A6 - Wednesday, June 29, 1983 - North Shore News Gs editorial page Restraint irony It is to be hoped that peace and con- structive cooperation by all concerned will now return to the West Vancouver school scene following the failure of a small group of parents to halt the school board’s con- solidation program through court action. Two weeks ago the petition by the 35 parents against the ‘moving of grade seven students to secondary schools and _ the closure of three elementary schools (with two more to close next year) was thrown out by a B.C. Supreme Court judge. Justice P.D. Dohm praised the school board’s handling of the matter, saying the board had considered the whole problem, as opposed to any one problem in particular, and had considered the necessity to provide comprehensive and equal education, bearing in mind the financial restrictions placed on it. He concluded the parents had no basis to complain. The situation arose because of the str- ingent budget limitations imposed on the board by the Ministry of Education as part of the provincial government's overall restraint program. There is a certain irony in the fact that West Van, politically, is one of the most solid Social Credit seats in B.C. and, on May 5, again returned the Socred candidate representing Premier Bennett's restraint pro- gram with an overwhelming majority. It would be interesting to know how many of the 35 parents voted for that program in general — while contesting its local applica- tion in court. But then, as so often on political issues, it's a question of whose ox is being gored. First, DO it ! This Friday we celebrate two birthdays; our 116th as a nation; our first as a nation with its own independent constitution. In a way that's typically Canadian. Throughout our history we have been doers first and theorists second, adapting experience to our dreams for the future. Along the way, with all our ups and downs, we built a pretty fine country to live in BEFORE describing it on parchment. Happy Canada Day to all of us! 1968 VONCR OF THOTT Alu WEST VANCOUVER sunday news north shore news 1139 Lonsdale Ave, North Vancouver. B.C V7M 2H4 Display Advortising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 Publisher Pete: Speck Associate Publisher Robert Graham Editor-in-chiot Noel Wright Advertising Director Tim Francis Personne! Director Classified Director Circulation Director Mrs Berni Hithard Isabelle Jennings Brian A Ellis Production Diréctor Office Manager Photography Manager Chris Johnson Oonna Grandy Terry Peters North Shore News, tounded mn 1960 an an independent «ommuntly newapaper and qualiied under Schedute th Part fl Paragraph ot the Excise Tan Act is pubtshed each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid and datrbuted to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mall Reyistration Number 3665 Entire contents 1982 North Ghore Free Preas Lid All rights reserved Subscriptions North and Weal Vancouver ‘ates available on request $25 per year Mailing No renponsibiity accepted (tor unsubcited maternal ine hiding MANUSCNOIS ANd prctures whe fh amowdd be accOompaned by a stampod addressed envelope VERIFIEO CIRCULATION 64 480 Wednesday 64.276 Sunday THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE MAINSTREAM CANADA Crown corps are in a mess By W. ROGER WORTH SOMETHING IS badly and sadly amiss in the murky world of Ottawa’s Crown corporations; the way some of them operate and their seeming lack of commitment to be up front with the or- dinary Canadian txpayers who own them. The staggering losses in- curred by the government- owned Canadiar-De Havilland aircraft manufacuring firm is only the latest example of a long list of failures. In this case, Canadians had been led to believe they had made a wise and potential profitable in- vestment in Canadair’s Challenger executive jet, which sold for $10-million or So per copy. But the Canadian Broad- casting Corporation (another Crown corporation) contrad- icted such upbeat statements from Canadair with a damning television program, pointing out the in- consistencies in that scenario. The cat was out of the bag. Canadians were finally told they had lost $1.1- billion at the very least ($110) for every worker in the country), the president of Canadiar resigned and a new federal government presence on the scene is even now seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to con- tinue the operation. Overnight, it seems, the rosy outlook preached by Canadair became a night- mare, but that's far from the case. In fact, Parliament and suspicious legislators had for years not been able to get ac- curate information on the public's investment, which is the real cause for concer. In a 1982 report to Parlia- ment, for example, Auditor General Kenneth Dye warm- ed that “if Parliament does not awaken soon to this phenomenon ... (it) may not be able to exercise its Only we can catch the DRUNKEN DRIVERS — what do you do about them? Have you noticed that it’s becoming an increas- ingly frequent topic of casual conversation, even among comparative strangers? Even, indeed, at parties where the liquor is flowing freely. Concern