4 — Wednesday, December 14, 1988 - a North Shore News BoB HUNTER THERE WERE two major political parties in Canada, by the way, not just one, that were delivered stunning rebukes by the electorate last month. I refer to the NDP and the Greens. The Greens — a major party? You laugh. But the fact is, they are organized in nearly two dozen countries. They’re not some redneck regional fundamentalist bunch. They are an international force, already exerting considerable in- fluence in West Germany and Sweden. Even in the Baltics, if ou please. They would be a major party, even if no one got elected, simply in terms of ideas. In their as-yet still somewhat incoherent way, they are uttering a profound truth of our age: the party is over, folks. We have an ecological catastrophe on our hands. Time to get serious. Certainly as a new branch of po- litical thought, the Greens repre- sent the wave of the future, if there is to be a future at all. And that’s a moot point at this stage. The Jocal Greens seem like polit- ical amateurs, I adinit. But that’s not the case everywhere. In countries where there is a system of voting based on repre- sentation by populaticn, of course, they have a relatively easy time of it. A certain small percentage of the vote is all you need to get into the corridors of power. In our winner-take-all parliamentary system, the results are distorted, Witness Brian Mulroney winning a majority with more than half the population against him. Fair or not, the fact remains the Greens were shut out utterly in Canada. And yet, was this a unique election? It was the first time when opinion polls placed the issue of the environment ut or near the very top of- voters’ concerns. Surely, if ever an ecctogy party would waake an impact, it sould have been during this last feferal ;s Buy your 1st pair ef eyeglasses foi (regular price 59.99, and SAVE °10 Buy your second pair of eyeglasses for your- self or any member of your family for \SAVE *15 extras excluded VANCOUVER 833 West Broadway 873-3941 NORTH and WEST VANCOUVER {amaigamated) 1456 Lonsdale Avenue 7 987-1611 ,F SINGLE \ VISION WEARERS: ‘49% Ali prescriptions include your choice of metal or plastic frames. {Powers to + or - 600 with a 2.00 cyl.) Rimless and election. The opportunity was blown en- tirely! I watched for national stories about the Greens. There were two. The first was when they com- plained about not being included in the leaders’ debate. The NDP, as Bob White of the Canadian Auto Workers Union icily notes, indeed squandered the opportunity of a lifetime during the election.’’ De The second was an item pointing out that not one major en- vironmental group had endorsed the Greens. As for the NDP, where do they stand now? The NDP, as Bob White of the Canadian Auto Workers Union icily notes, indeed squandered the opportunity of a lifetime during the election. It wasn’t just that they missed the boat on free trade, letting John Turner, the old skirmisher, run away with that particular ball. Their real problem was that they fell into the trap of centralization. The election was ‘“‘hijacked by a politboro,’’as one disgruntled New Democrat put it, describing the gaggle of backroom advisers sur- rounding Ed Broadbent. Surprise, surprise! This is amus- ing in the extreme: a left-winger, by definition a centralist, com- plaining when centralization turns out to be disastrous. Don’t these guys read history? Why is the Soviet Union reaching out to escape from the death-grip of its own politboro system, if not for the fact that cen- tral planning is a dead weight around the neck of any economy? Certainly it was a dead weight around the NDP’s neck during the campaign. But much as the NDP’s execu- tive has to answer for, it is the fate of the tiny-but-significant Greens that interests me. T noticed during the campaign that one Green candidate’s lead item in his pamphlet was the promise of daycare. Good grief! To me it seems simple. The Greens need seats. They need, above all, to influence policy. The only way they could hope to do it from within would be if they found some way to merge with the NDP and form a whole new politi- cal alliance. Much as the Greens need inside clout, the NDP needs a new ra- tionale for its nurturing feelings. Environment ought to be the natu- sal intellectual home for a left- wing party looking for a new raison d’etre. It can even appeal to the nationalist elements. It is one of the ironies of mod- ern politics that the left-wing types used to be in favor of interna- tionalism. But now, as business has embraced internationalism, the Left has turned inward, Balkiniz- ing itself, as it were. In any event, the Left could do worse than to embrace an out- front environmentalist position as its missionary mainspring for the next decade. Certainly, otherwise the Left is facing a serious threat of obsolescence. . They plateaued this time, you know. Very bad sign. The Greens themselves sure as hed aren’t making any progress. At least not in Canada. I think the two political forces nzed each other. Provincially, the New Demo- crats are essentially a Green party anyway. It’s time they got that way nationally ® Ee Asbestos exposure penalty not enough, says Versatile union . UNION REPRESENTATIVES at Versatile Pacific Ship- yards Inc. said Monday a $15,000 fine the Workers’ Com- pensation Board (WCB) has recommended be levied against the company following an investigation into a recent case of shipyard worker exposure to airberne asbestos is not enough. Marine Workers and Boiler- makers Industrial Union (MWBIUV) president John Fitz- patrick said the company “‘at the very, very, very least’’ should pay to have all 92 of the workers who were exposed to the asbestos exam- ined at Vancouver General Hospi- tal’s UBC respiratory clinic. “It would show that the com- pany had the health and welfare of its workers in mind,’’ Fitzpatrick said. ‘‘But at this point we have received no response to our request from the company.”’ But Versatile president David Alsop said Monday the company objecied ‘‘to being found guilty before we have had our day in court, so to speak.’’ He said Versztile will present its side of the story to the WCB in appealing the fine recommenda- tion. The company, he added, is con- sidering having the workers who were exposed to the asbestos exam- ined, but he said the complexities of instituting and administrating a program to determine worker ex- posure to asbestos on a long-term basis could prove too unwieldy to be practical. Versatile has 21 days to appeal the fine recommendation to the WCB and a further 21 days to ap- peal to the board’s commissioners any decision made after the com- pany’s initial appeal. WCB spokesman Judy Kirk said the $15,000 penalty was recom- mended after the WCB determined that Versatile had been guilty of various infractions of industrial health and safety regulations. The fine, she said, was above average. In 1987, for example, the average fine levied by the WCB was $4,500. The WCB announced its inten- tion to fine Versatile following an investigation into incidents in Tru Valu Introduces for Christmas Our Family Savings Plan Hurry! Not Many Shopping Days Lefii! 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In addition to the asbestos in the storage room walls, WCB occupa- tional hygiene officers also found asbestos in a black mastic substance used to bond insulation to the ship’s hull. Workers had been exposed to toxic fumes from the substance while burning through the ship’s hull. MWBIU secretary-treasurer Bill Scott said the $15,000 fine divided by the 92 exposed workers added up to just over $163 per worker. “Life doesn’t come that cheap,’’ Scott said, ‘‘even for shipyard workers.”” In the Gct. 7 News story chronicling the exposure of workers to the asbestos, Scott said the WCB should establish a system of reporting and recording worker exposure to asbestos because the il- Inesses connected with breathing asbestos into the lungs normally take decades to surface. Kirk said Monday the WCB has since made some draft proposal regulations for medical monitoring of asbestos exposure and is awaiting input on the proposals from labor and management. 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