_ A4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 7, 2005

TANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

PUBLISHER: ROD LINK

ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. - V8G 5SR2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 + FAX: (250) 638- 8432 WEB: www.terracestandard.com EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard com

‘Been there .. a

.. AND DONE that...

| ” Three weeks ago Mr. Les Watmough, the Re-

gional District of Kitimat-Stikine’s director for

Thornhill, ina letter to this newspaper, criticized those who he said don’t respect the rural areas.: Specifically Mr. Watmough,. dubbed by many as the unofficial mayor of Thornhill, set his sights on how the rural community should,be governed. _.He’s upset that a motion he introduced at a re- = gional ¢ district meeting earlier this year to begin the

- process of incorporating Thornhill was changed to add another option, a merger with Terrace. __ “Ttis odd,” Mr. Watmough wrote, “that the coun-

“cil of Terrace is very anxious to have Thornhill,

-” but it.is not that they want to improve the lives of

: . _ the people who'live there. It’s the land they want, |

~. and not the people.” r

The debate about Thornhill. stretches back de-

a cades. A clipping from an October 1969 issue of ’" The Northern Sentinel, which then had a Terrace edition, reveals this:

» »- “Thornhill rural ratepayers last week requested 7 ‘the Skeena'B Regional District (the former name ~ for the Kitimat-Stikine regional district) to undeér-

“take an incorporation study on their behalf.” “The: memorandum, requests investigation. of three alternatives:

OR, ‘incorporation into some form. of municipal

/ government covering the whole or part of the area commonly known as Thornhill, or,

_* a special service area to provide water, sewer

“and ¢ other pertinent services to the whole, or part, of Thornhill, or” * the possibility of amalgamating all or part of Thornhill with the municipality of Terrace.”

buried’ deep in the régional district’s archives. But

it is interesting to note that years on, nothing much

has materially changed. The issue of Thornhill’s _governing structure remains unresolved. Officially Thornhill remains a bit of an orphan, a foster child of the regional district. Yet it is also a cousin of Terrace. There are numerous agree- ments in place whereby Thornhill residents are _ asmuch a part of Terrace’s recreation and cultural _ services.as city residents are themselves. " Terrace and Thornhill fire departments have a very good working relationship in which each aids __ each other as the need arises. Policing is handled out of one RCMP detachment. _s Jt’s clear. Terrace and Thornhill benefit from -- each other’s. presence. Each. would be poorer without the other.

Whether that relationship should extend to a.

formal governing structure or whether Thornhill 7 ‘should mature on its own will once more be de- bated. | | This time, however, every effort must be made to come to a resolution once and for all. |

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’ Serving the Terrace and Thornhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 3210 Clinton Street, Terrace, British Columbia, V8G 5R2. Stories, photographs, illustrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copy-

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Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents

Black Press»

“SAND AS YOUR CANDIDATE, |: {TL AIM To BRING DIGNITY | AND RESPECT BACK TO

years,

Hand was. caught | in cookie jar

BILL 17, the now- defunct legislation to increase an

-MLA’s pay, restore the |

pension plan and increase constituency allowances.

‘is a very different type

of legislation than MLAs normally see...

. It was not a Bill ina

sense that it. is generated

_by party politics or even

really brought forward by government. .

It was put’ together by a joint committee comprised

of members from both the

Liberals. and° NDP, and

‘as Mike Farnsworth the House Leader of the NDP © ‘stated ‘““We went and dis-

cussed it with our respec- tive caucuses so that each . member of caucus could state their feelings, could

.. put, their, point ..of, view... forward : 50: that. we could”

Whatever happened. to this request is probably a

* come to a consensus.

~ Over the last number of the demand from the. public for greater ac-. cess to their politicians has" increased.

In many cases the rural urban split has it’s roots as much in this issue aS“any other.

The attempt to revisit how constituency offices — are funded is something long overdue.

_ Take the riding of Bulk- ley Stikine just to the east ofus. —

It’s larger than four provinces and takes two days to get from one end to the other. .

On the other hand, the riding of Vancouver Bur- rard can be walked across in two hours.

| ROGER HARRIS

~ Some rural ridings like: Yale Lillooet have as many

as five different communi- |

ties.

Picking the one to lo-~

cate a constituency office

in, often deprives.others,

of” equal access “to” “their ’’ arc

Although there is a dif- ferential today in how constituency offices are funded, it comes nowhere close to representing the true costs or disparity.

There are real issues of WCB and long-term dis- ability. MLAs today -find themselves in the unenvi- able position of not. being covered by WCB or served adequately by a long-term disability program..

Just last term “we wit- nessed a number of MLAs who either were injured while performing their du- ties.or contracted serious illnesses during their term in office.

If the financial risks to public service become too great and the remunera-

Sex

‘tion inadequate the caliber

of people who will let their.

name stand for positions in ‘the legislature will reflect that reality.

