atercte tr Cee wey ee Pr ae ae me oe mney Wednesd: 2 ; PAGE INON S Mickey Read Composing Room Foreman Mark Davis Advertising Manager Warren Chernoff Ac (oa) January 22, 1992 @ OurwiEWS Adrian RAESIDE Making a house call ess than one month after L ==: Claus rode into town, the Grinch says he’s touching down in our little Whoville. On Feb. 24, Transport Minister Art Charbonneau will make his presence known in Robson. While his visit will no doubt up sales of week-old toma- toes on both sides of the Columbia River, people are foolish if they think Charbonneau has any intention of bringing back the ferry he bureau- cratically sank on Dec. 21. Citing financial constraints, Charbonneau has already stated the Robson ferry is an economic lamb being sacrificed for the greater good of British Columbia. Charbonneau’s visit is nothing more than a house call, something politician do far too little of these days. And with that, people should be ready for nothing. Zilch... zip... zero. Charbonneau isn’t coming here to sing a tune called ‘The Little Boat That Could.’ Instead, he is here to face the music for a tough decision he was reluctantly forced to make. After a polite soiree where Robson gets to speaks its collective mind, the minster will graciously tell the over- flow crowd that Mike Harcourt has a better chance of sprouting hair than the Robson ferry has of returning. And with that, Charbonneau will shake a few hands, recite a few apolo- gies and tell the public to rally and offer the public another bone — the Castlegar-Robson bridge. Politics, isn’t it great? Caitlegar News Refusing to accept racism When I think of ugly, three things come to mind: my baby pictures, my first haircut and racism. The first two, I can hard- ly be blamed for — my mother’s a terrible photog- rapher and my father’s an even worse hair designer. But racism is something I do control: We all do. Imagine, then, my abso- lute disgust when a term I thought died with the hoola-hoop and cherry Pez ) Harrison “2 Comparison House.” Even in the face of criti- cism from his’ very embar- rassed girlfriend, this man remained defiant. “Well, it’s true,” he squawked, as his girlfriend buried her head behind his shoulders. The fact that he was an American, or that the word was uttered just two days prior to the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King isn’t resurfaced in Nelson. The word — or an unreasonable facsimile of a word — was ‘nigger.’ Spell it with me — N- I-G-G-E-R. The word came up while I was listening to a conversation somé friends were having with one Spokane fellow over a friendly game of darts. Asked why Americans didn’t endorse presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson, this living-in-a-cave football player replied, “What, and put a nigger in the White really pertinent.. What does matter is this fellow actually believed what he was saying. 5 And what’s more, there are millions more misguided people out there that feel exactly the same way. Take the Royal Canadian Legion for example. This past summer, I became embroiled in controversy involving a Sikh cabbie and the Legion. : please see HARRISON page 7 Heather Hadiey Circulation Manager Burt Campb Street( TALK Publisher Emeritus L.V. Campbell Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 Murray Collins Castlegar Yes, I think a new facility is needed.” Question: How would you vote on an RCM Michelle Bouvette Castlegar “Yes, they are really working in cramped conditions.” Castlegar need one.” P building referendum? T.J. Mason “Yes, because they Ivy Nielsen Castlegar “Yes, but I'd be in favor of having the old one enlarged.” y 22, 1992 Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 or deliver them to 197 Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, “address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9a.m. and 5 p.m. The.writer’s name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional cases will letters Letters toWHE EDITOR One notch for Norman I applaud Ron Norman’s column on the $550 now paid monthly to Municipal Directors by the Regional District of Central Kootenay. Apparently, it was done in the name of equality so Municipal Directors would not feel second class as compared to Rural Directors. The Regional District, Area H, is unique as in the Slocan Valley there are three small municipalities (New Denver, Silverton and Slocan) whose Municipal Directors now each receive $550 each month as well as remuneration from their villages. aca Other members of those councils receive only their village stipend no matter how heavy their responsibilities. It seems some council members are “more equal” than others to the tune of $6,600 per year! The payout to these three municipal directors of our valley is $1,650 per month or $19,800 per year. Where does this money come from? Is this amount covered by municipal taxpayers or by rural taxpayers? What do these three Municipal Directors do for the extra $550 they now reéeive? They were already well paid for attending Board and committee meetings. How much do these three municipalities contribute financially to the RDCK in a year? Nine municipal directors in the RDCK — nine times $6,600 equals $59,400 per year! If you care how your tax dollar is spent by the RDCK or village, ask Mayor Gary Wright, Mayor Randolph Harding, Mayor Bernie Czelenski or Chairman George Cady to answer these questions. Ann Barkley Slocan Caution with credit cards Last Wednesday someone pointed out to me that a cu¥rent grocery supermarket newspaper advertisement carries the announcement “We Now Accept (two designated credit cards.)” What will this policy mean to us? No doubt some will see it as a convenience, which at times it may be. But every convenience has a cost. A Jan. 14 Globe and Mail story on American Express’ dispute with some restaurants tells us that for its credit card use, American Express charges restaurant operators 4.65 per cent of the check; Visa charges 1.95 per cent; MasterCard 1.66 per cent and enRoute, 3.73 per cent. The restaurants must incorporate these charge in their prices and pass them on to their patrons: grocery stores will have to do the same. ae z What will this mean to the consumers if the acceptance of credit cards becomes widespread in the grocery business? The effect will be that when. customers use their credit cards the merchants-will .