Wednesday; December'11, 1994 ‘Letters to the Editor an oan : ity. council put ing the Squeeze on local taxpayers ‘Dear Editor: 2 " restraint and hard times for many ‘\ using this tool of referenda, “| Money raised by way of a ‘refer: Centre’ was. made possible: ‘“The City of Castlegar is trying |, property'owners, But rather it ‘Obviously, the money market’. cndum, through a referendum, ‘but ‘a to put/the squeeze 'on property ° reflects the inability of our clect- ‘is not attractive enough for the:; . The paying and rehabilitation School District No, 9 request for owners (o wring-out ‘an additional .' ed officials to include|this, and’ City of ‘Castlegar to float, or sell, . referendum will be the third occa- money‘ over and above: the $1..28 million to. pave and reha- recently announced ‘plans for a\ ’ debentures to meet these addi- sion in just over three years this Provincial Grant was rejected by bititate some streets in the city, new R.C,M. Police detach tional financi: method has been used in Castle- - - Collecting additional tax dol- office, into the annual municipal With respect to the paying and gar. The much needed Aquatic Seo SQEEZE 114A The Castlegar Sun = sexes begin His favourite sentence was, “I need do nothing.” eh “Suddenly everything, was crystal clear, as I And believe me, he could do that very well. /. Roticed the layers of dust scttling on that man, ‘While g one day, I was struck with a ‘With fire'in my ey eyes, I aimed. that vibrating thought x which gave me a whole new perspective beater bar right ot him. on my husb I realized that:the “Look out," I yelled. “I have a vacuum and I ¢ vacuum IT was using had the same effect in this know ‘how to use it!” There was the look of sheer world as my hubby had. Neither one of them: ‘. terror in‘his eyes! He jumped behind the chester- I believe the war of the sexes staited some- where in our bureaus, Particularly, in our drawers. Men stole our bikini and we retalinted by stealing their jockey shorts and boxers, In my house, when my ex and I were annexed, I noticed a small problem, I don’t mean to suggest that my husband was The GaGtiegs gerisin IRS ow PUBLISHER JON JARRETT SHARLENE IMHOFF DONNA JORY Ietateteinr a ADVERTISING MANAGER JOHN SNELGROVE DENISE GOLDSTONE IRCULATION MANAGER SAT RE REE Ree? ROBERT PROGTOR eas ADVERTISING REP, NICOLE BEETSTRA »' inert or anything. But, for years, my dog kept try= ing to bury him in the back yard. This how- ever, didn't bother me, actually worked. Both however, were. able to pick ; ficld.: (He moved. He actually moved! I wish I I was annoyed though, that the dam dog 5 ‘had that on videotape!) th “You don’t know what you're doing, he 4: yelled. “You've gone mad!" lars over and above budget by holding a referendum is hardly a ph ofa strong, determined, city in times of budget, I do not object to the paving and rehabilitation program of strects in Castlegar, or the construction of a badly need- rehabilitation program. There is no doubt in my mind that there are urgent requirements in this area, and I agree with Councillor Lawrence Chernoff that the A Great Meal BOOKS| OPENED AGAIN & AGAIN, ina ZEEBEN REPORTER BRENDAN HALPER REPORTER TIME Taw at an Affordable was dumb cnough to Icave clues—the first of which involved a massive, snoring object # being dragged through the livingroom, é . Thad him outgunned and I knew it. uy. “I’llclaim insanity. I'll get time off.for H. good vacuuming!" I screamed, as I lunged PRODUCTION/OFFICE ed police facility, which is part of MARION ANDERSON . - PRODUCTION *' H the law enforcement contract longer it is left undone, the costli- er the project. Little or no paving It's a CGapristi| : 3 3 3 2 3 : 3 < : LAME OTE CRAROVTY CCLEAS ES DUCES IALS DE PPIIILES DE DE OUEEE TD + > = * = 3 3 s M o = : PY £ ? 3 2 £ : 3 oY + + = 3 : = 5 2 ~ % ’ 2 of ? 4 = 3 3 . : ’ 3 ay 3 3 x Ny 3 mY ; 5 a : : 3 . q. 2 tp PIV S SSP, Direct Department Phones General Office ...... Ci Cl Ads 365-7848 Display Advertising ..........+10.365-2278 . N i 365-5579 FAX ceicceaseneotsnsssvssse aesseeeeseensensens 365-7762 editorial comment Constant complainers: keep officials on their toes For the first time in a long time, our city council is under fire by local residents who say they are disap- , Pointed with the way council is handling taxpayer's concems. The heat was tumed on during an open house, held last week by the city to give residents a chance to dis- cuss with councillors the upcoming paving referen- Paving is important to taxpayers, and most people do in fact favour spending more money in order to improve the deteriorating roads which seem to be the norm in Castlegar. The complaints however, were not about the paving issue itself, it’s likely that most realize the “necessity of the job at hand. Yet, if locals vote no to the paving referendum on December 14, it won’t be because they don’t want the paving, but because they |- : are disappointed in their elected officials and the political process in general. Seem silly? Well it is. But you almost can’t help but feel some sympathy for the average, everyday residents who accept everything that comes down from city hall as God’s word—hardly. Which is exactly why city hall needs to be jabbed every now and then by local residents who are smart | " enidugh to realize there t we Way, dnd are jar “brave enough to let themselves be heard. Because there seems to be only a few well versed individuals in this community who will speak out to let city hall know how they feel on a few choice top- ics—it’s very easy for officials to begin labelling “those constant complainers” and start to believe these people have nothing better to do with their time. There is one thing these “constant complainers” have in common, and that’s curiosity. It may have killed the cat, but it certainly makes for some interesting questions that should be fired back at city hall. Are elected officials out-of-touch with local resi- dents? It seems these “constant complainers” might have the answer. All residents should realize though, that by. electing civic officials to their various positions, we give them the right to make some pretty tough decisions on our part. But it’s. a two-way street, because with that right, comes the responsibility to ensure that we, the average, everyday residents know what the heck is going on. CAS CHURINES By Don Addis G00 =dada? (© 1999 Creators Synacate, ne 1S POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT ANDA | MEMBER OF THE STERLING NEWS SERVICE’ 3 Established November 28, 1990" «Second Class Mailing Permit Ponding ! Published by The Cast jar Suni Weekly on Wednesdays _ 1465 Columbia Ave., Castlegar, BC. MAN 168 Not wanting to upset my dog, I went on with my housework. My second clue struck when I realized the ff channels on the television set hadn't been switched for, oh, three minutes or so. No, the burials themselves didn’t bother § me. But I was somewhat bothered when I § realized that I would cither have to dig him up again or be charged as an accessory to lit- tering, After completing the task at hand, did my hus- ‘band thank me? Not at alll! Instead, he ordered me to vacuum the rug, thereby removing the inordi- up vibrations from other planets. One day, my vacuum picked up a piece of lint. ‘That’s when my mind snapped as I suddenly real- ized that the vacuum had out- performed my hus- nate amount of dirt surrounding his easy chair. band. Most of us have reviewed the downward slide of interest rates with }and quickly pounced. * : I'tied him up with hoses and electrical cord. |. . Then, I made him sit through hours of intelligent programing. I gave his steaks to Foo-foo, And, just for the sheer pleasure of Bf it, I helped Foo-foo drag hin out to the back ae i -And now? Well, apparently he hasn't been the same, His new wife says he works. Doesn’t own a “TV, or a dog for that matter. And his only problem ' seems to be an overwhelming fear of vacuum ‘, cleaners, Who can figure? two-way street! with the city. What I do object to is the method by, which Council now has opted to pay for capital Projects, over and above the annual budget. Property owners and munici- pal taxpayers have the moral right to question City Council on this method of raising public money, and so they should in the loudest An Open Letter to Ca lega Merchants: I keep hearing comments like, “Let's keep it local” or “What can we do about Cross-Border some satisfaction and inly, if you are renewing a mortgage this month, you can get the best rates available since the 1960s. On the other hand, interest rates are determined by supply and demand. Rates are falling because despite the government's huge bor- . «owing, there: is.still_a-surplus of money on:the market. If nobody wants to use money, what does that say about our economy? Granted, Canada is in lockstep with the US and they’re experienc- ing a recession but’we have added our own unique, Fait-au-Canada, twist to it. It’s called the GST. No two ways about it, that GST Teally did it to us this year. It's been almost twelve months since the federal government brought the value-added tax in. This time last year they spoke soothing words to reassure us that we wouldn’t notice it, that this was just a rearrangement of taxes to make it fairer for everybody. Right there, those who were lis- tening closely saw the illogicality of the position. If the idea was fairness, that implies that some people were paying too much, others not enough. Therefore any rearrangement meant that somebody was going to be pay- ing more. Those people, at least, were going to notice the difference. A year later, we now know who got hit. It was the middle class. If you bought a new car, or a major appliance, you saved a little. Those of us who