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THIS STARTED out as a
nice homey piece about the
price of tomatoes. But it
doesn’t seem to have come
out as advertised.

By Brian Swarbrick
Contributing Writer

Another topic has insinuated its
way into my thought processes,
more or less blocking out the old
Chinese love apple.

On the one hand, probably a
good thing. I have long held the
view that an obsession with
tomatoes is dangerous. But on the
other hand, schizophrenia is not
for everybody, either. I leave it to
you to judge how these things
happen.

First a little background:

In the years immediately after
the Second World War, there was
- an acute shortage of grown-up

journalists. Thus, at age 18, I had
* been taken on as an editor in the

central newsroom of CBC Radio
in Toronto. My job was to write
newscasts for Lorne Greene.

In those days, he was not Pa
Cartwright, of course. He was the
CBC’s Voice of Doom. And with
that larynx of his, he could make
any event sound pretty exciting.

INSIGHTS

Friday, August 16, 1991 - Nonh Shore News ~ 7

Non-news and the price of tomatoes

But he did it with his voice alone.
The words themselves were not to
be tarted up.

Every newsman worshipped
three gods: Accuracy, Immediacy
and Literacy. The CBC was
especially devout. The product
was information, It was not to be
distorted by a glitzy, misleading
Presentation. In those days, we
were definitely not in the enter-
tainment business.

Television news in those years
was embarrassingly dull.
Unimaginative. A fuzzy picture of
a talking head.

Then someone made
discoveries about television.

First, it was insatiable. In one
day, it could eat up more product
of every kind — including news —
than a normal 24 hours could
procure.

Discovery Two was that a
newsfilm clip was, um, flexible. It
could be arranged to represent the
fact, without actually being fact.

two

Thus was born a whole new in- -

dustry: the creation of non-news
for television.

Now... back to tomatoes.
Around the end of June, my !ocal
market wanted an arm and a leg
for a pound of perfectly ordinary
medium-size field tomatoes. As
days passed, the price kept on ris-
ing, until finally every kind of

Ferry ime-ups
hamper tourism

Open letter to The Hon. Howard

Dirks .

Minister of Development, Trade
* and Tourism:

We do hope that you were one
of the many travellers on the B.C.
day long weekend who were stuck
on endless lines while trying to get
a ferry to Vancouver Island.

Out of town visitors left our
North Shore home early Friday
morming to catch the II a.m.
Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo ferry,
expecting to get to Courtenay by
early afternoon — they arrived
about 19 hours later at 8 p.m.!

They sat in a hopeless line-up
miles awey from Horseshoe Bay,
since in your wisdom you decided
that the usual summer schedule of
hourly sailings would not replace
the winter schedule.

After waiting in the Horseshoe
Bay line-up without moving at all
our friends were able to curn
around to drive all the way to

Tsawwassen to try their fuck

- there.

After waiting in another three
and a half hour line-up they final-
ly got on the 3:30 p.m. ferry
(which did not leave until 4:30).
By that time they needed some
food, but there was none to be
had — the ford concession was
out of everything.

After that experience our
friends decided that they better
wait until after the holiday
weekend to return to Vancouver,
hoping to avoid another 10-hour
trip, thus regretfully cutting short
their visit with us.

1 suggest that there won’t be
any tourism in British Columbia if
this is the kind of treatment
visitors receive neither will
there be a need for a Minister of
Tourism.

Stanley George
North Vancouver

Why place a limit
on summer sailings?

Dear Editor:

It seems very odd that aficr
spending hundreds of millions
of dollars on the Hastings-
Cassiar crossing, the Lonsdale

been created at the Horseshoe
Bay ferry terminal by limiting
the summer sailings to one
every two hours.

I think it would make more
sense to double or treble the

tomato in the market — hothouse,
cherry, Roma and imported field
tomatoes — was selling for
around three bucks a pound.

I weighed a single hothouse,
and realized I was holding a
buck’s worth in my hand. A buck
for a single tomato!

So I went to Safeway, and ask-
ed a produce man just what was
happening, tomato-wise. There
was a slight but clearly detectable
reluctance to talk about it. He
passed me on to higher authority.

And higher authority passed me
still higher, until finally I was
talking to Don Bell, former mayor
of North Vancouver District and
Present director of media relations
for Safeway in B.C.

