4 ~ Sunday, July 24, 1988 - North Shore News

1

@. strictly ; personal © Sgn

IN GREEK theatre they called it deus ex machina, the
‘‘machine of the gods,” a chair lowered from heaven to get
the protagonist out of the hopeless situation he’d got

himself into.

The audience would always jeer
and hiss when it appeared, since it
meant the character on stage was
going to be undeservedly saved
from the consequences of his own
folly.

Deus ex machina, of course, is
what William Vander Zalm is
counting on — if, indeed, he is
counting on anything. A political
death wish wouldn’t necessarily be
conscious, you know.

Just because the man appears to
be bringing about nis downfall
with awesome efficiency, there is
no guarantee that at the last
minute he won’t be rescued by a
miracle,

He believes in miracles, he re-
minds us often enough. He proba-
bly really does. Heck, I do.
Anybody who doesn't believe in
miracles hasn’t been paying atten-
tion,

It’s just that in politics, they are
even rarer than they are in ordi-
nary fife. { think the reason for
this is that politics is such a dirty
business, every practitioner sooner
or later sups with the devil.

There is no ore | know who has
not been involved in at least a
teeny-weeny abuse of whatever
power it is they have, whether as a
parent (or child), member. of a
committee, judge of a contest, or
by virtue of simply being one
notch above somebody else at
work:

It’s not that the Zalm is unique.
He is just so magnified. It will
come as no surprise, I’m sure, if I
report that the premier of B.C. is a
national figure, mocked, despised
and derided from one end of the
country to the other.

Seriously — he is the best-
known premier of them all. The
fact that he is seen as a cross be-
tween Mussolini and Jimmy Swag-
gart, with a bit of Jerry Lewis
thrown in, is beside the point. He
has name recognition you can
bank on.

In Toronto washrooms, there is
actual graffitti about him. | can't
repeat what it says in a family
newspaper. But put it this way: he

is a superstar at a visceral! level.
How many politicians make it that
far?

When he first showed interest in
the premiership, I wrote a column
describing him as the little Dutch
boy with his finger in the hole in
his head, a description that fore-
shadowed history, as it turns out.

When he first
showed interest tn
the premiership,
wrote a column
describing him as
the little Dutch
boy with his
finger in the hole
in his head, a
description that
foreshadowed
history, as it turns
out.”’

But having got past the fear and

- loathing stage, I now find the

Zalm fascinating. He’s a classic
study in hubris, meaning arrogant
pride.

Throughout literature,
mythology and theatre, the theme

of the flawed leader replays itself,
drawing its material from the raw
stuff of life through the ages.

Has there, in fact, ever been a
leader who wasn’t flawed?

Um, um...

Great men, sure. But Churchill
boozed, Gandhi womanized,
Cuesar was a power junkie,
Ghengis Khan was into torture,
and Lester Pearson gave the right
to strike to the posties — to men-
tion but a few tragic cases of
misguided leadership.

People who accept various
religious doctrines invariably envi-
sion their particular church’s
founder (and usually his buddies)
as being perfect leaders. Their
perfection is attributed to cosmic
connections.

In real life, the *‘perfect’? guys
are always remote. In messiah-
hood, distance in time makes piety
glow brighter.

Among the merely human,
built-in flaws are inevitable.
Secular leaders generally don’t’
make any noises about being the
hand of God at work in the uni-
verse, which of course is where the
Zalm goes over the top.

Such is the depth of his hubris,
he can resist almost any pressure.
Inside, he is absolutely certain
about his own brilliance. There is a
Light, yes, with a capital ‘‘L.”’
This is the very stuff of flawed
leadership.

The man at the front, who is
supposed to embody the beliefs
and goals and agenda of his fol-
towers, invariably starts thinking
that he alone sees the true path un-
folding.

It took Pierre Trudeau a decade
to fet his arrogance reveal itself in
its fullness. The Zalm’s ego took
only a fraction of that time to pro-
ject itself across the entire country,
and without even a national man-
date!

The trick of a leader surroun-
ding himself with toadies is a fa~
miliar device, used by everybody
who can’t handle consensus.

There is a formula that says a
first-rate leader attracts first-rate
people. A second-rate leader at-
tracts third-rate people.

1 give you the Zalm and his new
cabinet ©

Feature Special

Okanagan Early Red Haven

PEACHES

RASPBERRIES

= S108

GREEN or WAX
BEANS

Local

Residents

satisfied

with NVOD services

WHOEVER SAID “‘There are lies,
damn lies; and then there are
statistics’? probably never lived in
the District of North Vancouver.

A recent telephone survey car-
ried out to measure the level of
satisfaction district residents have
with municipal services showed
that a whopping 96.5 per cent of
respondents are satisfied or very
satisfied with municipal services,
such as water supply, sewer, gar-
bage collection, road maintenance,
police and fire assistance and rec-
reation facilities.

R.G. Wyckham Associates Ltd.
surveyed 397 aduft heads of
households in early June to obtain
data on citizen attitudes and citizen
use of various municipal services,
and citizen evaluation of the taxes
paid for those services.

In addition, information was
obtained about some current topics
of importance to municipal deci-
sion makers.

Aside from the unsurprising fact
that 91.1 per cent of respondents
really like living in the district
(presumably many of those who
did not would have moved),
study results of particular interest

SURREY

NORTH ‘VANCOUVER

to staff are:-

© 62.5 per cent support an in-
crease in taxes only if needed to
maintain present services, while
25.7 per cent prefer a cut in ser-
vices to maintain or reduce taxes.

® Frequency of use of various
municipal services is high, especial-
ly parks, trails and walks.

* 78.6 per cent knew of council's
iHegal suite policy. Opinions about
the issue are mixed: of the home
owners sampled, 39.5 per cent op-
pose rental suites, 39.2 per cent
support rental suites, with a fur-
ther 13.4 per cent in support if
restricted to family members.

93.2 per cent {earn of
municipal plans from the North
Shore News,

© 68.3 per cent of people with an
opinion on the issue support
amalgamation with the City of
North Vancouver.

Old oil tanks filled,
pumped etc.
Very reasonable

980-6133

BURNABY

14625-108th AVE. 1400 MARINE DRIVE 4700 E, HASTINGS

4 bike, north of Guildtord
Phone 585-8877

984- -0341

Caz. of Hastings & Bela
Phone 294-5256

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