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2 Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum . Street,
_.cf Terrace, B.C. A member of Varified Circulation,

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TERRACE/KIETIMAT

daily herald |

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Circulation - 625-6357 Starling Publishers

PUBLISHER - Calvin McCarthy
‘ EDITOR - Greg Middleton
CIRCULATION
TERRACE & KITIMAT .
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OTTAWA
OFFBEAT

BY
RICHARD
JACKSON

OTTAWA — Who's to blame, the bureaucrat, the
parliamentarian, the press, the temper of the times?
Or is it all just a myth that the federal bureaucracy,
never anywhere in the national public popularity.
ratings, is becoming almost an endangered species?
Even here in his habitat, where the small, insulated

- world of federal Ottawa revolves — if more and more

grudgingly — around him, the public servant sort of

' ? glulks between parking lot and office tower.

Under a cloudburst of abuse, the poor intimidated

fellow's best hope seems to be that if he can’t get from
. the safety of his car to the sanctuary of his work-place,
“at least he won't be stoned. so
’, The contempt of the taxpayer for the “porpoise,”’ as
_ he was termed the other day in an official paper, has
: always been there.

- It originates in jealousy...better pay, better hours,

’ better working conditions, better holidays, better sick

leave, better everything, and at the end of it all, better
by far pensions.

It’s really not his fault that he is so cossetted.

All these advantages of the good working life were
thrust upon him by eager politicians, competing in the
choice of superlatives to describe what Parliament —

until recently — unanimously has agreed is “the best .|
‘ public service in the world.”

" Not, mind you, that he ever attempted to.deny it,
much less refuse the rich dividends this exalted

_ ~ Feputation paid.

‘Who would, in these self-seeking parts, spurn honors

” and riches thrust upon them? ”

Only two denizens of the Ottawa Establishment in
the last 40 years.

Two politicians, surprisingly enough.

‘The New Democrats’ Stanley Knowles who resisted
attempts both to appoint him permanent Speaker or

promote him to the Senate. And he refused, as did -

John Diefenbaker, to accept those parliamentary pay
raises piled on parliamentary pay raises in em-
barrassing profusion. ;
Dief even refused for nearly a year to cash his
parliamentary cheques, but he, like Stanley Knowles,
finally buckled under the scorn and pressure of other

parliamentarians who accused them of hypocrisy.

They took the money but theyndidn’t run — instead

they bitched about it being a ripoff, sounding off each

time it happened. .
The veneration of the public servant into super-

_being paid super-salaries and accorded super-,

privileges such as his very own reserved parking
space for free when taxpayers pay through the nose,
seems to have started with former Prime Minister
Lester Pearson.

He was a public servant L..mself, all his life, you see,

* go he had to be special, or how else would he have

made it to the Liberal leadership and the Prime
Minister’s office? :
. §o the veneration of te public service built from
there with few voices raised in argument, much less
protest.

Until, well, recently is the best way to put it.

The difference of opinion grew and blew into what —

nas become a storm of outrage.

A high government officer himself, the Auditor -

General has put it on the record that the public service
is only about 60 per cent productive.

Try that figure in private enterprise and see what
happens. . ; , a

High public figures, like Privy Council Clerk
Michael Pitfield gracefully accepted $97,000 in
severance pay when former Prime Minister Clark
fired him and — splendid fellow — refunded $10,000
when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rehired him in
only a few months.

Long horrified at its rapidly worsening taxpayer
image, one of the biggest public service unions the
other day conducted a survey, asking the question, in
broad terms: when you think of a civil servant of what
creature are you reminded?

Among the unflattering replies were ‘‘snail’’ and
“mollusk.”

Nobody mentioned the ‘Invisible Man,” which the
public servant becomes after lunch Fridays with the
phones going unanswered and business stalling as the
staff stampedes to the parking lots.

Ah, the four and a half day week.

a ‘

LETTERS WELCOME

The Herald welcomes its readers comments.
All letters to the editor of general public interest
will be printed. We do, however, retain the right.
to refuse to print letters on grounds of possible
libel or bad taste. We may also edit letters for
style and Length. All letters to be considered for
publication must be signed.

¥,

By JACK REDDEN
OTTAWA (UPC) — In the

next few weeks the federal

cabinet will decide the

' finalists in the competition to

build six frigates, the last

‘major purchase in a mullti-

billion dollar rejuvenation of
Canada’s armed forces.
The new ships, the 1B long-
range patrol aircraft that
began arriving last week, the
137 CF-16 fighter aircraft
ordered in April and the 133

. West German Leopard tanks

that began arriving last fall
represent an almost com-
plete. re-equipping of the
armed forces.

