Page 4, The Herald, Monday, October 15, 1979 \ JTERRACE/KITIMAT daily herald General Otilce. 635-4357 Published by Circulation - 635-6157 Starling Publishers GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR - Greg Middleton CIRCULATION - TERRACE - 635-6357 KITIMAT OF FICE - 632-2747 Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum Street, Terrace, B.C. A member of Varified Circulation. Authorized as second class mall. Registratlon number 1201, Postage paid In cash, return postage guaranteed, NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT ‘The Herald retalns full, complete and sole copyright In any advertisement produced and-or any editorial or Photographic content publishad In the . Herald, Reproduction is not permitted without the written permission af the Publisher. EDITORIAL We should think and practise Fire Prevention every day of the year. Of the nearly 10,000 Canadians and Americans who died in building fires last year, 9 out of 10 died at home-most during the nighttime hours-many died right where they slept-smoke and poisonous fumes never gave them a chance. Countless thousands were In- ured and many will never recover fram he devastations of home fires. The smoke that can kill or harm you, can actually save you by activating smoke alarms. Authorities state that 90 per cent of Canada’s fire victims can be saved with adequate fire detection. Only about 30 per cent of Canadians have installed smoke alarms In their homes, and the majority are under the wrong Impression that one alarm is adequate protection. To give your family the protection that they deserve there are several things you can do. Install a minimum of one alarm per level of your home. Do not buy alarms on price alone for the life safety of your family-quality and reliability can mean your safety. Three types of residential alarms are now available: lonization—The most widely used type to-date; Photo-Electric—For smokey types of fires; Combination—lonilzation and Photo-Eléctric for the ultimate In detection. _ Maintain your alarms-according to the manufacturers Instruction and vacuum periodically. It is of the utmost im- portance to replace the battery with only the type recommended by the manufacturer. The wrong type battery could fail ina fire emergency. COMMENT By DON SCHAFFER Last week I was assigned to interview a local resident who was one of the pioneer settlers of the Nass Valley. I admit to being blase about the assignment when [ got it, just another story and twenty minutes in the darkroom. When I finally got around to the appointment I had made, I wasn’t at my best, with a cold that made me want to go home to bed. Somewhat reluctant, I went. O:ville Spencer is full of stories, anecdotes and vigor, At 70, he is much more energetic than most 23- year-olds I know, including myself. He has witnessed the growth of the area around Terrace, and the reduction of the area where he grew up. He met the pliots who landed their three-engined cargo plane on the Nass lava bed because they were lost, and possesses the first aerlal photograph taken of Spencer Lake, mamed for his father Benjamin. He showed me photographs of the boat he and his brother built, built right from the trees. The two cut and hand-planed 1,500 feet of wood for the boat. It survived a flood, log-jams and years of harduse. He told me enough stories in an hour to fill the paper, 80 many worthwhile stories that I couldn’t possibly use them in my small article. Spencer could write a bovk about his life up the Nass. He has wor- thwhile insights, and a legitimate point to make about the need for a drop-in centre for this area's senior cliizens. Not enough attention is paid to the ‘‘older” folks in our society, The desire most people have Is to live a quiet life, with just the spouse and maybe a child, maybe not. Once we leave home, owe parents tend to be Forgotten. Not so with the Spencer family, by all appearences anyway. But there are many people not as old as Spencer and his wife who are less capable of taking care of themselves, and who tend to be shuffled off to a home and forgotten, I would never say an Invalid parent, or a parent incapable of his or her awn care, should remain in the child's home. It is, however, one of the tragedies of North American society that we simply leave our parents behind when we go, and think no more of them, It oftentimes is necessary to get help in caring for elderly parents, but it is also necessary never to forget that the old folks sometimes have gained a great deal of useful knowledge, good stories and sometimes even wisdom in the course of their lives. Certainly the elderly can be opinionated, and sometimes obnoxious. So can we all. They