*/ Please God,
help me to :
improve Sosiely

. ERNIE CRIST is a rare
‘bloke. He’s an even: rarer:
_ politician. ace

‘He’sa ‘one-time ‘manager of

a hardware store (like another.
‘prominent B.C; politician) who
once belonged to the -
‘ Communist party (unlike that’!
other politician), a roughneck:
* who quotes Goethe, a socialist
“who eloquently speaks of an!
“epiphany when he discovered in
the European alps the immortal- :
ity of the soul...30 0%. -
And a man who was in the
sights: ofa Gestapo firing: squad:
“at age 15'— and in the sights 0:

“his angry fellow North::. “”

.. Vancouver District. council.

"Members at age 67. a

'He doesn’t play the’ game.

‘A couple of weeks ago he»
was the subject of a censure
‘motion because he openly hand-
‘ved out confidential documents.

; Beaten in council on his move

“.t0 Save Cové Forest in the Deep. uw

Cove area froma proposed °..-
.{2,000-home development, Crist.

continued to,argue his view in’ i.

the media that the land be saved!
for parkland. - eb

“There is a fundamental.
© problem.” ‘with his colleagues, - *’
“Crist-said, “and that’s a lack of *
knowing what ‘democracy i is all *.
“about. «... They interpret their *,
Tesponsibility as a responsibility»

sto. other ‘politicians, not to the
Bake wos
‘You rather get that i impres-

: Doug Foot:
Comatreller

“985-2134 (138) -

» 4139 Lonsdale Avenue
CNorth Vancouver B. Cc.
; ~M7M 2H4 °
c North Shore Managed.

oy

“Please God, male
Varder Zalm

» reall involved (n
poli ies again So
at T wor have to

ABR BARGER EAM A TERE UMAR Pa APA ESA TEE

st €

HE CROSSING guard kerfuffle raised
recently in North Vancouver School
District 44 raises a host of street-level

fiscal and operational concerns.
Not so fong ago, children performed: the
job of school crossing guards for their school.

Older children were trained in the ways of

street safety. They volunteered their time to
look. alter their fellow students as they
crossed streets at busy and potentially dan-
gerous intersections.

The program instilled a sense of responsi-
hility and pride in those who took on the
“crossing guard task. Of equal importance,
children had peers to look to as positive role
models. .,

The current budgetary drama playing out
‘in North Vancouver School District 44 has the
cash-crunched school district scrambling for
savings of about $220, 000 by chopping the

ESR EAS NS ipa tact PAD ye San et BAEC 8 RE

GFOSS

district’s. 18 paid crossing guards for the
1995-96 school: year,

The move raises some troubling questions.

The. cost cutting exercise reveals. that
District 44 pays union wages for its crossing
guards. The jobs are held by Canadian Union
of Public Employees (CUPE) members,

The nagging questions: how and why did
crossing guards become paid and unionized .
workers? If the province doesn’t allow for a
specifi c¢ funding category for the payment of
crossing guards, which school district funding
catepory is supporting the $220,000 annual
cost?

The crossing guard options are limited
given the statement by, CUPE that it will
enforce a contract provision that prevents
laid-off CUPE workers from being replaced:
by volunteers. The school district seems to

-sion validated from Coun.
. Pamela Goldsmith-Jones’ angry

“© indictment of Crist for “a scur- -

“““rilous attack on the dedication
‘and competence of senior man-~
‘agement staff, the soundness of
‘district budgeting for major cap-
vital projects, and responsible

ory" —
2, excoriated NVD’s approval of

7 in any organization.

” thoroughbred stable. Makes the
other nags nervous.

What's certain is that he
comes by his beliefs honestly.

Ernest Francis Crist was 4.
born in !928. Not a good year °

‘to be born, Not if you were born
in Innsbruck, Austria, He grew
up under Nazism.

In 1943, aged 15, an‘
informer ratted on him. He'd
briefly had a forbidden
Jehovah’s Witnesses book. He ~

was handed over to the Gestapo.”

