pea, cy # Eden's price tag_ Public debate on the North Shore’s wildly inflated house prices may, we suspect, be generating more heat than light. From would-be buyers priced out of the market come demands for “solutions” to the situation. Pet scapegoats are a dime a dozen — greedy vendors, foreign speculators, realtors on the make, exorbitant interest rates, the flood of immigrants from eastern Canada and childless double-income couples who outbid single-breadwinner families. All these may be contributory factors in specific cases but none of them get to the. simple root of the problem: an exceptional shortage of housing on the North Shore with- litle future relief likely. Residentially, North and West Vancouver are so attractive that few who manage to own a home of their own here ever want to move to another area. Apart from Seymour, comparatively little developable land still remains. And established single-family homowners, who have a major voice in zoning, tend to show little enthusiasm for multiple-unit housing in their midst. Meanwhile, soaring prices themselves are adding to the shortage of listings, as well as the reverse. Even many North Shore residents anxious to “trade up” are forced to stay put because cash from the sale of their present home would not suffice to keep the mortgage on a somewhat better North Shore home within manageable limits. Certainly, some individual killings are being made out of the situation, but these are symptoms, not causes. The situation itself is the price-tag © of living in Canada’s west coast Eden. No early “solution” is foreseeable -- and probably. few existing North Shore homeowners really want one. Payer’s privilege Alderman Jo Dean is right to ask why the City pays its hired law firm so much more than the same firm receives from the District (with twice the population). But she was stopped from pressing the question “on a point of personal privilege” last week by Mayor Jack Loucks. Come, Your Worship -- footing a $91,312 legal bill is the inescapable “privilege” of all City taxpayers! TPO VOICE OF DOOITN ANT WEST VANCOUVER sunday news north shore news NEWS 985-2131 1139 Lonsdale Ave North Vancouver BC V7M 2H4 (604) 985-2131 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED CIRCULATION 980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Robert Graham Noel Wright Classified Manage: & Office Administrator Berm Hilhard Advertising Director Enric Cardwell Creative Director Tim Francis Production Rick Stonehouse Faye McCrae Managing Editor Andy Fraser News Editor Photography Chris tloyd Eltisworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Circulation Director Barbara Keen Brian A Ellis North Shore News, founded in 1868 as an independent commun ty newspaper and qualified under Schedule Ii} Pan Il Paragraph tl of the Excise Tax Act ts publlahed each Wednesday and Sunday by North Store Free Press Lid and distributed to every doar on the North Shore Second Ciass Mall Registration Subscriptions $20 per year Entre contents «| Froe Press Lid All nights reserved Number 3884 18680 North Shore No teaponsibillly accepted for uneoltited maternal ine huang manuscripts and pictures which should Oo accompanied by as stumped addressed return envelope VERIFIED CIRCULATION 60,870 Wednesday. 49,913 Sunday THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE By BILL BELL There are some politicians and editorial writers who would have us believe the recent firebombing of an East Indian home in Delta was an isolated: incident of racism, others would even have us believe it was just a cruel act of thoughtless vandalism. If only this could be true! Unfortunately, the only real distinction the fire- . bombing had from other common acts of racism, was it appalled and disgusted our great Canadian liberal sensibilities. Certainly, when it comes to the everyday displays of ignorance and prejudice which go on in British Columbia, the vast majority of us turn a blind eye to it. One only has to read the disgusting graffitti written on the walls of public washrooms in the bars, nightclubs, high universities and colleges, to see that bigotry is alive in the hearts and minds of many Canadians. The scrawls and slogans may never be clever, but they effectively express a bitter hatred for those who do not have white skin. Even if one does not use the public washrooms, the derogatory terms of “rugrider,” “raghead” = or “elephant jockey,” are echoed in the language of the workers throughout B.C. For those of us who have worked in the newspaper trade, where we pride ourselves on: fairness and schools, - ie 3 Sipe oer Sa ye peewee meres eneeraraaey > ure . . . eee eres ar eee 7 ” ’ En rn . . ‘ 4? - at cols - . : * 7 y © ‘ : . ~ unbiased reporting, there are the Doug Collins. There are also people like the publisher of a weekly newspaper I once worked for, who wrote Punjab jokes in his column. Never written was his statement that East Indians were all cheats. “Most of them lied to get into Canada and they should never have been allowed in,” he would say with a slight English accent. Then there are those of us who are now tucked away in institutions of higher learning, sheltered from the crudeness of racism. Surely, the enlightened who work for BCIT, Douglas College, Vancouver Community College or UBC and Simon Fraser University would never utter a word of bigotry? On the contrary, I heard from one of my colleagues, who on one hand says he dislikes racism, express a strong dislike for the way East Indians dress. “Why can’t they dress like | Canadians?” he _ asks. Another complains she could not understand why they lived the way they do. “They pack themselves in their homes, sometimes as many as twenty ... if they were white, they