OPINION .
Castlégar News

PAGE A4, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1991
MEMBER OF THE B.C. PRESS COUNCIL

ESTABLISHED AUGUST 7, 1947 TWICE WEEKLY MAY 4, 1980 *
INCORPORATING THE MiD- WEEK MIRROR PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 12, 1978-AUGUST 27, 1980

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PUBLISHER —Dave McCullough
EDITOR — Simon Birch
PLANT FOREMAN - Peter Harvey
OFFICE MANAGER -Warren Chernoff
CIRCULATION MANAGER — Heather Hadiey
SENIOR SALES REPRESENTATIVE — Gary Fleming

Prtetated ot 197: Castoge, Mewes bik

EDITORIAL

Road repairs
expensive

Time and years of neglect have finally caught up to several
sections of Castlegar’s streets and city council now has to bite
the bullet and begin paying for paving to repair the crum-
bling asphalt.

According to council’s own figures, the city spent just 10
per cent of what it should have over the last five years keep-
ing its 79 kilometres of streets up to snuff ($187,000 over the
last five years ed to the e: d $370,000 per year
for an adequate paving program).

To start correcting the deficiency, council agreed Tuesday to
reallocate $115,000 in this year’s budget to resurface 1.2 kilo-

YY f

LETTERS TO

THE EDITOR

metres of city streets. But that is only scratching the
surface of the necessary repairs.

Next spring sometime, council intends to present city vot-
ers with a referendum on repaving. Over the last couple of
years a figure of $500,000 was discussed but now the referen-
dum is likely to ask voters to approve the borrowing of about
$1 million to repave city streets.

Despite the condition of some city streets, which Ald. Bob
Pakula accurately described as “atrocious,” a $1 million refer-
endum might be a tough sell, especially if interest rates start
to climb.

That’s quite a bundle of money to borrow.

Fortunately, it doesn’t necessarily mean higher residential
property taxes. That’s probably the key selling point.

The city ici its will i over the next
few years and should be able to allocate more money to the

Owners wanted

The Castlegar and District Heritage Soci-
ety is trying to locate people who donated
items to the old Castlegar Museum (under
the old Castlegar Library).

The society is currently working with the
West Kootenay National Exhibition Centre
in an effort to bring these artifacts back.
downtown and placed on permanent display
at the CP Rail museum. To accomplish this,
permission must be given by the original
donor or donors, or their estates.

If anyone can help us with this, please
call the station at 365-6440. We are also

maintenance of city streets, including payments on wh
money it can convince the voters to allow it to borrow.

It’s something to think about every time you drive over a
crevice or pothole somewhere in the city over the next few
months.

VIEWPOINT .
Workers forced

looking for d to furnish the upstairs
rooms — antiques or any interesting old
items to help recreate a homelike atmo-

sphere would be much appreciated.

Carolee Fitz-Gerald

Secretary

Castlegar and District

Heritage Society

Castlegar helps out

While starvation and natural disaster
afflict millions of people worldwide, resi-

dents of Castlegar have helped show that
Canadian generosity is not running dry.

In 1991, tragedies ranging from the Gulf
War to a volcano in the Philippines have
drawn heavily on charitable giving. People
have begun to talk about donor fatigue and
wonder whether Canadians can really make
a difference.

Bangladesh, one of the world’s most
impoverished nations, suffered the most
lethal storm of the decade. It killed more
than 125,000 people. Canadian-funded shel-
ters saved thousands from the cyclone. Food
and medical supplies sustained survivors in
the chaos after the winds died away.

I am glad to report that five Bangladesh
children, supported through World Vision
Canada by sponsors in the vicinity of Castle-
gar, have survived the recent tragedy.

The monthly donations provided food,

lothi d ion and medicine for the
children, as well as helping their communi-
ties become self-supporting. Without this-
help these communities would have been ill-
prepared for the cyclone and the casualties
in Bangladesh would have been much high-
er,

At a time when Canadian generosity has
been tested, I wish to commend the people
in your community who have shown that

goodwill is still in good supply, by helping
ensure a future for children in Bangladesh.
Don Scott
President
World Vision Canada

August 14, 1991 Castlegar News _AS

Please address all letters to the editor
to: Letters to the Editor, Castlegar News,
P.O. Box 3007, Castlegar, B.C. VIN 3H4,
or deliver them to our office at 197
Columbia Ave. in Castlegar.

