A4 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 5, 2003 -

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

PUBLISHER: ROD LINK

ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. © V8G 5R2
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EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard.com

Docs’ bucks

HERE’S A quick quiz. Name the group of
public sector workers which has given pro-
vincial . governments, be they NDP or Lib-
eral, the most aggravation over the years.

The government’s own employees? Nope. The
current provincial government is succeeding in
eliminating thousands of jobs, which has angered
workers, but it has now managed to negotiate an
extension of their current contract until 2006.

Teachers? They do complain a lot, but
the government retains — and has used — the
legislative powers to settle their contracts.

It’s the doctors. Aside from lawyers, doctors
are probably the most organized labour group
in the province. Well-financed and with very
good leadership, doctors retain an almost mysti-
cal control over the government and the public.

There are very good reasons for this, Doc-
tors have literal command over life and
death, something that must rest heavy on
the minds of government officials when
they face them over the bargaining table.

There aren’t a lot of doctors to go around.
This shortage of supply in the face of high
demand provides doctors with an overpow-
ering advantage. They also have very por-
table skills. Anger the docs, and they can easily
move to other provinces or out of the country
to places willing to pay them more money.

All of this means the provincial Liberal govern-
ment will face the biggest test of its term next year
whenitsitstonegotiateanothercontractwithdoctors.

Remember that the provincial government is on
a three-year mission to cut spending to meet its |
commitment of balancing its budget by the time:
it heads to the polls again in 2005. The cuts so
far in jobs and spending may seem drastic. But
the reality is the Liberals must hack close to a $1
billion more to reach its goal, a staggering fig-
ure in the face of an under performing economy.

This will be the second contract between the
provincial Liberals and the doctors. The Liber-
als inherited an acrimonious mess from their
NDP predecessors when elected in 2001. It took
a year, and an arbitrator, to reach a fee increase
of $392 million which put the total compensa-
tion package over the $2 billion mark, Can the
province find another $392 million for the next
contract? Or even half that given the need to cut
a $1 billion as it is from the provincial budget?

It’s one thing — and fairly easy — to freeze
the spending of regional health care authori-
ties and then hide behind their skirts while
they extract concessions amounting to $3.25 an
hour from ordinary folk, or to contract out jobs.

But it’s another to stare down the doctors them-
selves. Concessions? Not likely. Zero per cent in-
creases? No way. Stay tuned. It'll be interesting.

PUBLISHER /EDITOR: Rod Link
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ALLAN ROCK

GON
| FISAING
heals

ROGERT
THIBAULT

ANDERSON

DAVID .-

©IRICE0%,

LOOKING BALK, AT FIRST GLANCE IT HAD SEEMED SO INNOCENT...

Gov't ca

VICTORIA - Sometime next
April, close to 30,000 British
Columbians, hitherto destitute,
will be independently wealthy
or at least well off, according
io the Liberal government of
British Columbia. That's when
they will be kicked off welfare.

Murray Coell, the Minister
of Human Resources last week
explained his government's
game plan to eradicate poverty
‘in British Columbia by granting
folks down and out on their luck
(wo years worth of assistance
out of five in an op-ed piece in
the Victoria Times Colonist and
presumably other . newspapers.

Jobs, he explained, are
better than welfare, No argu-
ment with that, but he went
on to say that his government
had dibs on tens of thousands
of jobs, paying good money.

I checked out some of the
jobs. One demanded 15 years
experience as a roofer. It paid 8 $9
had his or her own car and tools,
Right, all the people on: social
assistance have cars and tools.

Another job offer wanted
someone with a technology de-
gree, which would earn the lucky
winner $11 an hour, Again, I am
sure that many people on welfare
have degrees, Or have they?

When confronted in the
legislature by the tiny but furi-

FROM THE CAPITAL
HUBERT BEYER

ous two-woman opposition,
Coell doesn’t know what to say.

His only comeback is to
accuse the NDP of wanting
everybody on welfare.Really?

That’s not the NDP I know, at
least not the one of the past eight
years or so. It was former NDP
premier Glen Clark who went af-
ier welfare recipients with a fury,
taking $50 a month out of the
, pockets of every social assistance

government, was employable.
And that was most everyone,

But the socialist Clark was
nothing, compared to the so
called Liberal Premier Gor-
don Campbell. The latter has
dreamed up a program that
will leave thousands of British
Columbians without any as-
sislance three years out of five.

Now, there is no reason to

believe that either Coell or his
boss, Campbell, are evil people
who don't care about the poor,

Sowhy wouldthey subscribe to
a policy that is bound to make the
poor even poorer? They believe
their own rhetoric. And given
ihe huge power base the Liberals
have, it’s a trap easily to fall into.

We all have a tendency to
believe in our own recipe for
success, The premier comes
from a humble background and
owes his personal success to his
mother more than anyone else.

He became mayor of Vancouver,

and premier of British Columbia,
a success story if [ ever saw one.