did not make any major "purchases do not have that happy consolation and meanwhile all of us have been nickel and dimed to Poverty. Well, alright, we're not quite down to eating roots, But we have taken a rather big Ieap backwards in general standards of living. Let's look at a typical family. ing in from food and personal ser- vices. Remember, you did not pay this in 1990. Where we got hit was pets. Our dog, a cross between Cemenus and a Shetland Pony has launched his own They-have one-car-agd do/about-'*-personal:campaign; to; pay. off the twelve thousand miles “a year at-an:-~ tionakdebt*via-GST and-is:being Let us propose that among Cana- da’s twenty-seven million people there are ten million houscholds. Not all will fit the above profile, but by the time you average out what the people who don’t have children pay on the things that they are now free to spend their moncy on, the $500 a vaverage of 25miles per gallon. Cost”: assisted: by the ’catsTo with of gas at $2.50 a gallon is $1,200 of which $84 is GST. We'll also assume that tires, service and repair accounted for another $1,000 so. there is another $70. Happily car insurance does not carry GST yet, but conclude this, that for every car you keep on the road under these rather typical conditions, you proba- bly paid the government $150 in 1991 which you didn’t have to find in 1990. Staple food is taxable at 0%, but non-staple food carries 7%. If you ever buy your kids pop, candy, or take them to a hamburger stand, you have just helped Big Brian give Zimbabwe a $40 million gift, as he did at the last commonwealth con- ference in Salisbury: Sorry, Harare. rather scrupulous Han- naford Samui as an example of nutritional prudence and delicacy, we will assume that no more than $10 a month gets spent thus, mean- ing that in the course of the year, our contribution to Mr Mugabe and the various other acts of the federal fol- lies was only $8.40 from this source, with approximately the same from my haircuts. Many families, howev- er, live on junk food and spend lots on hair and beauty services. Not hard to see another $100 a year com- their now-taxable veterinary bills of around $500 a year, they probably put another $50 into the federal cof- fers. Most families do not perhaps keep four cats but whatever you spent on pet food, vaccinations and medications, you paid 7% on top. You also paid 7% on top of shoe repairs, morning coffee (250 work- ing days X 85¢ a cup X 7% = $14.87, twice that if you have a doughnut), heating oil ($100 a month = $84 a year tax), telephone bills ($30 a month X 12 = $360, X 7% = $25), electricity, clothing, including those items which even the province hasn’t taxed.... And, I Tegret to say that I am also obliged to charge you 7% on this newspaper. Still a bargain, of course, but it cost you an extra $5.46 this year, Put all this together and one begins to see the roots of Canada’s ‘present malaise. This typical little family which runs its one car, lives ‘ in an oil-heated house, phones Grandma in Saskatchewan once a month, occasionally splurges on a trip to McDonalds and does all the little things mentioned above has Paid the federal government an addi- tional $400 to $500 this year, all for things which did not have an equiva- lent tax last year. Pi ly holds up. So, what GST has done is to temove from circulation $500 multi- plied by 10 million, or $5 billion. You have to keep in mind that this is in addition to the staggering tax load already borne by Canadians which is such that sixty per cent of our gross salaries goes in taxes to the three levels of government, directly or indirectly. The only word to describe this is recessionary. Well, you could also call it criminal, I suppose. So take the US recession and salt it with GST and you have the Cana- dian depression. Now, the other thing that is truly unfair about the GST is this. It has undoubtedly put people out of work. ‘We can sit here and grumble about being $500 a year down and yes, that’s bad riews. But some people are a lot more down than that. They're on UIC.. They have truly borne the brunt of the GST. So when the next federal election comes around, probably next year, I for one will be ready to heckle the first politician who tries to tell me that this ‘rearrangement’ of taxes was fair and that it ‘wouldn't cost me any more, It cost us all. $500 and it was not fair. New look being brought in for the New Year The New Year will bring a new look in the prime minister’s office. With his party at the bottom of the public opinion polls, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has begun the painfil process of shuffling his office Mike . Duffy. Syndicated Titanic,’ the fallout from these changes could be profound. ‘The most important move: the replacement of Principal Secretary Norman Spector by Hugh Segal, a key member of Ontario's fabled Big Blue Machine, and