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_EDITORIA

Same good news|

Labour negotiations between the
school district and its teachers are much
the same as a person getting married for

of a steelworkers’ union local than he
does a group of professionals. It makes
for more refreshing quotes. He's. also

i

the fifth or sixth time. They know the
routine and it’s becoming just a bit stale.

Each time a contract comes up for
renewal, the great majority of residents
in the area are the victims of a barrage of
statements from the respective parties.

_There’s point and counter point,
thrust and parry. The parties follow a
carefully thought out choreography that
is aged and too predictable.

Just one tiny example concerns the
prospect of mediation. What teachers
and districts do is work themselves into a
corner in normal contract talks. Each
then calls for a mediator, claiming the
other one is preventing the normal
bargaining process from-working.

If the public is lucky, a mediator is
agreed upon quickly. If not, the public’s
treated to a bit of dust up over who that
person should be. It has really nothing to
do with the contract talks and is merely a
side show to the main event.

But there’s some good news in the
talks this year. Teachers union president
Rob Brown sounds more like a president

Mike’s maneuvers

eye of Skeena MP Jim Fulton who mance minister, and his
thinks this is really. tax grab to be placz
ed into general revenue.

And Michael Wilson is also wrong in - elsewhere, The gist of this col-

saying there aren’t any tax increases UM is as valid as it was

because he’s forgetting about the Goods
and Services Tax. Technically it’s not
new to this budget but it is new to Cana-
dians and to the federal government’s
financial system.

So, federal finance minister Michael
Wilson kicks loose his lategt budget. He
says there,.aren’t""any tax iticreases.

Wrongo., |

Politicians like to play with words,
Taxes to them are direct deductions from
a person’s paycheque. Anything ‘else is a
user fee and they become fair game to
governments desperate to politically pro-
tect themselves and still latch on to more

money.

The largest example in this budget are
the increases in unemployment insurance
costs to workers and to businesses. —
They’re going up July 1 by about 25 per
That’s more than $100 to the
average worker. This didn’t escape the

cent.

been pretty definite in saying he doesn’ t
want teachers to go on strike.

And, the provincial government has
handed the school district some things
from it which it can benefit. Expect any
contract settlement, no matter how it is
arrived at, to be handed to the province’ 8
compensation fairness program commis-
sioner for review. If he turns thumbs

down on the teachers’ wage increase, the

points.

school board can claim it’s off the hook.

And, the school district has just given
its senior administrators wage increases
of 5,5 per cent this year. That’s different
than in past years because senior ad-
ministrators usually received the same
percentage hikes as did teachers,

The strategy behind this is that the
district can safely say it is giving less of
an increase to its top guns than what
teachers will get.

Even though the salaries of senior ad-
ministrators are also subject to review by
the compensation fairness commis-
sioner, the district earns public relations

And speaking of new, northwest

election.

curlers are finding out the hard way
about the GST when entering bonspiels.
All fees carry with it the GST. Perhaps
the old saying of a new broom sweeping
clean might apply at the next federal

LPS

Chew this tidbit

As kids, we were taught not to
play with our food, though our
Moms scrubbed their faces with
Oatmeal, rinsed their hair with
lemon juice, and rested their
eyes under cucumber slices,

Today, despite millions fac-
ing starvation daily, food has
became a sports medium, like
snow or Astroturf. Edibles have
-replaced mud for wrestling fun-
draisers, Everything from jello,
baked beans, and chili to dead
ripe tomatoes has become food
for the bdds..

Last spring the American
Cancer “Society organized an
oatmeal wrestling contest to
kick offa campaign to en-
courage eating healthy foads to

reduce the risk of cancer, :

Dozens of Texans jumped into a
Dallas ‘swimming pool filled
with 500 kilograms of oatmeal
supplied by the Quaker Oats
Company, co-sponsor of the
caper.

-* Television is-a prime culprit
of deliberate waste. TY uses
food ‘as.a-prop.