Coell has a bachelor of arts in
social welfare from the Universi-
ty of Victoria, but, ll bet he has
never. been on welfare himself,

Neither have I, although I once
applied for it. That was in Win-
nipeg some 45 years ago, when
we had two small children and a

o third on the way. I was studying...
aM, hour, provided the, “APPIIANt L.».tecipient; who, in; the, eyes. of the, .at,,the, University of Manitoba

“and, on the strength of my marks,
had been assured of a $500 bur-
sary, which in today’s dollars
would be something like $4,000.

I applied for welfare because
the gas company had cut off
our heating source. It was 30
below. Our kids were freezing.

What | needed was temporary
assistance. I presented the uni-
versity’s note that I would, within

n't always be a business

a couple of weeks, receive the
bursary to the town clerk (wel-
fare then was a municipal affair),
undertaking to pay back what-
ever financial help I could get .

I was promptly told by
the clerk that considering
nly circumstances, I had no

business going to university.

Well, I stuck it out anyway,
and the long and the short of it
is that friends helped us out and
T could continue my studies. It
seems that in the third millenni-
um, what was obvious the second
one, has still not been learned,

No matter how much mod-
em governments, especially
but not exclusively right-wing
ones, want to tun the state
like a business, it wont work.

Businesses have no heart.
Business concentrates on the
button line. The profits of share-
holders must be paramount.

Governments must allow

;for, human frailty. and. failures,

The frightening. fact. is’ ‘that
fewer and fewer governments
do. Certainly ours doesn’t.

If the Campbell government
were a4 corporation, it would
be the envy of the stock mar-
ket. As a government that is to
care for the people it governs,
as well as look after the taxpay-
ers’ money, it is an utter failure,

Beyer can be reached at:
E-mail: hbeyer@coolcom.cam.

Catching tne buzz about flies

OVER THE past two weeks our
home has been invaded by clouds
of tiny flies. They are every-
where. In the morning I find their
carcasses clustered in any stray
drop of water beside the bath-
room sink, in the dish drainer,
and in the dregs of coffee mugs.

They march in file where win-
dow frames meet glass, cruise
past my eyes as though they were
floaters {seniors' eye specks),
and nose about on my desk like
rodents, dogged determination in
the set of their narrow shoulders.

We clap aur hands in the
air similar to toddlers play-
ing patly-cake as we squash
these dawdling flyers,

Observers misunderstand-
ing our motives, might rec-
ommend hiring = someone
younger lo keep an eye on us.

These flies don’t bite, make
noise, or do harm so far as | can
tell. We've not had to buy bug
repellent or calamine lotion.: We
do, though, have to keep all food
covered even as homemade soup
er bread cools on the counter.

THROUGH BIFOCALS.

CLAUDETTE SANDECKE

They are unobservant, radar-
less flyers. Unlike houseffies
or bees, they fail to recognize
danger and cruise at low alti-
tudes like cropdusters, reck-
lessly skimming the surface of
cupboards, windows, and food,

Al supperlime yesterday, one
fly, mocking a water. bomber,
skimmed the vegetable juices
on my plate,
altitude as it approached the
potatoes and upended as though

YOUR TOURISTS DON" T Yea! wit? £
LOOK 100 HAPP ¥!

misjudged its.

TOOK THEM To ECHO |

snagged on a submerged log.

I swittly extricated its wreck-
age, smeared its lifeless skeleton
on a tissue, and finished the food
from the slope of the plate.

Whereas most flying insects
niftily elude flyswatters and ac-
celerate when disturbed, these
wee flies exhibit no fear or avoid-
ance maneuvers, Consequently I
can squash them with my thumb
or index fingertip. To do so leaves
a black smudge out of proportion
to the size of their fuselage,

I prefer to wad a hand towel
and pounce the life out of them.
Or unfurl the towel and flick
them from and out of reach perch
such as above the bathroom mir-
ror lights. This infestation has
livened up» TY commercials.
With the sound on mute, I have
three minutes to clear my desktop
by sopping them up as though
they were leftover specks of salt.

Those climbing the wall
behind my typewriter or trot-
ting along the edge of my book
1 mercilessly smoosh. I’m
always amazed how far one

AND ISN'T THIS SUPPOSED
TOBE THE YEAR OF

of their tiny bodies smears.

Since my wrist
18 months ago I keep handy
beside my pencil holder a
pair of two pound dumbbells
for strengthening my wrist
as I watch Oprah or Dr. Phil.

For lighter exercise I now
reach and © stretch | shoulder
muscles in my quest to nab
these winged creatures, Both
my muscular agility and - vi-
sual focus should be improving.

Where these flies came from
I’m not sure. They must con-
gregate in front of doors like
New Year's Day shoppers. They
lose no opportunity to enter
the house. Light lures them.

At bedtime as I read they stilt
across the ceiling or stalk over the
wall. Their size magnified as light
passes through their wings which
are transparent as a toddlers alibi.
Their numbers make me ques-
tion the value of fresh air as a
means to a good night's sleep,

If they drown so eas-
ily in the kitchen, how do they
survive our incessant rain?

fracture .

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