Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, ssPtember 24, 2003 .
: .
ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988
PUBLISHER: ROD LINK
TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 © FAX: (250) 638-8432
WEB: www.terracestandard.com

ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. » V8G 5R2
EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com

Vote needed

COUNCIL HAS provided itself with more than
enough reason to hold a referendum on the issue
of statutory shopping.

One night it hears from store employees and
decides to keep the status quo. Several days later
it hears from chamber of commerce representa-
tives and backtracks to propose blanket store
openings only on Victoria Day, Canada Day and
B.C. Day during the summer tourist season.

This reversal demonstrates the pro and con sta-
tutory shopping forces are persuasive in their ar-
guments. And it proves there is a great debate in
the community. But it would be a shame to think
council members are subject to agreeing with
those who spoke to them last.

Statutory shopping has visited council cham-
bers thanks to the provincial government which
has decided municipalities should be free to make
up their own minds through their own by-laws.

Two trains of thought have emerged. One is
that the local businesses desperately need an infu-
sion of good news. The ability to do business on
statutory holidays would provide more income,
particularly from summer tourists.

The second is that statutory shopping would
further affect the abilities of families to spend
more time together. Modern life is complicated
enough as it is without another impediment.

So council has two things to juggle here. One is
to provide an environment in which local busi-
nesses can operate. The other is to provide an en-
vironment which speaks to the quality of life its
citizens wish to enjoy.

Council can never completely satisfy each of -
these goals as they will always-inevitably collide--

on this issue. But a referendum will at least pro-
vide council with clear guidance from every per-
son who wishes to cast a vote.

Land, ho!

SKEENA MLA Roger Harris thinks he has
found a piece of land suitable for a log selling and
buying yard for small operators. It’s 11 acres
tight beside the CN tracks and is part of the form-
er correctional centre holdings.

The Muks-Kum-Ol Housing Society has a deal
to buy the jail and land, subject to financing. It
says it does not need the 11 acres. So far, so good
for Mr. Harris. But the wrinkle is that the city
may just want a piece of the land to provide ac-
cess someday over the CN rail tracks and if that
happens, the property owner pays the road devel-
opment cost which could amount to $100,000.

It was a scary enough figure to prevent the
province from separating the land from the jail
site when it was put up for sale in the first place.

Mr. Harris has a solid idea. A way must be
found to carve off the land for the idea tq prosper.

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur

NEWS: Jelf Nagel
NEWS/SPORTS Sarah A. Zimmerman
7002 WINNE NEWS/COMMUNITY: Jennifer Lang
BETTER FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping & Carol McKay
CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Terri Gordon
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:
Bert Husband & Denise Young
TELEMARKETER: C.J, Bailey. oo
COMPOSING: Susan Credgeur
AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik
SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL:
$57.94 (+$4.06 GST)=62.00 per year; ‘
Seniors $50.98 (+$3.57 GST)=54.55;
Out of Province $65.17 (+$4.56 GST)=69.73

SPINELESS, INEFFECTUAL, LAPDOGGISH....MATCHES THE
PROFILE OF THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT

PROFILING CONTINUES AT U.S. BORDERS

Interior suffering under the gov‘t

VICTORIA - When the
Campbell government re-
named = British Columbia's
vast hinterland the
“Heartland,” some gullible
souls, myself included,
thought it might perhaps be a
teflection of the role of what
had hitherto been known as
the Interior would play in its
policies.

Surely, it couldn’t be just a
publicity stunt, Could this at
long last be a government that
really understood the impor-
tance of the Interior to the
province’s general economic
health and well-being? After
all, the last premier who did,
W.A.C. Bennett, left office 31
years ago,

We didn’t have to hold our
breath for very long. We found
out in fairly short order that
once again, the B.C. govern-
ment catered not to the heart-
land of British Columbia, but
the land of condos and con-
crete canyons, also known as
Vancouver.

. Millions of dollars have al-

ready been spent on securing...

the 2010 Winter Olympics for
Vancouver and Whistler. Hun-
dreds more millions will be
Spent on preparations.

Past mega-projects that
benefited exclusively the Van-
couver area, include the con-
vention centre, B.C, Place and
Expo 86.

Yes, Expo was a great ev-
ent, as the Olympics will un-
doubtedly be too. It showcased
the province, but with every
visitor from the Interior, -it
sucked money out of the econ-

AFTER A four-month strike
that decimated the communi-
ty, 74 per cent of Kitimat’s
Eurocan union CEP Local 294
voted to accept the company’s
offer. I hope what the union
gained was worth the damage
their strike inflicted on the
northwest.

Peter King, union spokes-
person, says union workers
will now have extra income to
spend over the five-year life of
the contract. I can’t wait for
their largess to trickle down. [
have my financial planner on
hold.

1 understand union workers
wanting the best contract they
can get for themselves, and for
their families. But they need
to keep in mind the influence
their work stoppage has on a
wider population, a population
who has no control or in-
fluence on the outcome of
their strike.

During the four months Eu-
rocan idled, I’m told two other
unions at the plant couldn't
cross the picket line ta go to
work. West Fraser mill work-
ers in Terrace were off; their
mill had no chip market, Chip

Wry

wv 4,
wil
SE

rd

FROM THE CAPITAL
HUBERT BEYER

omies of small towns, money
they might have spent at
home. Nat to mention all the
money spent on staging Expo
86.

Meanwhile, the Interior is
forgotten. Not only is it being
forgotten, it is actively target-
ed for cuts in government
spending far above what the
many small communities can
absorb.

Just two examples [’ve

_ wrilten, about before and which

need writing about again are
the cutbacks in spending for
Barkerville and the proposed
privatization of B.C. Rail.

