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6 —- Wednesday, June 12, 1991 - North Shore t ews

A.A TST DINGED'EMh FoR THER,
CTNCROWAVE. OVEN AND A
TOASTER, ... THEVBE ALL YouRs

Violent fantasies

OCAL teen violence is a frightening
reflection of the increased violence
in the adult world.

It results, in part, from the daily deluge
of real and fabricated violence delivered
into homes yia the magic of television. But
perhaps the tide ts beginning to turn
against that deluge on the home front.

Following a recent gang aitack on a
family of four in the Mount Seymour area,
some North Shore parents and teens joined
forces and established ALIVE, a group
dedicated to batiling the area’s growing
probiems of youth violence.

ALIVE has received overwhelming sup-
port from focal residents who are also fed
up with worrying about their safety and
that of their children.

The recent Persian Guif War delivered

to North American living rooms a high-
tech spectacle of death and destruction
that came complete with a happy ending.
it was great television, but it further blur-
red the lines between reality and fantasy
for the television generation. And now
television stations are bidding for the
rights to televise a live execution.

Death and violence have become TV
shows now being acied ov‘ on our streets
by young people who have been sold the
wrong message for too long.

For children to learn respect for others,
they must see it being put into action in
the world around them.

By working together in groups like
ALIVE, parents and teens can help replace
the wasteland of television fantasy with the
solid foundations of community reality.

LETTER OF THE DAY

Vets provide service themselves

Dear Editor:
Elizabeth Collings’ May 22
story ‘‘W.V. SPCA Issues Cat

Care Appeai’’ really tugs at the
heart strings. Hopefully cat lovers
will come forward to assist the
W.V. SPCA in their excellent
work and adopt some of these
apparently surplus pets.

Whilst the SPCA does wonder-
ful work, for which all
veterinarians applaud them, they
do not ‘provide a veterinarian
certificate which enables the cat
owner to send the initial check-up
bill to the SPCA.”’ What does
happen is that veterinarians,

through their generosity and con-

cern for these animals, accept an
SPCA certificate for examination
and provide a free examination to
the adopter.

This service, which veterinarians
provide at their own cost (not the
SPCA's) ensures that both cat and
new human companion get off to
a good start.

The purpose of this free
veterinary service is to examine
the animal for health and to point
out to the human companion any
potential, or real, problems. Gen-
erai health care questions, and the
importance of diet, exercise and
preventive measures such as vac-
cinations are discussed.

Naturally, the importance of pet
population control is a paramount
issue and follow-up appointments
may be made for spaying and
neutering if the pet is sexually in-
tact.

in a world in which cruelty
seems to be expanding,
veterinarians and humane
organizations are working together
to improve the lot of all animals,
but especially those that tem-
porarily seem to be surplus to
human wants.

Adrian G. Cooper, DVM
Director of Communications
B.C. Veterinary Medical Assoc.
Vancouver

year. Mailing rates available on reques?
Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept
responsibility fur unsolicited maternal including
manuscnpts and pictures which should be
accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope

V7M 2H4

Publisher _ Peter Speck Display Advertising 980-0511 = Distrinution 986-1337
Managing Editor ‘Timothy Renshaw —_Reat Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions 986-1337
Associate Editor Noel Wright Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax 985-3227
Advertising Director Linda Stewart Newsroom 985-2131 Administration 985-2131
Comptrolier Doug Foot

North Shore News, ‘founded in 1969 as an MEMBER
independent suburban newspaper and qualified

under Schedule 111, Pacagrar 2 Hl of the Excise ons«
Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and

Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and nine
distributed to every door on the North Shore

Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. 8
Subscriptions Nortn and West Vancouver, $25 per = 11 39 Lansdale Avenue, SDA DIVISION

North Vancouve;, 8.C.

Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday}

How much of
B.C2s deficit

did YOU cause?

“IF THE law supposes that,’’ said Mr. Bumble, ‘‘the law
is an ass, a idiot.’’ Dickens’ ungrammatical character could
well have been speaking of the B.C. provincial sales tax.

Last week we examined the lu-
natie plan — since largely aban-
doned by Trade Minister Howard
Dirks — to collect sales tax from
cross-border shoppers. I pointed
out that the plan, although ad-
ministratively impossible, was
perfectly legal.

“*A gross error,’’ wrote reader
Albert Griffin of North Van. The
tax is ‘solely for sales within the

province,”’ he declared. By way of

proof, he sent me a mail order
coupon for goods from an On-
tario firm. It specified that On-
tario and Quebec PST would be
charged to customers in those two
provinces, but made no mention
of any other province's tax,

Sorry, Mr. Griffin (and the
thousands of you who no doubt
share his view), but t’ain’t so.

The Consumer Taxation Branch
in Victoria confirms that the 6%
PST is due on all sales to B.C.
residents when the goods are
bought in this province or
BROUGHT INTO IT —
regardless of where the seller is
located. Furthermore, that tax is
legally owed by the purchaser if it
has not been collected from
him/her by the vendor.

I suggested to the Branch
spokesman that mail order trans-
actions alone must mean Victoria
has a mountain of bad debts,
unidentifiable and uncollectible,
scattered around B.C. He wryly
agreed.

Some “‘ethical’* mail order
firms, he noted, register in each
province, collect the appropriate
PST and forward it to the cus-

HOWARD DIRKS... border tax
clarapdewn abandoned

JOHN JANSEN... are we law-
breakers his problem?

HITHER AND YON

tomer’s provincial government.
But a lot of companies don’t, he
added sadly.

Mr. Bumble would have had a
fieid day with this one. Aside
from cross-border and mail order
shoppers, thousands of
classified-ad items sold privately
each week go scotfree.

And just what does “‘brought
into the province’? mean? If [
return after six months in Palm
Springs with a worn-out pair of
runners I bought on my first day
there, are they legally subject to
tax?

Pondering all this, there may
well be enough uncollected PST
hidden throughout B.C. to pay
off Finance Minister John
Jansen’s current billion-dollar
budget deficit.

One wet Sunday when you’ve
nothing better to do, how about
poking into all your closets and
drawers and figuring out how
much of his deficit YOU’ve caus-
ed?

Just for fun, of course!

TAILPIECES: Last chance to-
night (Wednesday) until the fall to
brighten your summer home or
office with an original framed pic-
ture from the North Van Arts
Coureil’s final art rental of the
season, 6-8 p.m. at Presentation
House. Chee: from some 250
prints, acrylics, oils, photographs
and even compuler-generated art
at an average $4-$6 per month —
this time three for the price of two
... Sequel to Desert Storm! —
from half a world away come
greetings to Gleneagles and St.
Monica’s friends from Peter and
Janet Arbuckle and family, now
“getting used to the ever increas-
ing heat and humidity of the Per-
sian Gulf,’’ where they’ve been
living since April. Address is:

P.O. Box 152, Dubai, United
Arab Emirates (phone 493697, but
you'll have to get the codes from
the operator) ... And tomorrow,
June 13, a happy anniversary

toast to City Mayor Jack Loucks
and wife Olive who celebrate their
45th.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Few of
us know exactly what we want,

but at least we're all sure of one
thing. We don’t have it.
SAE OS