Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, June 18, 2003 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 WEB: www.terracestandard.com EMAIL: newsrcom@terracestandard.com Try this THE SCHOOL board’s decision to close schools for one day a week has all the hallmarks of a sol- dier in a Hollywood war movie. You know the one. Hit by enemy. fire, he thrusts his hand inside his uniform, withdraws it, examines it and says, “Don’t worry, lads. It’s only a flesh wound.” He then promptly collapses. And that’s about where we stand given the board’s official admission that it has chosen a four-day week solely for financial reasons. No doubt the board believes it is doing the right thing in trying to erase a budget deficit but this is © an extraordinary gamble — betting on the eventual educational outcomes of students, particularly. those already most vulnerable, Even the board’s boss, education minister Christy Clark, has her doubts. “Nobody should modify the school calendar just to achieve finan- cial savings,” Clark told this newspaper recently. “If it could affect student achievement, that’s just too big a risk to take.” Things might be different if this was a school district already on a sound educational footing. But it’s not. Far too many students already fail to meet provincial averages for scholastic achieve- _ ment. Aboriginal students fare worse than others. And this comes from a five-day week. How this 1s supposed to change with schools closed one day a week is a mystery. The Gold Trail School District around Lillooet. also faced a deficit, one that was in the order of $3 million. It ran up that bill through several ill- considered spending decisions under a different administrative structure and board than is now in place. A special education advisor was sent.in under the auspices of Ms. Clark. More importantly, the’ board was able to work out a gradual deficit re- duction schedule with Ms. Clark calling for pay- ments of at least $450,000 a year over seven years. ; There will still be teacher and other layoffs in the Gold Trail district and it is far from being out. of the woods but the impact of reducing the defi- cit appears to be limited. To quote David Wat-: kins, the Gold Trail chair: “She [Ms. Clark] said she was quite convinced that ours was a plan that would impact minimally on the kids.” Of course, the Gold Trail circumstances may be different from those of the Coast Mountain School District. But the Gold Trail situation does create a precedent, one which this school district should consider. Our board has decided to tell Ms. Clark why it | did what it did. Fair enough. But given that she approved the Gold Trail debt retirement plan, something like that might also work here. Bad educational outcomes based on financial , considerations is simply not an option, ac P= a = PUBLISHER /EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS: Jeff Nagel NEWS/SPORTS Sarah A. Zimmerman 2002 WINNER NEWS /COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang CCNA BETTER FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay NEWSPAPERS = CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Terri Gordon COMPETITION ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Bert Husband & Denise Young TELEMARKETER: Denise Young COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur _ AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $57.94 (454,06 GST)=62.00 per year; Seniors $50.98 (+$3.57 GST)=54.55; Out of Province $65.17 (+$4.56 GST)=69.73 Outside of Canada (6 months) $156,91(4+10.98 GST)=167,89 MEMBER OF : B.C, AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION AN. D B.C, PRESS COUNCIL (www. bepresscouncll.org) Serving the Terrace and Thembhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 2210 Clinton Street, Terrace, British Columbia, 8G 5R2. Storias, photographs, iilustrations, designs and typestyles In the Terrace Standard are the property af the copyright holdars, including Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd., ils Wlustration repro sarvicas and advertising agencias. Reproduction in whole or in part, without written pazmission, is speciitcally prohibited, . Aulhorized ag second*cass mail pending the Post Office Departmant, for payment of postage In cash, Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents THE IDEAL CANDI LEADERSHIP OF THE B.C.NDP sHould BE A FRESH FACE. We NEED A NeW VOICE, A NEW ENERGY. WE NEED SOMEONE WITH FIRSTHAND (AGOUR EXPERIENCE BUT Off-loadi VICTORIA — Some years back, I spent a while in the Cariboo, doing research for a series on placer mining, It was then that I first visited Barker- ville, one of British Colum- bia's oldest historic sites. I spent a truly unforgettable day in Barkerville. The town comes alive during the sum- mer, giving visitors a unique glimpse into the province's frontier. days. There are shops offering Victorian-era merchandise, there is street theatre, shows at the Theatre Royal and fas- cinating exhibits. On the Barkerville website, B.C. Heritage, which runs the historic site, describes the town in glowing terms: “Welcome to a_ place where the fun's pure gold! In 1862, Billy Barker found gold at Williams Creek, a discov- ery that started a rush of for- tune seekers from all over the world. Between 1862 and 1870, over 100,000 people travelled the Cariboo Wagon Road, named the “Eighth Wonder of the World’, converging on the goldfields, and the bustling boomtown cf Barkerville. In its heyday, this was the largest town in the Canadian West.” And now the bad news: The provincial government wants to wash its hands of Barker- ville. The official term is deyolu- tion, meaning turn over to the DATE FOR THe “WHEN CAN You START CAMPAIGNING? FROM-THE-CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER private sector anything you can Privatization needn’t be a bad thing per se, but when onlyone bidder shows up, po- tential disaster is in the air. Some time back, the pov- ernment invited “interested parties” to submit requests for qualification. The only inter- ested party to do so was Wells, a nearby community of 250 people, whose livelihood depends on Barkerville. B.C. Heritage. . confirmed that Wells is the only can- didate, so far, and I’m sure no others are forthcoming. Not to dismiss the good in- tentions of the people of Wells, 2 suspect that their stepping up