~~ oor ae ae | ’ A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 18, 1994 TERRACE ; STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C, * V8G 188 TELEPHONE: (604) 633-7283 + FAX: (604) 638-8432 MODEM: 638-7247 Boom times IF ECONOMIST Roslyn Kunin is correct, and there’s every reason to believe she is, Terrace and area is to experience a development boom. As recounted in these pages last week, Ms. Kunin says the area is attractive for its small population, clean air, scenery and low housing costs. Ms. Kunin calls it the wave — a surge of people leaving the lower mainland to escape the pressures of big city life. The wave has already hit the Okanagan — given easy passage by the Coquihalla — and spilled over into the Kootenays. It has swept up Vancouver Island as far north as Port Hardy. Ironically, what those people want to leave is what they might create once they get here —~- more development, more traffic, more of those problems we see each night on the news, What we should do, says Ms. Kunin, is take steps to manage and control the growth to some © extent. She says we need to put into place regula- tions that preserve the existing character which makes the area attractive to those here now and to those who will come. The key to that, Ms. Kunin continues, is for a municipal government to extend its boundaries as wide as possible to have one local government speaking with one voice. That leads to the age old question of what to do with Thornhill, one of the more unique unorganized areas in B.C. Its only form of government is the regional district and its services are provided by a variety of pub- lic and private enterprises. Some argue that Thornhill, which developed as a cheaper housing alternative to Terrace, derives all the benefits of being a municipality without any of the responsi- bility. If Thornhill. were, just.10 miles down the road, it. would be a municipality with: the stan-. dard form of municipal government. Much the same is starting to happen in North Terrace, the rural area up on the bench beyond the city’s boundaries. Both this area and Thorn- hill have an uneasy relationship with Terrace proper and it’s getting more worrisome as the years go by. Amalgamation appears to be the only rational step. Local government types have talked about the possibility for years. It’s time the talk turned into action. Up in smoke CIGARETTE SMUGGLING is apparently one of the biggest cash-only businesses, aside from pine mushroom picking, in the northwest. It’s also illegal, made lucrative by high provincial and federal taxes. Prices have eased somewhat since those taxes were reduced earlier this year but the central fact that American smokes are cheaper than Canadian smokes remains. Although the federal and provincial govern- ments are spending lots of money down south, zippo is happening on the road between Hyder and Stewart, the northwest’s main entry pdint for smuggled cigarettes. It’s truly an undefended border. The RCMP estimates the smuggling activity could be worth as much as $4 million a year. In the opinion of police, the resulting loss in taxes hurts the ability of governments to provide for social and medical services. Surely that’s a rea- son to consider more stringent steps up here. AS) Gone PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS COMMUNITY: Jcff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter OFFICE MANAGER: Rosc Fisher _DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Howie Oram CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charlene Matthews Sarving the Terrace area. Published on Wednesday of each woek by Cariboo Press (1969) Ud, at 464; Lazelle Ave., Terrace, British Columbia. Stories, photographs, illustrations, designs and lypestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of Ihe copyright holders, including Garlboa Press (1969) Lid., 4's ilustration repta services and advertising egancies, Reproduction in whole of In part, without written parmission, s specifically prohibited, Authorized as sacond-dass mail panding the Pos! Office Department, for payment of postage In cash. CONTRI Special thanks to all our contributars and correspondents for thelr time and talents ra NDELA oN DOM, \ LUCIEN BOUCHARD CAN DO IT BETTER... Liberals are getting sleazy VICTORIA — If politics is a noble profession, nobody's told Gordon Campbell about it. Seemingly unable to find the NDP’s soft underbelly, Camp- bell, for the most part, resorts to sleaze in his attacks on the government. Politics should be hard- hitting. Good politicians take no prisoners, but they fight a clean and fair fight. Campbell doesn’t or at least hasn’t done so up to now. Lét me just mention one ex- ample — the Liberal attacks on the NDP over the Vancouver Island Highway agreement with the unions. We’re talking sleaze at its worst. Here’s how Campbell led off a question period recently: “My question is for the premier. The NDP fund-raising “and money-laundering arm has been under criminal investiga- tion and is now before the couris. Your minister of Employment and Invesgnent (Glen Clark) has negotiated a special deal for his former union. ‘Not only has his govern- ment decided to provide $2.1 million for additional slush funds to his union friends, but an additional $1 million is available to his friends under section 21(1) of the Island FR om H CAPITAL | HUBERT BEYER Highway agreement. My ques-| tion to the premier is simply’ this: how can the premier as- sure British Columbians that not one cent of that $3.1 mil- lion in ‘slush funds for his friends is going to go into