A6 - Wednesday, December 7, 1983 - North Shore News GE editorial page Back on track There’s some new hope on the North Shore relevant to abortions resulting from unplann- ed pregnancies,especially among teenagers and young adults. The recent focus has tended to be on what to do about such pregnancies once they’ve started. Canada’s present fuzzy abortion law allows virtually any pregnancy to be ter- minated safely and legally in a hospital bed. Pro Choice supporters defend this as being often the most humane course. They cite the material and emotional suffering that an un- wanted birth can bring to a single mother without resources and to be the child itself, not to mention the potential cost to society in welfare and other support services. Pro Life crusaders, on the other hand, maintain that NOTHING can justify killing an unborn child in its mother’s womb. And hospital statistics lend weight to their claim that easy abortion has simply become a substitute for contraception and individual responsibility. Now, however, Lions Gate Hospital’s Human Sexuality Committee has shifted the focus firmly back to the only real solution: in- tensified education to PREVENT unplanned pregnancies. There’s no lack of information for the purpose, of course. The challenge is to adapt it effectively to the widely differing per- sonal values found in today’s community. The task won’t be easy. But the committee has already enlisted such natural adversaries as Pro Life and Planned Parenthood to cooperate in the program — and that achieve- ment alone is a promising start. The commit- tee is back on track and deserves maximum public support. How's it done? Year-end bonuses equivalent to about 10 weeks of normal wages have just been distributed throughout Japan — an average of $2,915 for public workers and $2,090 for private sector employees. The bonuses are tied to productivity in a country where B.C.-type labor strife is virtually unknown. Maybe Premier Bennett should offer Art Kube and his colleagues an all-paid trip there to find out how it’s done. ‘sunday news north shore news 1139 Lonedaie Ave., North Vancouver,BC V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Editor-in-Chief Noel Wrght Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation Subscriptions 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 886-1337 980-7081 Associate Publisher Robert Graham Advertising Director Tamm bean is Personnel Director Berni Hithard Classified Director Circulation Director isabelle Jennings fit Mc Ca0wn Production Director Office Manager Cheats Johnson Donna Grandy Photography Manager Terry Peters North Shore News, founded in 1969 an an independent COrmeaunity hewapaper and Qualified unde: So nedule IH Pan Wh Parayrapt Ht ot the tacine Tan Act an pubtisned each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore teee Press (td and distrituted to every door oF the North Shore Second Class Mail Regist aton Number 1585 Entire contents 1083 Morth Shore Free Preas (td All fights reserved Subsc niphons North amt West vacccunme: $.'° avatlabDio oF ‘auuesl pe yoo Marry aton No responsdbelity ACC apteEd tur at emenbes tamed AAaMsBC Fpto ae) pe ton whee fh osbenste te a ack ensed envetope Member of the B.C. Press Council a A Onvtt 64 700 (average Wednosday & Sunday) Lay SN : wos THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE aleoua ve dingy, ccoet appeared) boy lane agen! MAINSTREAM CANADA Farmers earn a pat on back By W. ROGER WORTH WITH THIS YEAR’S crop either sold, in the barn or in storage, it is perhaps time Canadians were reminded that the nation’s farmers are making an incredible con- tribution to our well-being and standard of fiving. Here are a few of the im- portant facts. In West Germany, con- sumers pay about a third of take-home pay on_ tood items. In Japan, where steak can cost as much as $40 per pound, people spend close to 40 per cent of take-home pay on food. Yet in Canada, people spend only an average 22 per cent of take-home pay on food, making us one of the better-off countries in which to hive. So do we thank our farmers for a job well done? Not on your life! Again this THE METRIC TEA PARTY. fall we are getting the usual complaints that food prices are too high, even though price increases have been less than those on manufactured goods. And consumers con- tinue to decry high food costs, even though farm pro- fits are generally static or even down. Part of the problem is that the agricultural community always seems to be complain- ing, yet most times they’ve gol good reason. . — . ‘ erase ° - r : When interest rates went through the roof to between 20 and 25 per cent less than two years ago, for example, food prices failed to rise enough to cover the higher payments on huge farm loans, so many farmers were forced into bankruptcy. Few consumers noticed. Again, when fertilizer and equipment prices were rising dramatically most consumers yawned, even though a lot of the farm community was ac- tually losing money on operations. As a group, farmers tend to be outspoken. Never- theless, one thing