about the problem is That's the good news. The bad news. of course. is that nobody has yet come up with a workable long term method of halting the carnage that kills over 300 people a year in’ drunk dnving accidents inp BC Not that tts for want of trying Road blocks at Christmas New Years and other seasons of celebration have been around = for years Regular police patrots keep an cagle cye open for weas tneooor otherwise all times durnng the high risk penods late at night and on weekends Courts are stepping up fincs (though most are still well below the $2,000 mans Imam prescribed by law) and handing out short pail terns oftener in alone aberrant Motorists at capectally addition to licence the mandatory suspen ston For sex months crt more the CounterAttach educational program to wheh many tngh school students make a valuable contobution ots dhotmg 10s vahant best on govern ment funding of Jess than one quarter of one per cout of Victorias profit trom bh quot sales NOT ENOUGH POLICE Ihe that shi Ww deterrents arc figures alas current undoubtedly spreading. still barely scratching the surface of the problem And theones on how to toughen the deterrents are a dime a dozen They include raising the dnnking age to 21. rats ing the driving age to TM or 19, the right to take blood samples from injured and unconscious drivers and much harsher penalties: on conviction With all duc respect to the militant Mothers Against Drunk Dnving (MADD), there are reasons to doubt just how practcal such theones are Today kids of [4.0 five years below the pre sent legal drinking age have no trouble in getting hold of booze af they're determined to drink Ratsing the legal age to 21 wont alter that situation And although male drnvers under 25 cause more than one in four of all acctdents there's no evidence that a sober 16 year old ois any worse a driver than a sober 18-year old Meanwhile a good many the subject caisting penalocs w operlectly ade cCaAperts on beheve would be quate deterrent af only ia grealo many more drinking drivers ever had to face them The nub of the matters is that we haven't nacarty cnough poltce to catch all focus Noel Wright the Bas and alcohol cnminaals roanng around at large CounterAttack estimates that only 13 per cent of legally impatred dnvers are ever apprehended [he Ottawa based Traffic Injury Research Foundation puts the figure even lower between one in 500 and one in 2,000 With odds like these against being caught bow many drinking dnvers arc gompg to worry seriously about the extra “one (or two or three) for the road”? CIVIC DUTY Short oof police forces trebled in size and 24 hows roadblocks — cverywhere every day of the year there's only one way to reduce those responsibility of overseeing the receipt and expenditure of public funds.” From a man who generally commended the government for cutting costs and improv- ing efficiency, that’s pretty heavy stuff. Dye's views are backed by the all-party Public Ac- counts Committee, which has repeatedly recommend- ed that all Crown corpora- tions submit an annual report to Parliament. Alas, it isn't about to hap- pen. Legislation governing the Crowns is tied up on the Parliamentary agenda, and isn’t likely to come before the House before next fall at the earliest. And the govern- ment is not prepared to change its ways before the new legislation is passed. Instead, Ottawa has set up something called the Cana- dian Investment Develop- ment Corporation to oversee the Crowns. Simply forcing the taxpayer-owned firms to come clean might save us all a lot of money. At the very least Parliamentarians would know, on an on-going basis, the kind of risks we are fac- ing. As shareholders and tax- payers, the public should also be kept informed, which is only right. In short, the present secrecy surrounding Crown corporations should be removed. (CFIB Feature Service.) drunks odds and teach the drunks to think twice before inserting the ignition key. Thats to teach them ourselves — by watching constantly for any obviously impaired driver and phoning his vehicle's licence number to the police as fast as possi- ble By making that an automatic part of our civic duty, in the same way as we would report a house on fire or a thief breaking into a store and with the added knowledge cach time that we may be directly saving a life Pohce departments would probably have to install a special 24-hour Dnnking Driver Report line. a relatively modest cost ucm They wouldn't always be able to take immediate ac ton. But dossiers would build on vehicles constantly reported by different observers And the merc knowledge of hundreds of watching cyes would become a sobering thought for the drunks behind the wheel who presently belicve they can always gel away with at For you and mec it simply means kecping a pen and paper handy at all tamcs together) with the pobec emergency aumbers (North Van 988 4111). West van 922 DEED) Drinking drivers hall over three times more pecopic tn HC than aff other criminals combined They outnumber the police by hundreds to ome Who there caccpt oursclves to help ensure that more and more of them arc caught before Uhcy kill”