Waterways

It’s high time Highways" Minister Alex
Fraser his cabinet colleagues to
lay down the law firmly about B.C. Ferries.

B.C. Government Employees Union
leader John Fryer has been given the right to
picket them by the B.C. Labor Relations
Baar in kis union's present dispute ‘with the

The fact that Mr. Fryer has mo
ammounced he will not exercise his right for

, Claude:
bis achemic for creating first ented chen
fexry travellers by offering discount-price

tickets and boarding priority for regular
patrons — leaving tourists and less
users to pay 12% more for the privilege of
being bumped from busy sailings.

What mone of these assorted meddlers
are an betewtal gett of the peeriatea are

Answer, please!

B.C. School Trustees Association

Doubtless the total tax b@l would come to
the same im the end, anyhow — but at least

we'd like to know just who's benefiting from
our bleod moacy, Mr. Vander Zalm.

sunday

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THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE

chance that Canada will pull
out of her economic morass:
this year — or even next
year. It won't happen,

because those who created
the mess are not ready to
admit they’ve caused it and
are nat prepared to reverse

The view from

There really isn’t much

the latest version of his
budget on June 28, he
Staggered some people by
estimating that Canada
would run a deficit of $19.6
billion. That's very nearly

| \

“BOTTOM-OUT DAY” was May 28 of this year.
The day when Vancouver’s Downtown Business
Association promised that. the economy would
turn upward once more if only cnough people
believed it woufd. In the event, the economy

regarded this cheery gi

gimmick as gross presymp-

tion on the DBA’s part and retaliated by getting
even worse. But today’s it’s another story.

I have a strong hunch that
the only thing wrong about
the DBA's “bottom-out day™
was: that it came cxactly
three months too carly.

During the past weck or so
there has been a lot of
“bottoming-out”, some of it
obvious, some of it not quite
so obvious.

Interest rates have
dropped more sharply than
for months. They're still
usurious by any civilized
standards, but their
downward swing has
sweetened life quite a bit for
mortgage slaves and other
borrowers.

It has also sparked un.
precedented volumes of
business on the stock cx
changes as bargain-hunters
with cash available have
rushed in to buy depressed
biue chip) shares that
promise ai killing on the
rebound, somwhere down
the road

BUBBLE BURST

The Canadian dollar has
clambered back into the 80
cent range and is looking
perkicr

In BC | the real estate
market has finally come to
its) senses. More modest
homes are beginning to sell

briskly again at half the price
they were asking when the
1980-81 bubble burst. The
nice little house on a 6,000
sq. ft. lot for the nice young
with a baby and
expectations is once more
becoming affordable.
The rental bubble has also
burst, with a 2.2 per cent

incentives like a month's free
rent. And B.C.’s population
is actually declining for the
first time in ycars as more
people Icave the province
than arrive here.

For thousands of daily
toilers pay hikes are tem-
porarily in abcyance and
wage freezes are the ordcr of
the day. Jobs arc suddenly
worth more than catra bucks

as uncmployment inches
upward by the weck.
Continuing double-digit

inflation without a pay hike
ts tough. But lining up for
UIC or, eventually, welfare
ts an cven tougher prospect.

The BC government's
restraint message is pretty
obviously being reccived and
understood tn cver wider
circles, despite ritual
screams of protest from

and child in Canada.
It should. not. have been a

billion than $20 billion, and.
he wouldn't bet. ;
The. government is not.
only suffering a loss of
revenue’ through lack of

> Canadian Comment

BY PETER WARD

leaves far less money around

insurance cheques sent out

There’s no sign that the
people who fool about with
the levers of power in Ot-
tawa,

the bottom UP

by
Noel Wright

public sector interest
Bs.

A further 360 million
slashing of education costs
has Ieft teachers mulling the
options of wage com
promises or the breadlinc.

The BC Medical
Association, while rejecting
any rollback of doctor's fee
scales, has made thc cx-
traordinary gesture of of-
fering to hand back 4330
million of those fees to help
the government out of its
mmediate hole

CONV ALESCENCE

Rven John Fryer and his
mihtant BC Government

Employees Union

But at least it's a healthy
one. It's a signal that things
arc at long last going to get
better instead of worse,
however slowly. And I think
it’s now clearly beginning to
happen.

I guess we're presently like
® patient who has just
survived the crisis of a
severe illincs: and is now
starting back on the long
road to recovery.

Hopefully having
gencratcd enough antibodics
to immunize us against
future attacks of the
economic disease that’s been
afflicting us. Provided, of
course, that we convalesce
wiscly and paticntly.

Come to think of it, there's
a comforting ring about that
word “bottom”

It's the place from which
there's nowhere to go bul up