ea A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wecinesdy, December 5, 2001 | 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 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net Bad idea » WAY BACK before the spring 1996 provincial election then-opposition leader Gordon Campbell had a plan, There were too many Members of the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Campbell decided. His solution was to reduce the number of rural ri- dings. Modern communication devices such as fax machines, email and the like would overcome any geographic disadvantage. Fewer MLAs- would also be cheaper. That plan arguably helped Mr. Campbell lose the 1996 election in the rural areas and it was junked as a B.C. Liberal policy. Now, Ms. Adriane Carr of the Green Party has her own plan. And that is to change the way we elect MLAs to a combination of geographic area and popular vote. To do so would require fewer ridings by geographic area. Her reasoning is that while the B.C. Liberals received 62 per cent of the popular vote, they have 77 of 79 MLAs in the le- gislature. Consequently, that’s not good for de- mocracy. Under Ms. Carr’s plan, the current legislature would number 43 B.C. Liberal MLAs, 16 NDP ones and nine from the Green party. It would be, _ Ms. Carr says, a better reflection of how people actually voted this past spring. Perhaps it would. But it would also serve to weaken the north by reducing the number of seats from rural areas. The effect would be to make _ northern ridings even larger in terms of geogra- | phy than they are now. And that can’t be good. : The north is already a poor cousin when it comes : to the overpowering south. To be sure, Ms. Carr’s plan would see more opposition MLAs in the legislature and some of them would undoubtedly be from rural areas, * Yet'there is a lot to be said for voting for people to represent a specific geographic area. The elec- ted person then becomes responsible for that ri- ding and must learn it and its challenges inside and out, Creating larger ridings requiring more travel would make that task even more difficult. : Modern communication is nice, but it doesn’t re- place the essential element of democracy — perso- nal contact with your elected representative. As well, increasing the size of ridings would : weaken the hold people have on their elected re- ; presentatives, driving a further wedge into the , connection between the legislature in the south - and those of us who live in the north. Democracy is tough enough as it is without creating even larger ridings, making the connec- tion between voting and representation even mote tenuous, MLAs would also be less inclined to bear down on specific problems in specific areas. . Their need for support in an election from these areas would be reduced simply because they would have a much larger region from which to draw votes. And that would further weaken the concept of direct elected representation. PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS: Jeif Nagel NEWS/SPORTS Sarah Zimmerman . NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay ’ CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Terri Gordon “ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: '¥..” Mark Beaupre & Stacy Swetlikoff >: TELEMARKETER: Stacy Swetlikoff ~” DARKROOM/COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur ‘AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik . SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $55,15(+$3,86 GST) per year; Seniors $48.85 (+$3.42 GST); - Out of Province $61.98 (+$4.34 GST) Outside of Canada (6 months) $152.34 (+$10.66 GST) MEMBER OF B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, € GANACIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION ¢ On CN AL coon Seen Sores Heterrd Celeebee pet Fobes 2001 WINNER CCNA BETTER NEWSPAPERS COMPETITION AND B.C. PRESS COUNCIL (www. bepresscouncll.org) Serving the Terrace and Thomhil area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 2210 Clinton Streat, Tarrace, British Columbia, V8G 52. Stores, photographs, Mlustrations, designs and typestyles in tha Tarrace Standard are the property of the copyright holders, Including Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd, ite WNhistratlon repto services and advertising agencies, . Rleprodursion In whole of in part, without written pennission, fs specifically prohibited. Authorized as second-class mail pending tha Post Office Department, for paymant of postaga in cash, Special thanks to ail our contributors and correspondents 7 for their time and talents These guys are VICTORIA - Gordon Camp- bell, the premier, promised a “New Era,” but not a better one, as a writer of a letter to the editor to my daily newspa- per observed last week. If } interpreted the election sloganeering by the Liberals correctly, they were going to usher in an era of prosperity. No more budget deficits. No Sir. Deficits are what Socialists produce because of their inep- titude when it comes to run- ning government. The Liberals were going to do things differently. Hell, it wasn’t that difficult. Make British Columbia more busi- ness-friendly, do away with a lot of those pesky regulations that discourage investors from putting their money into B.C., give some massive tax cuts that will benefit the folks who tun the economy, and, pronto, happy days are here again. Well, zeality rarely resem-. bles political promises made before an election. The only political promise in history worth its weight in honesty was that of Winston Churchill, who promised noth- ing but “blood and sweat and tears.” While the NDP was in power, it gave us eight conse- cutive deficits, followed by two balanced budgets. Every budget day, the Liberal oppo- sition screamed bloody mur- OH THATS EDS CLONE, NED. ED HAS HIM FOR SPARE PARTS. BUT I'M THINKING OF USING ED FOR SPARE PARTS INSTEAD. TURNS OuT NED'S A BETTER. BRIDGE PLAYER. FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER der, saying that things would be different if only British Co- lumbians gave them a chance. This past spring, the Lib- erals got their wish.