5 ir mi

Page A4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 14, 1993

Challenge issued

They are the people a lot of us regard
with more than a bit of jealousy. They are
all those public seclor employces we ac-
cusé of receiving jammy union contracts
giving them the kind of income, perks and
benefits: a lot of us don’t get bul have to
pay for. And so they become the natural
target when times are tough, money is tight

and taxes rise.

Well, not quite. At least one local provin-
cial civil servant has done some talking
among his colleagues and has come up
with a startling result. Each and every one
is willing to work five days at no pay as
their contribution to cut annual provincial
deficits and the overall accumulated debt.
With an estimated provincial payroll of |
$39 million a day, that comes to $180 mil-
lion or just more than 10 per cent of this
year’s estimated provincial deficit of $1.5

billion.

The catch, says this civil servant, is what
the rest of us are willing to sacrifice. How
about a limit on visits to the doctor? Go
over that. limit each year. and starting
paying a fee. Higher sales taxes? And a
higher income tax? More students in each

classroom? Much tougher regulations to -
reduce welfare expenditures?

All this and more is the kind of thing we °
have to start thinking about if we truly buy
into the idea that we must cut the deficit | -

and debt in order to reduce the pain down
the road. Those comments, for instance,
about cutting the pay of politicians means

squat. It’s pennies a year compared to the

billions we have borrowed to finance a life
style we can’t afford.

The kinds of cuts and tax increases
necessary to cut the deficit and debt will
put an end to 30 years of assuming that we
can get everything we want without having
a regard to the long term consequences.
They will also mean an end to our constant
bitching about paying taxes that first end
up in a central government bank account
before being spent in some mysterious

fashion. This way, we’ll have a clear vi-

sion of working toward a common goal
that is accepted by all of us.

. And that leaves the big question of who
starts us down this journey. The above
mentioned civil servant has come up with
his suggestion. How about the rest of us?

Smouldering topic

Like ... um

possession:G Teena,

Perhaps this’ confirms the suspicions of
those who have all along said that Mr.
' Fulton’~‘an ‘admitted pot smoker — has
- been under the influence of something or

another.

Or perhaps ‘Mr. Fulton is right. Maybe -
there®.is a. level of hypocrisy out. there.

.. ah. Oh, right. How about
that Jim Fulton, eh? Like the Skeena NDP
MP wants to decriminalize pot, you know?
_ More specifically, Mr. Fulton says he. will
introduce ‘Jate this Jponth a private mem,

ber’, bill in atinment, to de se AL

smoking pot.

Maybe.it is a double standard that can have
people like Tory leadership hopefuls Kim
Campbell and Jean Charest admittitig they
have smoked pot. They have yet to suffer
.. the legal consequences. Yet there are mul-
titydes. of other -Canadians: who’ have
_ criminal records" bécausé’ they have ‘or are

_ And consider all the hackey pools float-
ing around, They are illegal as smoking pot
yet when was the last. time anybody heard
of charges being laid? It’ll be interesting to

see if Mr. Fulton’s bill makes it to the floor
of the House and then to a vote. - _

Truly, a dog’ 5 life

’ Monday moming our ‘dog

: ‘woke with’ one side of his

muzzlé so swollen only some-
one who’s driven is.a snow-
storm with a moose sprawled °

_actoss the. hood ‘could ap-
preciate his navigation dif-

ficulties,

My- guess was an abscessed ,;

tooth, But the vet diagnosed
his ailment as .a bee. sting.
Treatment? Antibiotics twice a
day for ten: days. For signs of
cribed vitamins,

The... mundane © ‘diagnosis

 stilled ihe panic I'd felt all day

— mon. 24 Peg
"That canine; ‘epicure. ‘inter-
cepted hunks of edibles in'mid —
them:
is’ front’ feet:
touched down: Unless: ; ithe...

