PF nd mgm PAGE ~~ tons tS Wednesday, August 12, 1992 & : ! inion Op Dave McCullough Publisher Scott David Harrison Editor Mickey Read Composing Room Foreman Warren Chernoff Accountant OurViEWS . Adrian RAESIDE ‘Pope and Talbot must be recognized An honest approach o says Pope and Talbot Ltd. isn’t making an effort to embrace this community? The company which threw a life preserver to 280 Castlegar jobs when it took over Westar’s mismanaged forest operations is endearing itself to this community by adopting a simplistic business plan: honesty. Such business logic is refreshing in an age when profit margins define protocol. The new kid on Castlegar’s block, for going above and beyond normal business practices. They have opened the doors to a curious public and earned credibility in doing so. On July 31, Pope and Talbot unveiled its five-year plan to our community, complete with its vision of a prosperous future. The encouraging thing about this is that Pope and Talbot was by no means forced to host this meeting, it chose to. Another show faith has just recently come to the surface. Much to the delight of noise-weary Robson residents, Pope and Talbot has sound-proofed its planer chipper. The move, lost amid the stacks of Regional District of Central Kootenay documents, was completed in May after similar requests to Westar were dismissed. Pope and Talbot promised to be good corporate citizens when it took over the Castlegar sawmill. And, based on its first few months of ownership, Pope and Talbot has been LiTHVANiO WINS THE Form letter lacks credibility | The next 500 or so words I feel betrayed. Some three weeks ago I received a letter from MLA Ed Conroy regarding the B.C. Medical Association-NDP debate. “Great,” I thought to myself, “a letter from Ed outlined the NDP’s position on Bill 71 versus the BCMA. “Fair enough,” I said. “a hard-hitting local letter that is certain to provoke a thought, fuel the debate Conroy. Boy, he must be mad.” ' I read the letter with interest, all the while thinking Conroy must have sharpened four pencils and gone through 100 sheets of loose-leaf paper to get this one right. The letter all but Harrison Comparison and guarantee a few extra stories for the Saturday paper.” Little did I know that the letter allegedly penned by an MLA I have a lot of respect for was nothing short of a form letter with local content thrown in for dismissed a local doctor’s concerns about the state of medical services in British Columbia thanks to the passage of Bill 71. Conroy wrote that Castlegar doctor Jon Van Vliet “made a number of errors in his comments about the contents of Bill 71 and the negotiations between the government and the BCMA, and Id like to help set the record straight.” that and more. Okay Ed, shoot. flavor. That fact surfaced Monday when a reporter with the Salmon Arm Observer contacted me, pointing out ‘the similarities between our letter and one her paper had published. To see the two letters is to-see an classic example of media manipulation by our provincial government. I’m embarrassed to say I fell for it. please see HARRISON page 7 r Street TALK Barb, DeBiasio Castlegar “Definitely.” : Susan Beck Gibson's Landing “Yes, I’m proud to be Canadian.” Question: Do you think Canada should be proud of our Olympic athletes? Jason Cordeiro Castlegar “Yes.” Corina Waage Castlegar “Yes, definitely.” Tomoko Tsutsumi Yokohama, Japan “Yes.” @ Wednesday, August 12, 1992 Other VIEWS: 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 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 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 to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Letters tcoWHE EDITOR is speaking @ British Columbia’s doctors deserve the money they are making and more . Scott David Harrison better write about something he knows about — like stereotyping. Its precisely people with his kind of “knowledge” that are to be feared. These are the ones who will be “whining” the most when it comes to paying user fees. Maybe it’s sour grapes because doctors make more than he does, but does Harrison have to pay secretaries, exorbitant insurance rates, office rental or mortgage, purchase all office supplies, stay up 24 hours or more at a time, make life or death decisions, spend hours and sometimes days | away from his family, take upgrading seminars on a regular basis at their own expense and time and, to top it all off, have to justify their rate of pay to someone like Harrison, whose greatest employment expense is probably pens and whose greatest employment concern is getting an article in by deadline — or even worse composing an unbiased, fair commentary based on fact — not stereotyping. Small-brained Harrison out of turn Some people need to wake up to the fact that our greatest hope lies in our children and a progressive viable health care system available to all people of any economic status. Harrison acts as if these doctors drive caddies and live in mansions. Get real. Any of the doctors I know in town have families and financial responsibilities like most of us do — and they