_ AG Wednesday, December 14, 1982 - North Shore News Nervous savers Christinas: . shoppers see ‘considerable evidence that the fires of rampant inflation are subsiding. Prices of many consumer items are holding steady, if not actually dropping, and department store bargains abound. That's. the good news. The bad news is that the scars left by those fires seem likely to delay economic recovery for quite a time yet. The reason: record unemployment and more of it forecast — plus the FEAR of it among the majority still in jobs. Prices of houses, cars and numerous other goods and services have tumbled towards 1980 levels. But sales of most such com- modities are picking up (where at all) at a far slower rate than is: essential to pull us out of the current ile ion. iplarge. that would set retall. trade _and in dustry hu ‘again‘and reopen hundreds of thousands of jobs. While that threat exists, the cash register will continue to.lose out to the piggy bank. If job security for present earners were assured, the floodgates would quickly open. And it’s clear from many quarters that job security. is increasingly linked to minimal, or even zero, wage . hikes for a temporary period. | That's the trade-off. The more widely it is accepted, the sooner those billions of “rainy ‘day” savings will be encouraged to come to our rescue. Call to order ated the, North Shore's: noisiest,: may never be the same again. The sight of a __goodlooking, elegantly gowned lady taking North Van: ‘District | council, frequently | | By ROGER W. WORTH | SOMETIMES, the gover- ment bureaucracy works the way it should. Consider Ottawa’s $3,000 Home. Ownership Stimulation grants, designed “over the chair Monday must have calmed the ‘most savage aldermanic breasts — and they should beware of backsliding. ‘Despite her ‘glamorous debut, Mayor Marilyn, first of her sex to preside there, can wield a gavel with the best if manners are forgotten. THE VERE OF NOWNTH AND WEST VANCOUVER sunday Display Advertising 980-0511 Vee lies -eaueee Classified Advertising 986-6222 rn ews Newsroom 985-2131 Circutation 986-1337 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, 8.C. V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Advertising Director Tim Francis Associate Pubilsher Robert Graham Editor-in-chiet Noel Wright Personnel Director Mrs Berni Hilliard Circulation Director Brian A Ellis Production Director Office Manager Chris Johnson Photography Manager Donna Grandy Terry Peters North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent community newspaper and qualified under Schedule th Part li Paragraph til of the Excise Tax Act ts published each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mall Registration Number 3885 Entire contents 1982 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved. Subscriptions North and Weat Vancouver, $25 per year Mailing rates available on request Ne oresponsibiity accepted for unsohated matenal inchiding Vane apts ang petuces which should be accompaned Dy & stamped Addressed envalope VERIFIED CIRCULATION 54,843 Wednesday, 54,093 Sunday ot ne gem SE, SN oie Gove vos va THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE Hime uyers Canadians . have. eae taken advantage .of. the. program, and most of ‘them © report fast, fast’action’.on. their applications. ~* In fact, the cash isusually. . the—--few.. --high-profile:—. Last May Mr. Mulroney came to Vancouver on a speech-making visit to further his undeclared campaign at that time to oust Joe Clark as top Tory. After talking with him then, I posed two questions. Would the simplified Mulroney version of Reaganomics and _ the handsome Mulroney chin (a feature, as Joe knows, of peculiar importance to quite a number of Tories) be a better bet fora PC election victory than Mr. Clark's boy scout image and problems with simple arithmetic? What didn’t come across in our meeting seven months ago was Mr. Mulroney's flexible political mind and flair for political timing. Both those vital qualities of political gamesmanship were suddenly revealed Monday at a Montreal news conference where Mulroncy formally threw his support behind Joe Clark — thereby renouncing for a season any leadership plans of his own. “Mr. Clark’s = recon- firmation as leader,” he announced, “is an important part of this (election victory) process. His subsequent re- election as prime minister will be good for Canada.” LUNATIC WING Mulroney, who ran third to Clark in the 1976 leadership race, indicated he would encourage his own supporters to back Joe at next month's leadership review convention in Winnipeg. And a beaming Joe hinted that Brian would have a seat in a future Tory cabinet. There