deserve to have some attention paid to them, and although that is easy to say, we sometimes need to be reminded of the fact. I was last Thursday. Thanks, Mr. Spencer, ! had a great time. Zp ithe ’ “Dammit, man — don’t you know there’s a recession on?” By ERIC HAMOVITCH and PIERRE BEAUREGARD LA GRANDE-2, Que. (CP) — When Premier Rene Levesque pulls the switch that sends tons of icy water cascading through the turbines in this giant LG-2 power station, Quebec will begin collecting the jackpot from a —Ss $15-billion hydroelectric gamble, James Bay hydroelectric power, billions of watts of it, will surge 1,000 kilometres south to Montreal Oct. 27, when Levesque inaugurates the huge subterranean powerhouse, enclosed in a rock-walled cathedral sculpted by dynamile 137 metres below the surface of the earth. The river the Cree call Chisasibl and the Quebecois call La Grande Riviere will generate 10,268 megawatts (millions of watts) by 1985. vier, those. who collect funny fills ties, that's enough to keep 171 million 60-watt light bulbs glowing. Or to put it a more pertinent way, it’s the equivalent of 300,000 barrela of coatly imported oi] each y. And hydroelectric power is inexhaustible. As long as the rain falls and the rivers flow, the supply of clean, safe power need never end. WILL LAST DECADES ‘The firat phase of the James Bay project ia costing $15.1 billion, a heavy burden for Quebec's six million people. But for decades to come they'll be able to heat their homes, cook their meals, power their factories and light their offices using water as the source of fuel. Three power plants are being built on the Le Grande River in the fiest phase, along with a series of dama and dikea to divert other rivers — nine dama and 160 dikea in all, The LG-2 dam, three kilo- metres long and higher than the Great Pyramid of Egypt, feeds the biggest and moat powerful hydroelectric plant North America. The reservoir behind the dam will cover an area half the size of Prince Edward Inland. The network of high- tension lines connecting it to southern Quebec could stretch from Halifax to Vancouver. The sheer magnitude of it has struck. the popular imagination of Quebec with an impact that haan't escaped the man pulling the switch. Already, tens of thousands of tourists have visited the site and come away marvelling. SPURS CAMPAIGN L4G-2 ls a symbol of power, ag solid an indication of self- sufflelency aa Leveaque d hope to find in hia effort to sell Quebecers on ¢ notion that they can make it on thelr own as an Independent country. The message can hardly fall to come across as television viewers watch Levesque — surrounded by 200 political and financial leaders from Canada and JAMES BAY Quebec wins power play around the globe — speak in proud affirmation of the province's world leadership in hydroelectric develop- ment. Unlike Alberta’s vaat oil sands deposits, controlled by privately owned multinational ‘companies, the James Bay project is a triumph of public enterprise. The dams and transmission lines are the property of Hydro-Quebec, the govern- ment-owned electric utllity, The James: Bay Energy Corp., a Hydto subsidiary, is in charge of building them. It was Levesque who led the fight to nationalize Quebec’s private electric utilities when he served as Liberal minister of natural resources in the 19603, and it was Levesque who talked then-premler Jean Lesage into fighting a provincial election on the issue. And it was the Liberal . campaign slagan in’. that . election — Maitres Chez Nous -- which became the rallying’ ery of modern Quebec natlonalism. LEVESQUE ENRAGED Whether apocryphal or not, the story is atlll told in political circles of a time Leveaque pounded the desk so hard he smashed the glass top during a meeting with an English-speaking executive of a private power company. The man, 90 the story goes, had asked if Levesque really thought French- Canadians could do as gooda job running the Quebec electrical grid as the private, English-cwned companies. After nationalization in 1962, Hydro-Quebee became one of the few places in the province where a French- speaking graduate in engineering or flnance could make a living while using his own language. And it waa all done while maintaining an enviable reputation on Wall Street for technological lead- ership and financial stability. The pursuit of his nationalist ideals has long ° since carried Levesque out of the Liberal party but there will be a few Liberal ghosts at the LG-2 opening Chiesa among them will be a + cerem tall, thin-man ‘named Robert. Bourassa wiio got the project going in 1971 and fought off steady opposition during his years as premier. OPPOSED NUCLEAR Ironically, much of