NO WONDER You FEEL Lousy... .. THATS NOTA HEART mow YOURE HOOKED UP T0- THATS YOUR NINTENDO GAME. nee te “NEWS VIEWPOINT ~ Recycling retribution § NORTH Vancouver District Council getting grumpy or what? Maybe it’s the late nights put in by council members at Monday council meetings; maybe it's the’ constant political infighting; maybe it’s the coming municipal! elections. Whatever the reason, council “has stopped fooling around, especially with street-level folk, Al its Feb. 8 meeting, council decided to amend its Waste Removal. Bylaw and make scavenging from: recycling bins 4 bylaw offence packing a $50 fine. Coun. Joan Gadsby said the district's blue box; recycling contract with Intéerna- ‘ tional Paper Industries: Ltd. had to be safeguarded. Containers’ taken from blue boxes, she said, cut into district recycling revenues, The exact cut local scavengers carve out i la of those revenues is unknown, but the last time News staff checked no known bottle . scavenger was organizing pickups via a cellular phone, The unfortunate few who scour local ‘streets for refundable drink containers are harnessing what en- treprencurial energies they have and belp- ing to keep the streets clean in the process. Scavengers are street-level recyclers, rooting through the rubbish of the more affluent to turn discarded glass into tem- porary street-level gold. As Coun. Janice Harris pointed out, the bylaw amendment is especially ironic con- sidering that the district is trying to come up with ways of reducing the amount of glass and plastic beverage containers in the waste stream, yet has come up with a bylaw that actively discourages it at its most basic level. “LETTER OF THE DAY — Velvet glove approach unsatisfactory Dear raitol: The lifelong suffering ‘ which Rudolf von Schlack must. endure. with the Gold. stated that the defendant “shawed remorse and coaperated patice.”" A no-brain with that high levels of CFCs or C02 are hazardous to our health, It is sad indeed that the sitting has been inadequately served by’ the’ velvet, glove gnproach which appears 10} be prevalent in our Canadian judicial system, The Fact | is, Mr. von Schluck lost his wife beeause of criminal negligence. |What cloud is Joel Gold, the defence lawyer, (ying on? Vanlenberghe, the defendant, was on trial! for killing an inno- cent person, not whether someone is better or worse off because, of the length of the sentence. Publisher Managing Editor Associate Editor Sales & Marketing Director . Comptroller . Peter Speck Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Linda Stewart Doug Foot little common sense would do no less. 14's catled self-preservation, Gold continued his remarks, and out af context said, “Vanlenberghe was perhaps nota good and decent person," Truer words were never spoken, In my view, and ene which is shared by many, any: individual whose criminal record includes convictions for fraud, break & énter, theft, narcotics. possession, criminal negligence — as well as traffic violations — is a hazard to our society, much in the same way Oisplay Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertsing Newsroom 985-2131 Distribution . Subscriptions 986-1337 pee 986-6222 Fax ‘Administration 985-2131 § justice, Donald Clancy, did not avail himself of the opportunity to impose the maximum jail sentence, the maximum fine, and a lifetime suspension of driving privileges. This might possibly deter the defendant, and perhaps oihers, from: committing actions. detri- mental to society in general, for the longest possible period of time. Kent tactin North Vancouver 986-1337 Printer on 10% recycled fewsntint Howth Shore managed 985-3227 Brean orth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper: and Qualihect under Schedule 11}, Paragraph Hl of the Excise Tita Act, 1S putshshed each Wednesaay, Fiday ang Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lia and distributed ta every Joor on the North Shore Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sates Product Agreement No 0087238 Maing sates available on request, Subrssions are wetcorste bul we cannot accept msponsibiity for unsol a Material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed enveiope. oO VIM 2H4 Leet tC 8 fT ANAC EE VAC ete beer reabeer corres ae a 139 Lonsdale Avenue. Narth Vancouver, B.C MEMBER SR. = SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved. THERE ARE LIES, damned lies and statistics, goes the cynical old saying. Hence, Statistics Canada proudly reporting a week or so ago ‘‘the biggest monthly drop in unemployment in almost three years.’ PROS AES Noel Down to 11% in January from 11.5% in December, boasted Ot- tawa’s tame bean-counters. Sorry, folks — but don’t hold your breath! There are so many dimensions to unemployment today that no single set of numbers alone ever tells you what is actually happen- ing. You need at least two or three separate cross-measurements in order to understand the effect in terms of human bodies. StatCan percentages, for exam- ple, relate to the size of the labor force — i.e., the total number of people who are cither in a job or actively secking one at any given point, By that yardstick the REAL December-January gain was not 0.5% but well under 0.1% — less: than the November-December drop to 11.5% from 11.8%. ; Why? Because January’s 65,000 fewer ‘jobless’? included 56,000 dispirited job-seckers — predominantly between the ages of {Sand 24 — who'd simply given up loaking for work, thereby reducing the labor force by that number, So actually the jobless dropped a mere 9,000 — NOT $5,000. The real clincher, however, is the KIND of jabs being created — and lost. A 1992 study by the Toronte economics group of Nuala Beck & Associates gives a graphic picture of what is happen- ing. In the seven years from 1984 to reveals, the skilled and high-tech job market created ~ 338,241 new jobs and lost 7,648 for a net gitin of 330,593, During the same period the low-skill sector created 82,680 new jobs and lost 274,872 fora whopping net loss of 192,192. This huge low-skill job loss: produced, for bath sectors com- bined, a net job gain of only 138,401, or a mere 32% of the total 420,921 new jobs created — 80% of them in the skilled and high-tech category. What these numbers clearly say is that today’s job market belongs to the trained and skilled — that minimum wages, the dole, welfare or crime are now the only future awaiting the 30% of dropouts currently being produced by Canada's public school system. Thus the lunacy of B.C,’s new “Year 2000" education philoso- phy, which banishes all com- petitive incentive from the SENG SEILER OUTED RET ES HITHER AND YON classroom in order to focus on making little Johnny just “feel good about himself.” This tough, end- of-century. , world doesn't give a hoot whether little Johnny feels good about himself. Its jobless stats are the . vital lesson missing from his forthcoming ‘Year 2000"" cur- riculum, : ene DATELINES: “Swingtime’' again k Saturday, Feb.20, at West Van ; Seniors Centre, with dancing from 8 p.m, to the big-band beat of the “Milter Alres’’, dvor prizes and: refreshrents. Tickets $10 and non-members welcome — call 926-4375 for info ... Featured Monday, Feb.22, at the subscrip- tion-only Nerth Shore Communi- ty Concert in the Centennial Theatre is ‘‘the first family of © Spanish dance’, Madrid's famed | Jose Greco Company, starring Jose Greco IL with Jose Greco in person. Would-be subscribers to ©, next season’s Community Con- certs with their internationally renowned performers should apply soonest by calling 985-1608 ... And also on Monday, Mark Schimi will offer tips on effective letter-writing at the 7:30 p.m. meeting of Amnesty International * at Highlands United Church i in Edgemont Village. ‘ WRIGHT OR WRONG: Paying as you go is easy. The problem is catching up on where you’ve been. NEWS photo Mike Wakelletd PRESSING THE flesh again... former. Socred premier Bil! Vander Zalm appeared as guest speaker at last week's meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Capifano in West Van.