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Dave McCullough

Circulation Manager

Burt Campbell
Publisher Emeritus

L.V. Campbell
Aug. 7, 1947-
Feb. 15, 1973

OurViEWS

AdrianRAESIDE

Dark cloud
hits city

race yourself Castlegar,
Bi are about to get tough.
Extremely tough.

Despite the silent prayers of an
entire community, the worst has
happened. The Pulp and
Paperworkers of Canada Local 1
walked off the job Tuesday, taking
with them any hope of a blissful
summer. The strike by Local 1 will
have devastating effects on our fair
community, effects that mustn’t go
unnoticed.

Not only does it mean the
immediate layoff of 200 barely-back-
to-work Pope and Talbot: employees,
but it could also mean the end of
construction at the Celgar expansion
site. Should that happen, some 1,450
men and women could be out of a
paycheque.

The impact of such a strike doesn’t
stop there, though. Examining the
trickle-down effect casts an even
darker cloud over Castlegar. Area
businesses can expect profit margins
to decrease substantially as free-
spending habits are tucked away like
Sunday leftovers. Students, too, can
expect summer jobs to be that much
tougher to find as skittish employers
think twice about lending a hand.

A strike isn’t.easy on anyone,
especially a community like ours
which relies on the likes of Celgar
and Pope and Talbot for economic
survival.

As a community, we must unite
during these troubled times and cross
our collective fingers that a quick
solution is at hand.

y iy
ae,

I’ve got the

‘Big City’ blahs

There’s something about
the hustle and bustle of the
Big City that really bothers
me.

Take last week, for
example. Feeling about as
secure as a robust turkey -
three days before
Thanksgiving, I was shipped
off to Vancouver. Against my
will, I was told to take part
in a one-week seminar
entitled Managing an
Effective Team.

The so-called retreat is all

sp. HARRISON

Harrison

Comparison

struggling to turn a smile.

After picking up my
rental car and forcing a
grin out of the agency rep
who just soaked me for
$250, I hit the road to
meet up with my friends
in New Westminster.

It took all of five
minutes before I was cut
off by some dope breaking
the sound barrier in his
Honda Civic.

Not one to hold a

part of our company’s plan
to upgrade their employees
to ensure long-term loyalty and never-
ending love. I’m not opposed to that, after
all I really enjoy working at The News and
being a part of the Trinity Newspaper
Group. What I object to is the hellish-like
environment that I was exposed to during
my one-week hiatus.

T’ll begin at the airport. Upon my arrival
at Vancouver International Airport I was
greeted with cold stares from a city

grudge, I drove merrily
along my way, knowing a
few cold pops. were
awaiting me at my best friend’s apartment.
With visions of barley in my head, I came
within inches of my life when another
yahoo squeezed me onto to a shoulder while
he tried to cross three lanes to make a exit
on the Cambie Street Bridge.

If that wasn’t enough to make me count
my blessings, the same idiot threw me the
finger. Go figure?

2 please see HARRISON page 7

Stree( TALK

Cari Rohn
Castlegar

“No, too many
people are still doing
. it.”

Nicolle Laporte

“No. The people who
get caught get

Question: Do you think toeay 's drunk driving laws are eee enough?

Castlegar
“No.”

nothing.”

Florence Ursulak
Castlegar

Dave Webster
Castlegar

“No. Drinking and
driving is nuts.”

pe en

' YUL WShHeonhEy

a | Wednesday; June 10, 1992

OtherWIEWS |!

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 anda
telephone
number at which
the writer can be

Letters coWHE ED iITOR

Citizens must speak up on chip study

Without wishing to sound
like an alarmist or rabble
rouser, I want to wake up you
people out there whose view of
the world ends at the back
fence. A backhoe may remove it
soon.

I believe that everyone would
like to see a driveable road
along the Slocan Valley, the
present surface condition is
shocking. However, with all due
respect to those who wish to see
road improvements along
Highway 6 at any cost, I would
like to inform them that there is
a catch.

We all want improvements,
but with the road expansion
comes a change of road use.

The present improvements
along Highway 6 are not for our
benefit. Not for the convenience
of local traffic, not for the safety
of local logging traffic, or to
open it to tourists.

The improvements to the
highway are for one purpose
only, and that. is to create a
major provincial trucking
corridor.

I’m writing this letter to say two thank

This new arterial route will
link the Trans-Canada Highway
with Highway 3.

Along with the known
increase in chip trucks along
this route, will be a massive
increase in other trucking
traffic that, at present, use
other routes.

These trucks (as well as cars)
will use this road to bypass the
already over-crowded other
north-south routes, bringing the
same problems to our area that
have already ruined the
Okanagan Valley

What this means in official
traffic predictions, is that we
will have a semi trailer passing
our front doors every four
minutes, 18 hours per day
(moth figures). This does not
include other traffic.

There is no reason why this
number should not increase.
There is no reason why, with
improved ferry service, this
should not be 24 hours per day.

As I said I don’t want to be
an alarmist, but this volume of
traffic will totally change the
quality of life in this area.

Life in the Slocan Valley will
move away from being a very
pleasant place to live in, toa
life in a continuously noisy,
dangerous, dusty, fume-choked
hell-hole, with truck traffic
controlling our actions and our
lives.

There is at present a Chip
Transportation Study taking
place in the Slocan Valley to
examine alternative ways to
move woodchips, such as by
public and private roads, barge
and rail.

There are a lot of alternatives
open to this study group. But
without our input, these
alternatives will not be
considered.

Periodically there will be
public meetings, organized
under the title ‘Chip
Transportation Study’. At
present they are restricted to
Nakusp, New Denver and
Appledale.

There is no reason why the
debate should not bé opened in
Castlegar also.

Please make a point of
attending these meetings, the

dates are published in the local
newspapers.

The expanded version of
Highway 6 is already under
construction. And despite the
assurance of the Minister of
Highways of only 19.6
kilometres of road work
between Summit Lake and
Nakusp this year, tree topping
marking the new route of the
road has been done right to the
outskirts of New Denver.

At present this road is going
to be built whether we like it or
not, and our lives and futures
along this trucking route are
going to be changed for ever.

This is our last chance to
have an honest debate on this
issue.

With no feedback, the Task
Force will report back that all is
well and we will reap the
whirlwind.

Please stir yourselves and
attend the meetings.

If possible put pen to paper
and write your MLA.

John A. Fraser
New Denver

Politcians should rethink plan

Most members of Canadian House of

yous.

One is to The News for their free Lost
sections in the classified ads. And the
second thank you is to those people who
took the time and trouble to respond to our
recent request for information about our
missing cat (black and white, long haired
male at the south end of town). :

Although the sad result was that he was
missing because he’d been hit by a car, it’s
still far better to know what happened
than to wonder each day if he'll arrive back
home. Both the free service and the
thoughtful responses are indications of a
caring community and are a small, but
reassuring counterbalance to the conflict
and self-serving actions that often seem to
dominate the news about our town.

Ann and Bud Godderis
Castlegar

reached b a]
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
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.

Commons should be ashamed of
themselves.

They claim that Bill C-55, now before
Parliament, makes their gold-plated
pension plan fairer.

The truth is that this bill is nothing
but a cynical, deceptive shell game.

Once the politicians’ flash and
trickery is over, all of the lavish
benefits of the MPs pension plan
remain the same.

A leading independent pension
expert has attacked Bill C-55 as a
waste of time.

For instance, under Bill C-55 MPs
could still leave office after only six
years and immediately start collecting
pensions for life regardless of their
ages. These fat pensions would still
start at about $18,000 per year and

would still have unlimited protection
against inflation. What’s really
outrageous is that the great majority of
our MPs seem to see nothing wrong
with clinging to these lavish perks
when 1.5 million Canadians are out of
work and two million are on welfare.
We urge all Canadians to contact
their MPs and press them to not only
scrap Bill C-55 but to fundamentally
reform this rip-off of the Canadian
taxpayer. National polls find
unprecedented disrespect for MPs.
They have earned that disrespect.
Let’s hope they try to earn our respect
back by doing the right thing with
their pension plan. :
David Somerville,
President
National Citizen Coalition
Ottawa

Harrison

‘continued from page 7

I promptly returned the
compliment, adding a few
expressive deletes only to have
the music of the Flaming
Aardvarks drown out the better
words.

It was at that moment I
realized just how much things
had changed. See, a scant eight
months ago I was living in
White Rock, travelling
throughout the Lower Mainland
like the very Jackass that gave
me the one-finger salute.

With that in mind, I'd like to
formally apologize the those

many unsuspecting drivers that
were forced to eat my dust.as I
rushed to and from Lower
Mainland shopping malls. And
to think I’ve only had one
speeding ticket in my life... and
that came just outside of
Manning Park when I packed
up all my belongings en route to
Castlegar last November.
Driving aside, there was
another thing that really
bothered me about Vancouver
and area that I need mention.
It’s got something to do with
the restaurants. Is it me, or

does friendly service cost extra?
On one evening, News
accountant Warren Chernoff
and I were left in limbo for 20
minutes, trying to order our
evening meal. To know Warren,
is to know that his stomach has
no patience when the clock
strikes 7 p.m. Heck, by 5 p.m.
Warren is ready to eat soap.
Perhaps I’m being a little
unfair. After all for the 18
months that I lived in the
Lower Mainland, I loved it.
Why, I couldn’t imagine myself
living elsewhere, especially a

tiny place called Castlegar.

How things change, though.
Instead of stretching the most
out of Lower Mainland working
vacation, I came back a day
early.

Why,
morning

when
came

Saturday
around, I

‘ couldn’t get on the plane fast

enough.

If there is to be a moral to
this story, it would have to be
about finding a home.

And, thankfully, I have found
one here in the Crossroads of
the Kootenays. Go figure?