was good reason for Mr. Clark’s elation over Monday’s unexpected turn of events. The “dump Joe” dissidents in the lunatic wing of the suicide-prone party which the polls say could win a landslide election victory tomorrow have become vocal again recently after an uneasy truce of a year or more. At the 1980 convention they persuaded one third of the delegates to vote for a leadership review. If they were able to achieve a similar or higher vote this coming January, Clark would almost certainly be forced to lay his job on the line to challengers at a subsequent leadership convention. The list of touted con- tenders for his mantle has included former 1979 Tory cabinet ministers John Crosbie and David Crombie; possibly (though they deny it) Premiers Bill Davis of Ontario and Peter Lougheed of Alberta; and latterly, for comic relief, Edmonton's millionaire hockey team owner Peter Pocklington. well, that, in at least one situation, the purchaser had - the $3,000 cheque Within 10 days. of submitting the ap- plication, including delivery by Canada Post. What's more, the bureaucrats are actually breaking their own rules to facilitate clients who meet the intent, if not the letter, of the laws and regulations governing the program. For people who have - come to regard the Nevertheless, | ‘there is s4 very good reason for all this uncharacteristic efficiency. With 1.5 million Canadians unemployed, this is one. of, government programs that works and, for once, the politicians weren’t about to be pushed around by the mandarins. All too often, taking advantage of government programs is so cluttered with red tape that costly professional --advice is required, to say nothing of the lost time, frustration and aggravation caused by repeated delays and seemingly inane follow-up b y Noel Wright Until this week, however, Mulroney has remained the key front-runner — primarily because he commands the allegiance of the big Quebec delegation and, by the same token, on his record as an already scrious rival to Clark in 1976. USING HIS HEAD Monday’s turn-around suggests that Mr. Mulroncy has been doing some far- secing brainwork since Jast May - in his own long term interests as much as in Mr. Clark's, With the country aching for almost any alternative to the Trudeau gang, and with the record lead the Tories under Clark now enjoy in the government as a gigantic,. “fast. ask any | :jaidividual operating a small business. - Two years” ago: for ’ example, Ottawa‘announced a program to provide ‘low- cost loans -for expanding small firms. It. took more than six. ‘months. for the -mandarins to get the plan.in place... Then, after a relatively successful run, the program was essentially scrapped, only to be replaced ‘by @ similar plan announced in June. Again, it ‘has taken the. mandarins several. months to get the ‘ plan: working: But it’s not only incentive ‘plans that. -. bother terpreneurs. ‘businesses are besieged by en- * hop or udit the book at's scinees has is that any of the weed: yer thei invatial ly busy - owners and managers are continually harrassed by government workers. On the other hand, the system can operate reasonably and efficiently, as the success of the homeowner’s’ grant program proves. ; Perhaps it is time all civil servants started acting as if individuals :mattered. After all, as taxpayers, in theory at least, we're their bosses. CFIB Feature Service tto Joe polls, the PCs are ready to move in for the kill within the nest two years. An acrimonious leadership battle —- even with Clark clinging to his job by a narrow margin while the party bled from deep in- ternal wounds could change that happy picture overnight. And if Clark lost, the new leader would inevitably inherit a political disaster area instead of a party poised for certain victory. 1 don't think that’s the kind of party Mr. Mulroney is interested in inheriting, it being perfectly clear that Mr. Clark has no intention of quitting without leaving pools of gore on the floor. Whatever else, Joe is a - fighter. Mr. Mulroney is only 43 and a lot more could be going for him in the next few years than at the present moment. For starters, he could get elected = to Parliament. In which case his Monday Christmas gift to Joe virtually guarantees him a post in the next Clark cabinet. From there, a jump to the Tory leadership and = the prime minister's office by the age of 50 could be a lot simpler — especially if Joe happened to mess things up. Why try to do it the hard way? Political loyalty isn’t a matter of sentiment. It's a matter of using your head. Suffering Canadians, desperate for an carly change of government, should be grateful to Mr. Mulroney for using Ais.