A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 29, 1997 TERRACE STANDARD | 4047 Lazaile Ave., Terrace, B.C. VAG 1S6 (604) 638-7283 Fax (604) 638-8432 ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 A Division of Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd, ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G SR2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 * FAX: (250) 638-8432 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net Nice try THERE’S NO doubting the wisdom of having the provincial opposition Liberal party flood the north with waves of MLAs, all seeking to im- prove its fortune. It needs seats up north next time around to beat the NDP. But having Liberal MLAs come up here and tell us our forest industry is in trouble, tell us nobody’ listens to us down south and tell us our roads need improvement is akin to having northern NDP MLAs Helmut Giesbrecht and Bill. Goodacre stand on the corner of Hastings and Main in Vancouver and say, ‘‘Gee, you have a hooker and drug problem here.’’ Tell us some- , thing we don’t know. For as much as the provincial Liberals need northern seats to become the government, their tour last week was lacking in depth and know!l- edge of the north. The four Liberals MLAs who visited the north- west were unconvincing in their theme that the Skeena Cellulose crisis is due to NDP tax and forest policies. Never. mind that the company’s owners off-loaded mountains of debt making it an economic disaster, never mind that the mill in Prince Rupert is old and in need of improve- ments, never mind that the kind of wood here is dodgy at best, never mind that the banks made bad loan decisions — it’s all the fault of Glen Clark. Indeed, the four Liberals spent as much time slavering over the possibility of having Skeena NDP MLA Helmut Giesbrecht recalled by tying him to the Skeena Cellulose crisis as they did anything else. And while they criticized mightily the provin- cial bail out of Skeena Cellulose, they never could answer the one crucial question. What would they have, done, if they received the phone _ call: ssaying ithe: company: Was : going down the | tubes? The distinct impression is that the Liberals are fixated on short term political gain instead of long term solutions. ‘Thornhill SO HERE we are. Jackville on one side of the river and Lestown on the other. The encouraging thing about the failed Terrace- Thornhill amalgamation referendum is it clears *: the decks for what must follow. And that’s to have Thornhill now make up its own mind about the future. It’s safe to say a lot of the 58 per cent of Thorn- hill voters who turned down amalgamation did so under the assumption they would pay higher taxes if they joined Terrace or that there was some kind of revenue or land grab plot at work. While the last two points are not true, there is validity in the first point. Higher taxes or at least a different tax structure is coming to Thornhill regardless of what happens. But now, in tuming down amalgamation, Thornhill residents will face those tax changes all by themselves, And that’s probably what they wanted all along. = 1 Pr PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Sam Collier PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS Jeff Nagel ‘NEWS SPORTS: Dave Taylor COMMUNITY: Cris Leykauf STUDENT REPORTER: Salwa Farah OFFICE MANAGER: Sheila Sandover-Sly ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Janet Viveiros, Brian Lindenbach TELEMARKETER: Tracey Tomas ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Kelly Jean TYPESETTING: Sylvana Broman DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Brunette SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $53.50 per year; Seniors $48.15; Out of Province $60.99 Outside of Canada (6 months) $149.80 (ALL PRICES INCLUDE GST) MEMBER OF P B.C. AND YUKON COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, : ft CANADIAN COMMUNITY HEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION G@cna = AND B,C. PRESS COUNCIL Serving the Terrace and Thornhill area. Pubiished on Wednesday af each waek by Cariboo Press (1969) Lid, at 32/0 Clinton Streat, Terrace, British Columbia, VG SR2. Stories, photograptis, illustrations, designs and fypesiyies in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copyright holders, including Cariboo Press (1969) Lid. its Mustration repro services and advertising agencdes, Reproduction in whole or in paul, without writen permission, | ig specifically prohibited. Authorized ag secand- lass miail pending the Post Office Depariment, for payment of postage in cash. the buda and.. a irk Fall T-1t re then Mr. Martin waved his agi ‘Wand eta OF alanced Case for humane drug use VICTORIA Gambling ' casinos are all right with the NDP government, but please no shooting galleries. We're not talking about target shooting here, but about | places where drug addicts can inject narcotics safely, without risk of further spreading the AIDS virus among themselves and others, Health minister Joy Mac- Phail ruled out the idea of es- tablishing such safe houses un- der government supervision before it even had a chance to be discussed, “‘Let?s be clear on this. These are shooting galleries where people who are un- healthy, sick and addicted use illegal substances,’’ the minis- . ter said. Well, — the ‘only current altermtive is that these un- healthy, sick and addicted people shoot up ia back alleys and slums, sharing needles, and spreading AIDS. The idea of establishing govertment-supervised places drug addicts can use was con- tained in a report commis- sioned by her ministry. In the report, a medical consultant, who worked with an advisory panel from service agencies in the cast side of downtown “Alternatives faced one lke knives?’ — Hortense Calisher Like the Charlottetown Ac- cord, the Terrace/Thornhill amalgamation referendum was premature. Anyone who cared to listen to Thomhili residents heard rejection in their tones. An observer might conclude our reasoning was skewed; our acquaintance with the facts was sketchy; our thinking was more gut level than cerebral; our fears were unfounded, But our feelings — some too elusive to articulate — caused 58 per cent of us to reject antalgamation. Myself, I quibbled, mindful that for years the regional board had been saying they no longer wanted to deal with Thombill's expanding prob- lems. I was told surrounding area taxpayers shoulder some of our operating costs. I prefer to pay my own way, And [ realized our affairs are decided by a 12 member- board, only one member of Peres W a Ree aL a a a“ we wien WE a Not ON arn re Pay tifa eg us FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER Vancouver, made a series of recommendations how to spend $3 million to reduce the _Spread of the AIDS vins among intravenous-drug ad- dicts. The report is to be con- sidered by ‘the Vancouver- Richmond regional health board. Last week, the board declared an emergency in Van- couver over the rapid spread of the AIDS virus among addicts, The number of people with the Virus is increasing faster in Vancouver than anywhere else im the developed world, This upward trend is at- tributed to the increased use of cocaine which is injected ten times more often than heroin. That increase in injections has, THROUGH BIFOCA CLAUDETTE SANDECKI which we elect’ The other eleven aren’t answerable to us. That's frustrating. So why did [ vote ‘no’ Octo- ber 18? Terrace bas seven council- lors, counting the mayor, How many the province would al- low us remained a mystery. Two? Three? Our present Area E director plus two more? Would Terrace with its extra councillors call the shots? Might Terrace go so far as to ed ee En ETS . eve f in tum, triggered an increase in the sharing and re-use of needles, Providing clean facilities for drug addicts to use woulda’t be the ultimate answer to the problem, as Dr. Stanley de Viaming, head of the addic- tions program at Vancouver's St. Paul’s Hospital, points out. Cocaine, he says, hijacks the motivational centre of the brain. After 20 or 30 injec- tions, addicls are incapable of rational thought, and a safe place to inject wouldn't neces- sarily be their choice. The government, he said, Should instead establish recovery houses outside the downtown area, where most addicts now live and ui their drugs. - Meanwhile, MacPhail defends her government’s policy in the area of AIDS pre- vention and treatment by pointing a finger at Ottawa for neglecting the beleaguered Vancouver downtown neigh- bourhood, Nice ry, minister, but downtown Vancouver is a lot closer to Victoria than it is to Ottawa. Fed-bashing is O.K, but not when people’s lives are at stake. The idea of providing safe help itself to our new firetrucks leaving our volunteer firefighters to make do with Terrace’s vintage vehicles? Reading the headline further rocked me on my _ heels: “Thornhill or Not, We'll Take It; Tertace’s mayor says he’ll go after amalgamation funding no matter how Thornhill votes,”’ So even if Thornhill voted ‘no’, so long as Terrace voted ‘yes’ the mayor would fight to hang on to Terrace’s $1.3 mil- lion portion of the money the province set aside for restruc- turing. The chamber of commerce’s endorsement of amalgamation annoyed me as much as their call for Premier Clark to apologize to Alaska over the ferry blockade. It’s as though chamber members have two voices — one as a business, an- other as a resident, That’s un- fair. Anyway, I don’t need any places for addicts to inject drugs is understandably abhor- tent to a lot of people, but what cut iyo as a ae is the difference between that ~ and providing needles free of . charge, a program in effect in Vancouver and most other major North American cities, Recovery houses would help, but as long as Victoria and Ot- tawa fight over who will pay for them, not too many will be built. There is no magic bullet that will miraculously eliminate drug addiction. Only a fong- tange strategy that includes every conceivable program to educate, treat and rehabilitate drug addicts will be successful. Meanwhile, safe houses or, as the minister calls them, ‘shooting galleries, might offer at least some hope foi arresting the spread of “AIDS among drug addicts, MacPhail is obviously afraid of a public backlash against something as drastic as giving addicts a place where they can inject illegal drugs safely that she would rather stick her head in the sand. Have another look at it, minister. Beyer can be reached at Tel: (250) 920-9300; Fax: (250) 385-6783} E-Mail: Aubert@coolcom.com no’ populated center in the north- west, with extra political clout. Hah! The province was so im- pressed with our pending clout it made us wait until 6:30 Monday morning to hear news of the referendum results, Expecting me to accept Ter- race’s mayor as mine... until the next regular election No- vember 1999, was the final straw. Where’s the newfound democracy in that? If the amalgamation proposal had included a promise to hold a mayoralty election in a month or two I would have voted ‘Yes.’ And if Talstra bad been re-elected, I wouldn't have screamed ‘‘Recall.’’ However, an immediate mayoralty election was judged too costly. Yet an extensive study, major consultants’ fees, untold staff time, and an ex- pensive referendum that changed nothing was affor- dable. salesman guiding my ‘X’. How Charlottetown, We were assured amalgama- tion would make us the most SEE? I ToD Parat eee WE ore unbohAar You its unique! Nios a eee eee tele tiee ted el e Tee ee Te e ee ee eee ween ewes