et ag a RE ROHS Saturday; October 31, 1992 @ PAGE?’ InNtOonN S Publisher Scott David Harriscn Editor Mickey Read Composing Room Foreman Warren Chernoff Accountant Mary Ann Fullerton Circulation Manager Burt Campbell Publisher Emeritus L.V. Campbell Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 OurVWiEWwSsS AdrianRAESIDE Labor code logical Jack Weisgerber calls it the big pay-off. Gordon Wilson calls it flawed. Mike Harcourt calls it middle of the road. ‘It’ — as the three leaders of British Columbia’s political parties refer to it — is the province’s new Labor Relations Code. A code designed to even the playing field between employees and employers. The New Democrat government introduced the new labor code Tuesday, receiving the predictable cat-calls from both the Liberal and Social Credit Parties. Those cries of injustice are unwarranted, though. The New Democrat government has hardly produced a document which will crush the rights of managers. Instead, it has produced a new labor code which empowers both workers and management by defining fair trade practices in a province where capitalist governments have belittled the role and rights of employees. The new Labor Relations Code prohibits ‘scab’ workers from jobsites involved in strikes. This is a huge step forward for British Columbia, which, until the introduction of the new code, was setting itself up for a repeat of 1986’s ugly Gainers Meats strike in Alberta. Those who argued that the New Democrats sold the farm to organized labor are misleading the public. The new law respects the rights of employers as much as it does labor. The bottom line about B.C.’s new Labor Relations Code is it’s fair and balanced — something this province has needed for some time. Street WALK SF | An ounce of compassion Is it me, or does nobody little town. Why we refuse give a damn about the homes that are being destroyed along Columbia Avenue? Sure, the homes are being snapped like twigs for a reason — our long-awaited and over-inflated bridge — but that doesn’t make it right. When it’s all said and done, nine homes will come tumbling down as though they were abandoned tree s.D.HARRISON Harrison Comparison to offer such an essential service to women, I don’t know. Sure, the hard work of the Castlegar and District Community Services, the Castlegar Women’s Association and RCMP officer Russell Sangster has helped sequester provincial funding and |.develop safe homes in | Castlegar, but that’s not | enough. We must stop forts. It frustrates me to see this happen because these homes could have been saved had the City of Castlegar and the provincial government only thought about it. Well, maybe they should think about this, ¢ the nearest women’s shelter is in Trail, 30 anxious minutes away for any woman that has just had the hell beat out of her by her cowardly male counterpart. It happens and it is happening, right here in our tiny turning a blind eye toa black eye and one of these homes — placed on a piece of city-owned property — would have given some hope to victims of abuse who have become trapped in vicious and violent relationships. * is a youth centre too much to ask for? Let’s face it, growing up in a place like Castlegar can become tedious for our youths. There’s only so many things that can be done at the Community Complex. please see HARRISON page 7 Carilyn Briscoe Castlegar “Smarties — and I’m still a kid.” “The Halloween molasses kisses.” Shawna Pickard Fruitvale Kaslo “Wagon Wheels.” Question: What was your favorite Halloween treat when you were a kid? Jaysen Sallay New Denver “Those little caramel squares were my favorite.” eas -eeegeatenn enn Satiirday, October 31; 1992 ~ ; OtherVIEWS ease address letters to: deliver them to Columbia ers should be Dewritten, ible-spaced d not longer in 300 words. lers MUST be ed and lude the er's first and ber at which writer can be . The writer's @ and city or in of idence only be published. in Beptional es will letters published Dnymously. n in those es, the name, ress and 1@ number of writer MUST isclosed to ditor. News es the right dit letters for Letters ‘coWHE EDITOR Politicians cannot legislate love I have a feeling many of the politicians still have not understood the message many of us were trying to give them about the consitution. It is like they have their hearing aids turned off. We don’t want our country divided up into little nations and special interest groups. We want everyone to be equal. We want to be united from sea to sea. We want to accept each others differences but we want everyone to be Canadians first. We don’t care if the people in Quebec want to speak French... just don’t make us pay for speaking it all across Canada. And don’t punish people who want to speak other languages in Quebec. It is quite simple... just love one another and help each other. One has to look at reality and reality is that we can’t just blind ourselves with the wishes of the minorities and thereby close our eyes to the needs of the majority. Understanding each other hasn’t got anything to do with the language we speak with our mouths, it is the understanding we have in our hearts that counts. Glade residents must fight on Please grant me space to support the Glade residents. I am writing this letter in support of the Glade Community Watershed Committee in its determination to prevent logging in their watershed, Glade Creek: I am disturbed and shocked by the arrogant statement of the Forest Service that “the decision to log or not is not up for discussion”. The logging, scouring and flooding that have taken place in our precious watersheds has proved clearly that this decision is clearly flawed. Many residents have been arrested and jailed for daring to protest their opposition to this arrogant stand of ‘governments’ of whatever political persuasion. Arise ye thirsty drinkers of clean water. You have nothing to lose but your