‘A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, July 20, 2005

TERRACE = a=

STANDARD

__ ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

_ . PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ‘ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. » V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 - ‘FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEB: www.terracestandard. com . se, _ EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard. com

‘Privacy breach

, People here should be gravely concerned about

revelations earlier this month that the Canada . Revenue Agency sent reams of private informa- tion belonging to two different Vancouver Island

° residents. to a local man who lives in Thornhill.

Everything Bill Fulton, the recipient of the doc--

_ uments, needed to commit identity theft was given

~ to him on a silver platter — or more accurately in a _ manila envelope — by the very agency we as citi-

zens trust with our most personal information. ~The Canada Revenue Agency sent Mr. Fulton.

; home phone numbers, addresses, detailed infor-

:mation about lease. holdings in Atlantic. Canada, ‘Social Insurance Numbers, credit card numbers and personal tax receipts belonging to two: sepa- .rate individuals living in Nanaimo and Victoria.

Included in the fat bundle of private information

_ were the only two pieces of paper intended for -« him ~a tax receipt and a notice of assessment.

Mr. Fulton could have used the information pro-

| vided him to take over the potential victims’ bank |

accounts, open new accounts, get credit cards,

_ purchase a vehicle, go on vacation or even apply

no for a loan ~ all thanks to the federal government. It’s a. good thing Mr. Fulton is not the type of. guy who would take advantage of the information

_ _ to use for his own personal gain.

summer months when political representatives go |

‘ate ‘severe.

rifying. --. The government has a duty to its citizens to. ensure that this type of mishandling of personal .

oe Instead he marched the private documents right ~ 4. down to the RCMP and to the office of Skeena

. Bulkley Valley: MP Nathan Cullen in hopes the _ information would get to. the’ rightful owners.

Federal communication flaks say 99.9999 per cent of the time government mail gets to the in-

tended recipient and mistakes such as this happen

rarely. But for the 0.0001 per cent of the popula-

> The very idea: that our personal information could be distributed to other citizens, by the gov- ernment agency charged with keeping our per- sonal. information safely guarded, should be ter-

information happens 0 per cent of the time. . Nathan Cullen has asked for a full and com- plete investigation into the occurrence and wants

the federal Minister of Finance Ralph Goodale to. outline what went ‘wrong..He also wants to see

an accounting of how often this type of incident

happens and a review of how government mail is

‘distributed.

~ Canadians deserve to see exactly how their per- .

sonal information is being handled. -It’s unfortunate this incident happened i in the

on vacation, because Mr. Cullen has yet to hear back from the minister. ‘Let’ s hope his reply doesn’t take much longer.

PUBLISHER/EDITOR: | ” , Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach _ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur - . ’ NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman COMMUNITY: Dustin Quezada ° NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping, Carolyn Anderson © CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: . Bert Husband, Susan Willemen . AD.ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik PRODUCTION: Susan Credgeur —

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Serving the Terrace and Thornhill area. Published on Wednesday of each week at 321 0 Clinton Street, Tore,

British Columbia, V8G 5R2.

__ Stories, photographs, illustrations, designs and typestyles in the Terrace Standard are the property of the copy- , fight holders, including Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd., its iliustration repro services and advertising agencies.

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Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondenis for their time and talents.

hit” by identity theft the consequences.

COMPETITION

: roe BE NEEDING THESE BACK NOW

University students adapt to debt

SUMMER. HAS arrived:. , The trees are lush and green, the

- sun is shining and warm, it’s * the perfect season for leisure

and relaxation; of course that’s

_.if you’re anybody other than a _ university or college student.

The: summer isn’t about

days spent tanning and enjoy- |... ing your youth when you’re a student. Oh no, it’s a mad dash |

to find the best-paying ‘posi- tion you can, just so you might

be able to humour the idea that

you won’t have to take out another student loan next Sep-. .

tember.

Most students’ dream is to

_ graduate ‘debt free but the re- - ality is that most ‘students (or

at least the vast majority of my friends and fellow students at UNBC) usually leave school with $20,000 to $30, 000 in debt.

Not to mention the 6.2 float-»

ing interest on both the federal

~ and provincial loans, so that’s

12.4% in total on a loan of $30,000. 12.4! I know credit

’ cards with less interest than that and their job is to swindle

us!

Oh yes, the government is making a pretty penny off all of the students in Canada.

Don’t get me wrong though, I accept that I made my choice to take out a loan so I could get an education and I accept

_ that my loan is exactly what it is: a loan. I also expect to

have to give something back to my government for helping.

“me pay for the schooling they

just recently lifted the tuition

’ freeze on.

- I mean, how are our elected officials supposed to launder

LINDSEY STIN SON_

money from the Canadian citi- zen when there are no o funds to launder? .

- Asan open- -minded student, I realize that even though Ger- many, Denmark, Sweden, Ice-

“if high-paying. jobs were food in the super- market we’d have some pretty bare shelves.”

land, Ireland, Norway, Scot- land and France have virtually

no tuition (unless’ you count - -the $124 a year to cover books

in France), I should pay an.av- erage of $5,640 in tuition each year.

I also accept that the price just quoted did not include my books, which (for me) usually range around $600 a semester, nor my school supplies at $50 to $100.

