Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 7, 1998 TERRACE. STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net Worthy goal TWENTY YEARS ago, when the Skeena Mall was first built, the city realized it had a problem. With shopping now concentrated in that part of the city, the area east of Kalum, toward the old bridge, became stagnant. To counter that, the city took action. It would ease up on the requirement for businesses to pro- vide on-site parking in the hope this would spur development in the area. At the same time, con- siderable monies were spent in restoring the 4600 Block of Lakelse. A decade ago, when the area had been built up to some extent, the city once again required businesses to provide their own parking. This kind of incentive is not all that uncommon as municipal governments strive to ensure the lands under its jurisdiction are fully used. And now, city officials have returned with an- other idea to perk up the downtown core. This time they are keying on the development poten- tial of the vacant Terrace Co-op property and generally, on the commercial possibilities ex- tending past that property east on Greig. What’s suggested is a continuation of the street and sidewalk work that has turned the intersec- tion on Greig and Kalum into a showcase. If that happens, the reasoning goes, it just might be enough of an inducement for a company to develop the Co-op property and spur a revival of Greig Ave. While the city is not saying businesses can’t de- velop outside of that core, it believes a good mix of retail and commercial opportunities will benefit the business community and consumers. As well, a healthy downtown will enhance the city’s tax base and solidify Terrace as the place to do business in the northwest. Sometimes, ‘governments can do good things. Give it back NOW HERE’S something you don’t see every day. We’re paying slightly less in employment insurance taxes than we were a year ago but still the federal government is racking up enormous surpluses. Estimates are that the employment insurance bank account will top out at a surplus of nearly $20 billion by next March and, for this year alone, post a surplus over expenditure of $7 bil- lion. There’s no question of the need for a surplus as ae the intent of the employment insurance program’ is to have sufficient money should there be an unforeseen demand by workers who are sudden- ly out of work. But the surplus is way over what is needed. The excess is parked in the government’s general revenue account. And that’s wrong for all the federal government is doing is taking the money it is getting from overtaxing us to then convince us it is doing a good job in running the country. Better the feds should cut EI premiums and return the money to those who sweat blood to earn it in the first place. PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS/SPORTS: Christiana Wiens NEWS/COMMUNITY: Alex Hamilton NEWSPAPERS OFFICE MANAGER: Sheila Sandover-Sly COMPETTIION CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Brunette ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Bedford, Bunnie Cote TELEMARKETER: Patricia Schubrink AD ASSISTANT: Kelly Jean COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur AD ASSISTANT/TYPESETTING: Julie Davidson SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $56.18 per year; Seniors $49.76; Out of Province $63.13 Outside of Canada (6 months) $155.15 (ALL PRICES INCLUDE GST) MEMBER OF B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY REWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION. CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION 1998 WINNER CCNA BETTER AND 6.C. PRESS COUNCIL Serving the Terrace and Thomhill area. Published on Wadnosday of each weak at 3210 Clinton Street, Terrace, British Columbia, VAG 5R2, Stovies, pholographs, illustrations, dosigne and typastyles In the Tarraca Standard ara the proparty of the copyright holders, Including Cariboo Press (1969) Lid., ite illustration repro services and advertising agencies. . ; Reproduction in whote of In part, without written permission, is specifically prohibited. Authorized a3 second-class mall pending tha Post Offica Department, for payment of postage in cash. Speclal thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr thme and talents | . ~ a NY COUNTRY DOESNT UNDERSTAND HE... VICTORIA — Pssst! Wanna buy some savings bonds. B.C. Savings Bonds, that is? They’re a good investment, according to Premier Glen Clark, backed by one of the highest credit ratings in Canada. Wait a second. I thought B.C.’s credit rating had been reduced from AAA to AA and might go another notch down, unless the above-men- tioned premier gets the province's debt-management under control. [also was under the impression that British Columbia is in some- what of a recession. At least, that’s what finance minister Joy MacPhail has been telling us. Speaking of MacPhail, fellow columnist Jim Hume mentioned the other day that more and more people believe the finance minister’s name should be spelled with an F rather than a Ph. There's something to that. Back to the savings bonds. They are, no doubt, still a safe investment, but for a premier who has been complaining about media bias, he should make sure that he’s not overdoing the sales pitch. Stick to the facts, premier. If I can do it, you can. For instance, what happened to those 40,000 jobs your Jobs and Timber Accord was to create? I was pretly impressed when he premier IN 1968 when my parents retired from farming, Mom’s dearest friend was an 80-year-old widow who lived alone on the homestead