A4 - The Terrace Slandard, Wednesday, February 7, 1996

TERRACE

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, [988

ADDRESS: 32/1) Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2
TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 « FAX: (604) 638-8432
. MODEM: (604) 638-7247

Battleground

THE LOCAL GENERALS who will fight the
next provincial election here have mapped out
one crucial battleground — the coming bed cuts
at Mills Memorial Hospital.

It’s an easy target to attack for it’s a nice, tight
objective. Bed cuts can easily be translated into
the loss of medical services. The prospect of
losing medical services is a death blow to
whatever political party is in power for our sys-
tem of socialized medicine is as Canadian as Sat-
urday night’s televised hockey game. Mess with
it and you are in deep trouble.

And that leads us to the reasons why Terrace
mayor Jack Talstra waded into the Mills
Memorial Hospital fray with his call to prevent
bed closures. At first glance he was simply doing
what a local leader should — defending the hos-
pital against the evil budget hackers from the
south.

Mr. Talstra does speak from experience. His
council successfully chopped big bucks from the
city budget without a measurable loss of service
to citizens. It was accomplished to some extent
by getting rid of managers — a popular tactic to
those who harbour suspicions that taxes are too
high simply because there are too many people
on the public payroll.

But there is another reason. It’s no secret Mr.
Talstra is a long time Liberal. He even ran
federally for the party some years ago, Two
weekends ago Mr. Talstra officially nominated
Kitimat mayor Rick Wozney as the Liberal can-
didate for Skeena in the next provincial election.

So when Mr. Talstra speaks as the mayor of
Terrace, he’s also indirectly speaking as a Liber-
al in aid of Mr. Wozney’s campaign. Anything
that casts an ill light upon the NDP government
when it comes to the highly emotional topic of
health care can only help Liberal chances come
the election.

‘That’s not to suggest this is wrong. This is
simply good old-fashioned, no holds barred,
bare-fisted politics.

Yet there are casualties in any war and one of
them might very well be the Terrace Regional
Health Care Society which runs Mills Memorial
Hospital. It’s doing the best it can to cope with
budget cuts at Mills. By having another group
enter the picture, its efforts could be hampered
and false hopes raised of a miraculous cure.

Turning pink

SOMEWHERE SOMEBODY should be produc-
ing “I survived the winter of 95-96”? T-shirts.

We've set any number of temperature records
this winter, endured howling Arctic winds, tor-
Tential rainfall and mountains of snow.

Our heating bills are soaring, vehicles never
seem to warm up and we’ve forgotten what it is
like to walk around outside without hats, gloves
and scarves.

But it’s all worth it when, on those cold, clear
days the rising sun and the setting sun lights up
the snow-covered mountains with a rosy hue.

NAC PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
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MEMBER OF B.C. PRESS COUNCIL
Serving tha Terrace and Thornhill area, Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Press (1969)
Uc. at 4647 LazellaAve., Tertace, British Columbia,
Stories, photagraphs, illustrations,. designs and typastyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the
copyright holders, including Cariboo Press (1969) Lid, its illustration repro setvices and advertising
agencies,

Reproduction in whole or in part, without writen permission, Is specifically prohibited,
Authorized as Second.ciass mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment of paslage in cash.

= Rw

venincs- *
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ahi
CONTAOLLRE

Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
“ee tor thelr time and talents :

CANADA ISN'T EVEN
A REAL COUNTRY. . HOWEVER

|
,
VAAN

.. 11S CHECQUES ARE VERY
REAL!

NDP race a real snoozer

VICTORIA — As Icadership
races go, the NDP’s current
shopping spree for a successor
to Mike Harcourt doesn’t ex-
actly set records.

It doesn’t have the high pro-
file of the neck-to-neck race
between Bill King and David
Vickers, who subsequently
slew one another, allowing
Bob Skelly to come up through
the middle and take the job
Dave Barrett had vacated in
the 1980s.

And it cerlainly hasn’t at-
tracled the number of candi-
dates who vied for the Social
Credit Parly’s leadership after
Bill Bennett stepped down in
1986. There were a dozen in
that race, and Bill Vander
Zalm walked away the winner,

The quest for Harcourt’s suc-
cessor is more of a low-key,

the odd news clip of the all-
candidates meetings in various
paris of British Columbia, the
public is secing very little of
the people who aspire to be-
come leader of the New Demo-
cratic Party aud premier,

That isn’t to say that the five
candidates are coasting
jowards next month’s conven-
tion. Their criss-cross tour of
the province, with townhall
meetings in a dozen or so com-
munities, is as gruclting a chal-

-FROM THE CAPITAL.

HUBERT BEYER

lenge for the candidates as an
election.
Corky Evans told me the

other day he figures he has —
talked to about 12 per cent of .

the 18,000 members of the

NDP since he entered the
NDP family affair. Aside from «*

leddership race. But unlike
some of the other contenders,
he doesn’t always tell the party
faithful what they want to hear.

