Continued from Page A6
property owners in seeking an
alternative in advance of a sewer
disaster happening. (Example:
during the recent California earth-
quake, many of us learned that
ordinary household insurance
doesn’t include earthquake dam-
age so we have the choice if we
~ wanted to take out a separate
policy for earthquake damage.)

If the Town of Sidney is not
responsible for the Paulsons” dam-
aged home, why did the town crew
even show up and get involved in
the attempt at cleaning up the
mess? Who authorized them to go
out?

Taxpayers of Sidney — it’s time
each and every one of you stood

up for yourselves. If any injustice .

hits you, or has in the past, speak

out. Don’t become just another

victim because you think “the
little guy can’t fight city hall.”

Rozalynde McKibbin

Sidney

Blame Bill,
blame them all

Editor:

Several people have commented
recently that a disproportionate
amount of criticism is being
directed at Premier Bill Vander
Zalm. Maybe they're right, some
of the criticism is poorly directed.

OK, so several billion dollars
worth of B.C.’s assets have been
sold for far less than they’re worth.
Let’s not blame just the premier,
let’s blame the whole Socred gov-
ermment.

B.C. is roughly $20 billion in
debt so we pay out approximately
$2 billion a year in interest pay-
ments alone. The Socred govern-
ment helped create the debt so I
think the Socreds in general can
take the blame for that as. well.

Our MLAs have received pay
raises far in excess of what they
deserved, but the Socred MLAs
Supported them along with the
Premier.

The government wasted
$100,000 on an AIDS video the
public isn’t allowed to see. Surely
someone should have read the
premier’s mind ahead of time and
figured out what type of video he
wouldn’t censor.

Tens of millions of dollars are
spent each year on unnecessary
government information distribu-
tion (propaganda, according to
some). I think most people would
agree that the entire Socred gov-
emment is guilty of wasting
money in this manner.

The premier hasn’t brought
back vehicle testing stations, so
the province has far more vehicle
accidents than it should. But once
again I think his entire party
should take the flak for that.

As for the Knight Street Pub
affair, the selling off of Expo land
for less than it’s worth, lack of
enforcement of pollution laws,
lack of action on acid rain and the
greenhouse effect and several
dozen other fiascoes — again,
let’s stop blaming Bill and start
blaming Bill and his government.

Karl Johanson
Victoria

For Week ending Jan. 6

Chalk a big one up for Bud
Smith. In his position as Attorney
General of British Columbia he
sued the federal government over
the proposed closure of the Esqui-
malt and Nanaimo passenger ser-
vice on Vancouver Island. Bud
won.

The Supreme Court of Canada
tuled recently that operation of the
service was an important part of

British Columbia’s entry into con-

federation, and Ottawa had no
right to shut down the service.

The line was scheduled to close
down Jan. 15, and Smith lost no
time telling Ottawa to make sure it
complies with the highest court in
the land. In a letter to federal
Justice Minister Doug Lewis,
Smith said he wants assurance that
Ottawa will move immediately to
“meet its legal, historical and
moral obligation” to maintain the

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TheReview Wednesday, January 17, 1990

VICTORIA — He will, he
won’t; he will, he won?t. No
matter how many times I repeat
the old childhood game of tearing
petals off flowers, the answer
always changes.

What’s the question? Will
Premier Vander Zalm announce
his retirement from politics when
he takes to the airwaves today? I
suspect the premier, too, is playing
the old flower game. His question:
They love me, they don’t love me.

If Vander Zalm’s true intentions
are so hard to read, it is probably
because he himself keeps chang-
ing his mind. Whenever he
encounters a derogatory news
story, column or cartoon, he’s
ready to call it quits, but then
somebody comes along, telling
him to hang in there, and he’s all
fired up again.

But when all is said and done, I
still believe he will tell us that we
won't have Bill to kick around any
more. My reasons for believing so
haven’t changed.

Above all, the fun has gone out
of the job. I mean, how would you
feel if nothing you do pleases your
bosses, in this case the public? You

give them a balanced budget, and-

they don’t care; you give them a

good economy and they want your

hide. Where’s the fun in that?
There must be family pressures.

I’m sure his wife Lillian is fed up “|
to the teeth seeing her husband

attacked at every tum: One of his
sons, Vim, advised him publicly
— and on television — to call it
quits. He, too, is probably sick and
tired of having his father maligned,
day after day.

There is his business, the
amusement park, which hasn’t
been doing all that well and could
only profit from Vander Zalm’s
undivided attention.

From Vander Zalm’s point of
view, I’m sure, the biggest obstacle
in the way of his retirement from
politics is the feeling that he will

Will he leave? |

have been pushed out, but there
are ways to make it a little more
palatable.

‘Whenever he
encounfiers a
derogatory news
story, column or
cartoon, he’s ready to
call it quits, but then’

He could, for instance,
announce that he will step down
shortly after the new budget comes
down sometime in March. There
could be worse notes to leave on
than the province’s second conse-
cutive balanced budget.

The bottom line is the Socreds
are damned if they do and damned
if they don’t. They can’t win an
election with Vander Zalm as
leader, but they can’t win with
anyone else either.

There is absolutely no doubt in
my mind that the next election will
see the Social Credit party not
only defeated but extinguished.
What little remains of the party
after the election will disintegrate
in short order.

Out of the temporary chaos will
emerge some sort of free-

DISTRICT OF NORTH SAANICH
FOR SALE

AS IS - WHERE IS

A8

enterprise coalition party headed
by the dissidents who left the
Social Credit caucus some time
ago.

One of the names already ban-g
died about is the B.C Party, but
whatever its name, you may expect
Graham Bruce, the now independ-
ent MLA for Cowichan-Malahat,
to play a prominent role in it.

Whether the new party will
succeed in building voter support
remains to be seen. The track
record of new parties is not very
good in B.C. The last one who
tried to float a new party was
former NDP MLA Graham Lea,
but his Unity Party died of malnu-
trition shortly after it was born. —

So, in the end, it won’t matter to

the Social Credit Party whether or

not Vander Zalm steps down, but it
could well matter to Vander Zalm.
If he steps down. now, at least he
will have been undefeated at the
polls. He will be able to take with
him the knowledge that under his
leadership, British Columbia pros-
pered.

If he stays, he will preside over
the ruins of a party that may not
even be able to mount an effective

“opposition. Given that choice, I

know what I would do.

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