Suffer the cl 20R ALL its commercial and stress- inducing’ ways, Christmas continues + to be about children. ~ : Coinciding with: ithe week: leading tip to ‘Christmas Day, | the . United Nations hildren Fund (UNICEF) has released: a report entitled The State of the World’s Children (1994, °° Such. weighty volumes are ravely the stuff ooed cheers... UNICEF's latest: ‘release i is no exception, Though, there’ have een: | ' Significant strides: made in: battling the historic. enemies of ithe world’s children, young ‘lives con- tinue o' be needlessly lost. . ‘Those enemies ‘include five diseases that teday kill ‘over. io op million children @ year dren malnutrition, which hoids back the mental and physical development of one child in * three in the developing world. A chilling chapter in the study is simply called Children in War. ' According to the report, war casualties of previous eras were mostly soldiers. In the past decade, that trend has faltered, as more than 1.5 million children have been killed in armed conflicts. More recently, the report continues, the rape of girls has been used as a systematic weapon of war in the former Yugoslavia. _ is. difficult to think ‘about such atrocities during this season of goodwiii and joy. Peace on earth, however, is still as dis- tant as the Northern star. +. story.): ; Its. ot fanny 't to drink ‘and drive //ahymore and people know that.” _.. North: Vancouver RCMP Const. i" Barty “ Hicks, . on ‘drinking .and driving From a Dec.: 26 News “ope s not dance around this - : question.” ~-; North’; Vancouver City Mayor Jack: Loucks, during council : iscussion ‘about applications from ‘two! ‘city restaurants for dance Q floors. (From a Dec. 24 News story. ) “They (the report cards) may or; miy not have heen acceptable to some members of council, but the ultimate decision was Nov. 20 not ‘the 18th or the 12th or whenever these report cards were provided. I would not support the curtailment of the activities of the press in this community.” — North Vancouver District Mayor Murray Dykeman, dur- ing discussion of the report cards grading incumbent municipal pol- iticians published by the Nort /Shore News prior to the recent ‘municipal. election — on main- taining freedom of the _ press. (From a Dec. 22 News story.) “i remember rolling pennies — it was all I had left — and crying - out to God, ‘OK, you win.’ I knew there bad to be a betier way. Sometimes people have to get the rug pulled out from under them before they can come to a reatiza- tion about their lives.’’ North Vancouver Harvest Pro- ject founder David J. Foster, on hitting bottom. (From the Dec. 22 News Now Spotlight.) “I phoned in to; work today and asked if I could come back.”’ - Lynn Valley’: s| James Duncan, the new father lof quadruplets. (From a Dec. 19 News story.) Peter Speck ‘Managing Editor... Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor . Noel Wright Seles & Marketing Director. .Linda Stewart Comptroller: Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 11, Paragraph Ill of the Excise .Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press: itd. and distributed ta every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept tesponsibilily for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied ty a stamped, addressed ‘Publisher Newsroom V7M 2H4 ~ envelope. Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 THE YOKE OF MARTH ANE WEST WANCOUVER Distribution 986-1337 Subscriptions 986-1337 Fax 985-3227 Administration 985-2131 } _ MEMBER 980-0511 985-2131 omnay 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, “~~ North Vancouver, B.C. SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) - Entire contents ©.1993 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved. ‘IF CANADA is ever going to start digging itself out of the debt hole that threatens to swallow if, the impetus may come from a radical revamping of the social security net in its poorest province. The waste and futility of to- day’s costly unemployment in- surance and welfare system is nowhere more evident than in Newfoundland, where it has per- suaded many islanders to actually give up looking for work. But in varying degree the same applies in all provinces. Newfoundlander Clyde Wells wants to end UI and welfare com- pletely, and replace them with a guaranteed income ($9,000 for a family of four suggested). The big difference being that job-seekers who found work would not forfeit all their new benefits. Instead, the guaranteed i jucome would be phased down, relative to earned income, in such a way that the recipient would always be better off working than unem- ployed. The problem with UI today, says the Newfoundland report, is that it creates ‘‘a disincentive to work and a disincentive to educa- tion.”’ Low-paid jobs can cost an employee money — for travel, clothes and, for single parents, expensive daycare. As a result, many find they’re better off at home on UI than in a minimum- wage job. So they fall into a cycle of working just long enough to qual-"_ ‘ify for Ul and then quit until UL benefits expire. in short, UI becomes the income of first choice. If the feds approve the Wells plan, UI will become the income of last resort in Newfoundland, with a 20-week wait to qualify instead of the present 10 weeks. The $688 million thus saved on provincial UI payments would help fund the scheme, together with all-important new training and education programs. Wells is showing considerable political courage in calling for these sweeping reforms to UI and welfare. The province’s biggest fisheries | union, representing some 30,000 workers who'd lost their tradi- tional UI benefits, damns them as **totally unacceptable.’’ Other unions call them ‘“‘flaw- ed” and are girding to. defend as much of the UI-weifare status quo as possible. But Wells presses on regardless. HITHER AND YON Meanwhile, Ottawa — which - _ will likely give him the go-ahead — has more than an academic i in- terest in the plan. | : If applied efficiently across the ° country, the consensus of reputa- ble economists is that it could cut billions off the $46 billion federal deficit and put many more people back into the workforce. But it... would also be political dynamite with. organized labor and other . special-interest groups, .” . Will Finance Minister. Paul Mar- .” tin and his boss, Jean Chretien, / | have the political guts demon-.’ '- strated by Clyde Wells to do what HAS to be done? Or will they.” flunk the test and bring the fi inal day of reckoning with the Inter- national Monetary Fund that. -much closer? GOOD GUYS DEFT: Give a big hand to the students and teachers at Capilano elementary school for raising enough money through various fundraising projects'to sponsor three students through - high school in Kenya and Tan- zania ... Halfa century is one heck of a lot of service, so con- gratulate Mary Gunn and Audrey ~ Evans on receiving their 50-year. pins in the Lions Chapter of the 1.0.D.E. ... And wish many hap- _ py returns of tomorrow, Dec. 27, to longtime West Van resident Sonia Carlson on her 93rd birth-. day.’ NEWS photo Bred Ledwidga TEACHERS MARGART Berry’ ‘and Titina Reyes (left) “present ‘ Herambe vice-president Tony - Jackson . with Capilano Elemen- » tary’ s glit to three African students (see column item).