~ 4, The Herald, Wednesday, April 15, 1981 renwx -RSTUMAE General Office - 635-6357 Circulation - 615-6357 pastage guaranteed. daily herald Publisher — Garry Husak Editar — Pete Nadeay CLASS. ADS... TERRACE - 625-4000 CIRCULATION - TE RRACE - 635-6357 Published every weekday at 3010 Kalum Street. Terrace, 8.C. Authorized as second class mail. Registration number 1201. Postage pald in cash, return NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retains full. complete and sole copyright in any advertisement! produced and-or any editorial or phatographic conlent published in the Herald. Reproduction is not permitted withou! the written permission of the Publisher. Published by Sterling Pubtishers . _, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR To the Editor: In response to the letter from Mr. Homburg. Within those Soulh _American countries that you would recommend hard work to, are those very ' gamps that you would see established here. There they are owned by LT. and T. or Pepei-Cola, or Exxon «the major oi] refineries, “coffee plantations or > banana plants. These > eampanies own land that - are outside of the normal “al labor market and set es according to their iwhim, Economic Free ; Taha ae not a whole lot : different than welfare work : calnpa, The people are ’ ; Pequired te work to acquire “thé bare minimum. It is the “Sada way to deplete the : of if life that you 50 acclaim. j Were it possible to get ‘ around life assistance plars wiiere people need only sign a check, we would fine that théee who are working may well have to take a cut in pay or face going there to dain -their livlihood. *: Fdir you proclaim, ‘aot. neprly ao! hy simple supply and demand we who do work would be faced with being replaced with someone viflng to work for less, so forced into the atreets or the catnps. Take Chrysler as an example of management willing to cut wages as ao way of cutting mgnagemental inefficiency. closer to home the Prince Rupert Regional Hospital where the non unionized staff were told thely were to take a pay cut or ‘be laid off about two months ago, they said no way and voted union, who ‘proposition when they saw it, | There was no way to forte a threat an people who weten't ready to be forced canes to the south because the have. To build. greater defenses because the: Russians have. Maybe to ‘kill first before the _Rudsians do? en don't fight for communism or free entirpriee, but forthe right betier life. One system ‘me of then made subsistence . ‘unemployed work pittance while moneyed ‘wit into the gutters or work . - You suggest sending guns . sad. To build the fences her that we fought to tear down iscrazy. The past ei littered with the bodies of labour activists such a3 Joe Hill. killed by the legal system of execution in Uteh around 1920 by the man who coined . - the song “Pie in the sky.” Big business guards the gates of Free Enterprise well, Work campa while sounding just, are a threat to the quality of life-in B.C. While ane system of economics or another hasn't . perfectly helped the poort — (for then there wouldn’t be any poor) each has one thing in common. It is that challenge has brought change, challenge to a castle, to a way of life, whatever the system, wherever the place. Unfortunately it is the reaction to challenge that brings out the guns. I left the U.S. after I heard J. Carter in July 79 proclaim he would not allow the status quo to be changed in the South. While hiding in Jesper in November that year someone pointed out to two to find off the threatening missiles ‘of Rusaia; only - there weren't any. The six minute war alert was a computer error. It was the aggressive reaction of the status quo. What would happen in B.C, if every one making under $5 an hour asked for a raise? I base my thought on this, that it is the resources of the province that makes the peoplerich. That the wealth of our resources is enough to pay an adequate wage without food grants. That ~ dividing up the wealth amongst the few who ‘OWN’ capital and the provincial resources is, unfair, inadequate and unjust. That | making ‘the for men rest drinking {Ine wines and driving gas ‘guzsiers is unjust. That paying Mr. Kaiser a commission on coal he. doesn't sell would be fair if we were paid a commission - on the tons of emmisions that we were forced to breath from Alcan or Eurocan or electrical _ Brnerating stations devised © ani built t enrich the fattened few. Mr. Homburg while ‘poverty is only a relative thing, missile - interceptors heading north . the control of the. wealth of a nation will never be. Aislinsi roi ne it ~ Majority are opposed to OTTAWA (CP) —There has been a slight shift in favor of | making a charter of rights part of the constitutiod since the _, premiers and the federal government met last September, but six of the 10 remain opposed.’ A survey of the 10 provincial governments by The . Canadian Prees shows that Saskatchewan Premier Allan. | Blakeney, who opposed the charter in September, mow says be can “swallow the charter of rights provision.” only qualified support for it then, now says “we don’t op- * ‘pose the charter of rights.” “Blakeney and Peckford, who are among the eight - premiers opposed to the-over-all constitutional package, side with Onterio Premier Williarh Davis and Richard Hatfield of New Brunswick oni the issue of entrenchment of acharter, . Davis dad Hatfield are the only two premiers backing Prime Minister Trudeau's entire constitutional package. - Opposition by the six provinces, however, apparently .. would ensure that the charter could never become law if left’. for bargaining at later constijutionél! talks. The eight premiers fighting the constitutional package are expected to propose shelving the charter when they. meet here April 16, They are expected to put forward a peo- posal to bring home the constitution from Britain with an . alternative amending formula and to urge that the charter be put on the agenda of future federal-provinclal meetings. The charter of rights, which is to be binding on the prov- - inces as well as the federal government, is