6 - Friday, March 8, 1985 - North Shore News Editorial Page Senate reform he non-elected Senate, bloated with Grit appointees, is under fire once more following its costly delay of an urgent money dill passed unanimously by the Commous. But that doesn’t mean the Senate as such skould be abolished. _ Canada’s present ‘‘upper’’ house is clearly an anachronism--a pork barrel imitation of Britain’s House of Lords that no ionger relates to the needs of a modern democratic State. Nevertheless, a second chamber in itself can act as a vital check on excesses by a government with an overail Commons ma- jority. ‘ Because the British-Canadian pattiamen- tary system dogs not separate the executive from the legistature, suck governments in- evitably tend in practice to becoine elected four-year dictatorships, benevolent or otherwise. The U.S. Senate demonstrates how an elected second chamber * cai against this danger and play a constructive role of its own in day-to-day government. All bills must be pzssed separately by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, ‘‘both elected by the same voters. But because senators serve for longer terms than repre- sentatives, and also provide equal repre- ‘sentation forall. the states, the political “complexions of the twe ‘houses constantly differ. That’s very healthy for law-making. The urgently needed reform of Canada’s 1 Senate could do worse than take the’ U.S. . Senate as its model. Abolishing it or ,‘‘curb- ing its powers’? makes no sense--except to a headstrong prime minister and cabinet.. Far better to make it a: full working partner in the ictst democratic process.. oor Tiddlycove! uch: ‘maligned ‘West. Vancouver has yet. another. cross. to * bear. Bad -enough to be- villifi ed all these years as the haunt of Britis colonial types, home from home for Hong Kong millionaires and the model for Len Norris’s fantasies of =| gracious living. /Now . it has ; displaced |’ J-Markham, Ont.;’: -as. Canada’s municipality - with the highest : -average individual income. Q ... Why can’t they leave the poor harmless Tid- dlycove folk; alone? “Display Advertising < -- 980-0511 __ Classified Advertising | 986-6222 “Newsroom 985-2131 Circutation . 986-1337 ‘Subscriptions 985-2131 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Marketing Director Operations Manager Robert Graham Berni Hifliard Advertising Director Circulation Director - Dave Jenneson ‘ Bitt McGown Editorin-Chiel Wright . Display Advertising Maneger Production Director . Mike Goodse' . + Chris Johnson Classitied Mensger Photography Manager Val Stephenson . Terry Peters north ‘shore if ; North Shore News, founded in: 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper! and qualified under Schedule tlt, Part lil, Paragraph II! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Ciass Mail Registration Nuriber 3885. Entire contents © 1985 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and West Vancouver, $25. per year. Mailing rates available on request. No responsibilty accepted for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Member of the B.C. Press Council “85,770 (average, Wednesday SOA ee riday & Sunday) THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE safeguard - i T HENRCH -PRNCAL oe: very different world V HEN ASKED what we have to do to get out of our current economic mess, a survey of ‘Canadian «government, business and labour leaders came up with three consistent answers. The first was to reinvent inflation and put everybody back on a spending spree. The second was to get in- volved in a war, preferably with Canadians as suppliers to the U.S. military machine. And the third was to get us all mating like rab- bits again, so that a baby boom .would spur another round of rapid growth. The informal survey is quoted in “'The Next Cana- » dian Economy’, a new book ’. by two of. Canada’s morc. original thinkers. the authors are Dian Cohen, economic: consultant and columnist for Maclean’s magazine, and _ Kristin Shannon, publisher of the Canadian Trend Report, a prestigious quarterly analysis of our social, political and economic directions. Their book points out what many Canadians are new beginning to suspect — that our old industrial economy is in’ decline, and that we are in a transition” phase leading to the next Canadian economy. ON THE WANE That next economy will be built upon the production and use of information. It will be structurally different from the industrial economy we have grown up with. The manufacture of goods will take second place to the production of services for national and international markets. ‘ But getting from vere to there will be neither easy nor pleasant. And if our leaders are pinning their hopes: on reinflation, war or breeding, we may never get there at all. Luckily for you and me, Cohen and Shannon found others in positions of authority in Canada who have faced up to the fact that our old economy is on the wane. They recognize that the expansion we enjoyed in the fifties and sixties is now over. We can’t just coast un- tila U.S. recovery or some other “quick fix’’- comes along to give us another. de- cade of easy growth. Our old industrial economy is win- ding down, and we must buifd something to take its place. The thoughts and obser- vations of these forward thinking Canadians make fascinaiing reading, and of- fer some r.alistic hope. But they also deliver some real- istic warnings about the dif- ficulties we will face in reshaping our economy and our society. FROZEN OUT With rare exception, most of our political leaders are reluctant to level with us about the tough times ahead. They keep telling us pro- sperity is only a matter of time, that recovery is bound to come when things ‘‘get back to norma!.”” Meanwhile, the basic structure of our economy is deing changed by world economic forces. Our more efficient forest industry now produces just. as much lumber as it did in 1981, but with only 75 per cent of the 1981 workforce. Business profits have re- covered, but jobs are not be- ' to buy corporations By GRAHAM LEA __UP MLA Prince Rupert ing created, Corporations that have money are using it that don’t — it’s safer than risk- ing their cash to set up new ventures, but it puts no one back to work. Middle class Canadians — mill and office workers alike — are being frozen out of the workforce. And many of them may be permanently out in the cold. All over the country, and especially in hard-hit B.C., people are aksing: ‘where do we go from here, and how do we get there?’’ And no one is coming up with an answer. The problem is that our political leaders grew up and came to power during the high-growth years of the fif- ties and sixties. FALSE OPTIMISM They are accustomed to an easier style of politics, in which expanding wealth made it possible to please all of the people just about all of the time. But now the rules of the political game have changed. Now the leaders have to come up with new ideas and new ways of meeting the people’s needs. There is a need for vision, but no vi- sion has been brought’ for- ’ ward. The sad fact is: our leaders learned their political skills during a time of steadi- ly increasing growth. Faced with five or ten years of economic disruption, and the need to reform and revitalize our economy, they don’t know what to do. Some, like the defeated federal Liberal government, try to pretend that this is just another recession, and that the business cycle will bring us back”, owth by and by. Others, . like the Bennett Socreds,-. try to, farce “our economy back. into ‘a ‘rigid structure that is fifty years out of date. . As we listen to the false optimism -- of politicians, business ‘executives: and labour leaders, more. and more of us are:being driven to the frightening ‘conclusion that our leaders don’t know where to lead us. Even _ worse, “they seem prepared to: do nothing, hoping that something will come along (9 make’ it all work again. . There is a- dawning. realization among ordinary people that, if we. want to rebuild our economy so that it is fit for the new. post- industrial world, we will h ave to get together and do it ourselves. Our basic concepts of what constitutes work, wealth-and growth have to be redefined, The old defini- tions, based on the workings of the old economy, are now obsolete. | Our. old political align- ments, based on that old economy, are also becoming ~ obsolete. Labels like .‘‘left- wing’? and ‘‘right-wing’’ refer to policies that arose from a society organized around the production and distribution of commodities, because, in the old economy, commodities equalled wealth. But, in the next economy, knowledge and skill will be the units of wealth. That economy will give rise to new political coalitions, and anew style of politics. It is possible that, in ten years, our present political divisions will be as much a part of history as the Whigs and Tories of the nineteenth century Upper Canada.