A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 8, 1995

TERRACE

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C. * V8G 188
TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432
MODEM: (604) 638-7247

Hoid on there —

CITY COUNCIL didn’t get as much credit as it
should have several months ago when it decided
to grant free skating and swimming passes to
people on social assistance.

Even though councillors have taken to wearing
Ralph Klein face masks, chopped the city work-
force and cut other spending, its free pass plan is
compassionate and logical. Compassionate be-
cause it recognizes social and economic ineq-
uities within this city and logical because its
boosting use of a public facility.

But now councillors are worried because they
feel the program is too successful —- approxi-
mately 400 cards at last count. There’s an indica-
tion. of increases in paper towel and toilet paper
and hot water costs at the pool. And there seems
to be a feeling that paying customers — faced
with rec fee increases — resent the free passes
for those on social assistance.

So now there’s a plan to either have the social
services ministry buy a large number of tickets to
distribute or cut back the passes to hardship
cases and single parent families.

And that leaves an ugly impression. Is council
suggesting that emptying bowels and bladders is
somehow tied to income or social status? Should
poorer people do their ““business’’ elsewhere be-
fore entering the aquatic centre? Is there to be a
means test for taking a shower? Has council in-
deed been besieged by taxpayers so angry at the
free passes?

Before council goes completely off its collec-
tive nut, how about some cost figures. Let’s see
some petitions and taxpayer representations to
council on the matter of free passes. It’s way too
early for council to brush up on its Scrooge im-
pression for:next Christmas. The cost of toilet
paper can’t be the deciding factor between
civility and the dark ages.

_ They is we
THE FUNNY thing about human beings is that it
is never our fault. There’s always a ‘‘they’’ out
there that’s responsible for whatever befalls us.

“They’’ let governments go into debt. ‘“They’’
are raising taxes. ‘“They’’ are letting the country
go down the tubes.

Not quite. ““They’’ is ‘“we’’. We’ve let govern-
ments seduce us with first our own money and
then with-money that was borrowed. We let the
government provide us with all kinds of feel-
good things without first thinking of the financial
consequences.

We let, for instance, the federal government ex-
pand the unemployment insurance plan way
beyond its original purpose. We let governments
provide massive subsidies and loan programs to
businesses. We took every tax break and every
honey pot that came our way, gleefully and glad-
fully.

But now, that it’s time to pay, we naturally
blame ‘“‘them’’. ‘“They”’ and ‘‘them”’ are ‘‘us’’,

=
GUS PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rex Link

ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur
NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter
OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher, Terry Miller
DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:
Sam Collier, Janel Viveiros, Tracey Tomas

CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Kiren Brunette

MEMBER OF B.C, PRESS COUNCIL .

Sarving the Tertaca and Thornhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Press (1969)
“td at 4647 Lazella Ave., Terrace, British Columbia. ; : .

Stores, photographs, illustrations, designs and lypestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property i the
copyright holdars, including Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd., Its ilustralion repro services and adverlising
agencies. = . :
Reproduction In whofe or in part, without wiitten permission, is specifically prohibited.
Auihorizad as second-class mail pending the Post Offica Department, for payment of postage in cash.

Special thanks to all our contributars and correspondents
an “for their time and talents ~~”

.MEMO_ TO STAFF...
SPRING ELECTION 1S OFF.
lpon'T FEEL 100 WELL..<:

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NDP shells out big bucks

VICTORIA) ~= = Nobody
makes better use of British
Columbia’s freedom of in-
formation laws than Reform
Party leader Jack Weisgerber.

At any given time, Weisger-
ber has got at least halfa dozen
requests for information going,
all of them with one purpose in
mind: to nail the NDP govern-
ment. Last week, he came up
with another good one,

At a press conference, Weis-
gerber produced a stack of
documents, highlighling a very
cozy and costly relationship
between the government and
NOW Communications, a
Vancouver-based —_ consulting
firm run by prominent NDP
friends.

Before the NDP came to
power, NOW Communications
didn’t exisis. Since then, the
company has been paid an
estimated $5 million for con-
sulting work. -

NOW Communications is
headed by Ron Johnson, self-
professed ‘life-time New
Democral.”” He’s married to
Johanna den Hertog, president
of the New Democratic Party
in the late 1980s.

Between. the two of them,
they've run nine times for pub-
lic office and were tumed
down by voters every time.
They’re known in NDP circles
as the Ken and Barbie of the

FROM THE CAPITAL -
HUBERT BEYER

trevolution.

Weisgerber told reporters
he’s very concemed that the
taxpayers may not get their
money's worth from NOW
Communications. To that end,
he’s written a letter to the
auditor general ‘to initiate a
value-for-money audit of the
Harcourt government’s con.
tracts with NOW Communica-
tions.

The Reform leader may have
reason to be worried. The
recent televised townhall meet-
ing, featuring Premier Har-
court and finance minister
Elizabeth Cull in one of the
funniest shows this season,
was produced by NOW Com-
munications,

Even Johnson admitted that
the show wasn’t up to snuff,

Asked whether he is still going
to bill the government for it, he
said ‘‘that's under review at
the moment.’’ I suppose even
his long-lime friends are same-
what reluctant to pay good
money for that boondoggle.