to the plate was prompted more by desperation than a sure conviction that they will be able to operate Barkerville. Without Barkerville, Wells would soon become British Columbia’s newest ghost town. They might even succeed, but why a government would take that chance with one of British Columbia’s most im- portant heritage sites is hard to understand. The Liberals aren’t the first fovernment to toy with the idea of turning Barkerville over to the private sector. The NDP government had similar plans but thought better of it. True, if Wells doesn’t take over the operation of Barker- ville, the provincial govern- ment won’t shut it down. It would, however, severely cut funding, And just how much is the province’s heritage worth to the government? How does a ’ paltry $3 million a year sound? That's $3 million for all herit- age sites in British Columbia. Of that between $1 million and $1.2 million is earmarked for northern heritage. I know, governments on this continent aren’t enthusiastic about spending money on eso- . teric things like the arts. But heritage ought to be writ large. Heritage tells us where we come from. Our heritage is the story of Pioneers that ought to be re- members long after Gordon Campbell, the premier, is for- gotten. You don’t gamble with your heritage. You nurture it. You marvel at it. You leave it as a ng Barkerville is pure folly legacy to future generations, A society that doesn’t remember its past has little to offer the future. And then there is the eco- nomic aspect. Central and northern British Columbia has been hardest hit by the prov- ince's economic downturn. They don’t need another kick in the teeth. The premier wants to sell up-country communities on the potential benefits of hosting the Olympic Winter Games. A lot of them aren’t buying it. And E guess I can’t blame them. Rather than trying to off- load the most important herit- age site in northern British. Columbia, the government should assure the people of Wells and other area commu- nities that it is committed to the economic future of. what the premier like to call the heartlands. And where, by the way, is John Wilson, the Liberal MLA for the area? He should be screaming blue. murder, but: rocking the boat is not one of his strengths, Take a hint from one of your predecessors, who governed this province for far longer than you probably will, prernier. W.A.C. Bennett, fondly re- membered in your hearélands, was famous for taking a second look. You could do worse. Beyer can be reached at: E-mail: hubert@cootcom.com. Or phone him at (250) 381-6900, Tough driving laws won’t work. SOLICITOR-GENERAL Rich Coleman is offering a number of suggestions to toughen our drinking driving laws with a view to curbing the carnage on our highways. For instance, Coleman pro- poses an automatic 90-day suspension following only two rather than four 24-hour sus- pensions, A good idea in my book, but that’s where it will remain. I can’t see our courts im- plementing tougher laws, Our justice system resembles a family whose china is chipped and cracked from years of raising a family. An adult daughier (the solicitor-gener- al) buys Mom a new set of dishes. Next family get together, the daughter happily sets the dinner table with Mom's gleaming new china. But by the time the family sits down to eat. Mom has quietly re- ’ turned the new china to the cupboard and reset the table with her ald familiar chipped china. Unless lawyers and courts forsake their slavery to prece- dence, Coleman*s new and ME S67 WHAT DO You THINK Pp. OF OUR SUSTAINABLE | Wd DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP 2/ S| CHANGE WaRKSHOP THROUGH BIFOCALS. CLAUDETTE SANDECKI tougher laws will only lead ta more expensive arguments and appeals. Every time a judge in a grievous case actually “gets” the seriousness of the offence and gives a sentence fitting the crime, an appeals court says, “Hey, wait a minute, Back in 1922, for a similar crime a New Brunswick court sentenced the perpetrator to six months in jail. so we'll trim this sentence back to six months,” ' Recently in Vancouver a judge wanted to sentence a 13 Ay DB G, PoeO" AD, nat GREAT DOXGANUTS FOROUR MORNING COFFEE BREAK! "| DROP BY THE CLIMATE FOR PIZZA! young man to serious jail time. Unhappily, though, only a few days earlier another judge had sentenced a young man to house arrest for a similar crime. The second judge felt his hands were tied; he also sentenced his criminal to house arrest. How spineless is that? What we need are manda- tory basic sentences with enough clout to deter the next twit thinking of street racing or random battering. Take the recent case in Vancouver of a young landed immigrant convicted of killing -@ passenger while street rac- ing. The driver got 18 months house arrest. He can go to work, to the doctor, or to school only, Asked how he felt that citizens were outraged by his lenient sentence, he whined, “Bighteen months of staying in the house is no fun for a tee- nager,” or words to that effect. He's a spoiled brat, in- ‘ dulged by rich parents, and now coddied by a B.C. court. Ah, life is good in B.C. when you're a teenager. As an iilustration, take the case of four teenagers sen- tenced to two years of house arrest for killing a man with a baseball bat. Our law says 25 years in jail for murder, Killing aman even with a bat is mur- der from where I sit. So how did the judge arrive at two years house arrest? Did the judge divide 25 years by four. So six years for each bat-wielder. Maybe the teenagers had no previous mur- der convictions. Deduct two years, The bat wasn’t corked; deduct another two years. Thus they end with two years of sleeping until noon. Most tee- agers’ dream come true. Precedence tells me Cole- man’s tough new laws will be whittled down to toothpicks by lawyers who are probably this minute dusting off their library collection to better to search for lenient precedent cases. — What we need is a referen- dum on a range of possible mandatory sentences, like a media poll, tally the results, and go by voters’ wishes. Instead Coleman’s new laws will give us expensive hours of more lawyers’ arguments and appeal court hearings. 0 OR LU 7LY AND FOR DINNER WELL Sar WEN FOR LUNCH WE INATTHETRADITIONAL (sm KNOWLEDGE WORKSHOP FoR MooSE STEW! ANDO THATS How WE DEVELOPED 0uR f SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY: