EDITOR'S CORNER - 1996
January 10, 1996 Time flies as the saying goes, and another year graces the calendar on my wall. Thirty years ago seems like yesterday when I spent the holiday season standing outpost in the rice paddies west of DaNang. This season was by far more pleasant, spent in the solitude of Nootka Island with a fishing pole as my main piece of equipment rather than the automatic rifle of three decades before. The food was better too, fresh fish instead of C rations, and good California wine instead of swamp water. The comparison makes one appreciate what we have here today, and gives one concern for what we could lose if we are not careful. John Leach's column hit one of my tender spots this time, emphasizing a problem that seems to be totally ignored by the leaders and a large portion of the populace of our country. The history of mankind is basically a history of war and conquest, tempered periodically with more benign periods of mere loot and plunder. Both our greatest achievements and our darkest obscenities have arisen from our struggles to either conquer our neighbor or avoid being conquered. To presume that the world will ever be any different is akin to a belief in the healing powers of the Tooth Fairy or the divinity of the Easter Bunny. It is high time the people who have been chosen to lead us give some serious thought to this problem. Instead of weakening our defenses and putting our future in jeopardy they should be thinking about what our neighbors some day will try to do to us, and take steps now to build a strong bulwark against it. To do otherwise would be folly.
January 24, 1996 It seems that the wisdom being spread around Gold River these days is that anyone who holds either public office or a civil service position is by definition corrupt and incompetent. Now I do not believe that wisdom, and I am sure that most of those who have been running around acting like it is the root of the latest crisis do not believe it either, when they stop to think about it. The problem is that thinking appears to be in short supply at the moment. THE RECORD has been no slouch in publishing pieces that have questioned various officials and public bodies, and some private bodies too. However, that questioning has been kept within the bounds of legitimate political discourse, and even though some of the questions may have been off base and not fully informed, they never sought to vilify or otherwise personally discredit any individual in the community. The public officials of the village, both appointed and elected, work hard for the people of the community, and often sacrifice both time and personal resources to keep the community functioning in the best manner possible. This is true of Council, of the RCMP, the Clinic employees, the Village employees, and the numerous public boards that people give up their time for. To assume on a whim or a false rumor that they are otherwise is to do them and all members of the community a vast disservice. Before one takes the latest piece of hate mongering or paranoid fantasy and repeats it as gospel, one should make an honest effort to gather all the facts from all of the parties concerned. If we do any less we will hurt a lot of good people and have a society ruled by the Chicken Littles of the world, or worse.
February 07, 1996 The results of the Gold River RCMP Community Survey are out. You can find them in this issue. Overall we like our police, but we do not seem to be to enthusiastic about talking to the dispatcher in Courtenay. I suspect that no matter how nice or efficient the Courtenay people are, we will never be happy talking to strangers when what we really want is a friendly, local voice on the end of the line. The common complaint around town is all of the seemingly dumb questions that one is expected to answer when making reports to that nebulous place over the mountains. To hear some people talk you would think that the typical call to the RCMP goes like this: Courtenay: "RCMP"; Gold Riverite: "I want to report a robbery in progress at the liquor store." Courtenay: "What is your name please", GR: "John Smith, there is shooting going on, where are the cops?" Courtenay: "What is your birth date Mr. Smith?" GR: "Huh? Where are the cops, this is a robbery here." Courtenay: "Please give me your birth date." GR: "What do you want my birth date for? What about this robbery?" Courtenay: "I'm sorry, we have to fill out this form first, what is your birth date?" GR: "March 22, 1958, now where are the cops?" Courtenay: "What is your home address, please?" GR: "Home address?? What does that have to do with the robbery?" Courtenay: "Please Mr. Smith, we have to fill out this form first." And, this goes on so on and so forth, or so the story goes. Of course to solve this dilemma we would have to expand police services in Gold River. Sixty-two percent of those responding would like to do that. Unfortunately fifty-three percent also would not support increased taxes to pay for the service, which goes to prove that logic and reason are not universal traits, and that some of my fellow citizens are not firing on all cylinders.