is clear. The nation’s farmers are do- ing a topnotch job, and they’re doing it well. Canada, for example, con- tinues to be one of the largest exporters of food, able to compete in the international marketplace with the best in the world. At the same time, many foreigners envy Cana- dian consumer food prices. Still, there’s one crucial fact that should be noted. While one country = after another is forced to import foodstuffs, Canada, thanks to our efficient farmers, con- tinues to be a net exporter of food, so we’re not about to face shortages. Consumers, and _ par- ticularly those living in our major cities, should give these matters a little thought. Rather than complaints, the nation’s farmers deserve a pat on the back. (CFIB Feature Service) Toolate for the party? AN IDEA whose moment had passed may be the eventual epitaph for pay-TV in Canada, already in turmoil after only 10 months. An idea that made its debut in this country (and especially in B.C.) a decade too late for its economic health. Consider the coast-to-coast pay-TV scene at the moment. C-Channel, the national culture network, folded last June after only 17 weeks of service. The national mass-appcal network, First Choice, was sold during the year to the Bronfman conglomerate and needed a $12 milhon emergency transfusion § to help keep tt alive Star Channel went into of Halifax receivership last week after attracting only about 14,000 of ws nceded 40,000 AUlantic Canada cable customers Aim) Satellite) Broadcast- ing, the BC and Yukon regional service, is presently the object of a takeover bid by Allercom of Alberta the only apparent pay TV success story to date Aller com owns Superchannel Al berta, has an almost 50 per cent taterest in Superchanne! Ontano and now seems pois ed to become a national ft ng hsh-language competitor of the financially convalescent First Choice MONEY'S WORIH Overall, a's the kind of scene that encourages potcn tial customers to keep their mMoncy in them wallets for a while longer. while they want to see what happens ncxt Nowhere more so than ta B.C. where a mere seven per cent of cable subscribers have so far bought pay-TV, com- pared with 20 per cent in Al- berta. Not that the charges in themselves, are excessive. On the North Shore each pay-TV channel costs around $16 a month in addition to the regular monthly cable charge. Plus about $7 a month for the special con- verter neceded by certain TV sets. So approximately $24 cxtra will enable you to enjoy commercial-free viewing 16 hours a day, seven days a week, 485 hours a month for under five cents an hour. Unfortunately, not many people have the time to take advantage of such a bargain. Even the serious TV addict manages to watch the tube for an average of only around 20 hours a week. If he devotes, say, half that time to local news, sports and public affairs programs (still the preserve of the commercial channels) hjs 10 or so hours of pay-TV Fare can cost him more than 50 cents an hour, not five. For a total of only 10 hours a week of tube-gazing, on the same basis, the pay-TV rate could work out af over a dollar an hour. In a more modest way, getting your money's worth from pay-TV is rather like getting your by Noel Wright CERES money's worth from owning a yacht — it depends on how long the thing remains ticd up at the wharf, unused. COMPETITION Pay TV inthe US had the benefit of a head start years before the arrival of the two tough new competitors that the fledgling Canadian in. dustry is now bucking: the video cassctte recorder and the dish. Each involves an in. itial investment, but after that you're home free. In the case of the VCR, costing about the same as a color TV, you can rent taped shows for a couple of bucks a night — two or three a week for the price of a pay-TV channel and convericr — tn addition to recording any regular channel show for viewing later, when time permits. The six-foot satellite dish, currently retailing at some- thing under $3,000, is still a pricey item. But since wt of- fers a heady choice of up to around 140 channels, the one-time outlay represents under $21 per channel, or about three bucks less than the monthly charge for a single pay-TV channel. And this is just the beginning. Within three years the forecast is that the Amcricans will be broadcasting TV pro- grams from much more powerful satellites which Canadians will be able to receive on dishes no bigger than a garbage can lid — with the price tag reduced proportionately To the above competition add the increasing use of the home TV set for video games and as an adjunct to personal computers,to say nothing of its future role for two-way communmcanon between the living room and the outside world. Fven a senior pay-TV cx ccutive admitted publicly last week that “‘technology may already be making pay-TV obsolcte'' Privately, 1 suspect, he meant (to say “‘ts making’. Below the border, pay-TV operators have at least had a run for their money. Bur after less than a year there are more and more signs thar their Canadian counterparts arrived at the party too latc