next door where she and her husband had raised four fine children. Minnie was a wizened ver- sion of Olive Oil, less than 80 pounds in her prime. Yet when one daughter-in-law had died of cancer leaving a two-year-old son, Minnie had raised him as her own until his father te-mar- ried 10 years later. By 1968 the grandson was a husky 20-year-old who visited his grandmother only when her monthly pension arrived. If she Tefused to hand the cheque over willingly, he used his superior size and strength to persuade her. Neighbours for 60 years, Mom and Minnie had regularly shared daily happenings by You ARE LIKIAK 2EE GELGIAN VAFFLES7 wetne s2 me ‘FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER stood at that podium, announcing the accord, surrounded by industry big-wigs. Alas, no jobs, And the premier can’t blame it all on the Asian flu. The bureaucratic nightmare created by ihe over-zealous implementation of the Forest Practices Code has as much to do with the decline of B.C. forest industry as the financial tur- moil in Asia, The mayors attending the recent convention of the B.C, Union of B.C. Municipalities could be excused for expecting some words of hope and encouragement from the premier, Instead, he pitched the Nisga’a Treaty to them. I, too, support the treaty, and it THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI phone. Mom might well have been the only soul Minnie told about her grandson’s battering, It’s likely Minnie feared report- ing her grandson to his father or to the RCMP fearing embarrass- ment, criminal charges against her grandson, and perhaps retaliation from him. Elder abuse went unrecop- UNT ZEEE BAVARIAN CHOCOLATE CoeFeE mire SPRINKLES ? is an important issue, but that was- n’t the message the mayors of B.C.’s suffering municipalities want to hear right now. They want to know what plans the government has to turn the economy around. They want to know what the premier is going to do about the resource- dependent communities’ slide towards economic abyss. The Clark government has received a lot of bad news coverage ’ Jately, bul contrary to the premier’s belief, there is no conspiracy media to report the bad and embarrassing news only, A government’s vibrancy, its ideas, its capacity for innovation is invariably reflected in the news cov- erage it generates, If it runs out of steam, there’s little good to report. Clark go exactly the coverage he wanted when he stood up.top the Americans during last year’s fish war, threatening to close down the U.S. military training site at Nancose Bay. At least, [ didn’t hear any complaints from the premier then. Stories such as the Jobs and Timber Accord got big headlines. So did the premier’s promise to bring another aluminum smelter to B.C. It’s hardly the media’s fault that “there’s been no movement on either. The premier has got to learn to nized until the 1980s. -That’s when the government asked citi- zens to watch for and report sus- pected cases. Recently, almost every issue of both Canadian and American women’s magazines runs articles on elder abuse. Now Terrace has an advo- cacy service for abused adults. Organized by the Community Response Network and funded by a grant from the Public Trustee, this referral service is teady for contact from anyone who is being abused. The service also needs volunteers-preferably seniors or anyone interested in seniors’ well-being-to talk with would-be consumers, to find out what serv- ices they need, and how they would like the services to be delivered, Similar pilot services exist in Castlegar, Duncan, Kamloops, Clark can’t have it both ways take the good with the bad. Did he really expect the media to ignore his government's involvement in the tecent recall campaigns? The moment his spin doctors ~ Qe portrayed the efforts to unseat some of his MLAs as battles between , loyal local folk and self-serving out- side forces, wanting to bring down . the government, he ought to have made sure that no outsiders from his . camp were involved, Instead, we found out that the ° “locals” helping the MLAs keep ; their jobs included B.C. Federation of Labor members and some lumi- . naries from the premier’s office. The long and the short of itis - that Clark can’t have it both ways. - He can’t, on the one hand, have his armies of spin doctors turn reality ¢ into fiction and then complain when - the media is on to his little games, Before he accuses the media of embellishing facts and sensational- izing what he calls minor issues, he should get his own house in order. And that includes creating the impression that British Columbia’s credit rating has never been better, . regardless of how good an invest- ment B.C, Savings Bonds may be. Beyer can be reached at: Tel: (250) 920-9300; Fax: (250) 356- 9597; E-mail: hubert@coolcom.com Abused elders have a friend Matsqui-Abbotsford, and Vernon. Operating since 1994, Vernon's office receives about two calls for help each month, How prevalent is abuse of dependent adults? In B.C. one out of 12 senior citizens has reported financial abuse over $20,000. One of every 20 seniors living in a pri- vate dwelling has suffered seri- ous abuse at the hands of a fam- ily member. In institutions and care facilities, one in 10 staff have admitted to physically abusing people they care for. Among disabled adults, a third of men suffer sexual abuse at some time in their lives and more than half the women expe- rience abuse of some form. By dialling 635-1150, callers will be referred to someone who can confidentially help them deal with their abusive situation, Wd (TE, WAT TING Toud WIR SPRECHE ere ae