February 21, 1996 Yet another chapter is unfolding in the BC forestry soap opera with all of its sub-plots and local side shows. No doubt if it were not election year many of the impressive mountains that some people seem to see in all of this would shrink back to the ant hills that they are. The road gremlins on Highway 28 were acting up again, and I am thankful, as I know all of the folks in Gold River are, that the friends and neighbors involved all came out in better shape than their vehicles. We all have to watch that road. I ran into some rumours last week that the paper will only print items of a certain slant. THAT IS NOT TRUE! Although everyone who writes for the paper has a political viewpoint of one kind or another, the paper itself has none. THE RECORD WELCOMES DIVERSE VIEWPOINTS! If you think that any view is being under represented it is only so because no one has bothered to write and submit it. Our publishing guidelines are given in the box below. They are pretty permissive. This policy may scare the socks off of those who wish to control society, but responsible free speech and open discourse are things that we strongly believe in. This is not to say that there are no limits as to what can be said. Elected politicians, large corporations and their executives are generally fair game for all kinds of criticism, less powerful individuals are not. And, there are things like pornography and blatant hate literature that have no place in a paper such as THE RECORD. We do turn down the odd piece, but not often, and the biggest refusal cost us two hundred dollars on a paid ad that was in very bad taste. I guarantee that most will not always like everything that they read here, but the door is always open for another view.
March 06, 1996 Well, the last issue got some attention, particularly for the critique of Hugh Sutcliffe's silly letter to the Minister of Environment. Rumor has it that an occasional disparaging remark was heard in meetings around town, and we have been told that we were even called divisive at one point. What our critics fail to recognize is that the divisions are there despite our opinions. Some of these divisions are the direct result of the actions and policies of people like Hugh Sutcliffe and those who set out more than a year ago to promote a private agenda by tearing the North Island apart over the forestry issue. The history of this yellow ribbon movement has been one of twisted facts, deception, and straight out fear mongering that would have made the professional communist agitators of the early 20th century turn green with envy. As the excitement has worn off of this campaign, however, so has the realization grown that the main issue involved for the movement's organizers was not trees or jobs, but political control. What is even worse, as evidenced by said letter, is that this drive for control appears to have been taken over by blind ego, and that rational thinking seems to have been abandoned along the way. On another note I thought of changing the name of the paper to THE WRECKORD, not to amuse our detractors, but because it seems that over the past few issues we have been swamped with wrecks on the highway. There were so many this last two weeks that I had to stop taking pictures of them. Our many out of region subscribers are going to start thinking that the North Island is the Crash Capital of Canada.
March 20, 1996 Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the election is? Around the corner it looks as Mr. Clark seems pretty confident that he is in a good position to win it. But, enough of that stuff. It is nice to see the weather getting warmer, and the days getting longer. Rumour has it that the halibut are biting too. The first flowers are up in my yard, and the swelling buds on the trees remind me that I blew it as far as pruning back the cherry tree this year. Of course I see the lawn mowers sitting out in front of Joe's Hardware now, so maybe that is a temptation for the gods to send in one more snow storm. I had great plans for this issue, but time ran faster than my ability to lay out more pages while going to Campbell River more times than I want to think about. So, a ream of stuff is still on the paste-up table waiting for the next issue. Of course if the fishing heats up some more I may run out of time on that issue too. In this edition you will note the debut of Trapper Gorringe who is a local poet from Sayward. We will be running his material on a regular basis, and hope that you enjoy it as much as we do. Some of you know Trapper from work or dinner at the Mohawk. If you like his stuff he would appreciate a word or two when you see him. We have received some anonymous material for publication the past two weeks, and we would love to publish it. However, it is our firm policy not to publish anything unless we know who submitted it. We will gladly withhold the author's name from publication if so requested, but that name must be known to us. To those anonymous contributors out there who want their material in print, please resubmit it with your name and address or phone number.