» The MLA pension plan is areal problem. In 1996, rather than fix what was a

. gold-plated pension plan,

the politicians of the day

just canceled it. The more reasonable

approach would have been

'-to fix the plan so that it: other - members of the ‘public ser-

represented .. what

vice can expect when they retire. _ It.was the perceived ex-

cessiveness of the pension. plan that ‘upset the public

not the plan in itself.. | But I suspect Bill 17

has been a valuable les-

son,.for many of the new

: MEAs, some whom ‘have’ “ commented’ that they “had

no choice but to accept the wage increase, as it was part of a package.

- Every Bill receives three readings; the third reading of any Bill is done on a section by section basis.

Each section deals with a specific: component of the package so at any time a member’ could support one part of the Bill, but not another.

Bill 17 contained 12 sec- tions so including the final vote there were: 15 oppor- tunities to stand up and say hold on for a minute a ‘haven‘t done enough ...

_ justify a wage increase.‘

The shame with this is there are some very real

inequities that need to be -

‘addressed when ‘it comes

:to MLA remuneration. If we want to attract - _good people to run for pub-

lic office, then we do need

to ensure those discrepan-, —

cies are dealt with and in-

. dividuals are compensated

appropriately.

From the public’ Ss _ pro- -

spective, the folks “who pick up. the tab, the pro- cess to determine how this

number is calculated must .be fair, equitable and as:

transparent as possible. |

- Bill 17 was an attempt to rectify some, but not all of these discrepancies,

-some of which would di- — rectly improve the service . . the public could expect to

receive. — Most reasonable people will not resist or protest an

increase in the legislative budget if they understand -the'issues being addressed

and can see. how it will benefit them directly.

The problem is no one went out there and told the public there was a Problem at all.

Rather than get out, in front of the issue and ex- plain what challenges our elected officials face, they

chose to reach well into.

the cookie jar, and while trying to fix real problems grabbed that extra cookie. Now the real discrepan- cies that needed to be ad- dressed will be sidelined

and at the-end of the day o the public good is: not ~ served very well at al].

I guess in a world where

“everyone matters”

mattered more than oth- ers. _

Bring back those family dinners —

THE CURE for childhood

obesity, teen drug use and. poor school grades could be as, simple as reinstating.the fam-.

ily supper ‘hour, according to

- half a dozen reports of studies . done by top universities, re-

‘search firms and think tanks.

These studies show families - _ in-crisis at the dinner table. In

a Leger marketing survey, 21 per cent of married moms consider putting dinner on the

table to be the most stressful - activity of their day.

' The survey cites some of

the moms’ stress coming from

the scramble to get everyone

fed before rushing off in all

directions to extracurricular activities.

The result is everyone from the six-year old to Dad grabs a.

fistful of potato chips or chick-

~ en nuggets on their way out to . the car shouldering gear for ' whatever is on their agenda —

soccer, hockey, baseball. (Just listening to some families’ schedules exhausts me.) Similarly, a Decima. Re- search survey reported more than half of Canadians feel they don’t have time to plan

THROUGH BIFOCALS

CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

or prepare a family dinner. That’s despite timesaving conveniences of frozen foods, prepackaged everything from soups to desserts, microwaves to speed the cooking and dish- washers to help with cleanup.

Chances are many of these time-savers are canceled by the extra burden of answer- ing cell phones, playing back answering machine messages, and e-mailing everyone from the plumber to e-Bay. ©

Once upon a time driving

. put you in a cocoon where you

could turn on some soft music,

enjoy a few private moments, and decompress from the hec- tic day.

All. that’s gone. Drivers steer with one hand, chat on

" their cell phones about nothing - special, then wonder why they ©

feel harried. - Before regular family din- ners can happen,. activity schedules have to be. pared. And the kids have to feel safe under the eye.of both parents for fifteen minutes. In other words, dinner shouldn’t be a stockholders’ meeting lacking universal voting rights.

Too often parents pass the

_Cfiticism along with carrots. And the opportunity to remind

kids to make better grades, keep their rooms tidier, and do more chores has to be made the most of.

Preparing a meal would be:

easier for Mom if her family

had learned to like the same

foods - the aim of every moth- er but a goal few achieve... I know one family where everyone has individual tastes in every food category. Mom sets the table with six beverag- es and six salad dressings, al-

ways. So much for efficiency in her kitchen.

A big deterrent to kids hur-

rying to dinner is the list of topics they must remember not to raise along with their forks. Topics such as makeup. Heels. Movie dates. Allowances. Necklines.

Any one of those topics can

end the meal in a parental rant, ruining all appetites and tying stomachs in more knots’ than a Boy Scout’s lanyard: Other- wise, kids might feel relaxed enough to look up once or twice from their plate.

Researchers, after these

studies, advise family doctors —

to recommend more family meals as'a way to achieve a healthier diet for every family member.

Mashed potatoes:are health- ier than potato chips. Beef stew has far less fat than a fast food burger. And milk rates better than root beer or soda on every health food guide.

.For now, family dinners may be.as rare as parliamen- tarians who work for us rather than for themselves.

some.”

Fi