Presiding over a renewal
of the armed forces is not
something Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau sought when
he came to power 12 years
ago, or something for which °
he likely wants to he
remembered, -

However, the flurry ‘of
recent activity in military
purchases — the culmination

of decisions madejn the mid- -

1970s ~- fits the mood of.
detente-in-retreat that has
enveloped the world since
the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. .

Defence Minister Gilles
Lamontagne says the frigate
program, $1.5 billion: in 1977
dollars, will enter the 15-
month design stage in two or
three months. The current
list of five consortiums will -
be narrowed to two or three
to compete for the final
contract.

“We do hope to get a

decision as soon as we can,"

‘ Lamontagne said Thursday

when he was in Nova Scotia

‘to take possession of the first

Aurora patrol plane. ‘That
means 1986 is still possible
(for delivery) if we decide
pretty soon.” a
With the arrival of the first
new frigate, the last of
Canada’s major obsolete

equipment will start to be,

phased-out in favor of the

weapons that will carry the
‘country into the next cen-

tury. .

It is an area where reality
has overwhelmed hopes,
where once-popular musing
by Trudeau about the

‘changing world has been
- replaced by the neéd to

satisfy both domestic and
foreign demands for
stronger armed forces,

“If the application of out-.

of-date military strategies to
alliances with old and
trusted friends might lead
not to the desired deterrent
effect but instead . to

provocation and to obstacles ‘world peace,

to detente,” Trudeau told the
House of Commons 11 years
ago, “then these strategies
must be re-examined,”
In the current cold-war
atmosphere there is less
concern about “provocation
and obstacles to detente”
than at any previous time in
Trudeau's time in power.

.. Trudeau himself said

during the election cam-
paign that returned him to
office that the Soviet Union
had never wavered from its

|. A hard, cold-war look now | |

- dramatically at

long-term goal of expansion. 7

United western action was
needed to meet the threat, he

‘said.

The old military stategies’

years ago are still going
strong. . -. ‘
All but four of the 19 long-
range patrol aircraft will be
stationed on the east coast to
ensure Canada fulfills its
anti-submarine obligations

‘to the North American

Treaty Organization.

Canadian membership ‘in
the. North American Air

‘Defence Command was

extended for a year May 12
and — although the period
was shorter than usual ,to
allow. a review of the
agreement — everyone

‘ expects a renewal next year.
_ > When Trudeau. became
‘prinie minister he attempted

to ease Canada away from
fears of Soviet expansionism
by pointing out that the
poverty of the developing
world also posed a danger to

Canadian assistance to the
Third World increased
first.
However, spending restraint

since the mid-1970s has kept -

the amount of aid almost
unchanged except for in-
flation, =...

In contrast, the. armed
forces, which had been
Tunning down under
Trudeau's original policies,
won a guarantee in 1976 of an
annual budget increase of 3

percent more than the in-

* flation rate..

This change doesn't
necessarily indicate

, Trudeau changed his basic
that Trudeau doubted a few ©

hopes during his long tenure.
Some circumstances
changed and he also became
more aware of, political
necessities,  - —

The concern of allies, who

are important to ‘a trading’ -

nation like Canada for more
than’ military reasons, put

. pressure on the government’

to loosen the purse strings.

Sympathy for the military ..

-has been rising faster than
concern with the plight of the
developing world, especially
as the growth of the in-

’ dustrial world slows to the

lowest level the . post-war
generation has known.

_ In demonstrating he has—

not entirely abandoned his

hopes, Trudeau this year’

proposed'an ambassador for
disarmament.

Canada also remains one
of the more generous

” providers of foreign aid, and

Trudeau ‘has a rapport with
several Third World leaders.

_ But in 1969 he said his -

government intended ‘“‘to
reorganize our resources
and our energies to play a
role in the world as it is, not
to dream of things as they
were,” _

- When it came to Trudeau’s

hopes to divert tax ex-.

penditures - from weapons,
the world “as it is,"’ turned

out ta be very similar to the ©

world as it was.

SE WE BORN
of Se yastact?

K

Beta
iy tad MOP

By DEB van der GRACHT
SALMON ARM, B.C.
(UPC) — An urgent siren
shatters the mountain
silence.

