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Cassiar crunch

Winston Churchill once said that if a
person isn’t a socialist when he’s young,
there’s something wrong with his heart.
But if he’s a socialist when he’s older,
there’s something wrong with his head.

That’s an apt saying to apply against
the major financial problem the provin-
cial government faced over the Cassiar

mine.

Cassiar is a sign of of the 1990s.
Governments don’t have the money to
continue merrily along with the financ-
ing of large development projects as
they’ve done for. the past
decades. Governments don’t even have
the money anymore for the most basic of
health and education services. In fact,
we'll be coughing up much higher taxes
as the decade progresses to pay for what
governments have spent in the past,

The problem is we’ve become far too
dependent upon governments to give us
money whenever we want it. And despite
the trumpeting of free enterprise,
businesses have been no exception.
They’ve been at least equal to and
sometimes ahead of other special interest
groups in the lineup at the government

cash register.

The previous provincial government
gladly forked over $20 million to Cassiar
in 1988 and guaranteed another $5
million loan last year. When the mine
began to sink in a sea of debt, it returned
again for yet more money. Things
weren’t heiped much when it became ap-

parent that the company wasn't com-
pletely open and forthright about its true

several

financial picture. This was compounded
by doubt that what the company said it
needed to keep open, wasn’t going to be
enough for continued operation.

There’s a tendency to regard such
things by using a short, two-word ex-
pression: ‘‘Doo-doo happens.’? But the
overall tendency to assume that the
public purse is available for loans to
businesses and industry is extremely
costly and dangerous. Loans are made
on the basis of risk. The public’s money
is too precious and too limited to be ex-
posed to such risks.

The provincial government acted pro-
perly in deciding to put the Cassiar mine
into receivership. Its decision affected
the lives of a lot of people, but there
comes a time when that is unavoidable.

Be nice, eh?

There’s this thing out there called
political correctness, Put simply it’s the
concept that we’re all bad and must pay
for the accumulated sins of hundreds of

ment is s the Canadian Broadcasting Cor-
poration. It pays inordinate attention to
every special interest group that says it
has a problem — real or otherwise.

So why then, every four years, does
this same corporation pound away at
Canadian athletes during the Olympics?
Watching the mother corporation’s
coverage of the games gives the impres-

another.

ing.

sion of one national disaster after

Only one month ago it was considered
a miracle if skater Kurt Browning could — behold.
walk upright, yet alone participate in the
_ games. So when Mr. Browning falls dur-

ing competition, the hounds start bay-

7

The idea of the games is that athletes
give it their best. If that best is sixth or
seventh place, so be it. Better the CBC — romanow, Ontario’s Bob Rae
concentrate on the intent of the games
instead of exposing our athletes to im-
mense public scrutiny. To do otherwise
simply isn’t Canadian.

The name game

‘Yn battle or business,

whatever the game,

in law or in love, it is never

the same;

fn the struggle for power, or

the scramble for welath,

Let this be your motto —

Rely on yourself!

For, whether the prize be

a ribbon or throne,

The victor ishe who can
“ga it alone!”

— John Godfrey Saxe

Self-reliance is wonderful it
it’s not taken too far, We pump
our own gas, We teach our own
kids. We're talking of taking
our own lives, What's next?
Delivering our own babies?

St. Paul’s Hospital in Van-
couver has Canada’s first
maternity ward offering com-
bined mother-baby care, Babies
aren’t taken away to a nursery
at night. Fathers are encouraged
to stay as long as they want to
help out. To that end, the
hospital is buying cots for sleep-
over fathers.

Ducky.

New fathers, in their
euphoria, offer themselves as

live-in nannies. At nanny wages"

and accommodations. They
volunteer to diaper their offspr-
ing, rub their wife’s back, and
fetch her ice water, Meanwhile,
administration rubs its hands
over the salary saving of
volunteer staff.

Until recently, B.C, hospitals
hired registrars whose duty it
was to promptiy and properly
fill out a Notice of Record for

each birth. It, together with the -

doctor’s Record of a Live Birth;
went directly to Vital Statistics
in Victoria.

Through
Bifocais
by Claudette Sandecki

Mills Memorial Hospital off-
loads the registrar’s duties on
the mother and government
agent, thereby trimming its
operating costs two dollars per
birth.

New mothers leave hospital
with a form to fill in, notarize,
and return to the government
agent, Victoria gets the doctor's
record from the hospital, then
Keeps and eye out for the
mother’s form. The two forms
are matched iike torn halves of
a dollar bill, Then a birth cer-
tificate can be issued.

Time is money except in
government, Vicloria admits
the process was quicker before,
(They plead No Comment when
asked ‘‘Wasn’t is cheaper?’’) If
the second form isn’t received
within 30 days, the family is
contacted by mail. Yet 10 per-
cent of births aren't registered
for eight weeks, or longer,
Some, not until the child is
ready to begin school or to app-
ly for a passport. A birth cer-
tificate is needed then,

Organized crime values birth
certificates as a prized common-
dity, the open sesame to
precious benefits — passports,
drivers’ licenses, social in-
surance numbers, old age pen-
sions, university educations. By.
eliminating. hospital registrars,
British Columbia offers the

“nurses,

underworld this inviting
loophole — a blank legal docu-
ment.

