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EDITORIAT,

MADNESS ENDS

One of the best kept secrets of any
public servant is that joyous time called
March Madness. ‘That's the final month
of any government department’s budget
year, As March approaches, public ser-
vants realize they haven’t spent all the
money to which they have been en-
trusted.

And so starts a game of use it or lose
it. Public servants must spend every pen-
ny in their budget. There is no reward
for saving. And because power in a
bureaucracy lies in how much money
each has, it’s hard to justify asking for
increases in a new budget year when the
previous year’s budget hasn’t been
spent. ”

Using it or losing it can take many dif-
ferent forms. A careful perusal of
government offices may turn up new
phone systems or new office furniture in
March. Even those public servants who
develop creative approaches to better
manage their budgets run into trouble.
Last year, provincial wildlife biologists

were chastized because they paid for
helicopter time from one budget year but
didn’t use the time until the next budget
year.

One move toward better control and
spending of provincial government
money was announced two weeks ago in
the new budget. It involves highways
construction. Money not spent in one
year won’t necessarily be lost forever.
Instead, it can be transferred over to the
new budget year. This makes sense
because construction projects are often
subject to factors causing delays or

cancellations that are beyond the control
of those who manage them and their
budgets.

The highways construction approach
will ultimately mean better use of public
money and provide a more rational ap-
proach to the way the government does
business. It's also one of the few things
the provincial government has done that
isn’t couched in some form of political
rhetoric.

Please, not again

Barely one year after teachers and the
school district subjected students,
parents and taxpayers to a 19-day strike,
they are at it again in attempts to reach '
yet another contract settlement.

It’s obvious that the divisions within
the district over the past decade haven’t
gone away. Things are as worse as they
ever have been, The board doesn’t like
the teachers. The teachers don’t like the
board.

And as usual, each side is intent upon
inflicting themselves on a weary public.
This is not to suggest each side does not

have valid points. And although one
should never hesitate to help somebody
with a problem, if they“com¢ Bath wate

the same’ problem timeantttiing dgain, #b

they obviously prefer the problem over
any solution.

So, more creative solutions are
necessary. We have two suggestions.
One is to airlift board and teacher
negotiators to a far away place — Baffin
Island, for instance — where they can
yammer to their hearts’ content. Or lock
up the parties in one room, Nobody is
allowed to go to the bathroom until al
contract has been reached.

The pond

has to go

In the six weeks since six-
year-old Joey drowned under
the ice of a man-made pond, ci-

Through

¢

ty council has done nothing but
shuffle the problem from one Bifocals ¥-
meeting to another, despite its by Claudette Sandecki

Resolution no. 449 which

ordered the pond filled in and
fenced by August 31, 1987.
While council dilly-dallies,

she’d retreat into the house for

the pond poses a risk to other
neighbourhood youngsters. If
council can’t comprehend the
danger. as, parents, surely they
can grasp it as grandparents.

Council has a duty to enforce
its resolutions — unless passing
motions. is council’s idea of
creating jobs.

Since Section 936 of the
Municipal Act gives the city the
authority to fill in the pond and
fence it themselves at the pro-
perty ‘owner’s expense, why
hasn’t council done so? Are
they waiting for the greenhouse
effect to evaporate the water?

In April, 1986 council
ordered five steps be taken to
correct the problem. Yet three
years later their order is still un-
fulfilled. .

_If I were mayor of Terrace, I
would have had every available
truck hauling fill and bulldozers
levelling that pond before doc-

tors at Mills Memorial declared |

the child dead, Heil, if I were
mayor, I'd have made sure the
August 1987 deadline was com-
plied with. To the letter:

But I'm not mayor, I’m a
mother, with a heartfelt ‘em-'
pathy for a family that suffered
the consequences of the very

risk oom]: was. p warned about. ie

ce

in 1996; that this constructed
pond on private property
presented a tempting hazard to’
young children, particularly
when ice-covered.

“Hell is paved with good in-
lentions’’, observed someone
who had been studying govern-
ment performance, no doubt.
Why do [ guess that?

Three years before the
Hagersville tire fire, Ontario’s
environment ministry ordered

- the tire owner to reduce the size

of his stockpile as a safeguard
against an inferno. But govern-
Ment mever enforced their

order,

Recently in the Bronx, New
York, 87 people died from
smoke inhalation when the

Happy Land nightclub was set.

ablaze. The city had condemned
the bulding years earlier, But.
the city of New York never en-
forced their order.

“These instances remind me of
a neighbour one hot summer
afternoon. Her toddler plagued #
her by plucking blosséms, from
her walkway bordér of

‘petunias. With the regularity of

a cuckoo clock, she'd exit from

the house screaming, ‘If you do
‘that. again, Vil kill you,"? Then,

another spell. By suppertime the -

border was only stems, but the
kid was very much alive,

All levels of government
frustrate us from time to time
with their dithering. Whether its
aschool board squeamish about
sizing up the issue of condom
machines in schools; a regional
district so beguiled by fantasies
of downhill skiing it's eager to
forgive almost $400,000 debt
for a chance to co-sign a private
enterprise’s bank loan; or a pro-
vincial government that widens
highways while sending patients
“out'? for surgery. .

