~ Ke mp f 1S fears | _be justi Me a BGCRIC may serve as the model by Frank Howard . The provincial government’s ' privatization program will be a roaring success. Assets owned ' by the people of B.C. will be . disposed of, maybe at fire-sale . prices, with little chance for a _ eareful examination by the gen- _ eral public. The sell-off will be a success for the ‘simple ‘reason’ ‘that the government will develop a pub- cars - Letters to the editor will be con- ' sidered for publication only when signed. Piease ‘include your Commentary lic relations campaign to make it a success. The government will divert the attention of the public via this PR campaign. The merits of selling-off the People’s assets. will not..be ad- dressed in any’ meaningful way: by groups such as. the NDP caucus or the BCGEU. They al- ready seem to be nearly on side, Remember the manner in -telephohe number. The editor which the provincial government reserves the right to condense and Manipulated us when BCRIC edit ietters. Opinions expressed was formed. BCRIC was a pub- are not Terrace Review. cna Terrace © Review Established May 1, 1985 The Terrace Review Is publishad each Wednesday by Close-Up Business Services Ltd. Publisher: Mark Twyford Editor: Michael Kelly | Staff Reporter: Tod Strachan Advertising Sales: Dennis Lissimore Production: Jim Hall, Alvin Stewart, Arlane Wand, Gurbax Gill, Harminder K. Singh, Linda Mercer, Arlene Gaspar Office: Linda A. Copeland, Philip Musselma Accounting: ‘ Mar] Twyford, Rosemary McGettigan Second-class mail registration No. 6896. All material appearing in the Terrace Review Is protected under Canadian copyright. Registra: tlon No. 962775 and cannot lagally be repro- duced for any reason without permisaion of tha ublisher. and omissions. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in tha evant of typographl- cal error, that portion of tha advartising space eccupled by the erroneous itam will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertise- mant will be paid for at tha applicable rate, Advortisera ruat assume responalbility for ar rors In any classified ad which ls supplled'to the Terrace Review In handwritten form. In compliance with the 8.C. Human Alghts Act, no advertisement wilt be published which dis. criminates against a person due to age, race, religion, color, sex, nationality, ancastry or place of origin. , ' 4535 Greig Avenue, va Terrace, B.C. Es V8G 1M7 pee Phone: 635-7840 necessarily thase of the tic relations campaign for crass political purposes, The public did not appreciate that millions of dollars in assets were being given away in forming BCRIC, During the BCRIC give-away the provincial government tap- ped our emotions and fixed our eyes upon five free shares. We gobbled them up like true turkeys. oO We will.soon, once again, have the opportunity to sell-off our common sense and maybe even pay for that chance, Premier Vander Zalm has hinted that his privatization - scheme be a variation of the -BCRIC scheme. He has ‘‘predic- ted’? there will be an offering of shares to the public, probably at discounted prices. 88 There is a guy in England, Madsen Pirie, who is reputed to have a raging privatization bent. His advice to the B.C. govern- ment is that there must be a perception of success..To ac- complish this he suggests that any share offering be priced at a level so low as to guarantee a price' increase as soon as such shares are listed for public trading on a stock exchange. : Sounds like BCRIC tome. ' The government’s PR plan ‘is simple, One part of it will be to convince workers in Crown Cor- porations that they -will benefit from the sale of the Corporation for which they work. Another - part will be to convince the rest of us that we will benefit. Another part - will deal with groups which might oppose the scheme. The process here will be simply to identify their objec- tions early and make it appear as if they are being dealt with. | At the moment the NDP caucus is nearly on side by wan- ting to deal with each case of privatization on its merits. However, the government’s PR plan will fuzzify the merits so thoroughly that any rational ex- amination of merit will be a voice crying in the wilderness. Sure, privatization will be a success because the government will continue to say so. When’ Statement substitutes for fact anything can be a success, as BCRIC was touted to be. ~ Provincial Park - attendance rises Record numbers of people are enjoying British Columbia’s provincial parks this year, ac- cording to Environment and Parks Minister Bruce Strachan. “*Year-to-date attendance is 17 percent above the same per- iod last year,’’ said Strachan. “If this trend continues, our parks will have a total of 20 million visitors by the end of the year — far more than any other Provincial system and equal to the total for the entire federal parks system.” Camping in provincial parks _also shows a healthy increase: up 12 percent from last year, with 1.2 million camping visits re- corded so far. Strachan noted that custome satisfaction may be the key to successful park management. “The personal