-The voters gave them a landslide man- date to prove themselves, The NDP had been so badly discredited that it was not un- common for average working. stiffs to, say theyswill vote Bibs, “y: igs: the yaccumulated | leben {bites do beltobrap imiftic. | / eral in the upcoming:election”: . 1 saw hard-hat guys, work- ing for Skeena Cellulose, pub- licly say on TV they will vote for the Liberals. Ditto for pub- lic servants. Even though I had consist- ently made 2 case in my col- wmns that the NDP needed to be defeated because it had be- come too arrogant and lost iouch not only with the gen- eral public, but its care sup- porters, [ thought at the time that these folks better be care- iy THE ‘SHAPE OF "THINGS TO COME... ike the last ones ful for what they wish for, lest it become true. One could already sense that the defeat of the ruling NDP would be so massive that in its wake, the democratic process itself would be jeopar- dized. My foreboding has certainly been born out. Free of any meaningful parliamentary op- position and faced only with sycophantic little admonitions from main street media editor- ials, the all-powerful Liberal government of British Colum- bia is tiding rough-shod over this province. Finance minister Gary Col- lins, has just told us that we are facing a $2 billion deficit for the current fiscal year. These are the same people who crucified the NDP for its last two budgets, which were balanced, Let’s talk about another, = Year after year, “the “opposition” Liberals criticized the NDP government for increasing the province’s overall debt. We just learned that the provincial debt will rise ta $37 billion from $34 billion. In other words, nothing has changed. To keep the budget deficit as low as passibie, the government writes off some costs to the provincial debt. So where’s the “New Era.?” Right up there with Harry Pot- ter or Grimm’s fairy tales, " QIRICE OF that’s where it is, Whal we have done is ex- change one inept government that at least had a modicum of compassion for the less fortu- nate ~ although that, too, is de- batable — for another inept gov- ermmeni that doesn’t seem .to give a damn for anyone, except its friends who profited from’ the tax cuts. And don’t tell me I’m an NDP supporter, because I’ll e- mail you dozens of columns in which I slammed the NDP and advocated its defeat. No, I’m not an NDP suppor- ter, but neither can I support this Liberal government. In fact, Pm with my good and late friend and colleague, Jim Bra- han of solid Irish stock, whose motto was “Tf it’s for the gov- ernment, I’m against it.” Last thought: The NDP was continuously accused of mak- ing, sconomic forecasts that w' months” ago, Collins predicted economic. growth of 2,3 percent for 2001 and 3.2 percent for 2002. Some eco- nomists warned then that the forecast was toc optimistic. The results are in and Col- lins was wrong: The projections are now for 0.9 percent this year, falling to 0.6 percent next year, Beyer can be reached at: E-mail: hubert@coolcom.com; Tel (250) 381-6900; Web Attp:/fwww. hubertbeyer.com Trivia fo LISTENING TO CBC Radio and reading The Provirice tea- ches you trivia such as this difficult to fit into daily con- versations: The best mouse bait is hard cheese welded (o the trap with Crazy Glue. Fireworks are not visible in the North. Bananas are a herb, and the banana is a berry. Not a tree, the banana shoots up bushy from a rhizome-like celery. In Winnipeg, researchers are squeezing the spit out of mosquitoes to develop a bite vaccine, Here’s how they extract the insect’s spit: they take a mos- quito, wet it so it can't fly and stick it on a piece of paper with Vaseline. Next they take a tiny capillary tube, inject water into the tube, and force the tube inte the mosquito’ S mouth. The pest thinks that..the water trickling down is blood; ‘THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI so it bites. The water then drains off and about an hour later a tiny dab of saliva is left in the bottom of a container. Researchers have conciu- ded blinking your eyes, twid- dling your thumbs, even chew- ing gum can help you lose weight. A weight. lifter claims if you spit: for 20 minutes you ci Fe can lose a quarter of a pound, Codfish smell by the whis- kers on their chin, Alcatraz gave inmates hot showers to reduce their ability io withstand the cold waters of San Francisco Bay if they tried to escape from the island prison by swimming. All of Canada’s canvas postal bags are repaired in Kingston, Ontario by peniten- tiary inmates. While wrongly imprisoned for murder, Guy Paul Morin repaired postal bags every day. It is illegal to fly on a com- mercial airline with cremated ashes in a cookie tin, To leave them more floor space, the Japanese build re- frigerators into their floors. Figure skater Gary Beacom steps out on the ice during competitions without a single - move planned. He lets his imagination guide his feet, On the other hand, Morde- -a cold winter's day cai Richler, who published more than 20 books, half of them fiction, claimed to poss- ess no imagination whatever. Samuel Clemens, author of Tom Sawyer, took his nom de plume from the call of Missis- sippi river pilots. Mark Twain signified a depth of two fa- thoms or 12 feet, just barely safe water for riverboats. And in Jakarta, Indonesia, where the law says you must have at least three people in your car to use their high occu- pancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, street kids ride along for 50 cents, take a bus back for 15 cents. Any one of these facts could start a lively exchange of ideas and opinions. But short of jumping in apropos of nothing, how do you lead into the sub- ject? If 1 waited for a cocktail party I’d' never share them.*”