Don aimed me at Les Pilchak
of Western Greenhouse Growers,
the hothouse co-op. OK, I said,
(‘ll call Pitchak, but what the
heck’s the mystery? All I want to
know is why tomatoes cost so
tuuch.

Well, I could take you through
a 10-minute review of growing cy-
cles and crop volumes at various
times in recent years in various
parts of North America, but if
you want the quick answer to
tomato prices, it’s just what you
thought it was:

“Supply and demand,’ said
Bell.

MAILBO

No more than that? ‘‘No more
than that,”’ he said.

Well, that wasn’t very interest-
ing, so I called Pilchak. And to
cut short another 10-minute
review:

“‘Supply and demand,” he said.

No more than thai? ‘‘No more
than that.”’

So I called Bell back. OK, I
said, if it’s just normal supply and
demand, why the reluctance to
talk all the way up the line?

Well, it turned out that Safeway
was a bit skittish about the media
and the produce market.

it seems that, only hours before
! called, a broccoli farmer had
decided to plow under his whole
crop because, as he told a TV
news camera, his market had
evaporated.

How? Well, the dreaded Amer-
icans, of course. Those evil
fellows were dumping their pro-
duct on B.C. Ho, ho! Dumping
the Product! God bless us, a pro-
vocative statement about our
favorite bogeyman!

To sweeten the pot, the TV
guys even had a film clip of all
that plowed-under broccoli. Very
impressive it was. Dramatic, even.

But what about the dumping,
the ugly Americans?

Well, the TV zeport never did
get around to actully dealing

WE WOULD RATHERLIKE
JHEMTO CROWD OUR
MAIN HIGHWAYS

THAN OURHOTELS,

AFTER- ALL,..WERE NOTIN

with that. Nor did Bell. Even over
the telephone, I can detect the
sound of a man discreetly shrugg-

ing.

Mr. Pilchak was not so
cautious:

“*Y’ask me, I'd say it was too
many people growing too much
broccoli.’'

Right. A trenchant observation,
Mr. Pilchak.

And what it meant was: No ug-
ly Americans. And no story ei-
ther. Just an unhappy farmer who
misguessed on how much broccoli
to grow, looking for somebody to
blame it on.

But what the heck, that’s life —
and nothing goes to waste, right?
So, non-story or not, it was two
minutes on the evening news, and
another minute as a re-hash on
the following early-morning edi-
tion.

Nor, to be fair, was ail lost at
this end, either. I don’t know
about broccoli, but as for
tomatoes, I picked up the gospel
from cne of Mr. Bell’s experts:
Three bucks a pound a couple of
months ago ... and by now, the
price of medium field tomatges in
your favorite market has plim-
meted.

What czn I say? Supply and
demand. :

1 Yah.

ORTW-SHORE EWS,

Need creativity to solve problem

Open letter to B.C. Ferry Cor-
poraiion:

On Saturday, July 20, 1 drove
to Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver so
that I could catch the ferry to
Nanaimo.

When I arrived in Horseshoe
Bay, 1 found that both parking
lots were full. Dreading the long
walk up and down the hill going
in to Horseshoe Bay, ! turned the
car around and drove to the Lions
parking lot. It was full as well.

As my friends were waiting in
Nanaimo, I found no alternative
but to park where ! could. Fortu-

fic. However, I received a parking
ticket.

if I understand correctly, the
B.C. Ferry Corporation provides a
service to the people of British
Columbia. Why, then, are you not
doing your job in providing ade-
quate parking for the thousands
of passengers you carry each day?
I can appreciate that land is at a
premium in Horseshoe Bay. Why

can you not become more cre-
ative?

The parking ticket is the fault
of the B.C. Ferry Corporation
and not myseif. I can only hope
that many people who were in the
same predicament as myself will
send in their tickets in protest.

Nina Auderson
Norta Vancouver

News Mailbox policy

overpass and the projected
Westview-Upper Levels cross-
ing in order to facilitate the
flow of traffic on the Trans
Canada Highway, (Highway
No. 1), a major hold-up has

North Shore News cannot publish
all letters. Published letters may
be edited for brevity, clarity, ac-
curacy, legality and taste.

LETTERS TC the editor must in-
clude your name, written legibly,
your full address and telephone
number.

Due to space constraints the

nately I have a small car and
managed to squeeze onto a small
dirt section off the road.

My car was totally off the road
and was not interfering with traf-

sailings from Horseshoe Bay to
Nanaimo.

Dougias Brown
North Vancouver