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 9 a.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 be
published without the writer's name.
Nevertheless, the name, address and
telephone number of the writer MUST be
disclosed to the editor.

The Castlegar News reserves the right
to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality,
grammar and taste.

to take stand

By DARYL BEAN
President
Public Services Alliance
of Cana

Later this summer, you may
see some of your neighbors on
the evening news. The woman
who works down the road may
be holding a picket sign up for
the television camera. Or, the
man you've seen at the curling
club may be part of a crowd
marching in front of a local fed-
eral government building.

So, before you seé us on tele-
vision ot read about it in this
newspaper, we’d like you to
know why more than 100,000
workers, members of the Public
Service Alliance of Canada, are
going on strike.

PSAC members — your
neighbors — work for the feder-
al government. We're proud of
the jobs we do and the services
we provide.

We inspect your food. Provide
job counselling and retraining.
Fight drug trafficking. Carry out
search and rescue. Send out
pension and family allowance
cheques. Care for veterans. Pro-
tect our resources and wildlife.
Secure our prisons. Maintain
health, environmental and safe-
ty standards. Aid in national
defence.

But we could be forced into a
national strike within days.
Why? Because the Mulroney
government — the most unpopu-
lar in Canada’s history — is
attempting to rebuild its popu-
larity on the backs of PSAC
members. We’ve been forced to
take a stand.

It’s politically popular to

‘attack “civil servants.” But let’s

look at the facts. Our wages

have been restrained for years.

Over seven years of Mulroney

government, we and our families

_ have lost money —.like most
Canadians

Clerks lost an average of
$1,400 per year to inflation dur-
ing this period, while meat
iinspectors lost closer to $2,000

per year. So when this govern-
ment tells us to tighten our
belts, our reaction is the same as
yours — we've run out of notch-
es!

A great many PSAC members
earn less than the national aver-
age wage. Many are paid less
than their private-sector equiva-
lents. We've faced three wage
control programs in 15 years.
And the government admits our
wage increases have been below
inflation and private sector set-
tlements over the past seven
years.

Last Feb. 26, with great fan-

Feds sinking in red ink

Weak economy cuts deep bite out of government revenues

By LARRY WELSH
The Canadian Press

While Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney and economists rush
to declare the recession over, the
federal government is still sink-
ing deeper in red ink.

And the government could go
further in debt this year than it
predicted as a weak economy
takes a deep bite out of govern-

fare, Michael Wilson pr

his final budget. His parting
shot included a five-year wage
control package with no wage
in¢rease whatsoever for this
year.

If everyone in the federal
public service were being treat-
ed in the same fashion it might,
just might, make things a little
more acceptable. However, this
decision was made by the Mul-
roney cabinet after its members
had granted themselves and
senior managers increases
and/or bonuses ranging from 3.8
per cent to 10 per cent. And that
was on top. of salaries-consider-
ably in excess of $100,000. Is
that fair?

I know what you're thinking:

“Well if I had a secure job like
those government workers, I’d
take the wage freeze and keep
my job. After all, at least I have
job security.”

However, you’d be dead
wrong.

Perhaps there was a golden
age when a job within the gov-
ernment meant life-long securi-
ty. Whether it ever was true can
be questioned. That it is no
longer true is a certainty.

More than 13,000 jobs have
been lost since the Mulroney
government came to
federal public service is now
smaller than it was in 1973,
despite the fact that there are

please see WORKERS page AG

ment ues, some
warn.

For the first two months of
fiscal 1991-92, federal govern-
ment revenues fell 7.9 per cent
from the same period last year.

If federal revenues fall that
much for the entire fiscal year,
the budget deficit would balloon
to $40.7 billion, far above the
government’s projected $30.5-
billion shortfall.

It’s too early to make sweep-
ing conclusions, the Finance
Department and economists
caution.

