6 - Sunday, January 12, 1992 - North Shore News nas SALES in B.C. with BiG Dis@uNts produced large. line- ups and BIG TIME Spending by Consumers. QUESTION: could it be , there's Some. kind of cosmic Connection between losier Prices and nsumer Spending ?? NEWS VIEWPOINT Decision time HE NDP government is getting a crash course in the political realities of being the governing rather than the opposition party. A host of public brickbats have been hurled its socialist way of late and net from the usual suspects — business, the _tight wing, the Socreds — but from the unions that helped elect the NDP, en- vironmentalists and others. During his campaign, Premier Mike Harcourt promised better government- labor relations. But those relations are becoming increasingly strained. Organized labor wants its payoff for helping get the NDP elected: quick aboli- tion of Bill 19, the reviled Socred labor legislation as promised by the NDP. But Labor Minister Moe Sihota has counselled patience. An $18-million construction contract to build the new Jack Davis Building in Vic- toria was recently awarded to a firm whose employees some labor leaders have said is represented by an ‘‘employers’’ union; and. the Marine Workers and Boilermakers In- dustrial} Union says it is having a hard time “yeaching our friends in the NDP.’’ Labor is not happy. But environmentalists, drivers, seniors and others are also not all that happy with the NDP over issues ranging from logging to ICBC rates to veiled threats to the pro- vincial homeowner’s grant. The NDP’s honeymoon is over. It’s time for some tough decisions on some tough issues; it’s time for the NDP to start acting like our government not like everbody’s benevolent uncle. . NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “I’ve been in restaurants where the host has looked at me and said, ‘Oh, he's in a chair. Put him over there.’ It’s litde points like this that I want to bring out so people will be more understanding of people with disabilities.” Cartoonist and illustrator John Mythen, on living with a disabili- ty. “It’s net the way you treat a guest from another country.’ The daughter of a Lower Lons- dale shopkeeper who was robbed, tied up and had his store set ablaze. Publisher Peter Speck “We hope somebody didn’t have to walk home after being so gen- erous.”” North Vancouver Christmas Bureau co-chairman Peter MacKay, after volunteers found a shopping bag containing an ex- pensive toy along with a set of car keys in one of the bureau’s toy drop-off boxes. “You've got a serious problem in this community and I would like to see it stopped, because I don’t enjoy seeing young people being permanently brain damaged.”' Display Advertising 980-0511 Distribution North Vancouver neurosurgeon Dr. Brian Hunt, expressing his concern over what he says is the growing number of North Shore head injuries resulting from bar fights. “If we are to have a safer com- munity I think we all have to be involved, we can’t expect that somebody will do it for us.’’ LGH neurosurgeon Dr. Barrie Purves, supporting the notion that bar patrons and operators take a more active role in attempting to prevent bar fights. 986-1337 North Shore Managing Editor . .- Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director .. Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, 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 Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Newsroom V7M 2H4 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax WHE VENER OF NORTH AND WEST WANCOUVER forth APE 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, — North Vancouver, B.C. 986-1337 985-3227 Administration 985-2131 MEMBER Subscriptions fh Managed 985-2131 SDA DIVISION = Se 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Hope stil-if dull government § the best kind! EVEN ALLOWING for the Christmas break, Premier Mike Harcourt and his solemn gang are turning out to be an odd kind of government so far. Three morths after their landslide victory last Oct. 17 virtually nothing is yet happening. Maybe it’s all to the good when you remember what had happened in Ontario three months after the NDP got their hands on that pro- vince. But to date the only visible activity in Victoria is the cabinet’s backward-bending exercises designed to dispel any resemblance to Bob Rae’s gung-ho socialists back east. Mikey himself has withdrawn into his shell, hardly com- municating any more with the electorate to which he promised “open”’ governinent. Instead he’s concentrated on his travelling sa’. aan role -— expenses-paid carpetbagging being fun as well as keeping you out of immediate trouble at home. . A pre-Christmas junket took him hobnobbding with Japan’s money lords and Hong Kong billionaires. In 10 days he’s off again to New York and London to persuade U.S. and European investors that he’s really a closet capitalist after all. In his briefcase — to prove it — the prospectus for the Working Opportunity Fund, his modest $20 million toe-wetting venture into ‘‘people’s capitalism.”” Back at the barn a handful of key ministers trusted to keep their feet away from their mouths — notably Finance Minister Glen Clark, Labor Minister Moe Sihota, Education Minister Anita Hagen and Health Minister Elizabeth Call — continue to gov- ern by trial balloon. Carefully sidestepping specifics, they toss possible policies and measures to the hungry media — quickly modifying or backtracking on those that don’t play well in the B.C. equivalent of Peoria. Last week’s prize example: Clark's to-be-or-not-to-be musings about abolishing the Homeowner Grant, which he quickly downplayed in face of the roar of. outrage from every B.C. home- owner, Everything is still on hoid ex- cept ICBC rates, unemployment and retail bankruptcies. No ‘*100 days of action.’ No ‘‘taking off the top of heads.”’ There are times, this drab January, when one almost pines for a few hours of Vander Zalm drama ... just a FEW hours. Mikey & Co. have clearly learnt from reckless Bob Rae how NOT to set about saving the world. MIKE HARCOURT... bagging is fun. carpet- Noe! oe ft HITHER AND YO Whether they've yet learned HOW to save it in B.C. is another mat- ter. Meanwhile, if that saying about the best government being dult government is true, might we even hope for a few happy sur-. ° prises eventually? - No harim in hoping. But until the Legislature is back in business and Glen Ciark brings down his’ budget, don’t hold your breath... -- SIGN-OFF: Exactly six years ago. Jan. 12 of 1986 also fellona Sunday, the Sunday when West | Van's internationally renowned . ©. impressionist artist Daniel Izzard . became — at 62 in University Hospital, London, Ont. — , Canada’s oldest heart transplant - patient. Today, iooking the pic- : ture of health, he still paints as. vigorously as ever and tours . -. countries around the world cach. summer in quest of ever new sub- jects for his prolific-canvases ...- They’re after your blood again Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 13-14 from 2:30 to 8 p.m. each day at’ the monthly Lions Gate Hospital blocd donor clinics ... And many happy returns of tomorrow, Jan. |: 13, to West Van Kiwanis birthday . ‘boy Jack Wilks, i eee WRIGHT OR WRONG: Suc- . cessful folks don’t wait for things to happen to them. They go out: - and happen to things.