Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, Ssplomber 4, 2002
S
ESTABLISHED APRIL.27, 1988
PUBLISHER: ROD LINK
ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2
TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432
WEE: www.terracestandard.com
EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com
shout it out
ONE OF Gordon Campbell’s more impressive
moments when he was opposition leader came
when he criticized the former NDP government
for spending tax money on advertising provin-
cial programs.

The idea of using tax money to tell taxpayers
how their money was being spent was all about
politics and wasn’t right, said Mr. Campbell,
particularly given strained public finances.

But now, in a remarkable reversal of that
earlier position, Mr. Campbell is doing exactly
the same thing through TV commercials on
health care which cost $435,000. B.C. Liberals,
perhaps a bit frustrated and thinking they aren’t
being appreciated, will tell you they have to
spend tax money in order to get their message
out about changes in health care.

Well, they’re wrong. A case in point is the
$1.4 million being spent to open a regional dia-
lysis centre at Mills Memorial Hospital. As it
turns out, the intent was to keep the dialysis ap-
proval tucked away and out of public sight until
it and other health care projects around the pro-
vince could be packaged in a grand announce-
ment and released at the convenience of the
provincial government later this month.

The northwest is the largest geographical area
of the province without a dialysis service. Given
the prospect of a better quality of life for
people with kidney failure who might otherwise
have to uproot their lives and move to a place
where there is dialysis, a service here is over-
due. We also have.a ‘higher rate of diabetes than
elsewhere. Diabetes is a precursor to kidney

!

kind of service in the years to come:

Had it not been for a phone call to news out-

lets from Skeena Liberal MLA Roger Harris in
August, northwest residents might still be in the
dark about this vital and long-awaited project.

Mr. Harris has been bird-dogging the dialysis
project since his election. He did exactly the
right thing in calling the moment tenders went
out for architectural drawings.

In the big leagues of public relations, manipu-
lation of information is called “spin.” It’s cyni-
cal and wasteful, particularly when it comes to
public sector health care. For somebody in Vic-
toria to want to stage an announcement is con-
descending toward northwesterners and immor-
al.

Those phone calls Mr. Harris made didn’t cost
the taxpayer one cent. They resulted in the ap-
propriate news stories telling taxpayers what
was happening. No need for hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in fancy ads.

Thumbs up to Mr. Harris for poking a pin in
the spin balloon. Keep on not listening to those
people in Victoria, sir. Now, about the Olym-
pics ...

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
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Serving tha Tarraca and Thombill area. Published on Wednesday of each weak at 3210 Clinton Street,
Tortace, British Columbia, V8G §R2.

Stories, photographs, iWustrations, designs and typestytes in tha Terrace Standard are the proparty of the
copyright holders, Including Garboo Press (1969) Lid,, its lilustration repro services and advertising

agencies.
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Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
for their time and talents

Ao: Workers’

problems, thus highlighting. the need fot this :

VICTORIA - Looks like Gor-
don Campbell, the Premier, is
poised to scuttle what's left of
British Columbia's shipbuild-
ing industry.

The B.C. Ferry Corporation
has put to intemational tender
about $26 million worth of
conversion work on the Queen
of Coquitlam, the first of five
large ferries that need a major
overhaul.

Question: Is the premier
nuts? Campbell's hatred for
the fast ferries, generally re-
garded as a fiasco, an assess-
ment with which | still dis-
agree, shouldn’t be transferred
to the repair of our traditional
ferry vessels, nor the construc-
tion of new ones.

British Columbia has the
skilled workforce to build and
refit ships. And the companies
could certainly use the work.

The Shipyard General
Federation: is under-
*/standably upset” about the gov-
. erament's apparent determina-

tion to farm out the work to

Asian countries such as Korea,
Singapore and China.

“We hear their concerns,”
says labour minister Graham
Bruce. “But at the same time,
we need to get the B.C. Ferry
Corp. back on line and work-
ing as well.”

For the life of me, I don’t
understand what this minister-
ial gobbledygook has to do

MOVING GEORGE Little’s
distinctive heritage home
downtown to become a tourist
attraction makes sense, no
matter how you spell it.

Prince Rupert with its Cow
Bay isn’t the only town draw-
ing tourists through its heritage
buildings.

Nanton, Alberta enjoys
steady tourist traffic through
its antique and art shaps
housed in historical buildings.
Instead of bulldozing a former
hotel and an emporium, Nan-
ton capitalizes on the build-
ings’ o!d time character ta
show off art, antiques, and
wrought iron wares crafted by
2002’s Welder-of-the-year.

The stores are in close
proximity. You can walk out of
one into another, along a dusty
sidewalk right out of John
Wayne western,

Besides their chock-a-biock
inventory of pre-40’s furniture,
china, utensils, tools, toys and
miscellaneous goods, the hotel
itself focused my attention.
The narrowness of its hallway,
stairs, windows, and airless

BACK-To-ScHOOL SUPPLY LISTS AREN'T
WHAT THEY USED To BE: BINDER, PEN,
PENCIL, PAPER, ERASER, CHALK, LOCKER,
BLACKBOARD, CHAIR,
DESK, PHOTOCOPIER,

OVERHEAD PROJECTOR,
VCR, FILE CAGINET,
Y\ FLOOR POLISHER...

