Canadian
flags are burned when bilingualism
is mentioned, and where 60,000
people will demonstrate in the
streets against it.

It isn’t only in the RCMP that
they are trying to put the bonjour
bilge over on us, of course, That’s
what you get from every other
federal office in Vancouver even
though there are only 38,000
“French”’ in our whole province of
three million.

I'll tell you what ‘‘bonjour’' re-
ally means. It means kiss a Quebee
arse.

Is there any other country that's
as dumb as this one? Can you
imagine Weish on the cornflake
boxes in the U.K.? And where else
could hot-eyed separatists be taken
into the cabinet, which is the case
in Ottawa? (Secretary of State Lu-
cien Bouchard is an example.
There are others.)

RCMP Supt. Jack Morton was
right to resist this one. Bonjour is
bilge. So are all its works@

Woolco
Correction Notice

On Page 4 of the ‘Full Scate Sale
Continues” flyer the men’s red &
blue fleece ‘‘Essential’’ co-
ordinates will not be availabie.
Page 8 - the Turtle Hard Shell
tiquid wax is a 450 mL size not
a 500 mL as stated.

Woolco sincerely regrets any
inconvenience that this may
cause its customers.

Woot

9 - Wednesday, April 19, 1989 —- North Shore News

NV District mayor sets it straight

regarding municipal property taxes

Dear Editor:

Doug Collins’ April 9 column
Get This Straight, didn’t. The issue
was comparative property taxes on
the North Shore and the District of
North Vancouver was singled out
as the high flyers. Not so.

Some simple arithmetic tells the
Story. 1988 municipal tax rates on
residential property in North Van-
couver District were $6.29/$1,000
assessed value. This compares with

at woe e
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WHEN: SENDING a letter to the
editor, “be. sare’ to Anclude your
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we cannot publish all the letters
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be edited for brevity, clarity, ac-
curacy, legality or taste.

,G

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4 to%

$6.10 in the City of North Van-
couver and $6.87 in West Van-
couver,

In the latter two cases there is
also an extra charge for garbage
collection of $73 and $83 respec-
tively.

Translated to tota] dollars, you
would receive the following bills
for municipal service on a home
valued at $200,000: District of
North Vancouver $1;258; City of
North Vancouver $1,226, plus $73;
West Vancouver $1,274 plus $83.

This is not ‘‘propaganda"”’ but
fact. Municipal services cost less in
North Vancouver.

Now if we add school taxes,
which account for roughly one half
the total residential property tax,
it’s a different picture. School
District #44, serving both North
Vancouvers, had a 1988 tax rate of
$7.14, West Vancouver was $4.19.
For a $200,000 home that’s $1,428
in North Vancouver and $838 in
West Vancouver for school taxes.

These rates are set by the elected

fi

as @|
CORNER KEITH-SEWICKE-MARINE
NORTH VANCOUVER 988-6535 cr 988-8082

school boards and the
municipalities have no say or con-
trol in the amount. We act merely
as a collection agency and pass the
money on.

Having set the record straight
intermunicipally, I'd like to com-
ment on intraprovincial funding.
There is a major inequity in pro-
vincial contributions to schoo!
costs in the Greater Vancouver
Regionel District vis-a-vis the rest
of the province — to the tune of
some $150,000,000.

Current provincial revenues
cover 54 per cent of all school
funding for school districts outside
the GVRD, but only 31 per cent of
the requirements in this region.
The new province-wide Home-
owner Grant increase, while very
nice, does not address that inequi-
ty.

Now there’s a ‘‘cause" for Mr.
Collins and/or his ‘‘spy’’!

Marilyn Baker
Mayor
North Vancouver District

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