dedication of our parks personnel, volunteers and private-contractors to meet- ing the needs of park visitors combine to ensure the best possi- ble service,’” he said. fied - | Hubert Beyer ; Victoria Correspondent J ack Kempf has as many flaws as the next guy, but paranoia isn’t | one of them. When Kempf says his* phones were bugged over. a ~ period of four months earlier this year, I don’t doubt him for a mo- ‘ ” ment, Another guy who shouldn't dismiss Kempf’s allegations with a few flippant remarks: is Provincial Secretary Elwood Veitch. He Should have checked with his boss, the Premier, before calling the former forest minister’s charges ‘‘clap-trap’’ and ‘‘bizarre’’.. Shortly after Kempf’s allegations came to light, Premier Vander Zalm made a statement to a reporter that would indicate a certain: suspicion on his part that somebody out there might be bugging phones, including his own. co 7 ‘‘I have my phones checked (for bugs) now. and then, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot,”’ the Premier said, adding that the latest technology enables police or anyone else. to point a device at a win- dow and monitor conversations inside from a considerable distance. - Still, the Premier has-his office swept occasionally to make sure nobody is listening in on his phone calls. Do you think he would go. through that trouble if he thought phones are only bugged in James Bond movies and in the minds of imaginative politicians?, 5 ‘Kempf says his home phone, ‘as well as the phones at his consti- . tuency office and his office in the Legislative Buildings, were tapped — during and following an investigation by the RCMP and the at- torney general’s ministry into, alleged irregularities in his office. He ‘says not only were all conversations during that time monitored but. also taped. The investigations revealed no wrong-doing, other than sloppy office procedures. oo . . The former minister says he was tipped off to the bugging by a person employed in the telecommunications industry, someone who ° ‘‘had had endugh and wanted to tell me what was going on.” That person first contacted Kempf’s secretary and told her of he phone-tapping. He later called back to repeat his story to Kempf himself, The person also said that a high official in the attorney general’s ministry was not. only. aware. of the bugging but par- ticipated in it: He said further that this was not an isolated incident. Just because Kempf is unable to produce evidence of his allega- tions doesn’t mean they’re not true, Just becauise Veitch finds them “bizarre and complete clap-trap”’ doesn’t mean they’re not true, Just because the director of communications says he doesn’t know anything about taps on MLAs’ phones. doesn’t mean Kempf’s allegations are untrue. Just because the person who informed Kempf can’t go public for fear of losing his job also doesn’t in- validate the charges. | ~ Eaves-dropping on politicians isn’t something new. Between 1976 and 1977, Jim Nielsen, then a cabinet minister, had his ministerial, ‘his constituency office and his home phones tapped. He didn’t find out about it until 1980. ’ A worried legislature struck a special committee to look into the matter. The committee’s report, unanimously endorsed by. the legislature June 6, 1980, stated that the RCMP committed a breach of privilege and was in contempt of the House when it bugged _Nielsen’s phone, but recommended that no action be taken against -the RCMP. Pity. “The government’s communications branch is also no stranger to eaves-dropping. They routinely listen in on out-of-province calls placed from government offices to catch public ‘servants using — government phone lines for private calls. They've now decided to. apply the same routine to long-distance calls. within the province. The trouble with proving Kempf’s charges is that modern phone- tapping leaves no traces. Police don’t even have to enter anyone's premises to monitor and tape conversations. They can do it with the flick of a switch from a remote location. = There even exists equipment today that enables anyone in its possession to dial your telephone number from anywhere in North America and activate the mouthpiece of your phone without mak- . ing the phone ring. The mouthpiece of the phone is thus converted to a remote microphone, enabling the listener at the other end to hear everything said within range of the tapped telephone which, all the while, is resting innocently in its cradle. The fact that police need permission from a judge to tap a phone doesn’t make me feel any better. Usually, such permission is given without a lot of questions asked. Our recent history also tells us that police don’t necessarily ask permission to do nasty things, including breaking into offices or burning down barns to keep Canada safe from radicals, such as the P.Q. or the F.L.Q. _ There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind that Kempf is telling the truth. The only doubt I’ve got is whether anyone can do something about this despicable state of affairs. Public outrage might do the trick, but does the public really care?