Within seconds, four burly
young men scramble out of
nowhere for strategically-
hung blue helmets and
yellow, fire-resistant wool
suits. These they don
quickly, automatically, then
pick up equipment as they
dash from their tents to a
waiting helicopter, rotor
blades whirling.

With military precision,
they check each others’
sults, harnesses and clips.
Everything must be perfect.

Then one of the four, clearly |

in charge, signals the others
into the helicopter, where
they sit with grim faces.

The helicopter lifts off,
banking away to a nearby
mountainside where smoke
billows from a small forest
fire. :

While the helicopter
hovers, three of the men
rappel down a rope to the
tree-covered ground below,
then wait while the fourth
lowers an orange bag stuffed
with firefighting equipment
to them.

Another signal, and lhe
helicopter rolls away. The
three take out their tools and
begin the job of putting out
the fire.

They're called rappellers
— they’re part of Jim
Dunlop's and the B.C, Forest
Service's elite ““Rapattack”
team — and they're making
firefighting history In North

THEY’RE SPECIALISTS

Elite team fighting fires

America by lowering
themselves cut of helicopters
on ropes to douse otherwise
inaccessible fires. .

Even raging blazes like the
one that has ravaged some
275,000 acres near Kenora,
Ont. in the last week usually
start in one tree, says
Dunlop, a wiry, 20-year
veteran of the B.C. Forest
Service who started the
Rapattack (rappel attack)
program in 1977,

The specialized teams are

called in to put out fires
- burning

in remote dense
brush or on mountainsides —
places that nermal sup-
pression crews would take

hours, perhaps days, to—

reach — wilhin hours after

they start, while they’re still .

small,

The rappellers, university
and college students who
were looking for a summer
job with a difference, work
out of a camp on the out-
skirts of Salmon Arm, a
small interior community
about 270 kilometers (160
miles} northeast of Van-
couver, c

“It’s fun, it’s exciting and
it’s a summer job," says 21-

year-old microbiclogy

student Dave Butcher.

The crack squad has
already saved the B.C.
government thousands of
doliars by dousing blazes
before they get out of hand.

The rappelling method
was pioneered in 1971 by
former University of B.C.
professor Bob Henderson,
who developed it as an

alternative to the ‘more
expensive use of water
bombers or the time-
consuming practice of
marching men through
dense brush on the ground to
tough-toreach fires,
__In 1977, Dunlop contacted
Henderson, by then a private
consultant with his own
rappelling team, and asked
to. be trained in ‘the method.
B.C, is still the only place
in North America fighting
fires with the rappelling
method, theugh the U.S.
Forest Service, which also
learned the technique from

Henderson, has used it oc-

casionally, .

This year, when training's
finished and the carefuily-
chosen new recruits are
certified as rappellers,
Dunlop will have four four-
man crews and one three-
man crew working under

him. ‘

When they're not fighting
fires — or practising One
More Time the precise
procedure that ends with the
stomach-churhing drop from
the helicopter skids 200 feet
above the ground — they
exercise, help put the
finishing touches on their
newly-built camp or just
plaln enjoy themselves,

Most members of the team
are either studying forestry
or plan to after spending an
exciting summer danglin;
out of helleopters. .

“T was insclences, but now
I'm golng-into forestry next
year,” said Bruce Blackwell,
21, of Vancouver,

“Tt’s a great job,’ agrees
Steve Westby, 20, a rugged-
looking forestry student who

started with Dunlop when he .

was 17 and now heads his
own rappel team as the
‘spotter’

“It's like being paid for

* getting in shape.”

That's a slight un-
derstatement when one
considers Steve and his team
may spend up to 36 hours in
the brush putting a fire out
with as little as four hours
sleep. , . Fi

Then, after checking with
their bare hands in the
rubble to make sure the
blaze is out cold (“If you
burn your fingers, you know
you've got more work to

do"), the crew spends up to’

six hours building a rough
‘helipad’ so the copter can
Jand and pick them up.

Dunlop rules the woodsy
roost with a strict hand,
Those unfortunate enough to
make a mistake while
practising rappels from a 50-
foot high tower hear about it
in no uncertain terms while
they're on the ground doing
pushups as punishment.

But the rappellers take it
all in stride. “He yells a Jot
and his language ‘can get
pretty bad,’’ says Westby.
“But that’s good, because we
have to learn to do it right.”
. Amistake at 200 feet could
be fatal, but so far, no one
has had anything worse than
a sprained -ankle. And if
Dunlop has his way, that will
always be the case.

