A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, July 19, 1995.

phe

“TERRACE

TANDARD |

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C. *V8G 188
"TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638- 8432 -
oe -. » MODEM: (604) 638-7247

Mr. Nice Guy

ALCAN OFTEN stands accused of being as
lightweight as the metal it produces. After more
than 15 years of taking a pounding over plans to
increase its hydroelectric capacity in the north-
west, the company appears to have beat a retreat
each time it faced battle,

Arrayed against the company at various times
have been provincial governments, federal
governments, unions, fishermen, environ-
mentalists, newspapers, radio commentators and
natives — all of whom have taken a chunk out of
the corporate beast.

The 1987 settlement agreement is quoted as one
such example. Alcan surrendered water rights
granted more than 40 years ago to the Nanika-
Kidprice system in favour of secure water rights
from the Nechako River. The company wouldn’t
be able to generate the: power it originally
wanted to, it said, but was happy with what the
agreement provided.

Next came the exhaustive, tedious and some-
times irrelevant B.C. Utilities Commission hear-
ings into that 1987 agreement. Everything up to
and including world hunger and being nasty to
your little sister ended up in the company’s lap.

And then came the Kemano Completion Pro-
ject’s death sentence earlier this year. Aican took
that rather quietly, preferring instead to work the
back rooms of the provincial government.

The result of that is a tentative deal with the
provincial government that could provide Alcan
with a 60 or 80 year solid deal for power at rates
very attractive to the company. In essence, all
Alcan will need to do is flick the switch. All the
expense of providing the power will be up to the
provincial government. — .

That kind of arrangement should more than
make Alcan happy. And that stands as an answer
to its critics. Far from being a wimp, Alcan will
have something no other industrial concern in
the province will have — solid power at solid
tates.

What a drag

LET’S SEE if we can get this straight. First the
highways ministry frustrates summer time traffic
over the new bridges on Hwy16 because of a re-

habilitation project. And now it’s given approval -

for drag races on a stretch of the same highway
near the work site.

Add the two speeds together — the crawl of the
bridge work and the lightning of the draggers —
and then divide by two. The resulting average is
probably close to a normal speed over the
bridges. .

Drag races by themselves bring a sense of ex-
citement, But the approval to hold them on the
highway creates a golden opportunity for
otganizers to increase the audience draw.

They could, for example, create categories
designed to work out the impatient feelings of
those caught up in the bridge work. How about
drags between recreational vehicles driven by
tourists? What about a pedal to the metal show-
down of logging trucks? A rubber-burning match
featuring Thornhill commuters?

Gana = PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
@rs..nns MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur
NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter
COMMUNITY: Cris Leykauf
OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher, Terry Miller
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:
Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Tracey Tomas
COMMUNITY SERVICE/TELEMARKETER: Monique Belanger
ADVERTISING ASSISTANT: Helen Haselmeyer
DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur COMPOSITOR; Shannon Cooper

CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Karen Brunette
MEMBER OF 8.0. PRESS COUNCIL

Serving te Tettaca and Thornhill ataa. Published on Wednesday of each waek by Cariboo Press (1969)
Ud. at 4647 Lazelia Ava,, Terrace, British Columbia,
Stoles, photographs, illustrations, dasigns and typesiyles In the Terrace Standard are iho property of the
copyright hotders, Including Carihon Press (1969) Ltd., its Illustration repro services and advertising
agencies, °°
Reproduction in whole at in path “wlhout writen permission, Is specilically prohibited: a
Authorized as second-class mail pending the Post Offica Department, fat payment of postage I Incash

Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
for their time and talents

VeRIrieo:

CIRCULATION

CONTROLLED

Don’t count the NDP out

VICTORIA — By the time
_ you read this, the legislative
session will have ended. Col-
lapsed jis perhaps a_ beiter
word.

After five months of intense
fighting, :albeit bloodiess, the
gladiators. were exhausted.
They wanted to go home to
their families, tend to their gar-
dens, throw a few barbecues

and enjoy what’s left of the

summer.

It’s been a raucous, some-
times nasty session, which saw
the government on the mun
many times, with the opposi-

_ tion bloodhounds: in het pur-
suit. But then, as one of the
Sergeant- at-Amms stalf said to
me the other day: “At least
there are no corpses when its
all over.’

. How right he is. Looking at
all the world’s trouble spuls,
where hatred has teplaced rea-
son, where death is just a
suiper’s bullet away, | am

" grateful for the way we setile

our diffurences.

We elect our shock troups

and send them to Victoria once
a year to fight a civil in which
nobody gets killed or maimed.-
And of you ever attend a sit-
ling of the legislature and are
troubled by what you may con-
sider rude and uncivilized be-
havior on the part of our
politicians, | consider the

_HUBERT BEYER

FROM THE CAPITAL |

alternative,

When the MLAs mect again
in Victoria next spring, the ses-
Sion will probably be inter-
rupted by an clection call, be-
cause the Harcourt government

_is approaching the end of its

mandate. The premier must
call an election by the fall of
1996.

