Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, M March 21, 2001 TERRACE. STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: HOD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 » FAX: (250) 638-8432 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net Poop soup IF NONE of our previous crises.cemented the northwest’s reputation as the economic basket case of B.C., here’s a new one that certainly will. At a time when energy companies are thriving, we have a natural gas utility — usually a blue-chip dividend-paying company — at the edge of ruin. Its financial crisis, when coupled with soaring natural gas commodity prices, means north- westerners are being whacked twice on their gas bills relative to the rest of the province, And that, coupled with our economic down- tum, is pushing residents and small businesses toward bankruptcy and the northwest’s remaining big industries to the edge of collapse themselves. Welcome to the nightmare that is Pacific Northern Gas. Its biggest customer — Methanex Corp. — used to consume about 60 per cent of the gas in the pi- peline but has shut down and may never reopen. PNG banked on the methanol plant paying its share of pipeline costs for 50 years. Now it stares into a chasm and must ask other gas users to pay more to make up for the loss of Methanex. Creditors want to. tighten PNG’s leash and its president has said junk bonds may be the only shot at refinancing its maxed-out line of credit. Rate increases that went into effect Oct. 1, Jan. 1, and Feb. 1 are now being considered by the B.C, Utilities Commission. The price hikes most- ly reflect the high prices at the wellhead, but also the need to raise money due to the financial crisis. And in doing that, the increases are really just a stop-gap measure to stave off instant insolvency. The real whirlwind arrives 18 months from now when most of the money from: ~Methane ie bash oN dties ‘up'after the’ ‘expiry ‘of its ‘main gas contra and PNG faces a big $12 million debt payment. oe Barring a big drop in natural gas prices, every- one else here can expect to pay much more then. And that’s if other customers haven’t headed for the exits or died of high gas costs by then. Both Eurocan and Skeena Cellulose are work- ing hard to cut gas costs at their pulp mills. If either one shuts down or leaves the gas sys- tem, remaining users will pay even more. For each homeowner who turns their gas fur- nace down or off and switches to wood or electric heat, another gas user will pay more. Westcoast Energy, PNG’s main shareholder, eared higher profits from its subsidiary for years in recognition of the risks of a system too depen- dent on one user. It must now take a loss. _ A hard line from regulators — even if it means the bankruptcy of PNG — may be preferable to the what’s been dubbed the death spiral. Without decisive action now too many users will invest in switching to other fuel sources and won’t return. The. B.C. Liberals, as allergic as they are to the NDP’s northwest bailouts, may have to prepare to embark on one of their own. TL PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link 0 i ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach +. 2000- PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur Pehle NEWS/SPORTS: Jeff Nagel NEWS/SPORTS Sarah Zimmerman NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang ; FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay ’ GIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Carole Kirkaldy ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Bedford, Mark Beaupre & Stacy Swetlikoff ’ - JELEMARKETER: Stacy Swetlikoff _ DARKROOM/COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik & Clare Hallock ; ‘SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $55.15(+$3: 86 GST) per year; Seniors $48.85 (+93.42 GST); - Out of Province $61.98 (+$4.34 GST) Outside of Canada (6 months) $152.34 (+$10.66 GST) MEMBER OF = B.C, AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, fe CANADIAN COMMUNITY HEWSPAP AS ASSOCIATION ee CN A see ieee B.C, PRESS COUNCIL. (wwwbepresacounciLorg Serving the Terrace and Thomifl area. Published on Wadnesday of nach week at 3210 Clinton Steel, Terrace, British Columbla, Y66 SR2, Stories, photographs, liustrations, dasigns and tynaatyles inthe Terrace Standard are the property of the copyright holders, Including Gariboo Press (1969) Lic,, its illustration repro services and advertising Reproduction In whole orn pai, without vattien parmission, is specifically prohibited, Authorized as second-tlass mall pending tha Post Office Hapartment, for payment ol postage In cash. Special | thenks to ail our contributors and correspondents | “for thelr time and talents | RIBBON its. annual., Report...C. “BHUsh Columbia’ “ giice again, rise ta’ concern’: WHAT piD | TeLL You: IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER Literacy pugbear STAIKS schools VICTORIA — Two disturbing things dealing with education came across my desk last week. “Illiteracy sets off Ontario alarm bells,” said a headline in my daily newspaper. Ac- cording to the article, nearly 30 per cent of grade 10 stu- dents in Ontario failed a new literacy test. Janet Ecker, Ontario’s Edu- cation Minister, was shocked by the results, calling them a _ wakeup call supporting her government’s proposed contro- versial school reforms. Critics, on the other hand, suggested that the dismal test result were a direct conse- quence of the government’s policies which, they said, caused poor teacher morale, Here in B.C., the Fraser In- stitute, a Vancouver-based right-wing think tank, issued ‘Schools, and® it; “to about the quality of education in this province. There will be the obligatory outcries from politicians, tea- chers