But weaker-than-expected
revenues and increased spend-
ing on unemployment insurance
benefits raise disturbing ques-
tions.

The federal budget deficit —
the shortfall between what the
government gets in revenues
and what it spends on programs
and interest payments — almost
tripled in April and May and
from the same period last year.

To cover a bigger deficit, the
federal government may have to
borrow more money.

“The federal government has
already borrowed $11.4 billion
just four months into the fiscal
year, casting considerable doubt
on the $21.6-billion budget esti-
mate of fiscal year 1991-92 bor-
rowing requirements,” Burns
Fry Ltd. said in a recent invest-
“ment re)

Still, worries about a rising

deficit could quickly vanish,
thanks to economic recovery and
the goods and services tax.

Almost every time a con-
sumer buys something, the sev-
en per cent GST pumps money
into federal coffers. But many
economists fear consumers will
stay out of stores during an
uneven, sluggish recovery.

That could leave the Conser-
vative government with a bigger
deficit, which might spell politi-

company already owes the bank.

The banker would probably
call the bailiff before you left the
office.

Add six zeros to these num-
bers and you get the financial
picture for the federal govern-
ment of Canada. Instead of
owing thousands of dollars, the
government is billions of dollars
in debt.

Not surprisingly, banks and

investors around the world are
happy to lend more money to
Canada — for a price.

That price is high interest
rates, which pinch Canadians
every time they use credit cards,
get a mortgage or borrow money
to run a company.

More red ink would mean
upward pressure on interest
rates and a threat to the
fledgling economic recovery.

cal trouble before an el.
expected in 1993.

To keep a rising deficit in
check, the government may
resort to unpopular tax increas-
es and budget cuts.

“They wouldn’t want to be
missing the deficit on the high
side in the year prior to the next
election,” said Mike McCracken,
head of Informetrica Ltd., an
economic research firm.

McCracken blames the gov-
ernment’s high-interest-rate
battle against inflation for a
string of bloated deficits. The
deficit has remained around $30
billion for five years, including
this year’s projection.

“They basically have done it
to themselves with high interest
rates.

“Because interest rates have
been maintained so high for so
long, they are still hemorrhag-
ing on debt servicing.”

How bad is the bleeding?

QUOTES

tions continue.

now. We've got a good team.

“This is out of a fairy tale.”

“It's pretty quiet around here.”

—An H.A. Simons’ employee describes the scene on the site
of Celgar Pulp Co.'s $700 million expansion project Wednes-
day. Despite an injunction designed to get men back on the job
on the project, the workers won"t cross a picket line set up by
the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers union last week. Negotia-

“We've been practising twice a week for the last two weeks

—Castlegar Amigos manager Kris Stanbra comments as the
team prepares for its— and the city’s—first ever provincial C
mixed slo-pitch championships this weekend at Kinnaird. Park.
The Amigos are the only local team in the nine-team tourney.

—Last weekend, 16-year-old Anna Zabinska became the
first Rotary exchange student to come to Canada from Poland.
She arrived in Castlegar this week.

“T've lost a kidney to cancer but I've gained a whole new
respect for life and what we have to make of it.”
Rossland-Trail NDP candid.

your small

Ed Conroy had a cancerous

has sales this year of $128,500.

But it spends $115,800 on
operating expenses and has to
pay $43,000 in interest to the
bank.

That leaves your company
$30,500 in the hole this year.

Now, imagine your banker's
response when your ask for a
loan to cover this year’s shortfall
— on top of the $400,000 your

kidney removed at a Kelowna hospital earlier this month.

“I think to put a bridge in there is a good thing, and if some
people have to suffer because of it, so be it. I don't really want
to lose where I'm at, but if you got to move you got to move.
What the heck, you go to the bank.”

Robson resident Hans Kolman is involved in negotiations
with the Ministry of Highways over a piece of Kolman's Prop-
erty the ministry wants 80 it can go-ahead with the Robson-
Castlegar bridge project.

Genius is 1%
inspiration and

99% perspiration.

Inventor of the phonograph, the lightbulb,
motion picture camera and more.

Right now we're sweating to meet our deadline.

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