the opposition came from Levesque’s Parti Quebecois, then In opposition. The PQ was engaged in a brief flirtation with nuclear power — a technology it eventually By CAROL GOAR OTTAWA (CP) — Every time John Crosbie agreea to a Bank of Canada request to raise interest rates, an 16-year- old scandal flies out af the moaquitoa to buzz around his head. . The finance minister was accused twice Thuraday, once in the Commons and once in the Senate, of leading the country Into another Coyne affair. ; The Coyne affair was a holsy and politically- damaging battle between former prime minister John Diefenbaker and the then governor of the Bank of Canada, James Coyne. It was called by the late Lester Pearson “one of the most sordid and shameful episodes in our history,” . It happened in 1961, but continues to leave a mark on relations between the Bank of Canada and the government to this day. Coyne, a tall, distinguished 42-year-old Winnipeg lawyer seemed the epitome of the sta- bility. of the Bank of Canada. He was a strong- willed man, determined to put the economy on a sound footing by Imposing a pelt-tightening monetary policy. This conflicted with Diefenbaker's conviction FINANCIAL PROBLEM _ pages of history like a- that the way out of the serious unemployment problems the country was facing was an ex- pansionist economic polley. But there waa iittle Diefenbaker could do. He had inherited Coyne from the previous Liberal regime and the legislation of the day allowed the governor almost total Independence from political interference in | the setting of interest rates and the manage- ment of all matters of Monetary policy. The aquabble grew hasty. Diefenbaker devised a bill declaring Coyne's job vacant, He was determined that the will of the elected representatives, not that of & powerful bureucrat, should be paramount in economic policy-makiag. Diefenbaker did not submit his bill, in the usual manner, to a Commons committee for atudy, It went straight to the Liberal-dominated Senate. Coyne's friends there blocked Diefen- baker’a scheme, where- upon the governor, exhausted, but convinced he had won the battle, resigned. The episode eft relations between the Bank of Canada and the government on a * Been performing precarious footing. abandoned when astrono- mical costs and = en- vironmental dangers became apparent. Not that James Bay was without environmental problems. Indians objected to disruption of their hunting ‘and trapping grounds .and ecologists feared natural disaster. . ‘Nebody could be sure, when work started on the La Grande project in 1972, that it was the best way to meet Quebec's energy needs. Critics pointed to horrifying coat estimates of.$5.8 billion. Inflation and design changes sent the price akyrocketlng, but the final bill now is considered a bargain. Despite early problems — including a rampage by construction workers who sacked a worksite, shutting operations for 51 days — LG- 2° is opening five months ahead of sc LSeanertore The rebellious, workers were upset “with living eonditions in the work camps, since Improved, and the government later cleaned house in the unions when a commission of in- quiry uncovered widespread corruption. . Compared with those unhappy days, things are running smoothly now, not only at LG-2 but at neigh- boring LG-3 and the other dam sites still under con- struction, ; “All phases of work here areontime, and in fact some are ahead of schedule,” says ’ Fiore Dallaserra, new chief of operations at-[.G-3, OPERATES SMCGOTHLY Dallaserra speaks with evident pride as he explains the logistics down to -the smaliest details. In the distance, from the living room of his prefabricated bungalow, hundreds of enormous trucks and mechanical loaders can be what looks like a wellchoreographed bailet. To the other side Hea one of the villages — this one housing 6,000 workers — that spring up like mushrooms, only to be taken apart again once work is complete. The La Grande dams are built of earth and rock and engineers say they will actually become stronger with age, strong enough to last for centuries, compared with nuclear plants which have to close after 20 or 25 years because of radioactive | contamination, La Grande Riviere, once wild and majestic, flows for 860 Kilometres through the taiga of northern Quebec, past sparse forests of black Bpruce, grey pine and tamarack, . But Chisasibt — the Great River — is wild no more, Its waters are gathered in huge reservoirs that will assure ‘the turbines a steady flow whatever the season, and great swaths are cut from the forest where man builds synthetic mountalns to block and channel the water that fuels both his polltical and his economic needs. ~~ OTTAWA OFFBEAT