4
ayes

YOU DON’T have to please
everybody and his dog in
order to win an election
landslide. That was the big
_Jesson from Ontario last

/ week,

Indeed, when you consider how
many voters Tory leader Mike
Harris enraged, the 82 seats he
won in Ontario’s 130-seat legisia-
ture seem right up there with the
parting the Red Sea by Moses.

- Unionists, feminists, ethnic and
handicapped groups hate his plan
to repeal NDP laws banning
replacement workers during
strikes and setting hiring priorities

. for women, colored folks and the
disabled.

Welfare bums hate his scheme
that will force them to work for
their cheques — which are also to
be cut by one-fifth.

Civil servants hate his program
for slashing their numbers from
80,000 to 67,000, as well as for

. lopping all department budgets

‘except health, classroom education
and law enforcemznt by 20%.
Rotten kids hate the thought of
_ being smartened up in boot camps
simply because they mug, stab or
shoot someone. °
To all of the above types add
their near and dear ones, and you
have a pretty huge batch of hate
directed against Harris’s policies.
But what Lyn Mcleod and her

~ overly confident Grits missed was

an even bigger hunger for the two
positive benefits promised to the
¢ silent majority in the Tories’
““Commonsense Revolution” agen-
“da: a 30% cut in income tax plus
_ the elimination of Ontario‘s
almost $19 billion deficit by 2001.
. And for good measure Harris
undertook to resign if he failed to
_ keep those promises.
The very simplicity of this

"-. tough-love ‘Tory agenda — with

no ifs, ands ‘or buts —- explains
why it caught fire, despite all the
~ highly vocal special interests it
trampled on. And why the com-
‘ promising, wavering, confused
McLeod rapidly sank to a poor

: second place,

-Jn B.C. the situation is remark-

i ably like that in Ontario a couple

of months ago. A cocky, well-
‘funded Liberal party as the logical
alternative government —© but
stronger in urban than in rural

-you from 2:30 to 8 p.m. ...

areas and with a leader about
whose sincerity many have reser-
vations.

Trailing the Grits at this point,
the smaller, financially weaker
B.C. Reform Party — strongest
rurally and with a folksy, likeable
leader. [t could also be helped by a
potential election joker in the form
of the large, still uncommitted for-
mer Socred vote.

Which of them will learn
Ontario's lessons test? The lesson
that it’s fatal to try to please
everyone. That noisy interest
groups can be ignored. That
“mainstream” may sometimes be a
Suspect word.

That a simple, consistent,
uncompromising message sharply
focused on the benefits most need-
ed by normal, law-abiding private
citizens is the surest path to
power.

NORTH VAN REFORMERS
hold their famous Gigantic Garage
Sale again on Saturday, June 17, at
Pier 96, Esplanade and Lonsdale,
Starting at 16 a.m. — MP Ted
White (not for sale) will be there
to answer questions ... Thursday,
June 15 is gift-of-life day at West
Van Rec Centre where the Red
Cross blood donor ctinic needs
Many
happy returns of today, June 14, to
North Van birthday girl Donna
Kerr ... And more birthday greet-
ings today to West Van Kiwanis
Club president Ian Andrews.

aoe

WRIGHT OR WRONG: None
are so old as those who outlive
enthusiasm. |

O THE barricades, citizens: the wheels
of provincial justice are rolling off the
rails again.

At the centre of this tatest derailment is the
prevailing double standard of justice being
applied along racial lines — one law for abo-
riginals; one law for non-aboriginals.

The most: recent exampie is the Douglas
Lake cattle ranch roadblock.

Such civil disobedience is becoming the
new negotiation tactic for First Nations peo-
ple. And who can blame them: it’s extremely
effective, primarily because British
Columbians and their government, like their
counterparts across the country, are unsure
of how to respond to such tactics.

If they were used by any other segment of
our society, the public demand would surely
be that the perpetrators be dealt with swiftly
and decisively by the authorities.

look, You DON T
NEED A LAWYER,

TM NOT GOING
To SPANK You

T DON'T TRUST
You . OPERATOR,
CuMick, GET ME
TRE MEDIA T
RINK, SHE'S GOING

fora

The trouble is British Columbians are con-
fused and understandably so, because they
have been led to believe that there are two
standards of justice in the land and two sepa-
rate sets of citizens, . :

Why ‘else, British Columbians argue,
would the West Coast commercial fishery be
segregated into aboriginal and non-aborigi-
nal components? Disregard the fact that the
setup is threatening the commercial viability
of that fishery. It also helps establish the foun-
dation for a two-tiered society split along
racial lines.

The reserve system, separate fishezies, one
law for one tribe and another law.for another
short-change both sides in a country that pro-
fesses to be based on the principle of equali-
ty for all.

It has been unfair and wrong in the past; it
is unfair and wrong now.

Linda Stewart Valerio Stephenson —_—Trixi Agrios

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