In the U.K and continental
Europe, governments took over
the preservation of ancient
castles when the owners could
no longer afford to maintain
them.

We don’t have ancient cas-
tles in British Columbia, but
we have an exciting and won-
derful heritage that needs pre-
serving as much as Europe's
castles,

THROUGH BIFOCALS.
CLAUDETTE SANDECK]

truckers sat idle. That’s a lot
of direct jobs snuffed out by
300 people adamant to better
their earnings at any cost.

In the meantime, I’d bet
many Kitimat businesses went
bankrupt, and many Kitimat
families moved away in
search of work elsewhere, fur-
ther reducing school enro!-
ments and worsening the
school district's budget prob-
lems.

Oddly, after 15 weeks on
strike, a few hours with an
outside mediator brought the
strike to an end. Why wasn’t a

fe RESPONDING To MISTREATMENT
(¢ ) | OF CANADIAN CITIZENS ABROAD.

YER, TOTALLY TOOTHLESS.

Barkerville is a prime eX-
ample of this province’s herit-
age. Once the largest town
north of San Francisco,
Barkerville owes its existence
to one Billy Barker finding
gold in Williams Creek.

His find started a stampede
of fortune seekers flooding into
the area between 1862 and
1870. It is estimated that more
than 100,000 adventurers came
to seek their fortunes.

What remains of Barker-
ville today is witness to that
period in cur history. During
the summer, the town is teem-
ing with tourists and street per-
formers. Its more than 120
buildings evoke the at-
mosphere of those long gone
times. Barkerville is British
Columbia's arguably most im-
portant heritage site.

Only a myopic government
would subject such an import-
ant historic and economic en-
gine to funding cuts. The
Campbell government did.

Right now, [7 people are

- employed. at: Barkerville, That |
1... Will drop -to seven., The annual

subsidy has been reduced to
$750,000 from $1.1 million.
Even the $1.1 million was a
negligible subsidy, considering
that Barkerville attracts more
than 100,000 visitors a year.

The treatment of B.C, Rail
by the government is no less
contemptible than that of
Barkerville. In fact, it is even
more so, considering that B.C.
Rail is making a profit, not
losing money. Still, the gov-
ernment wants to sell it off to
the private sector.

mediator brought in the first
week to settle the dispute be-
fore hundreds of families
throughout the northwest felt
the squeeze of no income
through no fault of their own?
Thanks to Eurocan’s strike
and New Skeena sawmill’s in-
ability, or unwillingness, to
start up, northwest families

‘and businesses dangle like pi-

natas, defenceless, hit from all
sides.

Saturday night, as I sur-
veyed the logging equipment
arrayed for auction September
18, a young mother stood be-
side me, her two young child-
ren biked around the parking
lot. She told me her husband
has been working in Fort Nel-
son for two months and won't
be home until October.

That’s a long time for a
young family to be separated,
never mind the extra expense
of two addresses.

Terrace, according to a sur-
vey, has far more entrepre-
neurs than Kitimat. I suspect it
may be because Terrace folk
have to earn a dollar any hon-
est way they can.

Kitimat, on the other hand,

Prince George Mayor Colin
Kinsley, perhaps secking relief
from his hard job in the next
municipal election, defends the
proposed privatization with all
his heart, attributing the oppo-
sition to disgruntled NDPers
who want to fight the 1991
election over again.

The e-mails I’ve been get-
ting don’t back up that claim,
since many of them contain the
phrase: “I voted for the Liber-
als.”

For ail intents and purposes,
it looks as if the Campbell
government deliberately has
targeted the Interior for special
punishment.

Either that or, as sq many
governments before them, they
have no clue of what happens

north of Hope.
British Columbia was a
backwater province until

W.A.C. Bennett grabbed it by
the neck in 1952 and yanked it
into the 20th century.

He did so by building an in-
frastructure that transformed
the many areas of the province

my that Had“‘been ‘virtually inac-,

cessible before into a single,
powerful unit. To achieve this,
his government built thousands
of miles of road and hundreds
of bridges.

And when it suited him, he
dared placing in public owner-
ship private enterprises, with
B.C. Hydro and B.C. Ferries
being the prime examples.

Wish that the Campbell
government had the Old Man’s
wisdom and courage.

Beyer can be reached at:
E-mail: hbeyer@coolcomi.com.

Eurocan strike hurt us all badly

enjoys steady work at top union
wages. Too bad Kitimat union-
ists lack any understanding of
how they crush our economy by
rejecting a contract offer
which, four months later, three
quarter of their membership ac-
cept,

Union members should have
the experience of living from
their own enterprise, sharpen-
ing saws, sweeping driveways,
whatever, to learn sometimes
you have to be more reason-
able to make a living. It
wouldn't hurt, either, if union
executives had lo live on strike
pay during the length of a
strike rather than collecting
their normal pay.

If Eurocan, or New Skeena,
employed only four ta ten peo-
ple, striking for four months or
not operating for almost two
years, wouldn't impact the en-
tire Skeena riding. Then I
wouldn’t object to picketers
holding out for exorbitant pay.

As it is, union members
cught to consider the well be-
ing of the entire area, not jut
their own wallets, and trim
their expectations accordingly.

Ml, OKAY PEOPLE! COVER YouR EYES ANID

Wh HOLD YouR BREATH! WE'RE CROSS ING-
A pie \ Tete Ry: ciVecLle! YOU Woon! TGET
i el h HURT IF You FoLLow) (NSTRUCTIONS |!

AND MARTEN USEP To
CURSE THESE OLD
SEISMIC LINES!

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B.C, AND YUKON COUMUIITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION ‘~
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