_ his booty;

that .. our ™ ten- -year-old mutt

might be seriously ‘ill. Only.’
now I faced: the: dilemma :of..
administering . a .22- bullet-
_ sized capsule’to a. gourmet
- who-is as. suspicious as an
agent assigned to safeguard. -
dishes at.a-state dinner al- ©

tended by ihe U.S. president.
My. apprehensions were well

founded. I first “encountered

the. tribulations. of disguising

medications: with’ a “Lab who.
had the. ‘Appetite, and dining eti--

quette of a starving grizzly
knee deep in spawning: sal-

toss and. swallowed ©:
whole: before.

tump was baited with'a ‘pill.

detected ‘it

Through
Bifocals

_ by Claudette Sandecki 1m

body language expressing out

rage at my.clumsy trickery.
Liquid medication was

equally hard. to force down.

- “Pull out.the dog’s lip, tlt his
head back; and squirt the lig- -

uid) into the back “of his
throat,” I. was told.’ Sounds

“simple. Might be, too, for a

sumo wrestler... with. a
Pekingese. After ‘I picked
myself up out of the dirt, the
lab ‘never ‘let me* near again.
though I. palmed the: syringe
like a cigarette. smoked during
ablackout.

‘Vets: often recommend
camouflaging drugs i in cheese,
hamburger -or- wieners.. More

~ simple advice. that's hard: to
replicate. The cheese needs to

be a soft Brie, or it splits apart

exposing the. pillor letting it .
fumble out, - Hamburger, too, ?
can break up at the crucial mo- .
‘Ment revealing both the pill’
“and your underhandedness,
ey was out of weiners. So, I
: ‘ctitan" inch length. of pep-

_ peroni; redmed a central chan-
Let the, pill’ ‘be ‘tinier than a.
~ wristwatch ’ pear. “That” Lab.”
-catch; dropped.”
. nd ‘separated. ee

pill as painstakingly as-an-ar-"

chaeologist unearthing a 'fos-
sil. Once the pill Jay naked ‘be-
fore’ him,” ‘he’ ‘stalked away, h s :

nel, and stuffed in the capsule.
Like a blaster readying ex-
plosives;'T tamped each end of
the. -Pepperon ‘tunnel ‘full. of

\ ie Foika.. ‘Perfect. The

3 a | es : gaa night

._. be equal.

<

mares, Even the thinnest dis-
guise swells them to chewable
proportions. This problem. I
tackled bricklayer style, by
cutting a bread cube only
somewhat larger than the
tablet, splitting the bread into
two teeny slices, mortaring
one side of each slice with
cold bacon fat, then sinking
the lifesaver into one, pressing
the other slice.on top of it, fat
side down. The edges I ce-
mented with more fat.

He relished the “resulting
bolus,.

By. the time I’ve completed
this. Wicked Witch ritual J'1!

-be an old hand at dealing out .
disguised dosages, our dog’s ~
-. health should be restored, and

‘my. expenditures for
antibiotics and pepperoni will

ONE OF MY: Boys. Jost
GoT’ A JoB $0.1'M GOING
Te DRoP BY AND SEE
HoW HE'S DaING.---

YYEETSIN'S FACE. WHEN
“TEROMISED HIM THAT.
— OLAON AD AE.

ts ‘

42'"
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_ MINE WHEN HEARD
ABOUT

a wind ey

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K L YoU SHOULD HAVE SEEN YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN

vee Se

i
ity

Gov't overmilking |
the mines ministry —

FORT ST, JAMES — Let me
introduce you to Fort St.
James, a little town-with a
huge heart.

Fort St. James is located 154
kilometres northwest of Prince
George, but more important is
its distance from Victoria,
where politicians and govern-
ment officials keep interfering

_ with what citizens regard a8 |

“their Way of life, their v very,

_ own destiny.

The 729 kilometres between
Fort St. James and the capital
might as well be 10,000. Few
of the people who sit in the
legislature have an under-

- standing of life in Fort St.
James or any other remote
town, for that matter,

And aside from the rare
whistle-stop during election
campaigns, maybe a hurried -
lunch or half an hour of main-
streeting, even fewer
politicians have been there.

