6 - North Shore News — Friday, December 15, 2000

HILDREN fearn from their
parents’ example, or so the say-
ing goes.

If it is true, then what are the chil-
dren who attend Collingwood learn-
ing right now?

The West Vancouver K-12 private
school prides itself in providing supe-
rior education for mere than 1,100

‘children from well-heeled families.
With tuition ranging from $8,563 to
$11,375 annually, could anything less
_ be expected? ’

But ail is /not idyllic at
- Collingwood. A secretary iaunched a
lawsuit in October against the head-
master, the equivalent of a principal
in the public educational milieu.

Kyoko Miyazaki has alleged inap-
- propriate touching and threats about
her job security during a business trip
in March. The lawsuit allegations led

the school’s governors to suspend
headmaster Graham Baldwin.

That meve has pitted Collingwood
families agains: cach other and
against the school’s parent-base
board of governors. The school
rumour mill is overheating with scur-
rilous allegations. No ane connected
with the schcol is unteuched by this.
A troubling situation worsened when
three Baldwin backers filed a lawsuit
against the governors earlier this
week.

Cooler heads need to prevail.
Pareats should put their emodons
aside and strive to bring the contro-
versy back te a civil level.

Collingwood children, as all chil-
dren, need to. know that conflict
comes with living.

Pair and focused resolution of con-
flict is a lesson worth teaching.

- mailbox

‘Areal solution te
nursing shortage

The Premier has finally’ decided to invest some much
fi¢eded money into -B.C.’s devastating health-care system,
of this money-is to be’allocated to the critical nursing
shortage: -The-Premier’s number one idea on how to solve
th problem is to recruit foreign-trained nurses. This con-
e becatise [ believe. this will not even touch on the

eal base of the ‘problem.’ a
the lowest aid nurses.in, the country
cost Of living is taken into account. As anew
40. Tt.was.a slap i in the face to discover that
y: housekeepers, laundry "Workers, and food service
a orkers make, more’ than’a starting -RN _who- ‘has. three to

re

Premier should first ‘consider i increasing the’ wage of

inakeit ‘profession in this
not try and keep the nurses that we have, and
that 2ve left the ‘Province i ‘search of
highe ARCS? is :
Secondly, ‘the:amount' of nursing: spaces in the colleges
and. .universities
smand. There are several hundred applicants to the nursing
hat: get: turned away each’ year.’ Let’s look. at the
hursing’shortage as a long-term problem that requires long-.
1 Reer' ting foreign-nuirses will not solve the root
ds to look in the direction of other
provin 26 that are ‘finally p ying nurses close’ to what we are:
rth oN h w Ontario

increased ‘to meet the -nussing, -

not in the critical state that we

Too ii

IS there such a thing as a pre-
dictable defining moment?

If so, ’'m so terribly old that f often
predict them.

One occurred last
week when North
Vancouver City Mayor
Barbara Sharp and Port

uitlam Coun.
Mie acl Wright were
guests on Bill Good’s
CKNW show. (NV
District Mayor Don Bell
was invited but, all too
understandably,

. declined.)

_ The subject was,the *
“levy” (tax) on vehicles
being imposed on the outraged populace
by the Greater Vancouver. Regional
District’s TransLink autocrats.
_ Appropriate term, no?

-On the North "shore, orphaned from
” TransLink’s grandiose plans, the tax is as
popular as tofu at a butchers’ conven-
tion. West Vancouver and Lions Bay, rep-
resented by Coun. Victor Durman and
‘Mayor Brenda Broughton respectively, .
“rejected it. And so did Mayor Sharp and
council — unanimously, at NVC?s Oct.
16 meeting. ~. -

But an unfunny thing happened on
thé way to TransLink’s forum that

approved the levy. As Catherine Barr

~-eported in last Sunday’s News, Don

* Bell, North Shore rep on TransLink’s:

board, contacted Sharp and asked if

NVC would be “flexible” on the issue.
-The point. man for this’ “flexibility”

“turned out to be NVC Coun, Darrell

-:. Mussatto. Five weeks after NV City total-
‘ly rejected the levy and two weeks after
NVD approved i it, Mussatto’ s, motion to

NAH, NAH

1 NAH, NAB, NAH

WG TERNOR |

portant t

flip-flop, as flexibly as a filleted fish, slid
by council 4-3, with Sharp’s backing.
Apart from a new burden while
Canadians are shrieking in pain (some
threatening sedition) from governmental
extortions, the tax is
seen as unfair and
TransLink as an out-of:
control behemoth.
‘But now the defining
moment. After a break,
Bill Goed passed on a
listener’s question:
How did Sharp and.
. Port Coquitlam’s
garden, Wright eet to the stu-
of biases dio?

., . My old eyes narrowed -

with cruel mirth:
Because I routinely asked that obvious
question whenever the TransLink team,
never fewer than half a dozen, arrived to
bear the truths of transit to the editorial

- board of our r leading downtown newspa-
per.

And onice or twice; one of them |
claimed t9 have taken public transit. (I
cynically suspected he was TransLink’s
designated non-driver: “Hey, whose turn
is it to take the bus to the meeting,
today?”) |

Sharp, as Rafe Mair. would say, tap:
danced. She had, she dodged, walked -

over.to CKNW “from another meeting.” |

‘Good pressed on: ‘And how did she gee
to that meeting? Sharp owned up that”
shé had ‘driven there “in my SUV.” And

. thiere are people who deplore. “Gotcha!”

journalism!
Wright responded like- a “stufty stage
nobleman. “Ihave taken public. transit,”
_ he stiffly replied, as if saying, “I did eata
chocolate ant, once.” But he too was | .
backed into confessing that he had used

~Truscan’ s applic

Oo April

“ L question the council’s judg nt

OW THAT'S Just.
BUSH PRACTISING
HIS ACCEPTANCE

yall

e the bus.

his (socially stigmatized, politically i incor: °

‘rect) car.

_ Which tells ir all. Transit elites every--
where are bludgeoning drivers inte cram
ming on to buses that they have no’ :
intention of taking themselves. Or pre: .
miers or foreign potentates. They, you
see, are Too Impor tant. You and I aren't.

So you won’t have to give up your.”
bus seat to transit czar George Puil. Or
to Ken Dobell, TransLink’s CEO/, ° :

1 join every reporter who has covered. :
Dobell in great respect for the man, his’
ability, his affability, his accessibility.. But .
he’ll never take the bus — he’ s a chain ©
smoker.

So in future, as you ‘stand wetly’ at the
bus stop, you will be-able to‘distinguish:
Dobeil’s car from those-of.the other:
Anointed. It'll be the on¢’ so. thick with |
smoke that you'won’t know ifiir’s being

; driver by-a 1 human, or robotically,

. O00.
Having twitted Barbara Sharp, let me

’ say that recently she took me aside to

protest, very seriously,'a line: here'jesting

- thar pike she, was neh mad pane when

; taking | part in. the issue’as Se ened,

astonishing that Truscan’s David Cha :

“ sits on WV’s powerful Ad is
Commission while. 1's:

ment project is bela oun r :
_ He .was' appointed ‘in: Februaryfand
ublic

n’t- question: Chard’s integri

name, ny address’ and telephone. numb:

"Submit via e-mall to: mbecker@rsne corn 1199 Lonsdale Ait, North Vancouer, aC Vis 2H4

Distribution Manager
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