~ HUBERT BEYER

with the issue at hand.

It is estimated that B.C.
Ferries’ budget for repair alone
would create 1,500 jobs in
B.C. lf B.C. ferries goes off-
shore, those people won't pay
taxes or purchase consumer
goods, sending the economy a
little further into the. dumpster.

If the government also
awards contract for new ves-
sels to offshore companies, it
may have to pay up to 25 per
cent import duty to the federal
government.

Do the math: not only will
we lose our own ship-building
and repair capacity, we’re
going to pay Ottawa for get-
ting ferries built in countries
where people get paid peanuts
and working conditions
wouldn’t begin to muster

THROUGH BIFOGALS.
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

rooms, scarcely big enough for
a Kitty to turn around in floor
length petticoats, all drew my
attention.

Much of their merchandise
is affordable; the unslick
showroom adds to the feeling
you can indulge any whim. For
me, that’s fountain pens, kept
out of reach behind glass.
Prices ranged from $18 to $25
for Shaeffers and Scriptos, in
cheap-looking red, yellow, or
green plastic.

. ) PARENTS TAKING a,
ANIT FOR SCHOOL sue

= S = =

ee

Workers’ Compensation Board
regulalions.

With no viable workforce
left in B.C., ships that break
down and are now serviced by
local shipyards, will probably
have to be refitted in Seattle.

Even if you believe that the
fast ferries project was a finan-
cial disaster, what Campbell is
about to do will have far worse
consequences. The loss of the
shipbuilding industry will have
a negative effect year after
year, after year.

But why am I not surprised?
Campbell and logic don't al-
ways go together.

When in opposition, he
lambasted the NDP govern-
ment for two budgets that were
balanced, while his govern-
ment is working to towards the
highest deficit budgets in the
province’s history.

On the one hand, he plays a
tight-fisted and mean Scrooge
with welfare recipients, nurses,
doctors, teachers and public
servants, but has no problems
with Vancouver’s bid for the
Winter Olympics.

I don’t really want to casti-
gate him on the Olympic
issue, because I like the idea
myself. But then, I don’t en-
gage in non-stop target-shoot-
ing practices against just about
every sepment of B.C. society.

I grabbed the chance to
look for a glass pitcher similar
to one Mom used to serve
milk, quart capacity, light en-
ough for kids to pour from,
square so it won’t tip, no hard
to wash corners. Durable.

I found three sizes, in three
different stores, at three differ-
ent prices. For $15 I bought a
pitcher exactly like Mom’s
with a star design on each
side.

| also walked over a four-
foot square furnace grate in the
middle of the hotel’s ground
floor, In school, we dried our
skates and mittens on one.

I had described the school
grate to our granddaughters but
nothing tells it like a photo.
With permission of the store
manager, ! photographed the
grate with my husband stand-
ing beside it to give the kids a
better idea of its dimensions.

The July Sunday we toured
Nanton was hot. After three
hours inching along crowded
displays, careful not to bump
visitors or delicate merchan-

ot

BUDGET CONSTRAIN
= PNM SCHOOLS

eo

An |

WE

Ae z\

Keep ship iobs in this province

To get back to the topic at

hand, to let Asian countries re-
pair and build our ships is not
only asinine, it’s immoral.

There is nothing we can do
tight now about the U.S. sur- -
charge on Canadian lumber .
imports, There is not much we
can do about our languishing
mining industry. But there is
something the Campbell and
his government can do far the
shipbuilding industry.

] don’t much like the idea of ;
giving jobs to the Koreans or :
Singaporeans or Chinese. I
want those jobs to go to our !
people, and [ dare say that
most British Columbians would
agree with that sentiment. :

The work may turn out to
cost more, but the money
would be earned by British Co-
lumbians and spent by them
Tight here,

If against all common Srreet
the government “exports.
jobs and condemns our “thi
building industry to death in
the process, 1 suggest we
should go shopping offshore for
more sensible politicians.

There must be some smarter
ones around than this sorry
bunch.

Beyer can be reached at:
E-matl: hubert@coolcam.com;
Tel (250) 3812-6900;. Web
hitp://www.hubertbeyer.com ©

It was a walk through the past

dise, we visited a Dutch cof-
feehouse known for its hippie
atmosphere.

Customers are welcome to
sit, chat, read magazines or
newspapers left by others, even
play board games. A sticky
deck of cards, checkerboard,
and a jar of wooden checkers
were lined up on the window-
sill behind our 24 inch table.

Dark, almost black panel-
ling and sturdy built-in seating
along the walls gives a feeling
of enclosed calm, until metal
chair legs scrape on tile. The
indoor temperature made me
shiver.

We helped ourselves to
cutlery, cream and sugar from
a tray set out on a hutch, as
though we were visiting a fa-
vourite aunt.

Fortified by iced tea and
saskatoon pie, we resumed an-
tiquing. Touring antique shops
never ranked as entertainment
until f reminisced with my bro-
ther as we examined ‘ttems
from our childhood, displayed’
in heritage homes. oe

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