" PERSKY'S
PERSPECTIVE.
By STAN PERSKY

doesn’t add up to a country... oe
the Blue-Eyed Arab

At which point, Canada gets reduced to a desk
drawer in a bureaucrat's office in Ottawa.
Unfortunately, Fierre Trudeau's constitutional
talks, commencing June 9, aré unlikely to slow down
the consequences. of the Second Law of Ther-
modynamics, which are more advanced in Canada
than in the rest of the universe. Of course, one can
always hope. In this year of miracles — after all, who
would have expected neither a postal nor a baseball
strike? —maybe the provinces will be able to agree on
something before entropy or Armageddon sets in. But
don't bet on it. out
’ ‘The things the constitution-constructors are likely to
‘agree on will only minimally strengthen the northern
mirage that passes for a nation, Language rights will
be entrenched (it sounds something like planting
asparagus, doesn’t it?). The Senate, which was never
more than a political porkbarrel, will be reformed into
a provincial parlor game. Contro) over a few

~ misbegotten public dollars will be shuffled (why not

let the provinces run the Wednesday night Bingo?).
There is. even some talk of enshrining regional
representation on the Supreme Court, though I must
{ admit, as one who preserves a scrap of respect for
conservative idealism, it escapes me how the quality
of mercy is improved by such a_ notion.
But on the issue of non-renewable natural resources,
which might form the basis of a national economy,
expect nothing. ae
It all began with a mistake. The founding fathers,

me

*

who were feeding lumps of coal to the new-fangled .

steam engines, gave the original four provinces
ownership of their mineral resources in’ the 1967
British North America Act beeause they thought this
would give them “adequate revenue for performing
their limited functions,” as constitutional authority
Gerald LaForest puts it in Natural Resources and
Public Property Under the Canadian Constitution
(admittedly, not the sort of thriller that keeps you up
at night). bobo

When Canada purchased what is.now most of the
western end of the country from the Hudson's Bay

_ Company in 1870, it was “clearly envisaged that the

resources of the area would pass to Canada to be
administered for the benefit of the whole country."” In
fact, the 1905 acts creating Alberta and Saskatchewan
(happy 75th birthday, gang) reaffirmed this, stating
that mineral right were to be “administered by the
Government of Canada for the purposes of the
Dominion.” It wasn’t until 1930 that the three Prairie
provinces acquired ownership of minerals, oil and gas
from Ottawa. ; oo

As former Oilweck Magazine editor Earle Gray
writes, “There will be some national sharing of
Canada’s national petroleum wealth, or there will be
no Canadian nation,” —

Of course, there are several hundred subsidiary
questions. For instance, what would be the best way to
manage such a money-maker?. Despite the risk of
being mistakenly identified as Boris, your friendly
KGB agent, I can’t, for the life of me, see the ad-

| vantage of letting a bunch of multinational (read

American) monsters pocket the profits. Yes, I realize
that turning the entire operation over to People’s

’ Petrocan is naked socialism, but what’s wrong with

it? (Maybe the Surrey Chamber of Commerce or the
Western Canadian Independence Party could write in
‘and explain it to me.) In fact, former premier. Dave
Barrett, during’ one of those fits of pique against Ot-
tawa that periodically afflict provincial leaders, half-
seriously made.a similar proposal.

But mild-manner socialism aside, as oilman Gray
notes, “Canada is the only large oil-producing nation
where the rewards of public ownership of petroleum
are not widely shared on a national basis,” He adds,
“If public revenues from all of Canada’s oil and gas —
in Alberta, the Arctic, the Atlantic — were shared
nationally, it would take the sting out of world oil
.prices and provide a massive of transfusion of
economic and political well-being.” It would also
lower your taxes.

Of course, I hate to admit that Pierre Trudeau's
right about anything just as much as the next person.
But when he talks about “strong central govern-
ment,” he’s right. Not because it will provide better
government than provincial anarchism (it won't). But
because it adds up to a nation. : ,

CC — ~
LETTERS WELCOME

_The Herald welcomes its readers comments.
Ail letters to the editor of general public interest
will be printed. We do, however, retain the right

. to refuse to print letters on grounds of possible
libel or bad taste. We may also edit letters for
style and length. All letters to be considered for

' publication must be signed.

A. _ _ J