The pond has to go.

VICTORIA — One can only
marvel at the audacity of a
government that tries to slip $5
billion worth of spending past
the legislature in one after-
noon.

The money, said finance
minister Mel Couvelier last
week, was urgently needed to
meet salary and welfare pay-
ment obligations. Bureaucrats
fit ‘eltare-Feciplent#! shod *

30, lucky... 2

The $4.9 billion the govern:
ment wants to spend without
debate represents about one-
third of the entire 1990-91
budget introduced aweek
earlier. The method by which
the government sought ap-
proval isn’t new. Every year,
the legislature, debates and
fairly quickly approves an in-
terim supply bill that

+ authorizes the government to

_ spend a certain amount of

money before the spending
estimates are passed,

What’s new though is the
huge amount. The $5 billion
the government wanted in an
afternoon's debate is enough
to run the province for four
months.

The NDP made it very clear
that they weren’t about to go
along with the scheme and
would hold the bill up for
weeks if necessary. and so they
should. An opposition that
rubber-stamps such a request
ought to be runout of the pro-
vince. ;

The trend towards ever-
bigger amounts to be spent
before the budget is passed
was evident last year when the
legislature apporved two in-

: terim supply bills, one for.

$3.28 billion, the other for

- $1.94 billion, that was bad

enough, but $5 billion is
unaceptable.

If detailed debate of govern-
ment spending is to mean
anything at.all, if the people
we elect are to be more than a
costly tradtion, we can't con-
done blowing one-third of the
budget with almost no
legislative control. It's inde-
cent. It’s undemocratic. And it
makes me bloody mad.

‘What gets me even more is

Ay fi

wioA lox

uae ret | i ‘

— =
ie

From the

Caplial
by Hubert Beyer

the hypocrisy of government
MLAs who accuse the opposi-
ton of. being irresponsible for

tell is the NDP wants welfare ~
recipients to starve. What rot.
ff anyone stands to be ac-
cused of irresponsibility it’s the
government. First it delays the
budget by a month with the
flimsy excuse that the federal ..
budget has thrown B.C.’s
fiscal plans out of kilter; then

' it wants to spend a third of the

budget without accountability.

**Not a dime without
debate’’ was the Socreds’ bat-
tle cry when the NDP was in
power. I agreed with the
Socreds at the time and ] now
agree with the NDP.

“We can't condone
blowing one-third of the
budget with almost no
legislative control, It's
undecent, It’s
undemocratic.”

The government's attempt to
circumvent legislative control
of its spending has sparked
some of ihe best debate I’ve
heard in years, Gone is the
sweetness and light that mark-
ed much of last year’s session.
-. Bob Williams, NDP MLA -

_ for Vancouver East, accused

government MLAs of making
*4C,D. Howe look like a
piker.”” His most acid som-
ments were reserved for the
“Socred MLAs who rejoined
- their caucus after a short-lived

— rebellion, -

_ “You and your back-bench

fiends always vote.the way the |

‘government tells you to,
without any information what-
soever — you and the others
who disappeared from.the ~
caucus and crawled back on
their bellies in the last month
or so,’ Williams said,

John Cashore (NDP

Maillardville-Coquitlam), -.
usually a soft-spoken and

A -friendlygt @, accused the
holding up the bill. They iry.t0,': sotreds-of “arrogance and

hypocrisy” for trying to slip -

the $5 billion caper past thém.
‘What colossal arrogance.

They are afraid to deal with --

the public debate that is going”

to take place in this House - =!
in this Legislature and in every:
corner of the province — on ~

their incompetence and
musmanagement,”’ Cashore
said.

More than one NDP MLA ©
wondered aloud why the |.

"government was trying to get- -

its hands on that.much money.
A lot of them suspected that-~
Premier Vander Zalm plans:to
cali an election and doesn’t:
want any detailed scrutiny of
the government's spending

practices. 1°] go along. with oa

that.

This is pertiaps the only
chance the NDP has to talk:
about the budget before —

Vander Zalm calls an election, °
and they should make the most |

of it.
An election this year is
almost a certainty. The only.+

“question is when-— in spring :
or in fall? Until recently, I. 2.
have been leaning towards fall,:
but I’m not so sure any more, +

- Piecing together isolated bits.

of information some of my ~

contacts have given me, there: -

is a good chance Vander Zalm:
will pull the plug very soon,‘

Right now, things Icok pret-- °

ty good for the Socreds,-. i
Vander Zalm has regained =.

much. of his  Popularity,and- the
budget news is still fresh on

people’s minds. : a!
» The trick is to get the elec:

tion campaign over with before
- the public figures out that a:

balanced budget isn’t

" necessarily balanced. But mare .
about that some other. time, ae

Teeth at =