4 Terrace Review — Wednesday, February 11,1987 a * +a C. ommenta (im ata. SREB YP ar on weery The publisher of the Vancouver-owned and “directed Northern News Advertiser recently seut that publication’s circulation by 16,168 ‘papers. Coincidental with his falling circula- ‘tion figures, Mr. Mitchell made inaccurate tstatements concerning circulation advertising in the Northwest Star. | ® Ina letter to the Star’s publisher, Mr. Mit- schell asked him to write if he ever felt the News rAdvertiser went beyond the bounds of fair Lotter Numbers aren't vy . haha ea ‘Terrace ‘ Review *, Established May 1, 1985 pane Terrace Reviaw Is publishad Ebr Sia & reach W. i Guainess Services Lid, W h O [ e . Mark Twyford yn att story : i Maureen Barbour —_ tet Staff? Reporter: 7 wp Michael Kelly To the editor, oo fe Advertising Sales: Audited circulatio i ags 7840 figures. may not be as Production: reliable a guide to adver- : Jim Hath tisers -as Mr. Mitchell, i ca ie. -- publisher of the Northern To Accountini n _. News Advertiser implies in 9: . 7. os Mar] Twyford a recent editorial. Secondetass mall How many of your free The wrong way to cut losses competition. A letter was written, and Mr. Mitchell cut out excerpts from that letter and used it in his editorial. Is this an example of Mr. Mitchell’s ideals of honest and ethical journalism? oo Mr. Mitchell does an injustice to his paper and himself by utilizing his paper in this man- ner. To use newspaper editorial space to berate a competitor is demeaning and unethical. To respond to Mr. Mitchell’s accusations would give our readers editorial commentary that would only go from bad to worse. It is dif- ficult to maintain integrity while at the same time publicly denouncing your competitor’s | policies. We wish to utilize our papers to inform, entertain and enlighten. We will-do our best to be objective and fair in our reporting. Adver- tising plays an important role in the success of our publications. We. will be happy to provide our advertisers circulation and rate figures on ‘request. - eo Mark Twyford, _ Publisher. Letter _ ‘Donors thanked # > yegistration No. 6896. luction of this paper of any por- tion thereof Is prohibited without per- misaton af the publisher. soe Errors and omissions. Advertising Is accepted on the condition that in the evant of typographical error, that por- tion of the advariising space occupied by the erroneous Item will not be for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. Advertisers must assume responsibill- ty for errors In any classified ad which is suppiled to ihe Terrace Review in handwritten form. In epmpilance with the 8.C. Human Act, no advertisement will be which discriminates against & pereon due to ape, race, religion, col- or, gex, nationality, ancestry or place os . 4535 Grelg Avenue, Terrace, B.C. VEG iM? Northern News Advertiser newspapers are actually read? People who buy newspapers read them. I’ve spoken to many neighbors and acquain- tances who claim they never even open the free copies delivered to their doorsteps, Sometimes free copies are not delivered, One spring we found huge bundles of your free week- ly newspaper in nearby woods, The find perhaps explained why home delivery of your free_ ‘newspaper had been so vie contiaued on page 23 To the editor, . On behalf of The Salva- tion Army we would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Service Clubs, business firms, and _ the many individuals who gave donations to our Christmas Hamper & Winter Relief Program. - The money raised was shy of our budgeted goal of $20,000 but did reach $18,120. With this money 236 hampers were process- ed at a cost of $12,047. We would also like to ‘thank all those individuals who willingly gave of their time in wrapping gifts and packing hampers. Their help was greatly ap- preciated and made our job that much easier. A special thank-you goes to those gentlemen who not only delivered the hampers for us but also | provided their vehicles and gas. : . ; This past Christmas we were very pleased to see more schools involved in raising money and gather- ing food — not-only for our hampers but for the Terrace Churches Food Bank as well. The students continued on page & on gas pricing | Hubert Beyer | Terrace Review... Victoria Correspondent. Consumers get fast shuffle Virtually unnoticed, Energy Minister Jack Davis has dealt B.C. consumers a card from the bottom of a deck. The fast shuffle went by most of us because it was ac- . companied by some fast talking. The price of natural gas, the minister. announced cheerfully last November, was going down by 20 percent. On the surface, that - would seem to be good news. What the good minister didn’t say was how the over- _all price reduction would be achieved. A closer look reveals that the major beneficiaries of the price reduc- tion will be large industrial users. They’ll pay up to 50 percent less than before. Small businesses will pay 25 percent less, while residential consumers will see their bills reduced by little more than 10 percent, | Much of the low-priced gas will go to industrial users a south of the border. For the first time, U.S. customers of our natural gas will pay less than B.C. consumers, - Translated jnto plain English, that means British Col- umbia’s residential consumers of natural gas will sub- sidize U.S. (and Canadian) businesses. Her Majesty’s Loyal opposition, the New Democratic Party, has lambasted the new price structure, calling for an immediate rollback of natural gas prices for residen- tial users. Lambaste they should. And so should every residential user of natural gas. Until last November, the price of natural gas was ' . $2.00 a gigajoule, a measure that’s roughly the equiv- alent of 1,000 cubic feet. Under the new price structure, residential and commercial customers will pay $1.75 a gigajoule, small industrial consumers $1.50 and large in- dustrial users $1.03. . Glen Clark, the NDP’s energy critic, says if the B.C. Petroleum Corporation can sell a gigajoule of natural gas for $1.03 -- presumably at a profit -- to its major in- dustrial clients, commercial, residential and smalt in- dustrial users should also get their gas at that rate. ‘‘The new pricing structure is a hidden subsidy for in- dustrial customers,” Clark says. ‘‘There is no cost- based justification for these rates.” . ~ There is, of course, the possibility that the Petroleum Corporation simply.wants to get rid of a large surplus, and there’s no better way to that than by offering the stuff to high-volume consumers at give-away prices. Such a scheme, however, could trigger all sorts of alarm signals, particularly with our protectionist friends . in the U.S. who take a dim view these days of dumping. There’s nothing to keep gas producers in the U.S. from charging us with unfair trade practices. They’ve done it very successfully to the B.C, shakes and shingles industry and, of course, to the softwood lumber indus- try at large. - If interested parties can prove that Canadian residen- tial consumers subsidize that price of natural gas large U.S. industrial users are paying, Davis could find him- self up the creek without a paddle. . And if residential consumers aren't subsidizing indus- trial users, the minister still stands to be accused of rip- ping off the little guy. : _- Having said all that, I’d like to enter an argument on behalf of Davis. Offering high-volume consumers a price break is not a revolutionary idea. In fact, it’s cen- tral to most business transactions. The unit price of any consumer item goes down in direct relation to the vol- ume purchased, whether it’s instant coffee, acres of land or natural gas. Oe a Giving industrial users of natural gas a better price than residential customers makes sense -- to an extent. After all, every break business gets may translate into jobs. The question is whether the difference should be that big. I don’t think so. Why should residential customers pay 70 percent more for a resource they ostensibly own than their industrial counterparts? - And finally, | think the minister should have been a little more forthcoming in his announcement. Telling us that the price of gas will go down by 20 percent was the truth, but it sure wasn’t the whole truth. Back to the drawing board, minister. Give industrial users a break, by all means, but not entirely at the ex- pense of the folks who heat their homes with natural gas. , . : 4 , .