- pass on to the credit card company two-to- four per cent of the price of the groceries. When the customers pay cash the merchants will keep this two-to-four per cent, which, in a low-margin business is a significant amount. You might say that the customers who pay cash will be subsidizing those who use their cards. In fairness the merchants should grant a discount to those who pay cash, or alternatively, should keep their prices low and charge the credit card users a premium. If enough of us speak up about this we will either get our discount or the use of credit cards will be discontinued, or not inaugurated, and prices will be lower than they otherwise would be. If we remain silent we will, all of us, soon be paying more for our groceries than we do now — in addition to the inflation-driven increases that we have come to accept as natural. Ihave been told that a family of four can expect to spend $150 or more per week at the grocery stores. If we take for an example the rate given for the commonly used VISA card, the second lowest of the four quoted by the Globe, this 1.95 per cent charge will cost the four-member family $152 each year. Think about how useful this $152 would be next Christmas. Fred G. Marsh Castlegar NDP throwing promises out the proverbial window I'm not particularly surprised to see most of the NDP promises go out the window. I would like to make the point, nevertheless, that not: even the sanctimonious New Democrats are immune from acute memory loss the moment they're in power. ly a few months ago, the NDP attacked the Socred govern- ment with a fury over its universi- ty tuition fee policy. But that was before the election. Two months into their man- date, they’re singing a slightly dif- ferent tune. The students feel cheated, of course, and so they should. The environmentalists aré equally browned off at the govern- ment. What was it Premier Har- court said during the élection campaign? “It’s time to stop the valley-by-valley. battle between environmentalists and the forest - Report from Victoria industry.” Sensible people,-he said, could surely sit down and work out their differences. Environmentalists expected an immediate moratorium on the log- ging of sensitive areas, but got no} é I’m not advocating the imple- mentation of all the promises the NDP made during the election campaign. I’m_ saying they shouldn’t have made any of those promises to start with. How can you speak of honest government when the first thing you do is break promises? Alas, there’s one promise that hasn't bitten the dust — the school meal program, launched last week by Education Minister Anita Hagen at an initial cost of $7 million. So, what other promises will be going out the window? In a nut- shell, anything that costs money. ‘No tax increases? Forget it. Dou- bling the size of park land? No way. Forbid logging in sensitive areas? Right. = The only thing that will be left is the sunshine package which in- cludes tighter conflict of interest laws and access to information legislation. Come to think of it, guaranteed access to government information and protection of private informa- tion held by government may not even become law this year. The implementation of such an act will cost an estimated $30 million a year, and that may be too rich for Finance Minister Glen Clark’s cash-strapped coffers this year. The government may, there- fore, bring in what is called an ex- posure bill, something of a white paper, that would invite input from all interested parties. Td like to stress again that ’'m not faulting the government for putting most of its promises on hold. The last thing we need 1s a gov- ernment that gets us deeper into the red than we are already. But I’d like to make a plea for more honesty and fewer promises before an election. anonymously. Even in those cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right d from page 6 It all started when White Rock Branch No. 8 asked Gurdip Singh Sahota to remove his turban or leave through a back door. It seems Mr. Sahota’s turban constituted a violation of the ‘No Headgear’ rule. Despite efforts made by Sahota to explain the difference between a construction helmet, a baseball cap and a turban it didn’t work. He politely left the building only to offer his story to me. As a journalist, it was*great story. Heck, it was a entire mini-series. As a human, though, I found things altogether different. To me, the Legion crisis was just another example of that backwards \White is Right theology. xenophobia didn’t stop there, however. c Because I saw fit to report on the story, I became a target for threats from anyone who had a telephone book and an IQ high enough to find a listing for Scott David Harrison in it. It,was a tense couple of months, but I survived to move on to a similar story — one involving another Sihk, Sohan Singh Rai. Mr. Wal canriecied me after a brick was tossed through his window with an accompanying letter titled ‘Dear Paki Scum.’ I have a copy of that letter with me today. It serves as a reminder of the struggle men like Rai face each and every day in a country and world that refuses to address the very real dilemma of racial intolerance. There is no moral lesson to this column or cute line to wrap it up with. There is, after all, nothing cute about racism.