one of the most basic elements of the Trudeau package and the one to which ., he seems most attached. The prime minister has foundland 1 Brian Peckford, who 1: made itclear he will not bargain with the provinces over its _ contents. Opposition from premiers such as Sterling Lyon of Mani-, -. toba has been just as strong. They argue the charter will change the fundamentals of the Canadian parliamentary system. . “Thecivil rights sitiiation in Canada works so why are we busy trying to fix It with a charter of rights,” Lyon told The Canadian Press during the survey. Trudeaui’s proposed charter would implement a set of . Fights and freedoma that now exist largely by tradition and " would put new Limits on the ability of Parliament and the Provincial legislatures to infringe on the rights of the in- aivideals. __ would bea radical ehift in legal tradition, moving away from the B approach — where fundamental _ Fights are based on tradition — — to the US, sivle of speig o ve ” ! TVE. NEVER SEEN ANYTHING. AS MOVING, AS THE COLUMBIA'S | AMERICAN DREAM j WRAT. A FUNNY wat 1 1G THINK OFTHE — LANDING AMERICAN DREAMY IN A A DESERT. . : fi A -GLiDer - vicToRia@ REPORT ‘by FRANK HOWARD “SKEENA MLA . ‘concerned. . Which might be paid. Do. you have shares In BCRIC? Did you - expect, when you bought those shares, that you “{would. be recelving dividends: In ‘the near ‘future? : ‘expectation and say they got that Impression '* from Premier Bennett when he was advising people to buy the sharas. Maybe he even sald tt ~“gutright.. ‘| know.-many people who had that - "Well, BCRIC just . put. that expectation of ~ dividends off into.the future. BCRIC’s annual “meeting Is coming up and the directors have ‘some proposals ta put to that meeting. ‘ » One of: the proposals is to’ increase the : ‘number of common stiares, the kind you hold, .. by.100 per cent. - : double the number of shares! ‘If BCRIC issues: -. -@dditional: common shares It means that-any - “ money'which may be available for dividend$ will ‘be ‘spread amongst & larger number of - shares and you will get tess In. dividends than That's right - they plan to you expect. In the stock market business that’s called dilution. In the early days of stock market activity there was a more crude —,watering it down, that is. Assume BCRIC has $100 milllon to distribute In the way of dividends and It has 100 million shares outstanding. That: comes to $1 per - share. But If BCRIC has 200 million shares “outstanding, which Is exactly what if plans to do, then the dividend per share would be SO cents.- The second thing that BCRIC is going to do Is ‘ask to Issue 100 million preferred shares. This Is where the common shareholders who bought - shares on the Premier's advice are going to get stung - and that's putting It. mildly! A preferred share has priority over a common share insofar as dividends are In other words, the holders of preferred shares get first crack at dividends If there is anything left over it might be paid fo the holders of common shares. “Hf BCRIC ever gets to the point where It is going to pay dividends it must pay those dividends to the holders of preferred shares. In fact, It goes further than that. The preferred ‘shareholder gets a kind of guarantee from the eompany that dividends will be paid. In ceturn (lat geo! fr that guaranied;*tie' preferred shareholder: “gives up something, usually the right to vote at annual meetings. Of course, giving up this right to vote doesn’t mean a great deal fo those of you who received the so-called five free - shares from Premier Bennett, for those shares didn’t carry -with them the right to vote anyway. So shareholders, there you have it! The issuance of more common shares wilt dilute the . value of the shares you already own. And the expression. It was called “watering the stock’" = Issuance of preferred shares will Interfere with - your expectations of recelving dividends. Do you wonder If Premier Bennett thought this might happen when he created BCRIC. Of” course he.did! But he didn’t reveal this to the unsuspecting British Columbia Investor when he was touting everyone to buy all the BCRIC shares possible. Charter them out In detail and relying on the courts to enforce them. It includes guarantees of such rights as freedom of religion, thought, belief, expreasion, freedom of the press, peaceful assembly, legal rights, the right to move throughout the cquntry and take a job, democratic rights, protection against discrimination on the basis of sex, color, . race, religion, ethnic origin, age and mental and physical disabilities and the right to be educated in English or French anywhere in the country “where numbers warrant." : Tt would mean an end to arbitrary decisions by govern- meats and their regulatory agencies. Government boards and agencies that have made unquestioned decisions af- fecting peoples’ lives — provincial film censorship boards ‘for example — might find their actions challenged suc- .cesstully in the courts. -. But dye provinces who oppose it say it would put too much . reliance on the courts. They say a bad decision by the courts could not even be changed by Parliament or the Jegislatures without a constitutional amendment. They argue: t it the U.S. the existence of a charter of rights did nol. prevent discrimination against blacks for decades. . They say court decisions have eliminated prayers Trydeau argues that Canada has @ spotty record on hurnan rights, pointing to laws against the Jehovah's ‘Witness sect in Quebec by the former Dupleasis govern: ment and to internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. : But opponents of the charter polnt-out thet Japanese- Americans got similar treatment during the war in spite of the 0.5. bill of rights. The Herald welcomes its readers comments. ” Allietters to the editor of general public interest: will be printed. We do, however, retain the right lo refuse to print letters on grounds of possible libel or bad taste. We niay also edit letters for -style and length, All letters to be considered for publication must be signed. a Be BERRY et