A6 - Sunday, July 25, 1982 - North Shore News EEE editorial page! ae ek SS S ens eee RRA S Sa Sreuendate met - \ 1. etn ., y dake : ee . pe fe, i ~t 7 : ' 5 rl he The arrogant campaign by the Trudeau government to force the mandatory use of metric measure on all Canadians stands im stark contrast to the latest development below the border. President Reagan is abolishing the U.S. Metric Board and transferring its residual function to the Department of Commerce effective this September. The President has voiced “support for the policy of voluntary metrication” while making it clear that the board is now costing more than it is worth. Almost certainly, the disbandment of the USMB means the U.S. — which accounts for 75% of Canada’s foreign trade — will now move even more slowly than hefore towards metrication, with the voluntary choice left entirely to the private sector. That, of course, is how the process should have been in Canada. Instead, Metric Commission Canada, a bureaucrat’s dream of heaven, has become virtually a government within the govern- ment — armed with sweeping powers to fine or jail all dissenters. Meanwhile, the cost has rum into many millions of dollars, with the bills still pouring in. The tab for conversion of store scales and workers’ tools are only two of the endless examples, all of which have to be picked up by taxpayers and consumers. If metrication in Canada had remained voluntary, the chances are that education alone would have ensured its hassle-free adoption by the coming generation at a tiny fraction of the cost. The Tradeau govern- ment'’s dictatorial approach is one more score the electorate may wish to settle when the day of reckoning comes. Stop gloating One of the most discouraging aspects of Canada’s current economic malaise is the reaction of our elected members in Ottawa. While the Grits carry on with their policy of bombastic nothingness, the opposition parties give the impression of gloating over the seemingly successive failures by the government. More time bs spent in attaching blame and name calling than in coming up with positive solutions. It’s no wonder the troubles continue. eR VOCCE OF PETITE AED MY WCE sunday news north shore news 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver,BC V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Classified Advortising Newsroom Circulation 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Roben Graham Noel Wright Tom § rances General Manageo:. Administration & Personne! Mrs Berm Hilhard Circulation Olrector: Bnan A Ems Production Otrecto: Puch Stonehouse North Shore News, tounded m 1060 an an nNdependoem Commanty nNowapape: and quaktied under Schochde @ Pat @ Paragraph & of the Fxciwe Tan Act) tw gupinhed each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore tree Preas tid and Gistityted to every door on the North Shore Second Cinas Mad Regitration Number 3665 Entice contents ' 1082 North Ghore Free Press Ltd. Al rights reserved Subacnptons Noth and West Vancouver $70 por your Matey tates avatiable on roquest No cosponad>dity ACCOptTEd for unmacmted muster mwhudingy manuscipie and prota. etecth shod be aCCOmpreNd Dy o slampod aid eased covetope VIR D CIRCULATION 53.995 Wedneaday. 53.484 Sunilay sm & THIS PAPER tS RECYCLABLE By W. ROGER WORTH » Canadians are a short two years away from 1984, the year author George Orwell predicted we would become a society of well-managed robots, generally following government policies sup- posedly enacted for our own good. There would be ‘littic room for dissent. In a lot of ways, this society ~by the numbers already exists. Canadians are ‘now forced to have social security nmumbers_ for identification purposes, restrictions on individual activity have proliferated. | and, among other changes, we're all being directed to think metric. Quite naturally, a lot of people are upset because for every government intrusion into our affairs, there is a consequent erosion of our freedom of choice. The latest intervention in the lives of Canadians ts Ottawa’s plan to crack down on the press, using a carrot and stick approach to overcome what government perceives as problems in the media. As a Start, Ottawa is about to restrict the nation’s two major newspaper chains from buying more newspapers. While the government may indeed be correct in its assumption that the chains are restricting competition, surely that GUEST COLUMN Daily dinosaurs are dyin By STANLEY BURKE Publisher of the Nanaimo Times and the Saanich Tribune Is there a simple solution to the media crisis portrayed by last year’s Kent Royal Commission on Newspapers? It is possible that the anguish ts misplaced, that the answer is at hand — alive, well and growing? ] think the reply is Yes. the answer lics in community newspapers, and this is what 1 told the Royal Commission when it came to British Columbia. I realize that this requires some mental rc-focussxing becausc we arc oot ac customed to think = of humble, homessdc papers as substitutes for mighty dailica but the public scems to be making this decision for a. At a time when the once mighty dailics are in growing trouble cverywherc, the community papers have become the fastest growing part of the media Why? The explanation s simplc the community ecwspapers meet a growing oced while the dailics arc perhaps becoming dinosaurs. ! hate to say that because I stasted issue can be tackled with present or | com- petition legislation, rather than a special piece of legislation. The problem with special — legislation is that Ottawa appears to be trying to exert — control over something. delicate, indefinable and out long, long ago in daily newspapers and I like them. I realize, furthermore, that what I am saying is not conventional media wisdom but it starts to make sense if you consider that the dailics became great at a time when there was little else to read and when, literally, the Bible, the almanac, and the newspaper were the prin- cipal sources of information for millions. Today, our society is in the midst of a communications revolution which bas given us a multi- channel information system ~~ hundreds of radio and television channcls and, in print, an cver-greatcr aumber of specialized publications. In the midst of this, daily ncwspapers still try to be cverything to everyone and, clearly, they arc not succceding Everywhere, their numbers diminish and vitality wanca. The community paper. in contrast, serves a clear anced by providing rcadecrs with information which they can not obtain in any other way . information about their own ncighbourhoods. In telicctuals smcer at this as parochial but, in many respects, thin ts the most important information poople rcocive because it touches their cveryday lives fragile; yet fundamental to our way of life: freedom of the press. The government wants to Equally important, the community newspaper is a channel they can use to communicate their own ideas and, perhaps, to put them into action. Community noewspapers provide roots in a rootless world and, sometimes, hope in a= hopeless world and increasingly, hope in a forum welcomed by the ublic and supported b pavertisers. This bs not to sny that quality is as good as it could be, and should bc, and — in my opinion — soon will be. I notice, however, that aa revenucs isc, so do editorial standards and, at their best, they are becoming as good as any. Community papers do not normally carry the news of NOEL WRIGHT ON VACATION set up press councils, and the new legislation will offer millions of dollars to help some newspapers better cover national and_in- - ternational events. The problem; of course, is that for the first time, Ottawa will have a_ real handle on newspaper owners. In turn, this could markedly affect the healthy adversary relationship between press and govern- ment that has served us so well. In a recent vote among the 64,000 members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a full 67 percent flatly rejected government controls on newspaper ownership. What the entrepreneurs seem to be saying: there is no room for governments in the newsrooms of the nation. They're right, particularly when one considers the unbelievable propaganda now coming from Ottawa. Allowing government even ene foot inside the newsroom door is. sheer folly. (Roger Worth is a feature writer for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.) Ottawa, of course, and in the eyes of intellectuals, this makes them inferior, irrelevant. Perhaps the intellectuals are becoming irreicvant. lt is so typical that they would propose’ that governments take action to support daily newspapers and have urged for example that there be a “print CBC” My God the CBC had already grown into the greatest media disaster possible and now they want to clone it! It is so typical: in tellectuais would take a hopeless situation and want to spend millions to per: petuate it. This is a media equivalcnt of the bilingualism program or Trudeau's constitutional madness, a bclicf that moncy spent in Ottawa can correct anything. When will we learn that the Canadian public has better instinct? In the newspaper field, the public is already showing its appreciation of community newspaper so perhaps our leaders should listen and, if action is to be taken. perhaps it should simply be to help these papers do 4 better job After all, they are the voice of the real Canada