“Twas never in the Hitler

Youth, .” Crist said, “and that was:

held against me.”
He:alraost confessed who
gave him the book: “They pre-

. me.” Instead he gave the
_. Gestapo the name of a priest
whom he knew had already died
inan air raid. °°
: After the war he managed a a.
“hardware store. In 1953 he came
to Canada —
ly forlorn, totally green.” He |.
“spent a year in Ottawa: Came
west largely for the mountains.
‘He worked at various jobs

and, I'd say, curiously pompous.

management of its land invento-
—— Crist having mercilessly

Versatile Pacific. He retired |
_ early at 63.
Crist met his wife Joyce,
then a singer with Vancouver
Opera, when her choir sang at -

selling off municipal land to pay :
- operating costs.
That’s a no-no. It’s called
eating your seed com.: ,
To be fair, the crusty Crist, a’
“15-year council veteran,’ would
- be somewhat of a cross to bear They had two children. The -
death of his daughter at age 26
A maverick isn’t welcome’
either in politics, business or the . cuss. ;
His son David, who once
played with the North

Timothy Ronshaw
Managing Editor

985-21 34 (116)

: Chris Johnson -
: Operations Manager .
985-2131 (166)

* North Shore News, founded in “4969 as an
“Independent suburban newspaper and qualified
under, Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the >
Excise Tax Act, is puttished each Wednesday,
Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press
Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North
Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail
Sates Product Agreement No, 0087238. Mailing
fates ‘available. on request. Submissions are
welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for
_ unsolicited Material including msnuscripts and
pictures, which “should be accompanied bya
, stamped, self-7 radressed envelope. \,

Administration

Display Advertising
Real Estate Advertising .
Classified Advertising

. : Display & Real Estate Fax
Classified, Accounting &
‘ Main Office Fax

tended they were going to shoot .

“totally lost, total- |

fo or Woodward's stores. Then for .,:

* the YMCA where he was living.

is a hurt too deep for him to dis-.-

Linda Stewart...
~ Sales & Marketing Director
- 980-0511 (31 $)..

Vancouver Youth Band, went on

_ to play with the Bertin
Philharmonic and now with the
Opera on the Rhine.

Sem Abhorring war, he was a".
‘great worker in the: peace move-
ment,

He joined the Communist
party. He left it “15 or 20 years
ago ..: socialism in the world
had become cormupt. .. .. The
isms come and the isms go. I
want to make sure that in.our

‘ society human values are there

"no matter whal suit it wears.” ’

. You don't expect much cul-
ture ina politician — or much
genuine grasp of it. Crist actual-
ly interrupted our interview to’.
read a moving passage in‘

Goethe's Faust, on which he's
something of an authority,
Remarkably, too, he saw Forrest
Gump and “I came to'the con-
Clusion that he is the/American a
equivalent of Dostoevsky’ 's The"

-: Idior.”.

: Heady stuff for a town coun-
cillor. As was his profoundly -
felt religious experience in the. .
early 1950s when’ climbing in
the German alps;— a mountain
whose name translates as
Beggar's Throw — and “all of a”
sudden I knew that my soul was |
immortal.:...'1 wanted to share
that with allthe human race.”
Today he supports, though infre- °

“quently attends, the Unitarian
Church in West Vancouver.

: Formidable councillor.

Formidable mind.

Display Manager |.
980-0511 (103)

‘Pater Kvamstrom |

have trapped itself curbside on this issue..

mailbox 3

Appreciating
young: people

Dear Editor:

I adore young people, enjoy their enthu-,
siasm and have always found that if treated -
with respect, will act accordingly.

Their fashion statements give.me a’
“kick,” never knowing what I'll see “next.
‘They’re interesting, alive and color my day.

My sympathies to the family ‘whose ;
Easter Day “pig- -out” owas made more
enjoyable by. some “paper, filler”
punched out by Doug Collins — what a ‘sad ;

way to achieve fulfillment.“ ~..” !

In my young days we wore hippy gar p
parched jeans, long hair. and head bands, ~’
smoked a little Mary. Jane and carried ‘gui- *
tars even though we didn’ t play them:

: We invented the Phrases * ‘peace’ to 9 you
man” and “have a nice day.”

Easter was a. religious: ceremony, “and ..

celebration, not a time for name calling. «|

We maintained a philosophy of ‘loving
and caring for others ~ —not practising big-. :

article’ |’

I

J.C. wore long hair, beard and sandals:
‘and he. hung out with a: funky bunch ‘of .

friends but I have never heard them being»:

referred to as “a herd of illiterates.”

I suggest the writer get life and’set an .:
example for her family. todo something -
constructive with their time, ‘not ‘to sit
around the meal table making fun of other,’
people...” - ;
Anne Ladd ..

North Vancouver. ; -

Paty

: Classified ‘Manager i F Promotions Manager.;”

a 996-6222 (02)
—MEMBER; =

en

VANCOUVER ARDA

SDA DIVISION |

61,582 average circulation, Wednesday, Friday 4 Sun

Entire contents © 1995 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All il rights reserved. §

685-2134 (218)