And yet, Fort'St. James has

_ everything that makes a place

areal and vibrant community.

It has a sports arena, a curling .

rink, a community hall,
schools and churches, pubs
and restaurants.

But most of all, it has people
who know how to treat
visitors, not in the phony way
in which big tourist Meccas

.and world destination resorts
crow about themselves as wel-
coming tourists with open
arms, but with a genuine and

warm friendliness that makes _

you want to stay.

I was in Fort St. James -
recently for the fifth Minerals
North conference. I had been
invited as moderator on a
‘panel that discussed the prob-
lems the mining industry is
facing. I got an earful: So did
energy and mines minister
Anne Edwards who was one
of the guest speakers. .

To say that the delegates

‘didn’t have much love for the

- NDP. government wouid be an
under-statement; Then again,
they didn’t recall much of a
love affair with any of the pre-
vious governments, either.

From the
Capital

by Hubert Beyer

’ There were the big playersin

_ dhe, industry, representatives
from Westmin Resources, Al-
can, Geddes Resources and the
like, much-of whose dislike
“for the government was based
as much on political than eco- .

_ nomic considerations.

Keith Somerville, president
of Geddes Resources, the
‘company that wants to devel-
op the Windy Craggy mine in
northwestern British Colum-
bia, delivered several scathing
broadsides at the NDP. So did

_ Tom Waterland, former presi-

dent of the Mining Associa-
tion of British Columbia.

But it was the incredible
frustration and anger of the
small mining operators that
made an impression on me.

I’m talking about the placer
mining sector, ranging from
individuals panning for gold,
to the medium-sized operators
who run camps with a
modicum of equipment.

I heard horror stories of fed-
eral fisheries officials invading
miners’ camps unannounced,
accompanied by RCMP of-
ficers, just to check whether
some little guy, operating a
small sluice box, doesn’t run
the water back into the stream.

'~ All the water does is run
over sand to expose any
minerals present, but the

. Miners aren’t allowed to send

the water back into the stream,
because it would ostensibly
muddy the. water-and impact
on fish habitat. -~.

Some of miners wondered
why. they can’t return clean

. water.to. the stream, but the
- gity of Victoria is allowed to
~~ dump taw sewage into the

ocean. Talk about a double
standard,.

Tike all resource-extracting

industries, mining is drowning

in a sea of regulations. The. .
lead tome to get a mine from -
the drawing board to produc- : -
tion is discouraging invest
ment.
The Prospector, a mining.

publication, carried a story in
itlatest edition, in which three...

~ mining analysts made their.

predictions for the coming
year. Their advice? Learn to
speak Spanish. Major mining
companies, they said, would .
invest more and more in: Latin 2
America.

"The tax structure is another ;

major hurdle for potential in-

~ yestorsin the mining industry.

And no government is without. .

"blame. It was the Socreds who

jacked up the water lease
rates, So ,
We hear a lot of talk about ~~
replacing mining jobs with —

tourism jobs, a real laugh: The...
average income for mine |.»

workers is $60,000 a year. ne

You’re lucky to. make $20,000
a year in the hospitality indus-.
try, That’s one-third.

Those making $60,000 can
spend money in theircom- -:
munities, boosting local °
economies; those earning = 2
$20,000 have a hard time )°

Keeping their heads above =

water. x
A good dairy farmer will
spoil his herd. He will treat his :

animals with great care. That’s ©
how he makes sure they give 2
him the best milk. . ee
_. By comparison, our govern- a
ments are guilty of cruelty to...

_animals, and as a result, there.” :

are fewer and fewer they can»
milk to finance all the social.
programs we have come fo os

depend on.

i II ON aa iz
. Tn | [! iI
7 | vicious, 1 Tne
M ‘ !
Ve il | Mle
Lint li bi nia

(NEVER Minos.
SON) YourLL
GROW INT:

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