the NDP’s pockeis?” Now we're into the sleaze stuff. Let me explain. What Campbell is alluding to is a $25-cent-an-hour contribution to the unions’ so-called advan- cement Fund, And I must make it clear that this clause hasn't been invented by the NDP. It has been part of just about every government contract since Bill] Bennett’s days. Money in that fund is jointly administered by trustees of the employers and the employees, and the funds are used to pro- mote the industry, train workers and upgrade workers” skills, It is no slush fund, and the money isn’t going into any party’s pockets. Now, it’s no secret that unions tend to support the NDP. It’s also no secret that some unions contribute to the NDP coffers at election time. But let’s be clear: those contri- butions don’t come out of the advancement funds. Let’s also be clear that big construction companies tend to support so-called free enter- prise parties. And where do you think that money comes from? From profits, some of which are provided courtesy of the taxpayers. of British Columbia, What Campbell doesn’t men- tion, of course, is that .the | agreement the government reached with the unions in- volved in the construction of the Vancouver Island Highway is one of the best deals for the taxpayers ¢ver negotialed by a government. To start with, the unions agreed to a wage reduction of $3 an hour. They also agreed to work 40 hours a week in- stead of the 37-and-a-half hours provided for in their reg- ular contract. The unions further agreed to a no-strike, no-lockout clause for the duration of the project, which is expected to take about four years to complete. In ad- dition to that, the unions agreed to travel to the site on their own time and forego their . contractual right to have a cof- fee break away from the work site. In total, those concessions amount to about $77 million over the life of the agreement, not a bad savings for the tax- . payers. In fact, no Socred government has been able. to- get those kind of concessions in any of its agreements with - unions for big government contracts. To sum it up, for Campbell to call the union advancement fund a slush fund is an affront to decency, and to suggest that the money will, somehow, find its way into NDP party coffers is sleazy in the extreme. 2 To help Campbell over his rough spots as a politician, I'd like to quote the Irish philoso-° - pher and statesman, Edmond Burke. **Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and lilile minds go ill together.” There’s joy in a sandbox Sandboxes are perfect play- things. They’re gender neutral un- like dolis or trucks. ‘Don’t throw dirt in anyone’s face’’ is the only rule for playing with them. They can’t be damaged, taken home by visiting playmates, or destroyed by vandals, They’re cheaper than ant farms, accommodate almost any number of players, and adapt lo satisfy any age group. - They offer boundless stimulation to the imagination, becoming by turns 4 mountain, a beach, a highway, or flour for baking muffins. Because its anchored where Mom wants it, kids have to play where Mom can see them. So far, no law has been passed making a helmel or other safety equipment mandatory, Lacking sharp edges or plastic pieces thal can break off, sandboxes don’t lead to bruises, cuts or slivers. Kids can’t break an arm falling out HEAVY METALS vi THEN THERE'S THE ARCTIC SINK WHICH COLLECTS FROM THE SouTH! THROUGH.BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI or off of them. And unlike swimming pools, they need no cleaning or disinfecting, no safety cover or fencing, and 1 no upkeep. Rain can’t make them rust. Snow can’t ruin or flatten them. Sunshine only sterilizes them, At the end of lhe child’s day, they don’t have to be picked up and carried: into the house like a blanket.or parked in the parage like a bicycle. Even the | pup can’t chew them or dng them off. A genuine Made in Canada sandbox is easily assembled from natural ingredients kind to the environment. Top-oE- the-line -sandboxes have an eight inch layer of fine, clean sand free of rocks, roots, or sharp debris such as glass or wire. To define the sandbox, a low wall is recommended. Peeled and notched cedar or poplar poles make a fine splinter-free perimeter. This offers a kibilz- ing Mom or Grandma a smooth, comfortable perch for those wide-ranging, entertain- ing conversalions conducted between scoops of sand. Kids are so attracted to sand, when no sandbox is available, they’ll migrate to any pocket of fine dirt nearby. As kids on the farm, we appropriated a grass-free rectangle bordered on one side by the path to the barn, on the other side by a | Not 70 MENTION FRADIO-MUCLE IDES TOXAPHENES AND ARCTIC HAZE Ff! OD negueiszar shelterbelt of grown Manitoba maples separating our acreage from the chicken yard where every year Mom raised one hundred chicks. Throughout the summer I was six, we interlaced ribbons of roads and highways for our toy cars and trucks, scraping down to hard surface with the garden hoe. This unearthed millions of small blue worms which = attracted ~==©Mom’s marauding Barred Rocks. I found my fun dredging for a flock of frantic fowl who sur- rounded me poised for any sign of lunch. My older brother clucked in despair. Highway maintenance occupicd his summer, Sandboxes fail only as com- mercial products. They can’t be gift wrapped or shipped. They’re unsuiled to apartment living. And any household is sufficiently stocked with only one, But if you want to know where your toddlers are, give them a sandbox. AH, JUST THE TOWN EFFLUENT PIPE , Wow AST WAS SAYING...