Among the contracts be-
tween the government and
Now Communications,
teleased by Weisgerber, was a
$$165,000 job done in Febru-
ary and March 1992, referred
to as the ‘CORE Project.’

The job was requested by the
government, not the Commis-
sion on Resources and En-
vironment, referred to” by
NOW Communications as the
Commission on Resources and
the Economy at one point.
O.K., so I'm a little pedantic,
but if they can’t cven get the
name right, can they be trusted
to do a good job?

Other services rendered at a
cost of up to $200 an hour, in-
clude Premier Harcourt’s tele-
vised speeches, the Com-
monweallh games, aboriginal
affairs ministry initiatives, the
New Directions health care
strategy, and ‘‘assessing public
views on budget and legisla-
tive prioritics.”’

In one instance, NOW Com-
munications charged the
government $45 an hour for
proof-reading its own ads for
the Ministry of Aboriginal] Af-

fairs. For one speech by the
premicr to the Union of B.C,
Municipalities in 1993, the
company billed the govern-
ment $1,450. ¥ wish I’d get
that kind of money for my _
columns.
Weisgerber got a_ fitde
derailed when reporicrs asked
whether the Socred govern:
ment be served as a cabinet
minister didn’t hire the ser-
vices of public relations and
communications consultants.
To his knowledge, no, he
said. Well, Jack, that’s sirctch-
ing things a bit. All govern-
ments, including that of Bill
Vander Zalm, have and will
continue to use hired guns to
get their message across.
Johnson said the moncy his
firm teceived represented
about five per cent of -the
government’s total communi-

- cations- budget, If that. figure is

correct, the government lias
spent about $100 million on
communications in the past
three years which is far in ex-
cess of what the taxpayers can
afford. ,

Onc last observation: The -
Liberals have been in posses- —
sion of the same information,
but were unable to beat Weis-
gerber to the punch, which
makes Jack still the best oppo-
sition.

A little bit of everything

SIGNS OF spring burst forth
in February: the woodpile has
melted, the stack of seed
calalogues teeters, and then on
the Jast Sunday, the new tele-

_ phone directory arrives,

Crisp, clean, square, it waits
invilingly wedged in the mail-
box. A year later it will be
grubby, dog-eared, and frayed,
aching for retirement like any
exhausted worker.

I always admire the cover
pholograph, try {to decide
where the scene might exist,
and hunt for the photog-
tapher’s name, I’ve yet to find
it. Next I check out the spelling
of my family’s listing and my
yellow page ad.

After that [ page through the
old direclory, transferring
ballpoint notes from it to the
glossy newcomer. Numbers for
government offices and others
often called, Our standby car-
penter. The local bookstore
that orders my literary crav-
ings. One number goes on the

THROUGH BIFOCALS.

CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

Hurey! THE SNORTING
m BEAST IS GAINING
ON usl!!

MAYBE WE SHOULD
ci (JUMP OFF THE TRAIL ?

cover, thal of the corner store
we phone each Sunday about
one o'clock to find out if the
Province made it through to
Terrace.

For random reading, a new
directory rivals a dictionary, an
encyclopedia, or a National
Geographic. Open it to hunt
for a specific name or listing
and you'll often find yourself
browsing, through the yellow
pages, comparing time zones,

ARE YOU CRAZY?
IE It'S THIS FAST
ON THE TRAIL

or testing your memory of area
codes,

B.C. Tel’s directory is the
most accurately printed publi-
cation surpassing everything

- except the King James Bible,

Encyclopedia Brittanica, and
Reader's Digest.

Today’s directory is also a
fact-filled book,

Page 17 tells you how to use
the phone book, a useful way
to begin. Page 24 wams you
against earthquakes and their
resultant hazards, The next
page deals with tidal waves or
tsunamis. That’s succeeded by
five pages of first aid instruc-
tions in case of emergencies.

A list of B.C statutory holi-
days, birthstones and flowers,
and wedding anniversaries
with their gifts such as gold for
the 50th and diamonds for the
60th can be helpful - if you
know it’s there. I didn’t until
today,

Page 94 has a calendar useful
from the years 1800 to 2050.

Obueounane

That’s followed by a ready
reference of metric conversion
tables for length, arca, volume
and temperature, an oven’
chari, and the math formulas
for a circle in case you want to
estimate the gallons needed: to
pain! a quonset roof,

Enquiry B.C., page 85, lists
by easy-la-locate broad head-
ings almost sixty available
government services. In the fu-
ture, if I can remember to Jook
here first for a number, I might
spare myself much hairpulling
and tissue-pulling.

The yellow pages arc a treat
to the eye since ads took ona
range of four colours. Reading
the ads, I’m always struck by
how few even small companies
disclose their owner’s ‘name.
Guess they prefer to remain
anonymous, ~

Modern telephone directarics
work hard offering us much
more than a reliable list of
phone numbers, free. -They
serve beyond the call.

Tr WiLL CATCH US
FoR SuRE In) THE

DEEP SNOW!

cr