6 - North Shore News - Sunday, March 5, 2000

VIEW POINT:

Poor port

HERE is a proposal to set

North Vancouver’s museum

closer to the water’s edge so
that it might look out over the ship-
building industry’s present while
immortalizing its past.

Good concept. Too bad there may
not be much to look at in terms of
local shipbuilding activity.

Hundreds of workers were laid off
this week as Vancouver Shipyards
stecled itself for the outcome of a
union vote on contract ratification.
Whether the outcome is strike, lockout
or return to work, the fact remains
that jobs continue to erode as a port
once famous for its wartime shipbuild-
ing is now better known international-
ly for its labour problems. A
Vancouver Shipyards spokesman says

job action.

Vancouver’s reputation for ship-
building is also not being enhanced by
the continuing sorry saga of the fast
ferry.

B.C.’s new deputy premier and min-
ister for ferries Joy MacPhail reported-
ly told her cabinet colleagues this week
to sell the PacifiCats and start again.
Glen Clark’s boastful promise to cre-
ate a new industry based on the tech-
nology of aluminum welding remains
stalled in drydock as the rest of the
world has joined British Columbians
in laughing at the price tag being
placed on the too small, expensive-to-
operate, problem-plagued catamarans.

If we get $60 million a boat for the
kitty litter that cost over $100 miilion
apiece, we'll be lucky.

A sorry end to what was a proud

NO. 1 REASON
THE NDP HAS
Nor CALLED A
PROVINCIAL
ELECTION:

=——
BRITISH Col
CS) SRODLED WT

three ship repair contracts alone have

been lost due to this week’s potential heritage.

you said hi

“It’s hard to say to a veteran who went over to fight
for our rights that he can’t have a cigarette. The Red
Cross used to take cigarettes over to the trenches. Now
the government won't even let them have a butt with
their beer.”

Army, Navy and Air Force Veterans Club cmployee

- Sherry Weber says she finds it hard to tell some customers
to butt out as required by new Workers Compensation
Board no-smoking legislation. (From a March I News story.)

‘. oa .
“When you louk at him you think of him as being
.*. four, but you keep wondering, maybe he’s just one
: because he hasn’t had a real birthday yet.”
< . Margaret Neal, mother of Patrick, who was born at
Lions Gate Hospital on Feb. 29, 1996 — making him a
“Leap Year: Day baby. The family has been celebrating, his
1 birthday on March 1. (From a Feb. 27 News story..)

MP o0q

. “We live in bear country. We should icarn to live
with bears.”

‘= North Vancouver RCMP Insp. Keith Thorn, on non-
lethal bear management. (From a Feb. 27 News Sunday
‘acus feature.) .

O00

“Three hundred ro 400 parents have raised $25 mii-

lion. The municipality is still talking about a $25 mil-
lion recrcational master plan-— if we can even afford
"West Vancouver District councillor Victor Durman, con-
gratulating Mulgrave school for its fundraising prowess for
its new, campus to be built north of Cypress Bow! Road.
roma March 1 News story); ae wt ,

won goa oo,
tssBut if you look at ski tourism ia B.C. we don’t need
another Whistler. It’s like the engine driving the train.
.What we need is more cars on the train. When people
come and enjoy Whistler and they get a great feeling for
B.C. skiing and then they go other places.” ;

Skier. Nancy Greene, on B.C.’s potential as an interna-
tional ‘ski: destination: | (From a. March’ 3 News This Week

< Moth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an
independent suburban newspaper and qualdied
under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the

» Eavise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, ©
Friday and Sunday by HCN Publications

> Company and distributed tp every door en the
‘North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Pbbostions
Mad Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238.
Mading rates available on request. °

—

= SE

MASSIVE

WE'RE NOT
QUITE DONE
SCREWING OVER
THE PEOPLE OF

Tax slashing boosts tax revenue

LAST Monday’s budget was
vintage Liberal: give everyone a
morsel to make ;

sure of their votes

next year and to

hell with Canada’s -

economic future as

long as we get

back in.

