Ontario is

THE NEXT provincial gov-
ernment to face its moment
‘of destiny is Gntario’s NDP
regime, which has to call an
election within a year.

Bob Rae, the pale, ghost-like
premier, seems to drift, rather than
walk, through the air these days.
It's fike his sovl has started to leave
his bedy.

The polis show his party holding
17% of the vote. That’s where they
bottomed a couple of years ago, and
that’s where they've been grounded
ever since.

Yet Rae himself has the aura of
someone who has learned the trick
of levitating. Listening to him,
you'd swear he was right on course,
that he had figured it all oui by
Dead Reckoning, and that he was
fully in control.

He has to be given some kind of
credit for sheer endurance. This
most ethereal of premiers has man-
aged, during a turbulent first term
in office, to keep smiling, despite
gaffes galore by his accident-prone
team, and not a few of his own.

. _ Turned loose on a piano at a

. fundraiser a little while ago, he

. played With A Little Help From My
Friends, after about his dozenth
cabinet minister had to resign.

‘A dour specialist with a sense of
humor? No weirder than a deficit-
fighting left-winger, I guess. It is
the ‘90s.

. . While enacting very pro-labor

_ legislation, limiting the use of
seabs, for instance, Rae out-Toried
the Tories when it came to cutbacks
and downsizing. He freely admits

“that it must seem like his brain has
been transplanted.

-He pushed through a so-called
social contract that flayed so much
fat off the provincial civil service
that each government employee had
to'take a day off without pay. Either
that or there would be mass sack-

, ings.
Such days are known throughout
’ the province as Rae Days, and woe
“be to the citizen or reporter who |
tries to get through to a provincial-
level bureaucrat who doesn’t want

STRICTLY PERSONAL

to be gotten through to any more.

Bob Rae himself has the aura
this fail of John Paul I, the
September Pope, the liberal sweet-
heart who only lasted a month.

Unlike poor old John Paul,
Premier Bob is chipper, feisty, even
pugnacious.

He has pounded his chest and
howled a few times. He gives the
impression, good grief, of actually
enjoying being premier.

Part of this is simply the royal
jelly effect that all the stroking and
being saluted by obsequious staff
produces. It is a minor form of the
experience of Godhood.

Part of getting to play God is
making sure you appear humble, of
course, but a modern provincial
premier in Canada enjoys all the
trappings of the lifestyle of a seri-
ous desert potentate, starting with a
small army of flunkies, fixers, spin
doctors, plus actual goon squads.

Of course Bob Rae is enjoying
his jcb. Big surprise!

It’s a good job if you can get it,
being premier, so long as you can
take the interminable meetings,
power struggles and head games in
your stride, and all the yassa-massa
stuff.

Meanwhile, the Ontario Tory
party is a good 10 pnints ahead of

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the provincial NDP, and the
Liberals are way up in the high 40s,
which is making for lively nomina-
tion battles between various Grits.

In the riding of Scarborough
East, a Liberal lady of long stand-
ing in the party beat back an
attempt to stack a meeting with
newly-arrived immigrants, most of
whom spoke neither English nor
French, by having a team of inter-
preters ready to talk to them in
Mandarin or Somali or a Nigerian
dialect, whatever, with literature in
every imaginable language already
prepared, convincing them to join
her side.

It worked. But that’s how rough
the Liberals are playing in their
eagerness to vault into virtually
guaranteed government posts.

The Tories have begun their
nomination process too, but so far
haven't sparked quite as much com-
petition. They call themselves
“Mike Harris’ Tones.”

They’ ve dropped the word
“Conservative” from all their litera-
ture, posters, propaganda.
Mulroney? Never heard of him.

In stark contrast, although in
keeping with the strangely serene
spirit of their leader, the Ontario
New Democrats seem hardly to
have stirred themselves yet.

One theory is that most of the
elected members plan to run again
anyway, few of them having any
other obvious job prospects, so
there’s not much need to rush about
fighting for nominations.

Party membership is down, and
the union stalwarts who usually do
all the dirty johs during a campaign
are still pouting over the social con-
tract, whereby Rue basically slam-
dunked the collective bargaining
process, and forced a top-down
solution on the brothers and sisters.
Who's going to knock on the
doors? Who's going to put up the
signs?

There is a palpable air of defeat
along the corridors of power in
NDP Ontario. Frienc's of the party
are being rewarded with a flurry of
patronage postings and appoint-
ments and contracts and jobs.

Advisers have been offered their

Summer’s Still

926-8922

45-1 3th Street

} West Vancouver

chances to switch (o the civil ser-
vice side in order to have jobs after
the election, which will probably be
called for the spring.

Rae, according to his small but
loyal bank of followers, has merely
done what had to be done — that is,
take the party off in a new political
direction entirely. And if this has
burned out traditional support, it
just might translate into a new, up-
to-date constituency, a hybrid breed
of post-Yuppic necconservative
socialists. Yikes!

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DEVELOPMENT VARIANCE PERMIT APPLICATION

OTICE is hereby given by the City of North Vancouver, pursuant to Section 980 of the

Municipal Act of British Columbia, that a Public Meeting will be held on-MONDAY,
OCTOBER 3, 1994 at 7:30 p.m., in the Council Chamber, City Hall, 141 West 14th Street, North
Vancouver, B.C., to receive representations in connection with following:

DEVELOPMENT VARIANCE PERMIT NO. 48 ‘

ARTIAN CONSTRUCTION has applied for a Development Variance Permit with respect to property |
legally described as Lot 15, Block 132, D.L. 274, Plan 878,as indicated in hatched pattern onthe map |
below, and located at 155 Zast 4th:Street, to permit the provisions of the “City of North Vancouver
Zoning Bylaw, 1967, No. 3778” to be varied as follows:
¢ Section 532(2)(a) — to permit:

- 2 3.04m (10 feet) front lot line setback;

-a 1,.22m (4 feet) rear Jot line setback;

-.a 1.22m (4 feet) interior lot line setback for the south building

-a 1.22m (4 feet) westerly interior lot line setback, and

- a 3.65m (12 feet) easterly interior lot line setback for the north building

Section 510(2) (a) and (b) ~ to permit:
- living and other habitable room windows 10 be 7.3m (24 feet) from an opposite building, to
permit the development of a five unit residential townhouse project.

ST. GEORGE’S AVE.

A LL PERSONS who believe that their interest in property is affected by the proposed Development
Variance Permit shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to be heard — in person, by attorney
or by petition. The proposed Permit and relevant background documents may be inspected at the
office of the City Clerk between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.in., Monday to Friday, from September 19 to

October 3, 1994, except Statutory Holidays.

Sandra E. Dowey—Deputy City Clerk