At one meeting, a student
asked all candidates if they
could guarantee not to increase
university and college tuition
fees in the wake of drastic fed-
eral culbacks in funding, Most
of the candidates waxed wise
and concerned about youth
being the country’s future and
ail but promised to exempt stu-
dents from any fiscal belt-

tightening,

Not so Evans. He told the
student that there were loggers
in the room who didn’t know
where their next job was com-
ing from. There were
fishermen whose future was
uncertain, and he saw no rea-
son why students should get
special treatment. If sacrifice

' was asked for, it should be
. made equally by ail.

The funniest lines, so far,
have come from funeral plan-
ner and = embalmer Jack
McDonald. At one meeting, he
sald when he entered the race,
he was told it would be a
coronation. Turning to Glen
Clark, he said he didn’t even
look like a queen.

On another occasion, one
candidate said the objective of
the race was not 50 much beat-
ing Liberal leader Gordon
Campbell in the next election,
but to rediscover their roots in
the party.

Said McDonald that beating
Campbell may not be a priority
with some of the other candi-
dales, but he for one had been
carrying this grudge for over
400 years. Nola bad line,

The adds-on-favourite is, of
course, still Clark, the bright,
young whipper-snapper who
was 80s Uniceremoniously
shuffled out of the finance

portfolio after his somewhat
disastrous 1993 budget,

Interestingly enough, Clark’s
mere entry into the race caused
the NDP’ fortunes to rise in the
palls, The latest survey has the
NDP fewer than six percentage
points behind the Liberals, and
Clark only three points behind
Campbell in terms of who
would do ithe best job. as
premier,

February 18 is D-Day for the
candidates. ‘That’s when
delegates will cast their ballots
and decide which of the five
will Icad the New Democratic
Party and serve as premier un-
til at least the next election.

The delegates will meet in
the Hyatt Regency Hotel in
Vancouver on February 16.
Next day the venue will move
to the posh Trade and Conven-
tion Centre, an indication of
how much the party has
changed over the past 20 years.

There was a time when NDP
conventions were held in
church halls. Skelly got the
nod in Vancouver’s
Agradome, a building that
made a bam look inviting.
Now it’s four-star hotels,

Beyer can be reached at:
Tel:(604) 926-9300;
Fax;(604) 381- 6922:E-Mail:
hbeyer@direct.ca

False accusations can hurt

WHENEVER A woman false- [

ly accuses a man of harassing,
stalking, or assaulting her she
makes it more likely: other
women who are at risk will be
pooh poohed. ,

Falsely accusing with intent
lo mislead is defined as public
mischief, punishable by a max-
imum jail term of five years.

Yet to date, courts have
usually ignored false accusers,
letting them walk out believing
false accusations are merely
publicly funded adult pranks
pulled to get back at a man for
some slight to the woman’s
pride.

Failing to punish false ac-
cusers disregards the harm
done lo the man, to his family,
lo the justice system, and to the
public purse. False accusations
devastate, The man may end
up divorced, jobless, minus bis
business, his home, his chil-
dren, and his community’s
tespect,

His accuser should be made
lo pay his legal costs, and for
the future protection of every-

WE'RE GOIN' TO

THROUGH BIFOCALS
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

Tv

hey! You'Ré BAcK.!

THE BAR TONIGHT!
WANT To COME?

UH. .UH..

one, she should be publicly
identified.

Last week a Victoria jury
deliberated only 25 minutes
before acquitting a 36-year old
police officer of sexual assault.

He testified the 28-year-old
woman was the sexual agegres-
sor throughout their encounter;
that she told him “I can ruin
you,’’ that she had already put
two men in jail who bad raped
her earlier in the Interior, One
of her best friends testified that

WHAT'S THE |

Ca
fitene

fot tan

pes!

her reputation for truthfulness
was “not very high... I know
she’s a liar,’?

As it is, we bystanders have
difficulty determining if we're
witnessing abuse — something
we're bound by law to report -
or simply behaviour that of-
fends our personal standards,
False accusations shed no
light. And abused women al-
ready have trouble making us

| believe their disclosures.

Before disclosing, abused
women must leap several pain-
ful hurdles, They have to de-
cide when their abuse has
reached crisis level; that’s
Seldom clearcut. They know
they might be put down,
belittled, criticized, They also
risk being beaten up, even
killed, by their abuser when he
learns they've blabbed,

To jump all those hurdles
and then not be believed!

We owe it to all women who
disclose to take them at their
word, disregarding any good-
guy perception we may have of
her abuser. Our single respon-

ALONE IN THE

sibility is to offer her immedi-
ate sanctuary, to keep her safe
from her abuser, Later there'll
be time for investigations,
court appearances, counsell-
ing...

Current Jaw allows a man to
carry on with his normal life,
threatening as he chooses. It’s
the woman who must turn her
life inside out to stay alive. She
must evade him by leaving her
home, her province, taking on
a new identity, moving in with
family, installing security
alarms, buying a guard dog,
disguising herself like Jackie
O. in kerchief and dark glasses.

The law does nothing to pro-
tect her or to dissuade him.
Restraining orders have all the
power of Do Not Remove tags
on pillows. The only step miss-
ing is for lawmakers to gather
round the abuser at the end of
his trail to shake his hand like
fans mobbing Gretzky for his
autograph.

Courts should squelch false
accusers,

THREE MONTHSFT] AND HE AIN'T USE
fA TO TALKIN’ very

~ -

OH OKAY 2