Totally ..Hidden Video
favours food in its wacky
Setups. In one, Evil Kneivels
took turns jumping their motor-
cyctes over a formidable
pyramid. of hamburger buns.
When the riders crashed, buns
flew everywhere, becoming bird
feed; motorcyclists:suffered on-
ly minor bunburn, +.

+ In another setup, Staged ina
fast food eatery, trays of food

travelled on a slow-moving con- ©

veyer belt past children who

were: ready to “squirt: ‘whipped

Through
Bifocals

by Claudette Sandecki

eA

a

cream on the desserts. Gradual-
ly the conveyer speeded up until
trays whizzed by, piling up on
the kitchen floor. At least forty
meals spilled over into a heap-
ing mess, fit only for the dump-
ster,

Even CBC TV is guilty of

wallowing in food. In on Road:

to Avoniea pigpen fight scene,
Sarah ‘and her ‘cousins
floundered about ina man-

. made mire of butterscotch pud-

ding. And in’ Wayne and
Schuster’s satire or ‘The Scarlet
Pimpernel, a thousand loaves of
pumpernickel cascaded to the
floor when a prison door was
Opened.

What if the practice of food
fights gains acceptance in high
society. Can we expect to see
reports on the society pages? I
expect a Kansas newspaper may
have already ‘done ‘so, last
February:., .

“Hundreds turned out for the
worl’s first Potato Olympics at
Emporia State University, garb-

ed in Pam-slicked bathing suits,

“Contestants vied for gold,
siver and bronze potato medals
in such events as potato relays,

french-fry ‘eating, bobbing for”
potatoes, and a mashed'potato |

dig featuring ‘latge tub of

mashed spuds ‘containing * hid- m4

To Rope Tn ey en

den coins.

Highlight of the Potato
Olympics was the first-ever
mashed-potato slide, hosted by
Mrs, Billy-Joe Keene.

“Stunningly attired in an off->
the-shoulder jumpsuit of lemon
silk accented with blue denim
gloves and matching hardhat,
Mrs, Keene graciously presided
at the chute controls of the con-
crete truck,

"The planning committee
wishes to thank the Kansas
State Potato Growers for their
generous ‘donation. of tubers;
Emporia Ready-Mix for
delivery of mashed potatoes to
the slide site; and Emporia
Disposal Ltd, for thelr fine
catering and clean-up,”

Chew on that Prospect,

WAY ARE PACKAGES Ue

. DIFFERENT SHAPES!) ;

Mere
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“Nor F COURSE! }

ul
i

fll iN

Whimsical method
comes to the fore

VICTORIA — Looks like the
recession, which has been
wreaking havoc with a lot of
ordinary folks, finally caught
up with finance minister Mel
Couvelier or rather the former

Waa “accounting methods.

cagefind more about # ”- iGatie. ‘,
! tefest’ rates. The outbreak of:
“war-in the Persian Gulf in

bun ies resignation.” Re

before his resignation. Read
on,

British Columbia’ 5 rainy-day

account, alias the Budget
Stabilization Fund, also refer-

*” red to as the B.S. Fund, will

be exhausted in one more year,
according to the Third
Quarterly Financial Report,
released by Couvelier last
week,

‘Now, before [ go on, I'll
have to ask those of you who
have been laughing at the B.S,
Fund to do a little mental
acrobatics. Suspend your
disbelief.

Like me and like a lot of
‘very knowledgeable and
___ Fespectable financial experts,
you have maintained that there
never was any money in the
fund to start with. So, how
could Coivelier say the fund
will be empty next year?

