I’M here to buy a few
votes.

Better make thar sell the
_ idea of voting. Because
around these parts it’s an idea
{that has been seriously under-
sold the past few decades,
- especially when it comes to
municipal electicns.

Consider that the nuniber
of residents who cast ballots
in the three North Shore
municipalities came civic elee-
tion time has traditionally

_ ranged around 30% — and
that’s in a good year.

It has hit such dubious
bottom-ends as 7.96% in

North Vancouver City’s 1978
civic election.

Working on a population
of around 40,000 and a coun-
cil of six aldermen and one

/ mayor thet’s approximately
:450 vores each. A persuasive
glad-hander could drum that
‘number at a good weekend
rave and be running the
affairs of your community the
next day.
j moony leht inaction;
lemocracy ;

‘And that’s how most peo-
ple measure the weight of
municipal elections. But

: Aarugs and yawns don’t do

Bye

much for your community.

When enough people
don’t bother, bad things hap-
pen on every political level.

Like the NDP.

And the first thing sacri-
ficed on the political pyre is
your money.

The list of costly cock-ups,
patronage and scandal from
Victoria is too long to include
here. Too depressing tao.
Aside from fast ferries, fudged
budgets, charity swindles and
a skyrocketing provincial. debr,
there are such curb-side issues
as the one West Vancouver ~
parent Richard Kinar contin-
ues to battle: the provincial

. government's taxation of

money raised by parents to fill
the growing cracks in our
education system. It’s another
blatant NDP charity swindle
that penalizes the good works

_ of communities trying to off-

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set the inepritudes of govern:
ment.

Kinar’s Nov, 2 provincial
day of parent protest grew
trom his frustration over lack
of government response to his
requests that provincial sales
tax be lifted on funds raised
by parents for education,

The protest yielded more
than previous bureaucratic
fog, but not much. Initial
government response: strike a
task force and invite Kinar to
be part of it.

How thick does Victoria
think Kinar and the rest of the
province's parents are?

With apologies to the
Mexican bandits in The
Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“Task forces? We don’t need
no stinking task forces.”

As North Vancouver-
Seymour MLA Daniel Jarvis
said; “It’s simply yes or no. Is
it fair chat volunteers who go
out and work their butts off
to raise money should then be
charged extra tax?”

The answer is no. It’s
unfair, inequitable and outra-
geous.

But negligent voters
helped put the disastrous
NDP and its fiscally chal-
lenged band of rotters in
charge of B.C. for not one,
but "wo, terms.

On the federal level, we
have such foolishness as mil-
lennium celebration projects.

Deputy Prime Minister
Herb Gray is stoking the rax
dollar pyre on this one, and
he has to shovel with purpose

=a West Vancouverite
for nearly forty years.
++ efor Councillor vote for

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because he’s gor about $150
million to burn.

Alerted by the good work
of West Vancouver-Sunshine
Coast MP John Reynolds,
previous Ripping Yarns listed
such dubious projec S
approved under the tirst phas
es of federal Millennium
Partnership Program as
$13,614 to help students in
Toronto create paper mache
replicas of pigeons.

Arecent National Post
story reported that Gray has
another $43.8 million set for
incineration on such projects
as installing “underwater,
robor-controfled cameras at a
marine protected area in
British Columbia” so that
video images of fish and other
sea life can be seen on the
Internet 24 hours per day. A
mere $210,000 for thar one
— a bargain at twice the
price.

Elsewhere there is the
$29,016 Women’s Place Daily
Piarv; the $22,860 Violin
and Tap Dancing
Competition i in Richibucto,

New Brunswick; and the
$790,950 Peace
Initiative/Gun Sculpture in
Edmonton, Alberta “created
from deactivated firearms -
donated by countries from
around the world.”

A recent Millennium
Bureau of Canada press
release gleefully reported that
millennium program applica-
tions were skyrocketing —

- close to 3,500 in Phase IE.

Small wonder.

Professional tax sponges
can sense a government
money flood a mile off.

And if your elected offi-
cials aren’t pitch-torking it
away, they're busy gathering
more and refusing to give any
of it back. Even when they’ve

See Voter page 9

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Glenys Deering-Robb |

Councillor, District of N. Vancouver’

” FOR NEIGHBOURHOODS —
AND FAMILIES - Be

_ TO TALK TO ME CALL —