wouldn't allowed to do that.” ee Others even go so far as to refer to East Indians as “colored” and “curry eaters” and then add, “I have nothing against them, it's just that their cooking smells so awful.” For those who believe the law is above petty prejudice, there was the Delta Police officer who remarked, while investigating my son's stolen - bike, “What do you expect when you live below them ... nothing is safe that isn't nailed down.” . “Them” of course was an East Indian family and we were brand new tenants in their basement suite in “Please, mother — Id like to tell the doctor myself.” sunday brunch MUTED BELLS: One of the best kept secrets of the holiday season was the New Year's Eve wedding of North Van District's personable Mayor Don Bell and Marlene Storoschuk, a Stong’s cashier whom he met five years ago while operating his own camera store in Westlynn Mall. Even fellow council members were unaware the knot was being tied. The marriage took place on foreign soil — at St. David's United Church in West Van. to be precise, with Rev. Ron Smith a former West Van alderman and personal fricnd of His Worship. officiating Prominent community leader and West Van resident Derek Inman did the honors as best man. By way of further links with Tiddleycove the bride went to school in West Van and her father, Jack Fortin, ts a former Bluc Bus driver It was a small wedding with only about 15 family and close fnends present, hosted after the ceremony at the best man's British Properties home. But there's more to come. “It was rather ai quick decision,” said Mayor Bell. “We planned to get married by Noel Wright at the end of January but we thought what the hell — let's go for it now.” One reason for the haste was that Inman wasn't going to be around at the end of January However, the Bells are planning a second, “full- scale” receplion probably for carly February, for which council members and other luminanes of the Diastnct establishment will be receiving tnvitations The honeymoon 1s also postponed — probably at feast three months down the road, according to His Worship. He cites the winter workload in council, preparation of the 1981 budget) and the council phone-in senes on Channel 10 TV which starts January 27. Meanwhile, the [nstnct's new first lady will be returning, hike hubby. to her job. Bureaucrats Rule For cutting Red Tape (courtesy Brian Coldwells) (Cut che tape lengthwise Beheve a or aot next ame you're cussing the mail. Canada has the cheapest first-class postage of any major country. As against our 17¢ stamp, the others range from 18¢ (U.S.) all the way up to 38¢ (West Ger- many). In Japan a letter costs you 24¢, in Britain 31¢, in France and Sweden 35¢. Not only that, but the time an average Canadian worker has to work to carn the price of a first-class stamp (1 min., 10 sec.) is second only to the U.S. (1 min.. flay). The British worker for ex le, has to slave for 2 min., 49 sec. before popping his letter into the box. It was a very different — and rewarding — kind of Christmas Day for former West Van aldcrman Doreen Blackburn, lawyer husband Enkine and daughter Ella, visiting from Montreal. They took time out from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to help serve turkey and all the trimmings fo some 1,800 nearly- forgotten folk at the Salvahon Army's Harbour Laght Centre on Cordova. Doreen and family know what Christmas is all about __. Apologies to all would-be cigarette quitters who loving and kind to us during _vegetables out Ladner. This family tured out to be honest, warm, very the eight months we lived there. The parents gave us of their garden to “help” my pregnant wife, Darcy. the boys became close friends . with my young son, while the girls would come down and have long talks with Darcy. There was the disturbing discovery that the windows in the home were made of plexiglass instead of glass. “Foo many rocks had been thrown through the glass windows.” Then there would be some days when Suki, a 10-year- old boy with a broad smile _ and devilish grin, would come home from school very upset and angry. Those would be the days when the bullies would torment him “pecause his older brothers were not there to protect him. “I don’t pay any attention to them, only when they try to beat me up or call me “raghead” or “paki”, then I throw rocks at them,” Suki would say, holding back tears which never came. Those tears. probably arrived the other Saturday night when two racist punks firebombed the basement of his home — the same base- ment we once lived in. (Former newspaper editor Bill Bell is presently a@ publicist for Douglas Community College.) turned up at West Van Rec Centre Thursday evening for the B.C. Lung Association class on how to kick the habit. BCLA’s Scott Mc- Donald learned of the post- ponement only after our Wednesday edition was already printed. The class has been put back to next Thursday (Wan. 15), same time and place .., HAPPY DEPT.: Three North .Vanners — Robert Donahue, John Ross and Edward Bedford, all of the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs — now have handsome gold watches presented by Premier Bill Bennett at Government House, Victoria for their 35 years service apicce ... Jane Livingstome has taken over as new Children’s Librarian at NV_ District Library; formerly at Britannia Library overtown... And welcome to NV City’s new Engineer Allan Phillips, previously Deputy Engineer in Coquitlam; already a NV resident, he replaces former city engincer Tom Scott who. left in November to work on a water purification project in Africa. eee WRIGHT OR WRONG: If you're waiting and waiting. for a phone call, just try stepping into the shower” when no. one else is around to answer it.