- A4-The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 4, 1994 TERRACE. STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Avec., Terrace, B.C. * V8G 188 TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432 MODEM: 638-7247 The great leap IN THE 1950s Chairman Mao called it The Great Leap Forward, It was but one of several plans by the Chinese Communist leader to move his country from its rural base to that of a mod- em industrialized state. As with most of Chairman Mao’s ideas the great leap turned into the great stumble, resulting in widespread rack and ruin. Two weeks ago we were presented with Premier Mike Harcourt’s version of the above — The Forest Renewal Plan. At $2 billion and change over the next five years, the plan was greeted with virtual province wide acclaim by the major players in the forest industry. As much as the government would have us think otherwise, the Forest Renewal Plan and its Forest Practices Code counterpart represent the first visible signs of the next election campaign. Even one year ago it seemed the NDP would be willing to stake its re-election chances on the settlement of land claims. But things in that de- partment are going nowhere — or at least nowhere in a fashion that could be boiled down to a few snappy slogans suitable for mass con- sumption. So this took the government to a new plan. Big government nowadays means big concepts and this $2 billion one fits the bill nicely. By next spring the big push will be on. There'll have been a year of public relations preparation. There'll be people working out in the bush. The forest industry will be happy the government didn’t come down a lot harder on slapping on the tax to pay for the renewal plan. It’s an even bet one forest company will let itself be beaten up by the forest practices code as a favour to the provincial government. With'all thisin place, the province will then in- trdduce’’a godd’ news budget in early 1995. The combination of rosy financial news and the forest package makes for irresistible election material. Expect an election call by late spring, certainly before school gets outin June. Great leaps require great chances. Mr. Harcourt ‘has done well in his planning, With a steady provincial economy, other parties will be hard put to convince voters to choose otherwise. Best of all, the forest industry is actually helping to fi- nance the key part of the government’s election campaign by paying for the forest renewal plan. Bad medicine THE B.C. Pharmacy Association has stepped over the line of good taste with its TV commer- cial protesting changes the provincial govern- ment is making to its Pharmacare plan. Granted, the scene of an elderly woman sitting in a nightgown on her bed with hands clutched together in a terrified fashion is effective. Putting a message across is the aim of all advertising. But this particular message by a well-financed lobby group simply serves to stir what fears and uncertainties that naturally exist in the minds of all people. The narrative is odious. People will be ‘“‘more at risk,’’ ‘‘more alone’’ and ‘‘more in the dark,’’ intones a somber voice. If that doesn’t raise the prospect of dead elderly people littering the bedrooms of the province, nothing will. What is particularly galling is the pharmacy as- sociation’s deliberate targeting of elderly people who are at the best of times vulnerable to all manner of things. Gv ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L, Hamm PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter. OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher _DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Howie Cram CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charlene Matthews Serving the Tettace area, Published on Wednesday of each weak by Cariboo Press {1969} Ltd, at 4647 Laratla Ave, Terrace, British Columbia. Soe Les Slories, photographs, illustrations, designs and lypastylas in the Tetracé Standard are Ihe property of the copyright helders, Including Cariboo Pross (1969) Ltd, #’s Mllustrathin. repre. services. and adverlising Reproduction in whale of In part, without written permission, is specticaly pechibited. : Auhorized as second-class mall ponding the Pos! Office Department, for payment af postaga in cash. PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link CON kat 1 Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents. “HE'S TRULY BICUCTURAL,.. °% Ss ty NE ESS gy N 1 “HE ROOTS FOR MONTREAL AND HE SWEARS IN ENGLISH . WWE) “ Sa ~~ RK _ eS > \ Liberals missing chances VICTORIA — Some people never leam. The Liberals are firmly and inextricably lodged in that category. More than two years in opposition, and they still fall over their own feet in question period, Question period is the one component of the legislative agenda that isn’t controlled by the government. A good oppo- sition can make the govern- ment squirm with embarrass- ment. And nobody did it better than the NDP. During its 20 years in the political wilderness, the NDP had honed the question-period stralegy to a fine art. Day after day, hit men like Moe Sihota and Glen Clark used to hound the government. Not‘ so the Liberals. Even when Attorney General Colin Gabelmann gave them a rela- tively good target recently by Tefusing to step aside during the investigation by a special Prosecutor into whether or not he did something wrong when he filed an affidavit which con- tained some misinformation, the Liberals missed by a mile. Not only did they jump into the fray too laic, but by the time they got going, the special prosecutor ruled that Gabel- mann had done nothing wrong. Unbelievably, the Liberals had managed to make themselves look worse than the govem- ae ee FROM: THE CAPITAL. HUBERT BEYER ment. And that takes some: doing. A few days lates, the Liberals came back for more crow. The opposition had learned, said Gary Farrell-Collins, that a