Why?

In Montana (and probably
every other American state)
newborns may not leave the
hospital until their births are
registered.. And any hospital
that takes longer than ten days
to shoot the forms along to
Vital Statistics in Helena is sub-

ject to a fine of from $25 to
$500.

With hospitals’ do-it-yourself
trend — live-in fathers acting as
. Mothers acting as
registrars — soon, when a
mother in labour checks in, she
could be handed rubber gloves,
vise-grips, and a rear view mir-
ror,

NDP. Tories switch

their philosophy

VICTORIA — Despite some
upbeat comments from the
participants in the recent first
ministers’ meeting on the
economy, the event was an ex-
ercise in futility.

True, watching British Col-
umbia’s NDP premier lecture
the country’s Tory prime
minister on responsible finan-
cial management was a sight to

Jt also must have struck alt
‘but the: most. partisan of:.,

viewers “watching the opening :

statements that the three NDP
premiers looked very im-
pressive, compared to their
Tory and Liberal counterparts,
Saskatchewan's Roy

and B.C,’s Mike Harcourt
were clearly the most credible
of the lot. And without speak-
ing ill of the politically dead,
one couldn’t hep hut note,
with some relief, that British
Columbia was represented by a
premier whose grasp of
economic reality goes beyond
wanting to sell the family
business.

Aside from that, nothing
was accomplished, Harcourt
came away from the con-
ference with little or nothing.
His appeal to Prime Minister
Mulroney to lift the cap on,
social transfer payments to the
provinces went unheeded,

Harcourt's promise that —
British Columbia would spend
the entire $150 million accru-
ing from increased transfer
payments on getting British
Columbians back to work

' evidently failed to make the

necessary impression on
Mulroney.

The other premiers didn’t
fare any better. They all had
come with tentative proposals
to get the economy maving
again, but the best they got
was the promise of another
first ministers’ meeting n
Toronto, six or eight weeks
from now. And I wouldn't
hold my breath for that
meeting to produce any better
resulis than the first one,

Perhaps the prime minister
intends to bring about
economic renewal, starting
with the travel sector, by mak-

From the
Capital
by Hubert Beyer

ing the premiers and territorial

leaders and their entourage
criss-cross the country every

“> two months or so. Other,: more .
concrete proposals fell on deaf ©

cars.

Harcourt’s suggestion, for
instance, to lift the ceiling on
social transfer payments and
use the additional $150 million
on job training and creation
programs, didn’t even get a
reply from Mulroney. Neither
did the idea, proposed by all
three NDP premiers, to spend
money on upgrading Canada’s
infrastructure.

The three premiers argued,
and J would suggest with some
validity, that investing in roads
and bridges will bring direct
economic benefits, in addition
to putting people to work, The
idea is definitely worth looking
at,

A tight fiscal policy is fine,
but is must be tempered with
wise spending, particularly in
areas that will get people off
welfare and unemployment
rolls,

And speaking of tight
monetary policies, Harcourt
told the prime minister that the
federal government’s rigid
monetary policies had had a
very detrimental effect on the
B.C, economy.

He pointed to a recent
report by Finance Minister
Glen Clark, according to
which British Columbia’s
unemployment roll increased
by 1.1 percentage points or the
equivalent of 15,000 jobs last
year as a direct result of the
feds’ tight monetary policy.

“The report also shows
B.C.'s deficit for 1991-92
would be $500 million lower
were it not for current
monetary policy,”' the premier
added.

‘We in B.C, agree strongly

with those economic analysts
who conclude that, unless the
Bank of, Canada allows lower
interest;rates. anda, lower. valu;
for the Canadian dollar than’.
have prevailed in the last year,
it will be difficult for the
Canadian economy to return

to anything like a healthy state
anytime soon.”

Of all the premiers, Har-
court definitely came on the
strongest, stating British Col-
umbia’s position just a little
more forceful that his col-
leagues did for their provinces.
But forceful or not, he came
away just as empty-handed as
the others.

One must wonder, of:
course, what any of the par-
ticipants could have possible
hoped to accomplish during a
one-day meeting, Anyone who
expects a room-full of politi-
cians to find the definitive
answer to the country's
economic problems in a day
needs a reality check, It takes
the average person longer to
decide whether to buy anew
car.

What’s needed to get
Canada out of its econamic
doldrums is vision and leader-
ship, neither of which the
Mulroney government have
shown to possess in abun-
dance,

Having cajoled Canada into
the free-trade agreement with
the United States, the federal
government has yet to show
any backbone in dealing with
the ever-increasing protec-
tionism in the U.S., as shown
in the case of Canadian im-
ports of softwood lumber,

More meetings won't reduce
our unemployment figures.
Political rhetoric won't get
Canadians off welfare. Acting
on some of the proposals made.
by the premiers, on the other
hand, just might do the trick.

by
on PR

Mlb net wren

ULP!...SORRY LADIES
TM A FIGHTER NOT
A Lovég !i}