April 03, 1996 The people of Gold River may have lost local control of their health clinic. This is sad, but true, and there are a few so called concerned citizens in the village who can be thanked for this. Apparently acting on lies, half truths, and amazing fantasies, these people managed to turn a routine and minor crisis into an event of serious proportion. As a result many good and hard working people at the clinic and on the Health Clinic Society Board have been hurt, and the Province has had to step in and restructure the governance of a clinic that has been widely known as a model facility and as a good example of progressive health care. According to Jennifer English the plan is for the Clinic to be governed in the future by the Regional Health Board instead of a local board, and for administration to come from Campbell River. We of Gold River have let this happen. We took a recurring and rather ordinary set of issues and instead of carefully gathering and analyzing facts to reach a solution we opted for name calling and the fixation of blame as the predominant vehicle of problem solving. Shame on us. It is no wonder that the Province felt it necessary to step in and take control. On the bright side there may be some humour in the near future emanating from this surge of misdirected and ill-begotten activism. Word has been going around that some of the same pillars of wisdom who helped fuel the clinic hysteria may be carrying on and running for office in the upcoming municipal elections. If so, the Fall campaign in Gold River may take on all of the aspects of the Monty Python Show.
April 17, 1996 After finishing the last paper I took some time to catch up on the listing of RECORD articles on the Internet. To do this I had to go back to the November issues and work my way forward. As I plowed through each issue I started thinking "what a wonderful place we have here on the North Island." The papers were full of letters and articles by and about local people either concerned with the welfare of the community, reminiscing on our history, or providing their time as ambulance crew, firemen, service club members, athletic coaches, teachers, on and on. This is not unusual for any community, but what makes it different here is that we are so small that many of us know most of the people involved. Our ratio of community active people to population is probably higher than in the more urbanized areas, and community activities here no doubt have a greater affect on local life than they would in larger communities. Our North Island villages are less like cities and towns, and more like large families. And, we are the better for it. Like any family we have our whacko "Uncle Floyds," and dotty "Aunt Matildas." We have black sheep and white sheep, prodigal sons and wayward daughters. Hurts hurt deeper here because they tend to be more personal, but we also have a lot of kindness and concern, and for those who want it, a sense of belonging that one can never attain in a crowded, urban environment. We can keep what we have if we always remember that despite differences in opinion we must stick together to maintain local control over our institutions, and protect the integrity of our environment in the face of ever increasing demands for greater exploitation of the resources for higher profits without thought for the long term future.
May 01, 1996 Today is May Day, not much ado here at this point in history, but elsewhere an important holiday both now and in our common past. In 1889 the Second Socialist International designated May Day as a holiday for labor, and ever since it has been celebrated in various parts of the world as the socialist's Labor Day. Red flags, marching workers, solidarity speeches, and strains of the Internationale all combine in many countries on this day to commemorate and honor the working people whose labors are the foundation for the wealth of our society. The year 1889, however, is a mere yesterday in the greater history of May Day. Clear back into the mists of time people have celebrated the coming of spring and the renewal of the earth's fertile cycle with festivals honoring their goddess of fertility. Ancient India and Egypt had such celebrations, and the Romans observed the Floralia, a licentious festival dedicated to the goddess Flora. The May festival in Britain was characterized by a Maypole dance where people joyously danced around a decorated pole, entwining it in brightly colored streamers. This merry ritual was carried forward into modern times, and I can remember as a child in elementary school forty some years ago (well, kind of modern times) gathering with schools from all over our district to have a picnic, and to dance around the Maypole. It was fun, but like many traditions and rituals most of the meaning was gone, leaving only the form. I have not seen or heard of this particular celebration since those days, and today I wonder if we and our children are all not missing something important by allowing this ancient celebration of the renewal of life to fade into the historical record.
May 15, 1996 Somewhere between Easter and Mother's Day it seems that an entire season passed over us. One day after what had appeared to be numerous false starts, I was sure that Spring was really here and Summer would not be far behind. Then, it started to feel like October or November. Perhaps we were just all anesthetized for five or six months so that we would not have to suffer the pain of the Salmon Season that wasn't. Of course if all that time has not really passed by then we are still faced with what appears to be a Salmon Season that isn't. Perhaps it is the people responsible for looking after the fisheries the last few decades that have been doing their thinking while anesthetized. One more environmental chicken comes home to roost. Speaking of the environment, the local environment in Gold River sure seems to have gotten raggedy around the edges over at the Village Plaza late at night. On certain evenings one passing by might think that all of the morons and spaced out half wits on the island have flown in for a convention. Hooting and hollering it up and getting wasted might be considered a normal part of youth, but why would anyone be so stupid as to do it in a public place where they are bound to draw a reaction? It seems that there are a number of kids that were missed when common sense was passed out. I do not find it unreasonable when the police try to do their job and keep the peace. What I do find unacceptable is the conduct of jerks who commit wanton acts of destruction that harm us all. A $1000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the idiots who vandalized the Plaza on May 4th. Three cheers to whoever can claim it.
May 29, 1996 The election is over, and we can all get back to business without the daily blizzard of promises, counter promises, counter-counter promises, and all of the other rhetorical acrobatics that have polluted our air waves and amused any number of scribes and commentators for the past few months. Phew!! I was going to ignore the election in this issue since it is all moot, but the Gordon Campbell - Larry Gillanders Sleazegate affair begs for some attention. Mr. Campbell's group spent the waning days of the contest slinking around from riding to riding under the cover of night offering bribes to candidates of the other right wing parties to abandon the race and sell out to slick Gordon. Mr. Gillanders on the other hand publicly offered to sell all his hard working supporters down the river in return for personal favors from Mr. Campbell. Gordon of course turned the offer down, and will probably be eternally upset with Larry for having made the offer in public where he could not accept it. The moral of the story here is not to chastise Mr. Campbell for doing what only came naturally, and is certainly not unique to him. Nor is it to personally berate Mr. Gillanders for acting within the bounds of his normal ethical sphere. The moral here is about the ethics that Mr. Gillanders holds so dear. Gillanders ran as the business candidate with a platform of organizing the government according to business principles. When he offered to sell out his comrades for his own benefit he was following those principles to a tee. He was just downsizing his party to enhance the bottom line. Heaven help us if these mercenary and anti-social principles should ever take control of our government.
June 12, 1996 I am sure that 1996 will be long known as the year that summer got lost somewhere. As one person said to me in the Plaza the other day: "nice summer we had, all three days of it." There has been so much rain that I have contemplated applying for a grant to develop a rice farm and diversify the local economy. A few extra bucks could be made by raising bull frogs in the rice paddies. The past two weeks have been busy around the Sound. The grads of '96 have had their day, and are off to the big world out there. The big fish story staring Mr. Mifflin and all concerned is still playing itself out around the province. Life does not look to bright at the moment for the local sports fishing industry, and the folks in Alert Bay and Sointula are having their whole world pulled out from under them. THE RECORD has attended several fish meetings the past two weeks with more to come. Look for continuing coverage. Last week we sat in on a meeting of the Nootka Sound Stability Coalition up at Tsaxana. Present were two reporters, Miriam Trevis, Des Connor who is hired by Pacific Forest Products to conduct the meetings, Larry Andrews, and seven employees of Pacific Forest Products. The paid membership was toted up and it turned out that Pacific Forest Products was the only member of the Coalition. The finances were discussed and it turns out that the Coalition owes the Village of Gold River $1500, and has for some time. Much discussion ensued about the future of the Coalition and what its role should be. One of the items that it was felt should be addressed was the fact that the Coalition was a grass roots movement and something needed to be done about the public perception that it was just another part of Pacific Forest Products.
June 26, 1996 This week marks my 50th birthday, which is amazing since it does not feel like that much time has gone by. The last few days I have been reflecting on the years and trying to put some perspective on what feels like merely a short interval from a young farm boy in California's Central Valley to the editor of this paper in a lovely mountain village at the end of the pavement on Canada's wet and rugged west coast. Thirty years ago I spent my twentieth birthday as a young Marine, dug in on a small hill near Tam Ky in the Republic of Vietnam. I was measuring the future in hours and days. My twenty-first birthday was spent dug in on a hill near Cam Lo, just south of the DMZ. I was counting the minutes to my rotation date home. I did not make it home for another three years, but I did get to Japan, and on birthdays I was now seeing the future as years and decades. Ever since my twenty-first birthday life has seemed like a winning lottery ticket. There have been vagarious moments, good and bad, but nothing as serious or foreboding as the days between those two far away hill sides where a good day was one you survived. In our insulated and luxuriant western society we rarely have to face the basic facts of life and death, and we often tend to give situations and events a magnitude of importance that is far greater than their true significance. We all do, and it has been many a time that I have caught myself building mountains out of mole hills, to use a cliché, before standing back to weigh the situation in the light of those days between Tam Ky and the DMZ. Some might say that this is an example of older and wiser, I would not venture that far. After all, my mother is still waiting for me to grow up.
July 10, 1996 I was thinking about writing some nice, uplifting little homily this week about Canada Day and The Fourth of July. (The nice thing about dual citizenship is that you get a lot more holidays.) Then, I edited the RCMP column and started to get mad. Next, along came Suzanne's column and threw gas on the fire. I kissed good-bye to sweetness and light. Vandalism at the Plaza, again! What is it with these low life wimps who get their jollies off by trashing public and other people's property under the cover of darkness. There is always some leeway for the foibles of youth, and the stupid things that the young all do when the big hormone rushes start to kick in, but enough is enough. How many times do the people of Gold River have to say cut out the vandalism? All the youth who hang around town are responsible for this problem, the immoral ones who do the damage, and the cowardly ones who are too afraid to report the offenders. I was really searching hard for a reason that this vandalism problem keeps recurring when I read Suzanne's piece. Then it came to me. The vandals are the spawn of those pansies that are so mentally screwed up that they take garbage to the Free Store. When you do not have the sense that God gave a peanut, and can not manage your own garbage, I guess it is too much to expect for you to manage your kids. My solution? Sterilize people caught dumping garbage at the Free Store. The number of dysfunctional children will then slowly decline. As for the vandals, I support a skateboard park. The kids who really want one can raise a quick grand for the project by turning in the jerks that are ruining it for all of them.
July 24, 1996 Well, the last two Corners sure drew a lot of response, all of it positive too. A lot of the comments that I received on the vandalism issue said that my statements were appreciated, but were still too kind and gentle. There are a lot of ticked off people out there, and who knows where this building frustration will lead? Some of the messages coming out of Victoria these days seem to indicate that the government is eyeing the FRBC fund as a way to straighten out the deficit problem. Hopefully, what we are hearing are reports of wistful thinking and insouciant fantasizing. The idea of FRBC is one of the better ones that this government has had, and one of the best ones come up with by any government in this province for a long time. It signifies a real commitment to the longevity of forest communities by reversing the flow of forest wealth to outside speculators, and investing it back into forest communities. To divert FRBC funds for any other purpose than the direct support of forests and forest communities would be a mistake. Now, there are some people who think that FRBC funds should only go to the logging companies, or to projects that support commercial forestry. This type of thinking is short sighted. FRBC funds should be available for anything that either enhances forests, both commercial and those in parks, or provides employment in forest communities. This employment can be in forestry, tourism, park management, other industry, or anything else that will provide work for those who will be abandoned by a shrinking commercial forest industry. This government was not elected to carry out the opposition's desire to loot FRBC. It should not even fantasize about it.
August 21, 1996 Well, my editorship of THE RECORD is one year old this issue. So far it has been a gratifying and somewhat chaotic experience. There is always more to write than can be written, and no end to ideas that run faster than ones ability to keep up with them. And, like everything else these days, if it wasn't for the book work and filling out of forms, the paying of bills and all the other things that one is required to do, we would get a lot more done. Then again, we might just go fishing. During our break last month we went down to California and the 100+ degree heat of the Central Valley. Visiting the family was nice, and the vine ripened tomatoes were divine, but they can keep the heat. I'll take a little rain any day of the week. While on the trip I gathered newspapers from every pit stop and crossroad to see how the other guys do it. It read some interesting articles and studied a variety of layouts, and if you look closely you may see a few subtle changes in THE RECORD this time. While we were gone some retard torched the Free Store, so I guess there has been no holiday on vandalism. From the minutes of the last Council meeting I gather that more than one area is experiencing problems with skateboarders, and from personal observation I have witnessed some pretty stupid bicycle maneuvers in the Plaza. Why would anyone want to bounce their bike up and down in the flower beds, slowly wrecking both the bike and the flowers? What is the purpose in riding a bike through the obstacles in the children's play area? I shudder to think what the highway will be like when these yo-yo bananas get a driver's licence.
September 04, 1996 One of our columnists is pregnant. I won't tell you who, which no doubt will get me in deep doo doo with some of the ones who are not. I will give you two hints though, one, it is not Algy, and two, the rumour is that if it is a girl the name will be Kombucha Melatona Glutimina and not Ova Historica or Muffy Cappuccina. A little Muffy, I am told, is not on the current agenda. MP John Duncan will be in town on the 9th to hold a town meeting for all of us constituents. If you have any feelings at all about the federal government other than apathy, this is your chance to air your concerns on the record, and ask questions. Mr. Duncan and I do not always see eye to eye. In fact sometimes I think that we are so far apart we can not even see each other. But, he has my whole hearted support for his attack on the federal government for their cut backs in the Coast Guard, and cut backs in other areas that threaten public safety and the national welfare. Speaking of the federal government, David Collenette should resign as Minister of Defence. His handling of the Somalia affair is only slightly less sickening than that of General Jean Boyle, who can not conceivably hold the respect of any dedicated soldier. For a commander to try and weasel out of a bad situation by blaming his staff is the sleazy move of a bureaucrat, not that of an honorable soldier. Boyle should stand up to his responsibility, and Collenette should be bounced for not only tolerating Boyle's dishonor, but for publicly supporting Boyle as he disgraces himself. It is no wonder that we are having problems in our military. There are no longer soldiers in command at the top, just self-serving bureaucrats. We will pay for this folly in the next war.
September 18, 1996 "GOVERNMENT TO CUT $750 MILLION IN PROJECTED SPENDING TO PROTECT HEALTH AND EDUCATION SERVICES", "GOVERNMENT WELCOMES FRBC BOARD DECISION", "NDP STEALS $400 MILLION FROM FOREST DEPENDENT COMMUNITIES", "FRBC RAID REQUIRES RECALL OF LEGISLATURE SAYS CAMPBELL", "PETTER RELEASES FIRST QUARTER RESULTS", "PETTER MUST BE FIRED SAYS GINGELL", "CAMPBELL DEMANDS NEW BUDGET", so on and so forth the press releases came pouring in, some news, some hype, and some just plain whining. I wish that I could print them all. There is a lot of information out there that never makes it to print, either because of lack of space, or because of the publisher's values, or both. If you are an information junky it is meat and potatoes, even the fluff. And now, it is turning up on the Internet as everyday more and more public relations people are learning about the possibilities of the Web. I suppose that soon the Enquirer or some other mindless rag will be running a front page story titled "NEWS JUNKY STARVES TO DEATH AT COMPUTER TERMINAL, WIFE LEFT WITH $10,000 PHONE BILL." Hopefully it will not be my wife. I was thinking about writing an editorial on land mines this week, and lo and behold, John Leach did it for me, sort of. I think that John's BIG PICTURE has a hole in it. To start with, outlawing the manufacture of land mines is akin to outlawing drinking, smoking, or pre-marital sex. It would be a waste of time and effort that could otherwise go to something actually achievable. Also, no responsible military commander tasked to defend a position would ever endanger their mission or the lives of their troops by not employing mines if they were called for, and politicians should not force them to. Now, if John wants to make certain uses of land mines a war crime, and get tough on offenders, he can count me in.