and principals that the institute doesn’t take the more subtle aspects of education into consideration, but the me- thadology of the report card on the province’s high schools is, in my opinion, unassailable. Home fo TEENAGERS. AREN’T the’ ‘only ones who. think they’re invincible, Pre-retirement folk ages 55 to 65 who live alone invariab- ly feel secure form in-home mishaps so serious as to inca- pacitate them, As a result, they have no formal safeguards in place should they need speedy res- cue. Instead, they depend upon the alertness and daily contact of family and friends, the cur- iosity and concern af co-work- ers and neighbours. These guardians can fail. Here in Terrace, a man was dead for two days in his home before he was discovered. In Swift Current, a bachelor lay dead three days before anyone checked on his absence. Can you be certain you have frequent enough contact with family to effect. a timély res- cue if you ended up helpless on the kitchen floor, crippled ap student. and the Boy You CANTEL I a — You'RE (4 THE ONLY TELL (TS |- Nord BY THE SUMMER IN, | way Lets DRESS! A) tt a me FROM THE CAPITAL | HUBERT BEYER ‘Without going into too much detail, the results of the evaluation are based on grade 12 provincial exam results, which are compared to school grades. The report card also lists the number of exams taken per 8 ally ‘boiled down to a rating system that prades the 278 secondary schools in the sur- vey on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best. _ There are some obvious trends. For instance, the top dozen schools or so are private | schools, which is perhaps not 80 Surprising since private schools can high-grade their students, taking only those THROUGH ‘BIFOCALS. CLAUDETTE SANDECKI from a fall while reaching an upper cupboard? If you missed work tomorrow because you were lying in- jured in your bathroom, would your employer or a co-worker phone to ask why you were out? Would their phone call come in. time? crawl. to answer the phone? Nove! you can Taduation wt “they “realized thal’ i improve And suppose you couldn't who pass minimum entrance tequirements, while public schools have to take all stu- dents. What is disturbing, how- ever, is the huge gap that se- parates the public schools at the top and the bottom of the report card, Take Kelowna Secondary which achieved a score of 7.3 and compare that to Nisga’a Elementary-Secondary whose score was 0, How can one school system, one curriculum, produce such discrepancy? ‘Nor does every private ‘ school turn in good results, Heritage Christian School in the Okanagan schoo) district had a score of 2.2, - As long as I have covered the B.C. Legislature, and that’s as far back as 1972 when Dave Barrett’s NDP came to power, education ministers _have ments are possible but, on’ the whole, the system is pretty damned good, thank you very much. And what has been done to improve the system? The Tea- chers Federation has, withaut measurable: results, unrelent- ingly pursued reduction in class sizes as the panacea of quality education. Some school boards have door? Peek in your porch win- dow? In this age of social aloof- ness and exaggerated privacy, even friendly neighbors may not be curious soan enough to’ save you. They could wait 24 to 48 hours before inquiring why your car sat in the driveway, or why your kitchen lights stayed on overnight, Elderly and medically im- paired often accept the mon- itoring of Lifeline, a safety system you can subscribe to. Thirty Lifeline subscribers in Terrace wear a pendant. In an emergency, a press of the pen- dant button summons help. As- sistance is. soon on its way. How often an-independent,. pre-retirement, employed indi- vidual gets into serious trouble in their own home, no one _ knows for sure. Neither medi- ‘cal. examiners. no hospital “emergency rooms keep statis- haggled over whether or not they want their students ex- posed to sex education. : Governments have gone ba- nanas over some schools’ at- ~ tempis to feach creationism,” none of. which has done.a thing: to improve..the education syse tem overall. oo 4 Equally telling is another part of the report card — the: average number of provincial’ exams taken by students. .~ Crofton House in Vancouver showed the schoot’s students. took an average of 5.4 provin- cial exams. Kyoquot Elemen-. tary-Junior Secondary turned ‘in an average of 1.4 exams’ per student. Why doesn’t our: stipposedly great education system address, those discrepancies? On the whole, the report makes it clear that the more’ isolated the community, the “idemiity the ‘pfoblents ‘thatd ‘catise ‘this disturbing educd-; tional chasm between urban’ and isolated areas, perhaps it’s: time to establish a Royal Com- mission and find out once and‘ for all how we can really ‘and truly improve our education system, : Beyer can be reached ak e-mails, ubert@ecoleom com Phone: (250) 381-6900 : www. Aubertbeyer.com , one tisk grows with age Would they knock on your tics on this category of acci- dent. 7 If statistics were kept, they might prove incidents occur often enough (6 warrant public: awareness. We would hear. about. it, Health programs would offer advice. On The National, Dr. Brian Goldman would give. us. the word, And we'd see articles: in magazines and weekend newspapers. For now, community health doesn’t see this as a risk area. Individuals themselves pooh- pooh any mention of risk, and laugh. I can understand why healthy active, energetic employed adults feel capable of looking after themselves, But in the wink of anyone’s eye, circumstances can take a downturn toward disaster, Still, I may be, worrying, needlessly. Perhaps | working people, ages 55 to 65, living alone are invincible. | Becnuse TAESE ARE ALL TOURISTS: