Saturday, August 29, 1992 @ Dave McCullough Publisher Scott David Harrison Editor Mickey Read Composing Room Foreman Warren Chernoff Accountant Heather Hadley Circulation Manager OurWiEWS Adrian RAESIDE Conroy's triumph A miracle? A stunning political achievement? A triumph of good over evil? No matter how you describe it, Ed Conroy’s successful arm-twisting in convincing the B.C. government to build a bridge over the Columbia River at Castlegar is welcome news. Local residents welcome it for obvious reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it will provide relief from the rush-hour traffic blues drivers experience daily on Columbia. Celgar, Pope & Talbot and the trucking companies which deal with them welcome it because it will allow them to bypass the city’s increasingly busy downtown core. But no one welcomes the news more than Conroy himself. After all, the rookie MLA has been the target of some pretty unpleasant barbs originating in this space and elsewhere over the fact that his government appeared to be reneging on a longstanding commitment to build the bridge. He has taken lots of heat, and he has worked exceptionally hard in the smoke-filled rooms of the legislature, trying to convince the government to come through with the cash. So Thursday was a day of vindication for Ed Conroy — a day to celebrate what must surely rank as the biggest accomplishment in his short career as an MLA. A miracle? Hardly. But great news nonetheless, and certainly cause for congratulations on a job well done. Good work, Ed. (eprenss PORVIAMONT BEFORE REFORMS... Council wannabes need training I’m a political junkie of sorts. I love reading about politics at all levels and think nothing of spending hours in front ofa television screen taking in a political convention. I wasn’t always this way. At one time I was your Joe Average voter. Sure, I was in- terested — along with the rest of the nation — in our pirouet- ting PM, Pierre Trudeau, and Comments from the My natural barriers to politics crumbled under the onslaught. I actually began to enjoy the stuff. But my involvement went only so far: I was an observ- er, a reporter of the events. For some reporters this isn’t enough: they want to join in. (This is one of the hazards of the job. I haven't yet met a reporter who doesn't think his lovely child-bride Mar- Crossroads he/she could do better than garet. But my interest — and every one of the politicians the rest of the nation’s — lasted about as long as one of those roses in Trudeau’s lapel. Then I started working for newspapers and was required to cover the local political scene: school boards, hospital boards, regional dis- tricts, municipal councils. At one point, when we lived on Vancouver Is- land, I was covering three municipal councils and a school board. Throw in an election every year, along with the odd provincial and feder- al race, and you begin to get the picture. they cover). I wouldn’t recommend this. To me, it’s a little like a non-swimmer watching a pool full of swimmers. It looks easy enough and like lots of fun. So you jump in. Everything goes well until you suddenly find yourself in the deep end, over your head. T’ve never had the itch to jump in. Well, al- most never. Whenever I've felt that itch coming on, I simply recall all the tough parts of being a municipal politician. please see NORMAN page seven $$ $< $< Streef TALK Burt Camp Publisher Emeritus L.V. Campbell Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 Debbie Mcintosh Castlegar Robson “Yes. It would sure help the economy.” attraction.” Anne Bankert “Yes. I think we’re lacking a tourist Larry Popoff South Slocan “Sure. The majority in Castlegar are Russian.” John Currie “Probably not. There’s different ethnic groups here.” Question: Should Castlegar’s Russian heritage be developed as a community theme? Mike Davidoff Castlegar Castlegar “Sure. As long as it’s done in a lovable way. With respect.” @ Saturday, August 29, 1992 ithe News. Other VIEWS Please address all letters to: Letters tothe Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 or deliver them to 197 Columbia and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, address anda telephone number at which the writer can be 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 cohHE EDITOR Rio’s legacy a better understanding of issues Under the title, “Rio Summit has raised problems that are not going away”, Sir Crispin Tickell, Warden of Green College, Oxford, and a major player in the effort to bring awareness thousand years. A handful of people first ar- rived by boat; they multiplied; they cut down trees; they cultivated the land; they divided in- to little nations; they fought each other over di- no timetables for action proved to have been the first step in a slow process that will lead over the next decades to a great reduction of production of ozone depleting substances. of climate change to na- tional governments, re- cently put his thoughts on paper. “If I had to encapsu? late “our crisis in a dards of evidence deemed suital The stakes are so high most pete don’t want to face them, and stan- i le for protecting individual human or corporate rights are proving preposterous. I hope not. The ozone agreements came only when the ozone layer had been proven to have been David Lewis damaged in a way thought impossible, perhaps al- phrase, I would say that in industrial countries it arises from consump- tion of resources, and in others from the pres- sure on resources. “A key book in 1972 was The Limits to Growth. It was much criticized, often unfairly, but it has stood up pretty well. A key book in 1992, by the same authors, is Beyond the Lim- its. The title speaks for itself. “This is the first time that the world as a whole has faced problems of such complexity. But the problems are not new. In looking at what might happen, remember the fate of Easter Island in the Pacific over a minishing resources; they suffered a drastic de- cline in numbers and living standards; finally they achieved a miserable stability. By the time the Europeans arrived in the eighteenth cen- tury, they found a wreck of a society on an eco- logical ruin.” Tickell spent some time discussing the sor- did politics that occurred between nations in the runup to the Earth Summit. He believes that the agreements signed in Brazil, although disappointing, can be com- pared with the process for dealing with ozone depletion, in that a framework convention with Post office survey overlooks views of disserviced patrons The day before the recent announcement by the Supreme Court of Canada of its refusal to hear an appeal from rural communities seek- ing the re-opening of their post offices, Cana- da Post released yet another of its miraculous- ly timed customer surveys. Since these surveys (done every couple of years) are the sole defence Canada Post and the Minister Responsible, the Hon. Harvie Andre, offer for their unpopular closure/privatization program, they warrant scrutiny. Canada Post is unwilling to release the names of the 27 communities where the inter- views were conducted outside businesses oper- ating retail postal outlets, so it is impossible to do the basic checking that in 1990, for example, revealed one of the places supposedly content- ed with their “r.p.o.” did not even have one at the time of the survey (Napinka, Man.). It is unlikely any of the at least 240 towns left without any retail postal service (by Cana- da Post’s admission) after the post office was shut down or the private outlet contract was cancelled, were included in the survey. As Ethel Baird, of Gadsby, Alta., said to a Calgary Herald reporter, “They should have asked us. I would say 99 1/2 per cent here would have said it’s the most horrible thing there was.” Since the closure of her post office in 1988, Mrs. Baird, like hundreds of other disserviced and dissatisfied Canadians, must travel 25 km. for retail postal services. What does not appear in Canada Post’s sur- vey results is that the great majority of rural Canadians were 100% satisfied with the post offices that had served them well for decades until closed by the Crown corporation. The surveys also leave out the fact that no delivery standards exist for mail travelling be- tween two rural points, or between a rural point and an urban centre. The survey does not ask for customer re- please see POST OFFICE page 8 ready enough to irrevoca- bly end this age of life, beyond reasonable doubt. Something comparable in this context would be the sudden realization that the interior of all the continents of the Earth were no longer in- habitable for six weeks every summer. The stakes are so high most people don’t want to face them, and standards of evidence deemed suitable for protecting individual hu- man or corporate rights are proving preposter- ous. Please turn to RIO page 8 ‘ residents and the people of B.C. This is what All eyes on Rankin RE: City Silence Ends, Castlegar News, Aug. 8, Castlegar appoints lawyer to study $24,000 Pricewaterhouse report. Well done, guys! This whole process of ex- posing the existence of the confidential city report and advocating its release in accor- dance with the spirit of B.C.’s New FOI and Privacy Act, has unfolded beautifully. You've done a great service for your local it’s all about. All eyes are on Castlegar and Murray Rankin’s report. Keep up the good work. Darrell Evans Executive Director B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Assoc. Norman continued from page 7 By far the toughest is the de- mand on your time. The meetings alone are staggering. I know; I cov- ered them. Then there’s all the work that must be done between meetings (if the job is done well, that is). The worst job I can imagine is being mayor, If it required simply running the city — taking care of paving, streetlights, sewer and water — that would be one thing. But the mayor’s job is much more than that. The mayor is also an ambassador for our communi- ty, lobbying senior levels of gov- ernment, meeting with regional politicians and bureaucrats and being present at evey minor com- munity event. The latter is the hardest part of the mayor’s job. It takes a partic- ular type of person to enjoy at- tending dinner functions three nights a week and a seemingly endless string of ribbon-cutting ceremonies, parades and teas. I am not one of those persons. You would have to drag me into the mayor's job kicking and screaming. That’s why I heartily applaud anyone who expresses an interest in running for mayor — like Mike O'Connor. Better him than me. Yet, I have to wonder whether O’Connor isn’t a bit like one of those non-swimmers I mentioned earlier. He has been quoted as saying that we need someone who’s not going to “take all this crap” from Mayor Audrey Moore and “won’t roll over” like the other members of council. His is a commonly-held view in Castlegar: that somehow Audrey Moore is such a commanding pres- ence at council that she can push through whatever she wants. True, Moore is a smart politi- cian. She knows how to pull the right political strings. I've seen her do it myself when I covered coun- cil. And she is always well in- formed. But she is only one person; one vote. One of seven votes. And it takes a majority of council to ap- prove anything. I know some in CURB may find this hard to believe, but the other members of council don’t wait to see how she votes before making their own minds up. (O’Connor seems to forget that three of the aldermen are new- comers, voted in during the last election. If I tallied up all the al- dermen on council since Moore has been mayor, -it would number in the dozens. Were they all in her back pocket?) And if O’Connor and CURB think that putting one member on council will radically alter things, they haven’t spent enough time studying how council functions. More time in the pool, boys.