a man best re known to Canadians for his appear- ces on CTV's Cariada AM. aero Ts 8 Yt See ee Insiders say it may be a couple of weeks before the final changes are in place, but before the PM’s done, vir- tually every area of the PMO will be affected. Canadians might wonder why they should care about changes at the top of the PMO staff list. The answer is that staff changes herald a change in the govermment's political battle plan. The economic blueprint the gov- emment has been following clearly has been only half right. © Traditional conservative eco- nomics hold that if you squeeze infla- tion out.of the. system, interest rates will fall. Lower interest‘ rates will lead to higher consumer spending, and: that will lead to increased pros- perity and a drop in oyment, : - The’ first half-of the’ plan has worked nicely — interest rates are at : “out of the office of Principal Secre- | an 18 year low.. But the lower rates haven’ yet stimulated consumer demand and a tesulting growth in employment. Economic recovery both here and in * the United States remains sluggish. Opposition MPs have been screaming for a change of course for months, But as long as the inflation rate and Tates i to political teeth with Sen. Norman tkins and Tory guru Dalton Camp, will take over as Mulroney's chief Political adviser. Watch for Segal to propose fall, the:govemment was determined to stick the course. But now business groups, which understand and support the underly- ing economic theory, have begun pressing the government to change course. Which brings us back to the PMO shuffle. Spector, the brilliant bilingual Montrealer, is the adviser most linked Yo the government's economic policy. If you're going to shift'course, | ° even slightly, then Spector has to _- move as well. ~ Under the plan still evolving, | Spector won't be fired, he'll move tary, and move into an important new assignment... 5 Segal,.a,red ‘Tory. who cut his. . to kick-start the faltering economic recover. It would provide an economic shot in the arm, but more important it would send a strong psychological signal to the nation. Those: worried about a return to wild inflationary Spending would be assured the spending “speed-up” was just that, an ‘acceleration of. arealy planned future initiatives; not'a net increase in government expenditures: * Showing g courage the Liberals never had, ‘this goverment has held the line'on spending,and correctly ion with'a vengeance. % : They've adopted the’ best of the Reform Party’s. ideas, but they've received no Political benefit in’ wint -ning back Ontario and holding their fem in | Quebec and pani i Conia " or “What's happen- ing to our “customers?” I couldn't agree more, What are we doing about it? Not a lot. It's Sunday afternoon ... What should we do? Why not go downtown and take advantage of our day off to do some Christmas Shopping? Only two more week- ends left! It’s 1:30 p.m. - you could shoot a cannon down Columbia. Once hardware store open. One Men's wear store open. That's it. That's all! The drug store, where I would love to fill a basket with gifts, opens from noon till 1 p.m. on alternating Sundays. Well, maybe the other drug store is open ... Nope! Not a chance, Well, let's hit the Supermarket + at least it will be open, and we can browse and do our part to keep our dollars in the communi- ty and the country. Oh-oh; the new place ‘is closed, onto the big guys. Great .. they're open! What's that play- and most emphatic way. I find it offensive, to the point of repul- sion, to test the taxpayer’s will by will be done before city council strikes its 1992 budget, so why not include this in the City's bud- get estimates? On the other hand, initial tax increases to include $1.28 million may be too much for taxp to ? Next Price Celgar & Cominco meal tickets accepted 2816 Columbia Ave. AFINE PLACE: TO RELAX: 362-5333; en 7 days a week; In pan 7 dave 2 weak year, it will be a referendum on the Castlegar. R.C.M.P. detach- ment facility, and who knows, the following year it could be the construction of a multi-million dollar theatre ‘in Castlegar by See LOCAL Extraor inary | handmade gifts Created here! ‘in the THE CRAFT CONNECTION 10.50" in the Ladies, Fabrics & Linens eis ‘Great Gift Ideas For All The Family’ OUR EXTENDED: HOLIDAY: HOURS: 2 p.m. - 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. - SANTA'S HOURS MONDAY THRU FRIDAY 4 p.m. 5:30 - 8 p.m. SATURDAY 1:30 p.m. 4:30 p.m. SUNDAY 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. WANETA PLAZA The City of Christmas if fs ait ARE ON TIL CHRISTMAS THE EXTENDED HOURS Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. REGULAR HOURS Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sundays 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. He'll have a gift for‘all little visitors! Instant photos with Santa Available for only $5.00.