A6 Terrace Review -- Wednesday, March 6, 1991

EDITO

| e are being set up. The fiscal pressure is working its
W way downward through levels of government, and
in the end — as always — the taxpayers will
eventually get squashed. This time, however, it will

be at a local level.

The federal government made it obvious in last week’s
budget that spending control takes precedence over everything,
but it also became obvious that there is a selection process
going on. The biggest cuts hit areas in which the responsibility
for funding programs can be delegated downward — transfer
payments for the provinces to support health, social and

educational programs.

Which puts the province in a rather awkward position, the
B.C. government having declared a tax freeze less than. a
month ago. If the Socreds are serious, there is nowhere left to
go but municipalities, school boards and regional districts, and
that may be one reason city council sat behind closed doors
until after midnight this past Monday reviewing the budget.
There may be some tough decisions ahead for local politicians.

The cost of contract policing with the RCMP alone may go
up a quarter of a million dollars this coming year. The city has
built a contingency fund around that eventuality, but the cost is
still unknown. Grants to municipalities could conceivably be
affected, and council is going to have to remind itself of the
civic government's basic functions: the safety and welfare of

its citizens.

The school board situation has a dismaying quality of deja
vu. As in the previous two years, the government has come
down with a lot of whining and stinginess designed to present
an image of school boards under fiscal siege from every
quarter, timed coincidentally to occur with teacher contract
negotiations and budget drafting. For the past two ycars the
government has managed to cough up apparently unexpected
bonanzas in the form of grants and special funds after the
budgets are finalized and the contracts settled. We're left
hanging by our fingernails to see if this is the year they don’t

come through.

It may be worth noting in the fiscal restraint context that
little has been mentioned lately of the $500 million Budget
Stabilization Fund, if indeed there is such a thing, or the
Privatization Benefits Fund, or the fact that in last year’s
budget estimates the B.C. Lottery Fund was slotted to come
out $150 million in the black. The size and location of pork
barrels hidden around Ottawa would be a fiscal cartographer’s
nightmare that doesn’t bear contemplating.

In the end this could be the year we really get whacked on a
Jocal tax Jevel, coming from, ironically, the only level of

government that has a shred of accountability left.

aa
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VICTORIA — As the conflict
ends, for now, in the Middle
East, we receive official word
on the resumption of hostilities
in the B.C, Legislature.

True, we are talking a de-
cidedly smaller scale here;
nevertheless one with its own
intensity and interest.

Unless Premier Bill Vander
Zalm has a major surprise up
his sleeve, Social Credit and
New Democratic MLAs will
engage in open warfare be-
ginning at 2 p.m. on Monday,
March 11.

The NDP are elated at the
prospect; while many Socreds
think The Zalm is crazy to
recall the house.

Their reasoning is that the
Opposition invariably sets the
agenda and scores the points
during a session, so why give
them a golden opportunity to
raise hell and scandals.

‘Why not just go straight to
an election and get it over
with?’’ they ask.

But it appears that Mr.
Vander Zalm, relying on
whatever remains of his
political instincts, feels that he
can bring in vote-getting
legislation, that he can weather
the Fantasy Gardens storm,
and that he easily can sell his
charm over any which Mike
Harcourt might possess.

_ With the proceedings to be
televised for the first time, both
the premier and his Cardinal
Richelieu, the oleaginous Bud
Smith, believe they can use the
cameras to their advantage.

Actually, this is one cal-
culating ego trip which may
backfire.

There is no doubt that Mr.
Vander Zalm’s charm and

The view from
Victoria —.

by John Pifer

smarm can and does woo his
loyalists and those still among
the undecided.

And there is no doubt that to
an advertising manager’s eye, it
is no contest between him and
Mr. Harcourt as far as
‘image’ is concerned.

However, TV from the
Legislature will feature little of
those two head to head, and a
lot more of fledgling ministers
such as environment’s Cliff
Serwa or labour’s Jim Rabbitt
blustering and floundering
before an Opposition
onslaught.

The Socreds are hoping to
catch the NDP opposing a
motherhood issue — perhaps
on one of the referendum ques-
tions Mr. Vander Zalm is
dreaming up — and to pounce
on it as an election-winning
issue.

After four years of question-
able integrity and double stan-
dards which have swirled
around the Premier and his
party, it may be their only re-
maining hope of re-election...
and it’s a pretty shaky one at
that.

The truth is there is really
only one issue in B.C, which
wil! override everything else,
and that is Mr. Vander Zalm
himself.

The Ontario NDP may bring
in a deficit Budget; B.C.’s
economy may remain more
buoyant than any other in
Canada; the big-business finan-
cial backers of Social Credit
may open the pocketbooks
again — none of those things
which normally would work to
the Socreds’ credit really mat-
ter.

It all comes down to some-

thing which is sure to be an
NDP campaign slogan: Do you
really want four more years of
Bill Vander Zalm?

All indications are that the
B.C. voting public will answer
that with a resounding ‘‘No’’. |

The Socreds’ current game
plan is that after three weeks or
so in the House, they will set
April as election campaign
month, with the provincial vote
on or about May I.

That way, they avoid having
to bring in a Budget, and can
try to use the session and
possibly a new Throne Speech
as the launching pad for that
election.

In an effort to muddy the
waters on election day, they
will produce several referendum
questions for the voters, main-
taining that this is participatory
democracy which gives the peo-
ple a chance to have their say
on crucial items such as:

@ Whether or not they are
willing to pay an environment
tax for increased recycling pro-
grams, etc.

@ Whether or how native In-
dian land claims should be
dealt with

@ Whether they should be will-
ing to see some health care
costs borne by the individual
rather than the state.

Right up to election day
itself, Mr. Vander Zalm will
keep rolling the dice in his
gamble to have style win again
over substance.

And given the betting
(voting) record of British Col-
umbians’ over the past few
decades, one miust be wary in
betting outright against him.

Stay, as they say, tuned.