BY RICHARD JACKSON Ottawa - When Prime Minister Clark tells you he’s going to keep that promise of running a lean govern- ‘ment, you’ve got to believe him. The appointment of former Old Ontario (Wellingtan) riding Conservative MP Alfred D. Hales to review parliamentary pay, allowances and gondies that come with a place at the political trough confirms it. ‘ ; . Mr. Hales came to the Commons initially in 1957 with the first Tory tide that came in with John Diefenbaker. Pay for parliamentarians was $10,000. And MPs were all accommodated in the Centre Block, two to a single room office and sharing the tenographer, "eThat pees aee years ago, but Dief was a nut for economy of government and made it a point of pride that he employed fewer in his office than did former Liberal Prime Minister St. Laurent. Fewer by one, but still, fewer. It was dear old Lester Pearson who worked only for the public service before entering politics and whomped up parliamentary pay to $18,000 basic plus the icing on the cake. “There was a howl of helpless public rage all across the land, and both Dief and Stanley Knowles of the New Democrats demounced it as greed. Dief went so far asto spurnit, refusing for months to collect it. . Pearson raised it a second time. — And then Pierre Trudeau, not long into his 11 years as Prime Minister, kicked it up.to the current $41,300, With it came a helpful little escalator clause, an automatic raise, calculated to keep parliamentarians at least even with inflation. 7 This gift of what amounted to a cost of living clause in their salary scale put them on a pay par in the in- flation game with the public service. It created a new class of aristocrats in the country, the politicians of Parliament and the public servants who advise them, in an exclusive elite, above and beyond the reach of the taxpayer in whose interest they are supposed to labor. With the increases in the pay package came im- provements in staffing and accommodation. Instead of two MPs sharing an- office and a secretary, they each were given their own. Then the staffs grew from one to two, three and counting parliamentary interns and researchers, to four and more, Office accommodation expanded from the shared single to suites. _ From the Centre Block the parliamentarians overflowed into the West Block, the Confederation Building and now the new South Block. The more they get naturally the less they regard the value of money-yours. Alfred Dryden Hales retired after the 1972 election back to his hometown, Guelph, but in the years before leaving Ottawa he shared in some of the increasing parliamentary benefits. But the important thing to all of us taxpayers is that Alf remembers the lean days of the Dief Parliaments and the early years of Lester Pearson when pay, privileges, special allowances, world travel, cost of living protection, accommodation and staffing were a fraction of what they are today. Prime Minister Clark made a chelce pick when he tagged Alf Hales to watchdog the parliamentary payroll. Hales knows how good the MPs have ti now com- pared to his freshmen years. Additionally, he was schooled to hate waste and the wastrel as perennial chairman of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee which actually tried to keep public servants running scared and honest, Especially is he the man for the job now that word is getting around that the Honorable Members are coming down with another attack of the greedies. They're hoping for anything from $60,000 to $75,000, and claim they “deserve” it what with’ the troublesome demands of their taxpaying constituents bugging them. Word comes that the good Mr. Hales is smiling and saying, not in any sense of encouragement, ‘Let ‘em 4 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir: Ihave written several poems that have been printed in The Herald. Please consider this poem. Thankyou very much. Skeena Autumn Oh when the dawn has turned itself to day And the mighty clouds have rolled themselves away And the trees expose Thelr golden clothes For the Skeena’s annual display And in the distance To hear a clarion call pr sit and ‘watch & apples as they fall To feet remorse y And study the course Of the genius in making it all Autumnal odors in the air The mountains, the river a splendid pair the love fram God above eS a person just grateful for being there, Just David R Erickson The Herald welcomes its readers comments. All letters to the editor of general public interest will be printed. We do, however, retain the right to refuse to print letters on grounds of possible libel or bad taste. We may also edit letters for style and length. All letters to be considered for : publication must be signed.