6 Terrace Review — Wednesday, November 20, 1991

he environment has become the grandmother
of all motherhood issues, and one of its most
prodigal children, the recycling movement,

. has become accepted by the public in a manner so
uncritical that one wonders if that acceptance isn’t -

some sort of avoidance reaction.
The provincial government’s tire recycling program

‘provides monetary credits, coughed up by the
_taxpayer, to collect old car, truck and heavy equip-

ment tires, transport them to (in the case of Terrace)
distant facilities where they are shredded up and then

transported again to either manufacturers or, as is now

the case, more probably to a cement plant in Delta
where the material is burned as fuel. Is this really a
sensible thing for the government to be encouraging?
Questioning along this line keeps spawning more
questions. Is the damage inflicted on the environment
by burning truck fuel to move the tires greater than
the damage would be if the tires were just plunked
into a secure landfill and left there? What is the
energy cost of moving recyclable waste paper around
the province, and what is the energy cost of
remanufacturing it into further paper products? Brian
Grant, the authority from the Skeena region Ministry
of Environment, said at a meeting here last week that
the net environmental cost of recycling tires is, to his

knowledge, something no one has calculated and

something no one is even attempting to calculate.
"There are real costs to recycling. It’s almost becom-
ing a panacea," is what he said. .

In discovering that recycled tires are used mostly to
fuel cement kilns, one is set thinking about the decor-
ative concrete planters on Lakelse Ave., the cement
for which may have been fired with tire shreds. Could
we have cut the transportation and burning of tires
out of the environmental equation by.simply stacking
tires on the main drag and planting flowers in them?
It.may not have satisfied the conventional aesthetic
sensibility, but it could have stood as a line of monu-
ments to clear thinking, right in the downtown core.

Terrace city council should think carefully about
what it may be encouraging — and we don’t mean

grant applications from other non-profit societies —
by giving financial support to the local recycling
group.

LOTUS? isn Sona.

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The view from
Victoria —

by John Pifer

VICTORIA - After securing an
interview with B.C.’s new Premier
and reporting about it here recent-
ly, it seemed only right and proper
to tackle his opposite number.

So, dear readers, if you want to
know more about where Opposi-
tion leader Gordon Wilson is com-
ing from, read on.

In a one-on-one session last
week, the Liberal leader even
talked about being known as
B.C.’s favorite whine.

Here are some highlights:

JP: What about being in Opposi-
tion? There is an impotency there,
a frustration factor. The govern-
ment still sets the agenda, still
makes the rules, and still issues
the edicts. You have talked about
how this time it’s going to be dif-
ferent. How?

GW: I think that one of the ways
that we would like to make it dif-
ferent is to instill in the minds of
the government early on that we
don’t necessarily have to proceed
with the notion that it is winner-
take-all in an election.

In fact, once an election is over, it
is important for elected officials to
work together, in areas where we
have expertise and some ideas.
Our call for an early sitting of the
Legislature is, in large part, to do
just that — to establish some stand-
ing committees of the House so
that they may start to work togeth-
er. (Then) we could see some con-
solation, and even collaboration in
some matters. -

JP: Nevertheless, what if they do
bring in legislation that you are
uncomfortable with, or which
gravely concerns you? You may
speak out about it; but what about
the fact that you may not be able
to do much about it?

GW: That will be an area of sig-
nificant frustration. There’s no
doubt about that. We have some

talent on our side of the House,
and we are going to have to learn
to keep our frustration in check,
‘and not be seen to be whining
from the Opposition benches if
things aren’t going our way.
JP: You refer to not being seen as

some training sessions, so for the
next six weeks to two months, we

_ are going back to school.

We intend to come out by the
time the House sits, in a manner
where we are prepared, we're
able, and we're confident to be

whining, and I must bring up this _—-able to do the job that we have

cartoon which showed Gordon
Wilson doubled over inside a bot-
tle of wine, labelled House Whine.
Just how difficult is it to be seen
as other than just whining?

GW: It is very difficult. And what
I am hoping people will do... is
judge us on the merits of what we
are saying. When I talk about try-
ing to assist the government, we
mean that, We've got some seri-
ous problems, and in my view, the
government should recall the
House if for no other reason than
to review the balance of spending
plans that hasn’t yet been
approved through the estimates,
and to look at how we are going to
address that.

Even if we can hold (the deficit)
to $1.4 billion or one-point-five,
it's better than $1.7 billion,
because the cost of debt services
on that is very high.

JP: In looking at the transition in
government in B.C., you have a
lot of ‘green’ new kids on the
block — not only in terms of how
government and the Legislature
operate, but in dealing with the
media, too. Is that not also going
to be a problem?

GW: Well, there is no question
that it is going to be a very big
challenge. One of the things we
are going to be doing is running a
scries of workshops specifically
on how to conduct oneself in the
Legislature. We are going to hold
media-relation workshops on how
to deal with reporters, too, in
scrums and press conferences.
Quite clearly, we do need to have

been charged with. We're definite-
ly taking it seriously.

JP: The people of B.C. have just
gone through five years of bizarre
governing. Obviously in the elec-
tion, by electing the NDP, by
reducing the Socreds to seven
seats, and by making you the offi-
cial Opposition — the voters were
sending out some signals, How do
you read those signals?

GW: I think that the number one
signal that we heard is that the
people of the province were pretty
tired of the confrontational two-
party system. Quite clearly, people
wanted a change to more progres-
sive, more positive government.

Tn coming to us, what crystallized
around me after the debate was
that there was an alternative, and
people moved to it. Now, there is
a lot of soft support out there (for
Liberals). Our challenge is not to
“do a Manitoba”, where Sharon
Carstairs skyrocketed to 20 seats,
and then just collapsed to third
party.

We are working on a plan to try
to harden up that support, to make
sure that we've got it; and at the -
same time, we’re watching the
back door to make sure that we are
not simply letting in a lot of peo-
ple that are going to recreate or
rebuild a sort of Vander Zalm
Social Credit party.

JP: Yet, your goal is to be Pre-
micr. It would appear unlikely that
that could be achieved unless
those many Socred voters come

— Continued on page 7