4 Terrace Review — Wednesday, December 30, 1987 HART BY-TASS IN BG I SSSy = ANS S Hi A-happy and... prosperous New Year to our +> YFeaders from all of us — Letters. to the. editor will be con- sidered for publication only when signed. Please include your telephone number. reserves the right to condense and edit letters. Opinions expressed ' are not necessarily those of the Terrace Review. Terrace Review Established May 1, 1985 The Terrace Review is published each ; Wednesday by Close-Up Business Services Ltd. Publisher: Mark Twyford Editor: Michaal Kelly Staff Reporter: Tod Strachan Advertising Sales: Dennis Lissimore, Marj Twyford Typasetting: Linda Copeland Production: Jim Hall, Alvin Stewart, Ariene Wand, Gurbax Gill, Linda Mercer, Arlene Gaspar Office: Philip Musselman ; Accounting: Mar| Twyford, Rosemary McGettigan Harminder K. 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Phone: 635-7840 The editor — Q@CNnA "look after the maintenance of all highways and bridges in the pro- vince has come from the people who should know best — three men - It seems that nothing will deter Premier Vander Zalm from pursuing his privatiza- tion program, but that doesn’t mean the op- position should give up trying to change his mind. parliamentary opposition, but that expressed by eminently qualified experts, by newpapers in every part of the province and by a large segment of the public. This isn’t just another. classical confronta- tion between government and trade: unions, although the latter strongly and vociferously oppose the privatiza- tion drive. It is fast becoming a conflict involving government and the majority of the population: Hubert Beyer in Victoria Opposition to the privatization of road and bridge maintenance is - particularly strong. Aside from Vander Zalm himself, his court jester, David Poole, and his faithful cabinet ministers, few people _ have expressed support for that part of the government’s privatiza- tion program. The most convincing arugments against letting the private sector who held high-ranking positions in the highways ministry. _ . _ Al Rhodes, Fraser McLean and Bob Harvey, three experts who served as deputy minister or assistant deputy minister not too long ago, have warned the premier that his plan'won’t work. They have accused Vander Zalm of destroying not only a cost-effecient maintenance system but also a proud tradition. Rhodes, McLean and Harvey say there is no way the private sec- tor can deliver services as well and as cost-effectively as the ministry. They also say the province will lose the valuable in-house ability to control the cost of maintaining our highways and bridges. These people have no axe to grind. As former public servants of the highest managerial level, they can hardly be accused of being in the pocket of the trade unions. If anything, they would have a rather dim view of some of labor’s staple philosophies. Politics, however, makes for strange bed fellows and, so it seems, does an assault on tradition and the status quo. _ | There is one factor in the privatization equation that exposes the whole scheme for the political trickery it is — the fact that 60 per- cent of all road and bridge maintenance funding goes already to the private sector. That 60 percent now ends up in the pockets of small contractors and companies that sell or rent equipment, For the sake of feeding the additional 40 percent to the private sector, Vander Zalm is willing to dismantle an operation that has been working exceedingly well. . Hf experts like Rhodes, McLean and Harvey are correct — and they know more about highways than our premier and all his so- called advisers put together — then Vander Zalm’s decision to get Tid of the road and bridge maintenance function is even a bad fiscal move, that will cost the taxpayers a lot more in the long run than they pay now. Yet, the premier is adamant. Road maintenance will be privatiz- ed. Never mind what the experts say; never mind what the newspapers Say; never mind what the people say. Not even Bill Ben- nett would have ignored such warnings, and he was.a stubborn man who hated to admit that he was wrong, He would have found some way of exiricating himself from the mess without losing face. Vander Zalm’s problem is not so much that he has difficulty ad- mitting to an error in judgement; his problem is that he can’t even conceive of being wrong. Once his mind is made up, he’ll stick to his decision with all the flexibility of an oak tree. And while stead- fastness is a generally admirable trait, it can be destructive when it’s Conflicts of information - in the chemical industry _ - by Jorma Jyrkkanen I open this discussion, without prejudice, with a quote from Mr. Frank Hillier, Chairman of the Environmental Appeal Board, the Last Word in B.C. onto Spray or Not to Spray. The Public of