Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 3, 2002 TERRACE" ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 PUBLISHER: ROD LINK TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 « FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEB: www.terracestandard.com

ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. * V8G 5R2 EMAIL: standard@kermode.net

Use a coroner

A TIP of the hat to the transportation ministry for taking a step toward delving into the controversy surrounding winter road conditions.

It’s now announced it will review road mainte- nance standards when contracts for private road maintenance companies come up for renewal.

Now ministry officials will go to great lengths to say this review is nothing unusual. They'll say a review of the standards is a normal occurrence designed to ensure that everything is as it should be.

Perhaps. But the reality that officials are talking about the review and are taking pains to point out it is a regular course of business points to some- thing quite different.

It demonstrates the transportation ministry and the government is acknowledging the phone calls and letters from people questioning maintenance standards and how they are met.

It is also an acknowledgment of the inquiries made by local and regional governments who in turn are responding to questions put to them.

But governments being huge organizations with their own rules and ways of operating don’t like to be forced into taking large strides forward into areas where they might not have ultimate control of events or of the outcome.

A review of maintenance standards, framed within the context of contract renewal, permits the ministry and the government to examine the issue and to keep control of the situation.

But what is really required is an independent body with the moral and legal authority to con-

A coroner, with a coroner’s jury, would call on a team of traffic experts from the police and from ICBC.

This is where the issues would be raised of dri- ver training, of driver responsibility, of winter weather patterns, of how and when sand or salt is deposited, of how and when sand or salt wouldn’t be effective, of maintenance budgets, of response times when snow falls, of how stan- dards are set in the first place and of how they are checked.

A coroner is the right person for this because a coroner doesn’t assign blame. A coroner’s job is to find reasons and to make recommendations. And that is exactly what is required in this cir- cumstance. It is something the ministry and pro- vincial government should regard, to use the pop- ular phrase down in Victoria, a core review of services.

So regard the standards review as a tiny win- dow of opportunity. It is a glimmer of hope in persuading the ministry and the provincial gov- ernment that something far more is needed in re- sponse to the tragedy of people dying each winter on northern roads.

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Sarving tha Terrace and Thomhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week al 3210 Clinton Street, Tartace, British Columbia, VAG 5A2,

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No gold medal for these

VICTORIA — By the end of the year, the Liberal govern- ment’s approval rating will plunge to the 30-per-cent range. So says Michael Prince, a political scientist at the University of Victoria.

Prince says dramatic changes to welfare eligzbility, coupled with a myriad of other cuts across ministries and Crown corporations, many of which are set to kick in April 1, will begin to be felt throughout the province,

“It’s a pretty sad April Fool’s joke,” he says. “The next stage in this will be the voice of the people and I think it will be very powerful.”

To date, it has been mostly public sector employees who have been bearing the brunt of the Liberal restraint policies, but empathy with public ser- vants has at best been luke- warm in British Columbia.

The next stage of Premier Gordon Campbell’s New Era,

~ however;~ will play out: in’ every commiiiity and touch’ on“

the lives of peaple who in one way or another depend on soc- iety’s generosity for their sur- vival.

Here are some of the changes that may test the Lib- erals” mettle:

Employable British Colum- bians will be able to claim welfare only for two years out of every five, after which they

The fear of bullying in schools

FOR 90 minutes two Sundays ago, along with other upset fa- milies, I listened to parents and PAC representatives tell school board members assem- bled on the R.E.M. Lee stage why their school should be kept open and their kids not transferred to another school.

Speakers cited many rea- sons their schoal is close to home, wheelchair accessible, the cornerstone of their com- munity yet underlying their Teasons spoken or implied was their fear of bullying.

Cormorant Elementary par- ents want their entire school students, staff, and books moved as a bloc. What better way to safeguard their kids than to bunch them together, shepherded by trusted tea- chers?

One native representative bluntly said his people had grave concerns about the wel- fare of their students at any other school than where they attend now. He used the ward bullying so no one wouid mis- understand him.

Copper Mountain School prides itself on its anti-bully- ing strategies. Parents may be

MINUTES

MARTEN YOURE 45 MM LATE!

FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER

will be denied existence. It es- capes me where after two years, they are to find jobs. There is a new three-week waiting period before welfare kicks in. During that time the applicant is expected to look for a job. Tell that to the 15,000 forest workers expected to lose their jobs due to George W. Bush’s two-faced stand on free trade. (Free

trade, except lumber. Free’ ‘Wade, "éxCept'steel:)

New welfare rates mean cuts in benefits of between $50 and $100 a month for sin- gle parents, employable cou- ples and recipients between 55 and 64. Get a job you bum. Whaddaya mean nobody wants to hire a 64-year-old? Have you tried the circus, the freak show? The latter with apologies to cartoonist Bob

‘THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

too polite to point fingers, but as a grandmother, 1 quake at the prospect of my two grand- daughters tiding a bus even the short run to Thornhill.

While riding a school bus, my young daughters were pounded on the head and upper arms by the fists of bul- lies, one of whom goes in and out of jail more often than a defence lawyer.

I dread the thought of inte- grating my two with a crowd of unknown students, and en- trusting them to teachers and a principal whose policy on and

y MIGRATORY SEASONAL FUENOMENON Youll SEE ON

YOuR Why Home |

Bierman.

The earning exemption that topped up welfare benefits will be eliminated, Under the cur- rent system, welfare recipients could earn an extra $100 a month.

Welfare eligibility rules will be tightened, especially for families. Under the current system, families with assets of $5,500 or less are eligible for assistance. In future, the thres- hold will be $2,500. Imagine your life with belongings worth less than $2,500,

Child care subsidies wil! be harder to get. At the same time, single mothers will have to go back to work after their children reach the age of three, instead of the current age seven. Crisis grants for food, shelter and clothing will be curtailed,

Those with incomes of more than $250,000 a year will be eligible for a crisis grant of no more than $50,000 a year. OK,

‘{-made:'that’ one ‘up, ‘although™ “thé tax cuts introduced by the”

Liberals are a close analogy.

Many readers admonish me for being to hard on the goy- ernment. With all due respect, that’s my job.

This government has en- ough sycophantic admirers, foremost among which are the Fraser Institute and many edi- torial writers, it doesn’t need me to further its goals.

record for curbing bullying and playground unpleasantness I don’t know.

Police and media reports from time to time of drug using and drug dealing elsewhere in the district also sap my confi- dence that any school other than Copper Mountain is safe for my grandkids,

Neither am I heartened by an Abbotsford judge’s ruling this week convicting a 17- year- old girl of criminal har- assment that led to a 14-year- old committing suicide. If southern B.C, has student bul- lies of that dimension, how can I feel okay about my grandkids going to an unknown school?

Copper Mountain is solid in its opposition to closing its school...at the last minute. Kids have held bake sales, sold chocolate bars door-to-door and fund raised in other ways to pay for a phone in each classroom (a rare safety fea- ture in B.C. scheals), buy gym equipment, a fridge to cool drinks.

They also sponsor a foster child in South America and

“quent “effect: and: ripple! effect

BAM Et

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If ever a government needed to be watched with a critical eye, it is this one, with a lop-. sided mandate in the legisla- ture that allows it to do just about anything it wants with impunity. ,

It’s weird enough to watch 77 Liberals steam roll over two opposition members. Fo hear them heckle and ridicule the two is a bit sickening. e

Prince, the poli-sci prof, = paints out that this is just the : start of three years of possible cuts. He says it will be inter- esting to see if the Liberals have the political stomach to stick to their plan and whether the economy improves and with it government revenues,

“If there’s any validity for the dire predictions (by many poverty activists), possible linkages such as more suicides, increased family abuse, crime, on April 1 we'll see that sce- nario unfold. We'll have to watch and observe the subse-

“on familie€ and communities," ~ f Prince says. ;

I strongly believe that a sac- iety must be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. On that score, the Liberal govern- ment is not about to win Olym- pic gold.

Beyer can be reached at: E-mail: hubert@coolcom.cam; Tel (250) 381-6900; Web

Attp://www.hubertbeyer.cam

these kids take their “parenting” very seriously. They reject the thought of cut- ting their child adrift.

At the R.E.M. Lee meeting March 24 (called in haste as though intending to sneak it past vacationing parents), Alexander Elementary School representatives noted Kitimat schoals never had a funding © shortage until they were forced to amalgamate with Terrace. Since amalgamation the school has lost its band, music, secre- tary and support staff.

Threat af schoo! closures has everyone savaging every- one else: the natives feel the board’s decision is race based, Parents of young children want to do away with PACES for pregnant teens. Special needs with their one-on-one support. staff drain dollars from normal children,

Since learning her school . may close this June, my 9- year-old granddaughter has had nightmares every night.

Now that the decision ‘has . been made to close Copper. Mountain, thanks Gordon =~ Campbell.

©. VRGUARAT