And I realize that the price quoted did not include my liv- ing expenses, such as rent or a

. diet consisting of Kraft Din-

‘ner and no-name noodle soup (Ichiban is a little too expen- -

sive’ for the ‘average student,

-you see). -

You'll find that the aver-

age Canadian student. is: just

like me, we accept. what’s been given to us, beggars can’t

- be’ choosers, right? ‘ But how ~ about when the hand that feeds ‘you not only expects you to ~ give back that.can of “Camp- they served you ° | cold, but to somehow come up

bell Soup”

_ with a filet mignon? The . government believes that the interest on our student

loans is justifiable because

of these high paying ‘utopia’

‘careers. we’re all supposed to

have as soon as we graduate. © But. let’s face it, no matter what the government tells you, if high-paying jobs were food in the supermarket we’d have some pretty bare shelves.

Lindsey Stinson is studying .

political sciences at the Uni- versity of Northern British Columbia in Prince George.

_ Medical student debt can dictate where graduates practice

Vancouver, B.C.-- That a-

medical education costs a lot of money is no surprise, but

. the fact that the high debt load that ‘medical students can end ~

up with often influences the type of medicine they practice is.

The results of the National

Physicians Survey released

by the Canadian Medical As- sociation earlier this week

echoes the B.C. Medical. As-

sociation’s concerns regarding: 7

the increasing financial burden

medical students have upon ~~ ' graduation.

The annual costs for tuition, .

‘books, and supplies can be up- - -

wards of $20,000 and added to that would be rent, food, and

clothing. This comes after the © costs of an undergraduate de-

gree. “At the end of the. four year medical school program, '

students can have well over ~ - $120,000 of debt. With these =:

unprecedented levels of debt,

fewer medical students are

choosing family medicine and’

instead are choosing ‘special-

ty practice,” says Dr. Kevin McLeod, president of the Pro- fessional Association of Resi- — dents. Specialist physicians traditionally earn more than

: family physicians.

According to a BCMA sur- vey undertaken in December 2004 involving UBC medi- cal school students, 66 per cent said they have loans over $50,000 and 25 per cent have loans ‘that: exceed $100,000. Once medical schoo! students graduate (as with any post-_ secondary graduate) loan re- payment begins.

But unlike other giaduates,

medical students begiiy a two - -

to six year residency program earning a set income far below that of a fully trained physi- cian and are required to begin

repaying these hefty loans.

' Seventy-one per cent of | medical students said they find it difficult to manage their loan repayments during. their resi-

dency.

Following expert advice prudent

| A FEW tips smooth any "endeavour. When I arrived at

X-ray for my first abdominal

. ultrasound, I knew only that

pregnant women underwent ultrasounds routinely _—to

” check their baby’s health, and

ultrasounds are painless. -I

didn’t suspect waiting for an.

ultrasound can be agony.

. Though any sensible adult ‘marches to the bathroom at the first hint of an uncomfortable

‘bladder, for an abdominal ul- .

trasound the patient’s bladder must be full to bursting. That’s why hard plastic chairs furnish Radiology’s waiting’ room,

and. waiting patients sit on their edges attentive as hockey |

fans when the score is tied. - Out of mercy for both pa-

tients and cleaning staff, mag-

azines are culled of publica-

tions likely to contain jokes.

My appointment was for 1 p.m. Preparation for my test

_ began in the forenoon. I was ~ _ told to pee at 11 a.m., drink 32

ounces of water, then not pee ‘again until after the test. Given my. age and history, I recognized the need for in- struction modifications. Oth-

THROUGH BIFOCALS

-CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

erwise I envisioned | covering.

the distance from. my truck to the x-ray department crouched like Rambo dodging ‘Cong snipers.

So, I waited until noon be-

fore drinking the four cups of - _ water. A major error, I learned

later. Despite the abnormal amount of drink, I managed to walk normally from the park- ing lot and arrived at 12:50.

At precisely 1 p.m. the techni-

cian escorted me past a special washroom for patients, into

Viet

the ultrasound room. “Do you have to go to the bathroom?” he asked. Does a

starving man need food? Does

an empty tank need gasoline?

Of course I had to go to the bathroom. Nonetheless. he © - blocked my path.

‘He draped my abdomen with two towels, and flooded

“my skin with warm liquid.

Within seconds of starting the

examination he complained, “I

can’t see anything! You didn’t drink enough water! Return to the waiting room and drink several glasses of water.”

He handed me a clear plas- tic cup. “I'll call you.”

In quick | succession I downed five glasses of water before paging a 1987 issue of

Harrowsmith. Talk about dry

reading. But soon I began t to squirm.

- Minutes dragged by. Like Mary

Tyler Moore at Chuckle’s fu- neral, I tried to resist funny

. thoughts but my mind dredged

up an Air Farce skit in which John Morgan, desperate for a

washroom, mistakenly enters:

an MENSA office where ‘the “A” has fallen off the sign.

.He’s told he must wait. ‘then

“it begins to rain and soon.wa-

ter is leaking from the ceiling. the official sets out waste bas- kets to catch the drips.

Mofgan sits with his legs twined and a look of excruci- ating worry. Try to stay sober through that. 7

- Time inched along. Had

the technician forgotten me?

Was he punishing me for not having followed instructions?

How much longer could I wait ~ without an embarrassing ac-' ‘cident that would nullify the

exam? ' After 45 minutes of acute

' discomfort, during which I un-

zipped my jacket and surrepti- tiously pressed on my bladder, Thad reached flood level. Moving gingerly to avoid jarring, I returned to the recep- - tion desk. “How much longer . before he calls me in again? I can’t wait any more” The receptionist suggested, “Can you goa little bit?” The notion had me fighting giggles. “Not a hope.” I said. “Book me for another ap- pointment,” and I dashed for the nearest washroom.