Terrace appealed a 2, 4-D Spray Permit Applica- tion by Ministry of Forests to - spray along a public forest right- of-way and the case was con- cluded Sept. 18, 1984, giving permission to spray. He said: |“ .At many, appeal hearings when a 2, 4-D herbicide applica- _tion is under appeal, the board notes that most of the appellants are fearful that the 2,4-D con- - tains dioxins, which can cause Where might Mr. Hillier get the impression that 2,4-D js safe? Perhaps from the Statements like the following. I quote.Wendell R. Mullison, of Dow Chemicals in a company pamphlet on 2,4-D. “*,.. studies ‘on dogs and rats...showed that the herbicide is not carcinogenic...Three other. studies on mice and’ rats...in- °° dicate that 2,4-D is not. car- cinogenic..."” ee I have reviewed many articles on 2,4-D and found many sug- gesting that the opposite is true, ‘and Mullison’s statements is clearly at odds with aUSA study by Kociba and others including Hansen (1971), Haberman and cancer, mutations, and birth .I use the word opposition in the widest-- :.... posstble. sense,..encompassing. not only. the. Lehman (1963 and 1964).and the defects. The Board understands Environmental Protection that this is not true...’* the force that drives a closed or narrow mind. ; Equally to blame — perhaps even more so — if the privatization plan doesn’t work, are the premier’s cronies, the cabinet ministers, some of whom must have second thoughts about the merits of this gigantic garage sale. The same goes for the back benchers, several of whom have expressed at least slight reservations to me in private. .. Neil Vant, for example,.never fails. to. qualify. his statements on. the wonders of privatization. Hé always says it must be im- plemented with such things as compassion and great care. Well, I’ve got news for the second member from the Cariboo. Compassion and privatization are mutually exclusive. There is little hope that the opposition will be able-to-change the premier’s mind on privatization, but until the process has become irreversible, the opposition should keep hammering away, if only to . be on record for having warned the premier of the potential danger of his actions. . 2 es Seeing the light Charges by his detractors notwithstanding, Premier Vander Zalm finally saw the light.- at'4 p.m. Nov. 30. At that precise hour, he switched on the Christmas lights on the Legislative Buildings and the tree on the front lawn. The. ceremony was conducted” “simultaneously across Canada: The opposition hopes the experiences" "~~ will carry over into the discharge of his duties as premier. Not just garbage , Vancouver’s garbage isn’t the only thing for which Ashcroft ap- ‘pears to be in the running. Having all but cinched the garbage dump deal, Ashcroft may now become a motor racing centre. ~ To help the Ashcroft Indian Band get a marketing plan under- way, the federal and provincial governments have come through . with a $25,000 grant.. ; . ; The Motroplex, as the facility is catled, is located on a 70-hectare site, six miles south of Cache Creek. To get the ball rolling and put Ashcroft on the racing map, brochures about the raceway, racing events and services available in the area, will be mailed to National Hot Rod Association members in B.C.,. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Alaska. Eat your heart out, Hawall Harvest Tours, a Vancouver tour operator, has had it up to here - with British Columbians fleeing the province for the warmer climes of Hawaii every winter. He’s going to reverse the trend, and he’s got two governments convinced that it’s worth a try,.as well as $20,200 of the taxpayers money. . The federal and provincial governments contributed that amount . . last week to help Harvest Tours promote our province in Hawaii. Packages offered to Hawaiians who are sick and tired of the "perpetual summer include sightseeing in Vancouver and Victoria, salmon fishing at Bamfield on Vancouver Island, horseback riding at a guest ranch near Ashcroft and skiing at Whistler. A matter of priorities , According to Jack Kempf, self-appointed one-man northern op- position, affectionately known as Wolfman Jack, the government has its priorities all mixed up, — Kempf said last week instead of funding Premier Vander Zalm’s strange decentralization program to the tune of $8 million, the government should have spent $5 million on another: open-heart surgery theatre. While the latter would save lives, the former will only serve to create another level of bureaucracy, Kempf said. Relief for forest industry - A silver lining appeared last week on the cloud that’s been hang- ing over the forest industry for a while, The industry had been hit by. a double-whammy, in the form of a 15 percent export tax on soft- wood jumber as well as increased stumpage fees, » ° continued on‘page 6 ~