. Next on Harcourt’ 8 agenda i is
probably: a cabinet shufile.
After years of achieving an ac-
curacy rate‘of no more than 50

:, percent, I refrain from making

any predictions of who'll be in
and oul of the inner circle, with
one exception: Moe Sihota will
be.back ‘in: '
Ever since Sihota resigned
from cabinet over a suspension
by the Law Socicty of British
Columbia for having
mishandled a client’s funds,

Harcourt has been ‘deluged
with demands and requests that
Sihota be reinstated as en-
Vironment minister. My guess
is that he'll bow to those
demands,

You may also expect the
government to soften up the
electorate in preparation for an
election. | There will be
stepped-up ad campaigns ex-
tolling the virtues of all sorts
of government programs,
many of them thinly disguised
as public information
campaigns.

And speaking of speculation,
there is, of course, an outside
chance that the premier will
call the election this fall.
Whether or not he does,
depends entirely on what the
polls will say, And that, in

* tum, depends on how the other

parties will fare in the months
tocome. ;

Regardless of its present
standings in the polls, which
are in the low 20s, ihe NDP
wilt eventually get back its tra-
ditional support of around 35
per cent, And a= well-run

campaign might raise that by a.

couple of points. .

For the NDP to win, there-
fore, the Reformers and the
Liberals must split the vote al-
most evenly. If that doesn’t
happen, Harcourt will post-

pone the election until spring,

two big drawbacks notwith-
standing.

The first of those drawbacks -
is that traditionally, govern:
ments that don’t call an. elec-
tion until the iast moment, are :
almost certainly defeated. The
second is that federal cutbacks —
in ansfer payments will kick
in next year, making it ex-
tremely difficult, if not im-.-
possible, for the government ta’
balance the next budget.

And to project a fittle further.
into the future, the election |
campaign will be an intense ..
and even dirty one. Having‘
come out of the political
wildemess, having smelled
blood and likiig it, the Liber- -
als will pull all stops to defeat
the NDP, =
:Meanwhile, Jack Weisgerber.
will work hard to shore up sup-
port for:his Reform Party in.
former traditional, Socred -
country, the Interior and north-°
em British Columbia..

To those who hepe for some
united front against the NDP, 1
say: forget it. It just isn’t’ going
to happen. Weisgerber wauld
rather join the - Communist
Party than go over to the Lib-,
erals,

There is no doubt that the
NDP is in trouble. But only a
fool would rule out the govern-
ment’s chances of getting te-

elected.

Tips

I’M LUCKY. Because | work
at home, I don’t have to wait in
line at the bridge every day. .

Still ‘‘the bridge’’ figures in”
all my summer plans. | even.

tipped into town fora haircut
July first weekend when all the
‘Men Working’ signs were

shrouded in black plastic. |

(That must be the one sign not
yet upgraded by non-sexist
language.)

But so long as east bound
motorists. must endure a 20-
minute wait, we might as well
prepare to make the most of it.
The average wait is 20
minutes. In six weeks, we'll
have. waited away 12 hours
each. That’s a valuable chunk
of time, too valuable to
squander slewitiy or stcaming
when we're not cooking in our
kitchens,

Alt of which made me. ask

myself, “How can a motorist
make use of waiting-in- line
time?”

T can draft a complaint letter
to highways minister Jackie
Pement; think up bumper

THROUGH BIFOCALS
CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

sticker slogans; list 50
synonyms for nincompoop;
find 14 ways this tourist season
blockade could have been
avoided; vent my feelings in a
letter to Helmut Giesbrecht.

As a writez, | can make notes
for a column; plot a murder
mystery; people watch; make
notes in a journal; fill in June
diary entries; list topics for fu-

ture articles; write how I feel ©

when [’m thwarted, frustrated,
angry enough to clamp my

THAT'S THE Mase BioLoGisr, WATERFOWL
BIOLOGIST, FURBEARER BiOLOGIST, RAPTOR
BIOLOGIST, HASITAT BIOLOGIST, MARINE

hands on someone’s windpipe,

If | were a crafts person [
could pick goldenrod for
drying; needlepoint a mountain
scene With the old bridge in

petit point knit afghan
squares; crochet a doily; tat
yards of lace.

A fitness fiend could do
isometric exercises to tighten
tummy muscles. By the time

the bridge is repaired ab-

dominals would be hard as the
bridge deck. Jog mile laps bes-
ide the idling vehicles; waik
the dog: do warm-up stretches
against the fender; perform sit-
ups under a tire; skip rope; jog
in place, Keel over from car-
bon monoxide poisoning,
Mothers with tots can take
along a Barney bag; read pic-
ture books; play This Little Pig
Went to Market on baby’s
toes; sing nursery songs; play |

_ See Something Red; count the

blue cars in line; add cars; sec
who can keep silent watil the
line moves.
Average motorists can listen
to the radio or a tape of Simon

and Garfunkle’s Bridge Over
Troubled Waters; make up
their own version of Troubled
Bridge Over Water; hone
debating skills with pas-
sengers; practice talking back
to the TV: read the next few
chapters in Stephen King’s
latest thriller, engage in .
Solitaire; play harmonica; sing;
memorize poetry; shell peas;
mend socks; sew on buttons;
sketch.

Career types can apply.
makeup or shave; get a jump
onl business calls to the eastern
provinces with their. car
phones; participate in a phone-
in radio talk show; up-date
their to-do list; catch up on
business journals; listen to.
motivational tapes; practice
conversational ." phrases-~.in
Mandarin; gulp Valium with
coffee from their dashboard:
mugs; plan their vacation
itinerary; thank their’ lucky -
stars they're not-on the Los .
Angeles freeway or stuck in|
ae hour traffic on Toronto's

1. a