thirst. Pat Romaine, Castlegar I hope the government gets the message of our contempt of the way they are wasting our money. Actually it is worse than that because being in debt... we don’t have money... they are increasing our debt just to play games and make cozy nests for themselves. Equal rights means equal rights and obligations for all Canadians. There should be no gravy train rides for some at the expense of others. As to aboriginal claims, we cannot go back and correct the wrongs of the past. Just as the Natives can’t go back and correct the wrongs they and their ancestors may have done. But we can start fresh. Giving money or land isn’t going to correct the problem. It will just create more prejudice and hate on either side. They are our brothers and sisters and fellow Canadians. We need to reach out and help the ones that have social problems. We need to give them job training and help them into society. But first I think we need to work on that society to make it something they would feel proud to join. I think it is wonderful for Native people to keep their culture alive and many are earning a living doing that now with their wonderful art work and tourist attractions, but perhaps that is not what some of the Natives need or want. I don’t think any of us would really want to go back to making a living the way it was in the old days. We all want basicallly the same things in life, because we are all basically the same inside. This life is such a short little journey, why worry so much about the things we will not be able to take with us, and concentrate on the things that really matter — loving one another? The answer is to have one nation under God. Let’s all pick up the traces and all work on it together. And for crying out loud, please listen to this you politicians, we don’t need expensive studies on this and we don’t need debate and legislation because you can’t legislate love. Just do it. Iris Bakken Salmo UVic hunts down its history The Alumni Association of the University of Victoria has recently established a History and Archives Committee, the mandate of which is to discover, preserve and record information and artifacts pertaining to the activities of the former students who constitute the UVic Alumni Association. These include anyone who graduated from UVic since its inception in 1963, and those who attended the Victoria Normal School at any time from its beginning in 1915. In addition to gathering pictures, newspaper articles, accounts of reunions, and biographies or autobiographies for our archives, my job as a committee member is to compile as much information as possible concerning former students of the Victoria Normal School. Although we have lists of all students who ever attended the institution, we have very few current addresses and very few married names of women students. We need your help in compiling this information. We also need to know of any former students who are now deceased. We hope to hear from many former Normal School students. Please let us know of your teaching careers and your other interests and achievements. Maybe you could even send us a brief autobiography. Archival material such as snapshots, old Normal School annuals etc. would also be very much appreciated. In addition, if your Normal School class has recently had a reunion, we’d love to hear about it. Please send all correspondence to the address below: Marion Small UVic Alumni Association History and Archives Committee University of Victoria PO Box 3060 Victoria, B.C. V8W 3R4 Tel: 592-0052 Harrison continued from page 6 And the local Dairy Queen and Subway can only take so much teenage chatter. A youth centre, complete with a government and city paid counselor, could go a long way to keeping our children on.the straight and narrow. ¢ what about seniors housing? The waiting lists for Mountview and Castleview Care Centres are growing and at some point in time the government and the city have to address this. The government — which showed the compassion of an executioner when it refused funding for 28 beds at the Castle- view Care Centre — must recog- nize that Castlegar’s population is aging, drop its Lower Mainland bias and provide our community with adequate facilities that will enable us to treat our seniors with the dignity and respect they so richly deserve. Any number of these soon-to-be-wiped-off-the- face-of-the-earth homes could have provided a level of comfort for our seniors, allowing them to do exactly as they wish — live in- dependently. * so many people, so few homes. For some unexplainable reason, the city seems content to watch its vacany rate fluctuate be- tween zero and zero. How else can you explain the stumbling blocks routinely tossed in front of would-be developers. Why, when you consider how ridiculously slow it is to get build- ing permits out of city hall, it’s amazing we have flush toilets and electricity. Some may say that there are enough low-cost housing develop- ments in Castlegar, those econom- ically-privileged snobs. But when you consider that our low-cost dwellings are maxed out, it tells me that more are needed. Any number of those Columbia Avenue homes could have gone a long way towards helping poverty-line par- ents who are faced with growing grocery prices and shrinking wel- fare cheques. What I find most offensive about Castlegar’s housing woes is fat-cat landlords taking advan- tage of this shortage to charge as much as they want for their above-average shacks. It’s greed for greed’s sake and some people out there can’t afford to pay $700 to $800 per month for dwellings that, under normal market condi- tions, would rent for half that. I only hope the bottom falls out on these gravy-train seeking profi- teers when the Celgar expansion project ends. These are merely suggestions that could have prevented the needless destruction of nine homes. Too bad nobody thought it.