certain Tim Gallagher, ‘‘an NDP hack and former employ- ee of MP John Rodriguez,’’ was hired as a communications officer by B.C. 21. Was the job advertised, and who else ap- plied, Farrell-Collins wanted to know. Clark replied he was delighted to talk about his min- istry’s hiring practices, Bill Vander Zalm’s former deputy minister, he said, was now his deputy minister, A former Socred caucus researcher was in his ministry’s communica- tions department, and several former ministerial assistant to Socred cabinet minister were working for him now. At that point, Farrell-Collins should have realized that dis- cretion is sometimes the better part of valor, but he plowed on. Another NDP hack, he said, had apparently found her way into Clark’s ministry. Maria Ciarniello, ‘‘fresh from the now-decimated NDP head- quarters in Otlawa,’’ had been parachuted into Clark’s minis- try as a communications of- ficer. To the pounding of desks by his colleagues, Clark replied that the director of his minis- try’s communications depart- ment used to be ministerial as- sistant to the late Social Credit cabinet minister Jack Davis. And Bill Wander Zalm's for- mer. personal secretary. had recently been hired as a policy analyst for the B.C. 21 com- miitiee and was doing an ex- cellent job. And who knows, he said, the four Liberal staff members recently fired by their caucus, may well apply to his ministry for a job, including the one who is now suing the Liberal caucus. Talk about lobbing a live grenade back at your attacker, The issue Clark alluded io is not one the Liberals should be proud of. You may recall the picce I did about the shoddy and unceremonious dismissal of the four Liberal caucus workers. The four came to work one day and were confronted by an employee of Peat Marwick, a | management consulting firm, who instructed them to pack their personal belongings and leave the Liberal premises. Their things — delivered to them later by’ courier, The caucus had hired Peat. Marwick at a cost of $4,000 to ©: do the job ‘‘professionally.”” It tumed out to be a professional ; job alright. One woman wasn’t: even allowed to take some .. cheese out of the Fridge or lake a note with phone numbers of friends an relatives from: the” wall. ‘One of the four, -Mary ~“.. . Thurtell, has filed suit in B.C... - 25 Supreme Courl for wrongful, dismissal. The writ, naming, the Liberal caucus, --caucus chairman Val Anderson and | Liberal leader Gordon Camp- — bell as defendants, was served last Monday. The other three may soon follow sult. I wonder what these people would do to their opponents, considering the way they treat — (heir own employees. I also wonder whal makes the Liber- .. als think they have the answer the province's problems when (hey can’t even ask a good question, The day Cliff dropped in TERRACE’S 1972 airshow lives in my memory though I didn’t altend. At the time, we opcralcd a | campground between Highway 16 and the Skeena River 30 miles eas! of town. Just after supper July 27, a small airplane tippytoed in from the highway, its Fragile wingtips almost nicking the alder along the driveway. I prelended nonchalance as I greeted this newest visitor. Pilot Cliff Howard was cleancut, fit, and so impeccab- ly tailored I longed to bounce a dime off his polo shirt. Hailing from Seattle, he was a Boeing lest pilot on his way to take part In Terrace’s airshow next day. He had been overflying the Yellowhead when a sudden loss in oll pressure forced him to land. Noticing the clot of recreational vehicles in our campsite, he had glided lower for a look until he could read Pioncer Campsite in ten inch SO THAT'S ...UH mo HOW WE...UH me FEEL... THANKS! 1 CLAUDETTE SANDECKI black letters on a sheet of Tecycled plywood used to roof one of our outbuildings. We escorted his overgrown mosquito to a parking area away from campers under a yardlight and helped him tether its little wheels to several hefty rocks, one of which was banana shaped. Howard per- formed a scrics of tuck-in pro- cedures for the night, then thumbed a ride to town. Next moming carly he YOUR TRAPPER FRIENP DOESN'T EXPRESS HIMSELF VERY WELL /hiy retumed in a rented car bring- ing his mechanic and his wife. Early rising campers with coffee mugs in hand propped a boot on the campsite fence rail and pondered the rarity of a $35,000 stunt plane camped nearby while the mechanic probed the plane’s innards, Named T-Plus-[, the plane was a Taylorcraft converted from a two-sealer to a single, powered by an oversized engine that could have him air- borne and flying upside down before he was half way along a runway. Listed on its fuselage were the names of half a dozen air- shews Howard had performed at, including Abbotsford, B.C.,, and Reno, Nevada. He thrilled airshow spec- tators with his inverted flying. One of his crowd-wowing stunts was to cut two ribbons Stretched across the runway from two aluminum poles. The top ribbon was abort 18 feet above the ground, the lower ribbon Five fect lower than the first. Flying inverted, he’d first cut the lower ribbon, then return - still flying upside down - to cut the top ribbon. : As soon as the mechanic had -: solved the oil pressure prob- lem, Howard taxied the metal - midget back to the highway, and once no cars were in sight,’ was airborne almost instantly, Three days later following the airshow, on his flight home. to Seattle, Howard circled low over our campsite before noon . while I was scrubbing washrooms. I hurried outside, flailing my cleaning rag like a Canuck fan He dipped his wings in salute before droning away toward Smithers. Next year, when he returned to Terrace for the 1973 air- show, Pioncer Campsite, Ter- © race, B.C. had been added to the list of names on his plane's fuselage. se I have a memory and a souvenir rock. LOGGING, ANYTHING HE CAN boll MAYBE, BUT HE'S AGENIUS IN THE BUSH! NTING TRAPPING GUIDING FISHING, PROSPECTING would. be: 72.