work damn hard for their pay. I don’t know one doctor in Castlegar who owns a “BMW,” and “drives to the nearest resort” to “drown their sorrows in a bottle of Dom Perignon.” What kind of irresponsible stereotyping is Harrison practicing? Why can’t Harrison report on things as they are, not as his small, biased little brain perceives them? Harrison may be “fed up” with the doctors debate and their “whining,” I’m just plain fed up with Harrison and his slanted commentaries. Karen Kerkhoff Robson P.S: Does this guy really get paid for his “whining?” New ’QR is great I just happened to read Neil Rachynski’s column in The News (Saturday, Aug. 8) and I’m convinced that-CKQR ra- dio made a good decision when it switched to country music. I was wondering how long it was going to take to go country. I listen to the radio more now than I ever did before and I know for a fact that more peo- ple from Trail have switched to Castlegar’s radio station now that they heard it went coun- try. “ Just because one person doesn’t like country, there are about three more that do. And there are still songs on the radio that aren't country, so it still has a variety. One of many country fans in Castlegar Thank you to the staff at The News for your support of the Student Employment Centre this summer. Support from community leaders like yourselves plays an essential role in giving our students the confidence they need to face the numerous economic situation in this area, there was strong community support for students this summer. To date we have placed a total of 250 students — 201 positions were odd jobs, and 49 were regular placements. Compared to last year, this is a The News a pleasure to work with as the number of odd jobs actually increased. Thanks again. I will be completing my final year at UBC in April so who knows what the next few years will hold for me. I hope our paths cross again as it is always a pleasure dealing with the staff Thank you Castlegar @ Annual tourney brings out the best of a caring challenges posed by an uncertain future. this Considering the tough When Bloc Quebecois MP Jean Lapierre decided to retire from politics recently, he hit the MP pension jackpot. At the ripe old age of 36, Lapierre can retire in the happy knowledge that he will likely receive pension payments worth about $4 million over the rest of his life. This is all thanks to the gold- plated pension plan that our MPs enjoy. It allows them to qualify for a pension after only six years in office, payable immediately on retirement, total decrease of 18 per cent but is mainly due to a reduction in regular positions, at The News. Sara Deane Placement Officer Lapierre pads his pension pocket In Lapierre’s case, his means he will receive about $40,000 'a year in benefits from the day he leaves office. Also, his pension will more than triple when hé turns 60 assuming a modest average inflation rate of five per cent. As an added bonus after age 60, his pension will be fully protected against inflation — no matter how high it goes. David Somerville President, regardless of their age. National Citizens’ Coalition community like Castlegar Thank you to everyone who took part in the Dan Markin-Mark Lightle Memorial Golf Tournament on Aug. 2. A special thanks to the Castlegar merchants who were so generous with their donations. a good time was had by all. See you all next year. Aaron Stoushnow Kay Markin Bobbie Keraiff Organizing Committee Harrison continued from page 6 Imagine, two weeks after I tear a strip off the province’s doctors for their well- orchestrated campaign, it becomes clear that’ the government is no better. Form letters aside, another thing troubles me about all this. And that has to do with a conversation I had with Conroy prior to the letter’s publication. The Rossland-Trail MLA phoned me one Monday morning to ensure his letter had arrived — our fax machine is notorious for hacking pages off in the most peculiar places. It did. The letter surprised me because, two weeks earlier, Conroy contacted me to express his dismay over a column Ron Norman wrote for The News criticizing him for endorsing a plan that would see more tractor-trailers shipped through Castlegar. I asked Conroy to respond with a letter but he declined, saying an MLA can’t win support in the Letters to the Editor section. I agreed and promptly wrote another story about the rerouting of Warfield hill traffic through Castlegar. Needless to say I was shocked when I saw the letter attacking the BCMA and Dr. Van Vliet inching its way out of our fax machine. Being the curious sort I am, I’d asked Conroy why he wrote the letter. He replied: “I know it breaks my cardinal rule about writing letters, but we have to clear up the confusion.” Clear up the confusion? Nice try, Ed. If anything, this only adds fuel to an exhaustive debate that is becoming downright tiresome. I may not agree with the tactics being taken by British Columbia’s doctors, but at least they are being honest about their province-wide push for greater funding. I suggest Ed Conroy and the provincial government do the same.