Well, the point isn't whether
or not there ever was any
money in the fund, which
there wasn’t; the point is that
Couvelier himself admitted it
will be drained next year. And
coming from a fiscal smoke-
and-mirror man like Couvelier,
that was tantamount to declar-
ing British Columbia an
economic disaster area,

What's more, the God-help-
_us-all-the-B.S.-Fund-is-empty
lament wasn’t the only bad
news Couvéelier dished out in
the quarterly report. Economic
activity in British Columbian,
it said, continued to slow in
the last months of 1990 and ©
early 1991.
~ “Declines in exports, retail
sales and housing starts late in
1990 resulted from a weak
U.S.-economy, depressed con-
sumer confidence and high in-

PeLEACH Somes
FOR BOAT BAILERS...

7
AND NET FLOATS “”

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Et cP ASIN CPN ist Bem reacntere-caniech
paa —_ £ Pie ten EP Rhee reetrie mer. 2. wl!”

ray

; From the
Capital
by Hubert | Beyer

" LARD PAILS FoR
u TEA GILLIES:

Se

we AND ‘dernes ”

oxe CANS FOR Com cuTTERS ”

January added to economic
uncertainty,” it said.
Here's what the people we

“sent to Victoria did with our

money. Expenditures in the
first nine months of the cur-
rent fiscal year totalled $11.03
billion, up 10.5 per cent from
the previous year.

During the same period, the
government went $176 million

into the hole, compared with a

$332 million surplus for the
same period last year,

But hey, Social Credit
wasn't called the funny-money
party for nothing. Couvelier
still expected to balance the

‘budget with the hélp of — you

guessed it — the B.S. Fund.

After taking the remainder.
of the money out of the B.S,
Fund, where, as we know, it
never was to start with, the
current budget will be declared
balanced, After that, even
Couvelier said it’s anybody’s
guess.

What a note on which to
recall the-legislature, unless, of
course, the government is try-
ing hard to make things look
worse than they really are, in
the hope of convincing voters
that it would be very foolish to
let the NDP manage an
already bad provincial.
economy,

1 would have thought that
the old ruse of the socialist
hordes at the gates doesn’t
work too well any more, not
with today’s well-informed
public, but what the hell, it’s

_ worth a shot, Things couldn’:

get much worse for Premier
Vander Zalm and his embattl-
ed government.

Perhaps then, the former
finance minister deliberately
dampened-any optimism he

“ KETCHUP BOTILES.
«FoR SPul casters “

“GARGASE BAGS
Fea RAW GEAR "
if ,

D PAriPERS SPOR
Aa, S00s€ DECOYS ”

: t might have rel as far as the |
economic outlook for British
Columbia is concerned, and -
gave us this gloomy Prediction
instead:

*'Deteriorating conditions i in
the rest of Canada and other
industrialized countries remain
a source of weakness for the
province’s external trade sec-:
tor, while declines in Canadian,
short-term interest rates have
yet to revive domestic spen-
ding.”’

As a result, the report went
on to say, the majority of
forecasters are expecting
British Columbia to experience
slower growth in 1991, The
finance ministry, the report ©
said, expects economic grwoth
in 1991 to be “significantly
‘lower’ than the 1.5 per cent
forecast in the current budget.

No mention of the recover- -
ing housing market. No men-
tion that house prices in Van-
couver and Victoria are quick-
ly approaching pre-recession
price levels. True, the report
was probably completed before
the real estate market started
to rally, but the press release
wasn’t,

If Couvelier had wanted to’
restore some public confidence
in the economy, he could have
easily done so by adding

_. something to that effect in thie

press release accompanying the

» quarterly financial report,but

I suspect that wouldn’t: have fit
into the pre-election: strategy.
And on the altar of that’
‘strategy, questionable as it is, |
Couvelier, it seems, ‘was willing
‘to sacrifice his best friend —
the Budget Stabilization Fund. .
And.a few days afrer he gave :
up on the fund, he gave up his’
cabinet post. Reasons for the:.
latter will have to wait-until i.
he’s willing to reveal them: .. -
GEE, BiG- BUSINESS

REALLY CATERS To
OS NORTH ERNEAS /

aaa pets, ane sicecaeh Gop demaniateed Leapediptency

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