4 - Friday, December 4, 1987 — North Shore News

Bob Hunter

@ Strictly personal ®

EVERY TIME I think | have just figured out what the
privatization war boils down to, some other expert pops up
in the media with a new twist, such as that Britain's massive
Telecom network, which was privatized, is providing awful
levels of service while costing callers more.

Something like 50 per cent of
British public telephones reported-
ly aren’t working. Is this shocking?
I’m not sure. The British telephone
system has always been awful, at
least as far back as the mid-’60s.
Has anything changed?.

Apparently, some things have.
Maggie Thatcher has raised $23
billion for her government’s cof-
fers by selling off state-owned
assets.

Income tax has come down, as a
result, to its lowest level in 50
years. This impresses me fairly
deeply, I have to admit.

The inflation rate is down to
what it was 20 years ago. That
must be an enormous relief. It’s no
fun when the treadmill tilts too
much uphill.

Tied in with all this is the fact
that the strike level is at a 40-year
low in the land that invented the
tea break.

This is marvellous stuff! As
Britons become shareholders in
their former public corporations,
they are increasingly becoming
immunized against the British
Disease, it seems.

Maggie would seem to have
wrought a small economic miracle.
All it took, when she got down to
it, was a simple bribe. Government
workers were offered shares in the

companies that took over. Ninety
per cent of them snapped up the
chance.

I haven't lived inthe U.K. for a
while, just visited. Certainly the
place looks like it is coming back
from its deathbed. It was looking
pretty wasted just a few years ago.

The recent fire at King’s Cross
station makes it seem that Lon-
don’s decay is continuing un-
checked, but, in fact, the Tube sta-
tions were in the midst of a
massive renovation when I was
there last August.

I can say this much: the
privatization of British Airways
had a dramatic effect on the quali-
ty of service in the skies. Nearly
overnight, it went from rather un-
nervingly tacky to fabulous, which
was only proper.

I’m not sure what this means in
terms of privatization in British
Columbia. Air B.C. is already
privatized, isn’t it? A little joke.
Lighten up, you guys! , ;

It seems a while since anybody
has dared to crack a joke in public
in B.C. The mood is quite
vituperative.

To hear the union boys tell it,
the province has been hijacked by
a mad dictator bent on bringing
down a new Gotterdammerung on
our heads.

The highways will cave in. Ten
thousand armless and legiess baby
civil servants will be dumped on
the streets. The public treasures
will be looted and thrown to
hyena-like Socred scavengers.

Over at The Fraser Institute,
they are planning on selling plastic
icons of the premier, who is seen
as .@ conquering neoconservative
superhero.

The word I get from observers in
the press gallery in Victoria is that
the guy is out of control. Not even
his cabinet can get a rope on him.

This is, of course, one of the
humerous shortcomings of the
parliamentary system. The leader
has absolute power to appoint and
dismiss his cabinet.

These guys do not have tenure.
Hence, they tend, the survivors, to
kowtow rather a lot, doing little
more than murmuring under their
breaths.

I suppose you could say the
premierships and prime minister-
ship in this country are examples
of complete privatization in action.
That is, they are one-man, private
shows.

Dismal thought. .

Nasty local politics aside, the
theory of privatization is beautiful.
They have been applying it with
some success in China. Even the
Russians are giving it a try. Surely
there is nothing wrong with a bit
of denationalization here at home
as well?

I can’t say I buy the predictions
about falling standards of service

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when privatization occurs. If civil
servants weren’t famous for their
serene pace, there would be no
need to consider privatization in
the first place.

It may be a sad commentary on
human nature, but it happens to be
a fact of life: somebody hustling to
make a profit outperforms the
bureaucrat every time.

The profit motive shows little
sign at this moment of vanishing
from human affairs. Amen.

It is bad news that the premier is
showing signs of power-giddiness,
One-hour legislative debates, in-
deed! But that shouldn't cloud the
issue, which is that privatization
per se is an advancement in human
affairs, not a retreat.

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