October 02, 1996 I spent a day at Tsaxana observing the treaty negotiations between the governments and the Nuu-chah-nulth people. It was better than live theatre. That is not to say that it was not serious, it was very serious. The future of the Nuu-chah-nulth is being formed at this treaty table, and it is being done with drama, emotion, feats of oratory and verbal quips that flutter the heart of any afficionado of the spoken word. In light of the gravity of the issues that are facing the Nuu-chah-nulth, their willingness to sit through this process speaks highly of their ultimate faith in Canada, and their dedication to a peaceful resolution of a very painful situation. The negotiations will be back at Tsaxana again this month, and I urge anyone who thinks that they have an opinion on the treaty process to take some time to observe. If you don't, your opinion is about as weighty as the foam on your beer. John Duncan is still pursuing the feds on their idiot schemes for the Coast Guard, the DFO, and other issues pertinent to public safety. I agree heartily that the stupid cuts and reductions have to end, and that the Liberals have to get their heads out of the sand on West Coast issues. What amazes me though, is that at the same time that they are hounding the federal government for its cuts, the Reformers are still talking cutbacks themselves. It seems to me that instead of focusing on cutting and reducing we should be thinking more about serving and protecting; and rather than discussing whether or not we can afford vital public services, be it the Coast Guard, healthcare, education or whatever, we should be focusing on how we will afford them.
October 16, 1996 The BC Job Protection Commission has released a report on the 1996 salmon season. It found that there were 7800 jobs lost this year in the commercial and recreational fisheries. Of these 2895 were permanently lost due to the Mifflin Plan fleet reduction. The loss is felt most dramatically in the small fishing villages such as Ahousaht which saw 46% of the community thrown out of work, and Kyuquot where 35% of the jobs in the village evaporated. The recommendation of the Job Commission is for the federal government to fund $20 million worth of short term jobs programs in the community to alleviate the suffering. Do not hold your breath. By now the message is clear, the federal government is not interested in BC other than as a colony to bleed for revenue. Heaven forbid that they should spend money here rather than take it away. Lighthouses, Coast Guard vessels, DFO officers, fish hatcheries, military bases, all gone or threatened, and fishing jobs gone up in smoke. We still have the GST though, and Mr. Rock is still intent on saddling us with the expensive nightmare of firearm registration, despite massive, popular resistance. Firearm registration is a classic example of Liberal thinking. Here we have a program that will cost $18 million over five years, does nothing for public safety, and alienates a major chunk of the population. On the other hand we have lighthouses which only cost about $5.5 million over the same period, enhance public safety, increase national security, and please thousands. A sure winner, and cheap to boot. Yet, the Liberals want to trash them. Maybe this kind of stupidity is a big hit with the eastern crowd, but I would not put too much of my money on their chances in BC come next election.
October 30, 1996 BC is well known for its mushrooms, particularly ones that in the vernacular are referred to as "magic." From the content of some of the press releases that I have been reading lately I am beginning to think that these far out fungi have become a staple in the diet of some of our politicians and their policy makers. One of the most amazing documents that I came across the past week was a paper outlining the new platform of the Reform Party of Canada. Wow! Mr. Manning is going to balance the budget, reduce income taxes by $2000 per family, and pump an additional $4 billion into healthcare and education. I hear the theme from The Twilight Zone playing in the background. Four billion more for health and education is admirable, but there are no free rides. That money has to come from somewhere, and it will not be from tax cuts. So, either Mr. Manning is living in a delusionary haze, or he intends to make Mr. Chretien's cutting and slashing of federal services such as the Coast Guard look like mere nicks and scrapes in the national fabric. Turning to the provincial arena we have Mr. Campbell. Where Mr. Manning is acting like a character who belongs in Alice In Wonderland, Mr. Campbell is acting like a spoiled brat. We need a solid and thoughtful opposition to pose alternative solutions to our problems. Instead, we get news releases filled with nothing but whining and sniveling on a grand scale. The Liberals have forsaken their responsibility to us in favor of carrying on a mindless campaign of blame and petty government bashing. The many British Columbians who voted Liberal in the last election lost twice, once when their party did not form the government, and now again by the dismal quality of its opposition.