Their tax cuts are
pretty pathetic: for
B.C. a total of about
$450 million (saving an
average family maybe
$360). As to health
care — with year-long elective surgery
line-ups and urgent cases shipped south
of the border — B.C. gets a modest
$333 million in transfer payments which
also cover post-secondary education and
welfare. So grandpa shouldn’t get too
excited yet about an early hip job.

Capita! gains and corporate tax rates
— the keys to luring the investment
capital Canada so badly needs — have
been lowered a little.

But both still remain far higher than
below the border (the top marginal 40%
income tax rate in the U.S. kicks in only
at incomes equivalent to $375,000
Cdnh.).

Meanwhile, the budget completely
ignores the two most vital steps needed
to stem the brain drain and boost our
living standard, now only 61% of the
American, back towards parity with U.S.
incomes.

First, the lack of any plan for paying
down the $577 billion national debr,
interest on which swallows 26 cents out
of every tax dollar we send to Ottawa.
Think of it like a family with a $60,000

‘

BTS
PETER SPECK
Publisher
985-2131 (101)
pspeck@nsnews.con

Gee Dhaliwal
HRyPromotions Manager
985-2131 (216)
ddhaliwalgusnews.com

pat

Mark Fancher

Distribution Manager
986-1337 (124)

. Creative Services Director
985-2132 (127)

General Manager
385-2138 (133) S8S-2131 {115}
dloot@nsnews.com

income and a permanent $213,600
debt, on which it pays $15,600 interest
year after year without ever reducing
the principal sum by a
single cent. Whac kind
of tuture could the
poor, stupid dears ever
look forward to —
especially if one day
their income was sliced
by a recession or other
disaster?
Second, the Liberals’
pigheaded refusal to
learn the lesson of
major tax cuts in other
. jurisdictions. Without
exception these have always resulted in
INCREASED — not reduced — tax
revenues.

Alberta is our shining home-grown
example.

Its recent budget demonstrated how
tax cuts lead to budget surpluses, debt
elimination and increased spending.
Studies of the period 1990-1995 for the
U.S. Congress showed revenue growth
in the 10 top tax-cutting states averag-
ing 18% more than in tax-raising states.
When the U.S. cut capita? gains taxes to
19.8% from 30%, government revenues
exploded upward. .

Similar examples overseas include
Britain and Ireland.

The reason is crystal clear. Taxpayers :

know how to use their money far more
productively than governments — to
create jobs and goods, and for capital
acquisitions. All of which create ever-.
more diversified tax revenues from more
employees, more sales and more invest-
ment. It’s really so simple.

Too simple, it seems, for.the
Liberals, as they squander billions of

‘ should be ban

our hard-earned bucks in the hope of -:

retaining power. Why can’t they leara~ .”.:

the much easier, happier way to political’ *
salvation? a we
Not by cutting timid, thin slices off.
taxes here and there, but by SLASH-:...
ING them all ruthlessly and then watch-.
ing the ever-growing revenue flood in::

900 ee
THANKS, reader Paul Stevenson, for.»
catching an error in my Feb..20 column
on abused inmates of Newfoundland’s
Mount Cashel Orphanage whom I mis-:
takenly identified as aboriginals... 0°2°2---:.
However, this in no way alcers the point;
of the column: i.¢., how fair is it that’
churches and religious schools, whose;..*..
members today are completely, innocent,

upted and closed for.’
sins committed up to half a century ago
by a handful of former employees in: +
government-sponsored institutions

QQ

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: grectings today,
March 5, to West Van’s Frank Bernard:
... Also today, more of the sami
North. Van's Janet Courage
Meanwhile, save 'a supply. tomorrow,
March 6, for North. Van’s Mildred
Foster ... Then wish many happ}
returns of Tuesday, March 7; to
day.boys Don Gibbard and Kiwania
Phil Harrison in North Van,'along:
with Andy Danyliu and Tom. Wardell
in West Van, 2-0 ete

aoe - "000 i
WRIGHT OR WRONG: Why is th
never time to do it right; but alw:
time to do it over?

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Letters must include your name,
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Timothy Renshaw
Managing Editor
trenshaw@nsnews.com

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