November 13, 1996 A newspaper gets on a lot of mailing lists and a typhoon of paper passes across my desk every week. Some of it is droll, some funny, a lot of it interesting, and then there is some that just pushes all of the buttons at once. Bam! Once such piece came in recently from the Fraser Institute titled Privatizing Electricity: The Case for British Columbia Hydro. In big red letters it posed the questions "Is there a reason for state ownership of B.C. Hydro? " and "Is a monopoly desirable?" Then it gave the answer "The obvious answer to both these questions is NO." I gagged. Maybe they should change the name of their think tank to Fraser Mental Institute! There are many reasons for state ownership of BC Hydro, and all large hydro systems are by nature a monopoly no matter who owns them. The cost of the infrastructure required to generate and deliver electric power makes any thought of having competing hydro companies trying to market power in the same area insane. Electricity comes from multi-million dollar generating plants over a very expensive network of wires. Until it comes in cans on the store shelf the words competition and hydro are not in the same vocabulary. What is really going on here is the laying of the ground work for another corporate scam against the people of BC. BC Hydro provides us with both a steady source of revenue and control over our most basic source of energy. Using their hired guns at the Fraser Institute to weave a web of sophistry, the gluttons who control the big corporations are angling to remove BC Hydro from the public trust and exploit its wealth for their own personal advantage. If they succeed in doing so it will be at a great cost to us all.
November 27, 1996 There is this old cliché that says "life is a bowl of cherries." After much contemplation on the subject I think that what is closer to reality is that "life is a bowl of cherry bombs." Cherry bombs, those wonderful pyrotechnic toys that have brought joy to the hearts of numerous adolescent boys and others who have a deep seated fascination for things that go boom in the dark. Cherry bombs, more exciting that your average firecracker with a bang big enough to engineer any number of mischievous escapades without the serious side effects of dynamite. Everyday life is full of firecrackers: phone calls when you are busy, tomato soup on your white tie just before it is your turn to get up and speak, an empty toilet paper roll that you discover after you are comfortably ensconced on the biffy, just to name a few. Life is so full of firecrackers that you wouldn't want to say "life is a bowl of firecrackers." It would be like saying "life is life." Cherry bombs on the other hand are common enough that life is full of them, but not so mundane as to pass by without some serious notice. Have you ever locked your car keys and your briefcase full of notes in your car minutes before an important meeting? That is a cherry bomb. Your luggage flying to Taipei while you are airborne to Toronto, showing up for a meeting sixty miles away a day late because you forgot to check your calendar, slicing your hand to ribbons in the kitchen in the middle of a big typing project, these are all the cherry bombs of life. Now, I wrote this little homily because every time I tried to concentrate enough to write something more profound either the phone rang or someone dropped by. Sometimes a lot of firecrackers can ad up to a cherry bomb.
December 11, 1996 The headlines of the Business Section of the Vancouver Sun on November 29 screamed out "B.C. forestry in perilous position." The article then went on to moan and fret about how high stumpage fees and costly regulations were driving the logging companies out of business despite high lumber prices in the US market. Of course this is the usual smoke screen of half truths and distortions that we have seen so often come out of the forest industry in the last few years ever since they lost control of the government. What the article does not say is that BC forestry has been in a perilous position for years. How else could you view it when trees are being cut faster than the rate of replacement, jobs are being lost because of industry policy, no matter how many trees are being cut, and logging practices have had a destructive effect upon the forest and aquatic environments. What the article also fails to address is the diversion of industry capital to executive compensations of over $10,000 per month, and cushy fees to its directors. For just one example take Pacific Forest Products. Sandy Fulton, President, made $530,782 plus in salary and bonuses in 1995. Hugh Sutcliffe, Chief Forester, made $228,528 and others fell just below that. The directors receive $15,000 per year for their services plus $3,500 if they are on a committee plus $1,000 per meeting attended, including committee meetings. Perhaps if instead of spending so much on suits in Vancouver the industry had been using its resources to develop more ways to make more money with more people out of fewer trees it would not be facing this so called crisis now. To complain about stumpage fees and regulations and plead for a return to a free reign in the forest will not solve any problems in the long run.
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