BC Politics with Hubert Beyer

MASTERS OF THEIR DESTINY

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VICTORIA -- "I got my first pay cheque last week," says the young man, and it's hard to decide whether he's more excited about that or the task he's performing at the moment.

John is busy preparing sandwiches. He's piling on the beef, lettuce and tomato, and placing them on trays. He goes about his duties efficiently and with gusto. It's obvious he's enjoying himself.  The place is Victoria Vocational College. At first glance, the surroundings look like any other vocational school. There are workshops where students receive instruction in a number of skills. The atmosphere is one of purpose and determination. But something is different. The students here are mentally handicapped. After watching them for a while, though, you decide that Rick Hanson's description is much more applicable. They are specially challenged.

The Victoria Vocational College is a place that challenges these young people, and they invariably respond to the challenge. Boy, do they respond. After being enrolled in the college for less than a year, John got a job at Burger King (the plug is intentional). The week before, John got his first pay cheque. He put the money in the bank. At Christmas, he'll use some of it to buy presents.

John is in his mid-twenties. For the first time in his life, he is experiencing the feeling of being in charge of his own life and future. Through hard work and dedication, the instructors at Victoria Vocational College moved this young man from the sidelines of life to the front lines. And he loves every moment of it. Dorothy also landed a job in the restaurant industry. She is working four days a week at Tommy Tucker's (plug intended again). She still comes to the college to sharpen her skills. Her employers and co©workers are impressed not only with her work, but also her friendly attitude.

The college can point to numerous such success stories, stories of young adults who have been given a chance to become useful members of society, a most basic need in all of us. The college has been operating for three years. More than 80 per cent of its graduates have been placed in jobs. Yet, all of them were unemployable by government standards.

The curriculum goes far beyond training students in vocational skills, although that's an important part. Besides getting on-the- job training in office skills, auto-body repair, horticulture, computer literacy, food services and building maintenance, students are taught vital life skills. They learn how to make their own decisions. They learn to take responsibility for themselves. They learn how to function in a society that has certain expectations of its individuals.

Now comes the part I want you to read very carefully, particularly you politicians who are always so eager to profess your concern for the under-privileged. The college needs money. Not only hat, there is a need for similar facilities elsewhere in the province. The college has 41 students at the moment, but can handle up to 60. It has nine staff members. The instructors are all certified teachers, but earn much less than they would in the public school system. Still, they don't mind. What they do mind is that for each student who graduates from their college, there are many more who are never given that chance.

At the moment, the college is funded mostly by the federal government and, to a very small degree, the provincial government which is the main beneficiary of the college's success. This year, for instance, the college will place an estimated 40 students into jobs. Remember, these are people the government considers unemployable and who would otherwise almost certainly have remained on social assistance for the rest of their lives.

The savings from taking these 40 people off public assistance amount to more than $400,000 a year. You hear that, Bill Vander Zalm? Maybe it's time you had a chat with your social assistance minister, your health minister and your advanced education and job training minister and, of course, your finance minister.

Perhaps some of the readers have a son or daughter who is considered unemployable and doesn't qualify for the special education curriculum at a regular community college. Unemployable? Don't you believe it. I met some of these socalled unemployable people, and they are very gainfully and happily employed.

Have a quiet chat with you MLA, and if he doesn't listen, raise you voice a bit. Send the premier a Christmas card and tell him how he can save even more money by being a little more generous to the Victoria Vocational College and establishing similar colleges elsewhere.

John's excitement over his first pay cheque spoke of more than just monetary gratification. It spoke of pride in his accomplishment, of having taken charge of his life. And that's a gratification to which everyone is entitled.

HOW TO DEAL WITH POLLSTERS IN ONE EASY LESSON

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VICTORIA -- Oh, how I wish the Gallops and Goldfarbs would find gainful employment and start earning an honest living.

I can't stand polls. In fact I have developed an outright phobia for them. I will not take polls, nor answer them. Polls make me madder than anything governments have done to me since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. At their least objective, political polls have taken the fun out of elections. Before the arrival of pollsters and their incessant public-opinion gathering, elections were damn exciting. Who would win was usually anybody's guess, and people used to be glued to their radios or television sets, following the results.

Now it's all over before you even drop your ballot into the box.

Thanks to pollsters, we are told almost daily which party leads by how many percentage points. To make it worse, the major TV networks, with the help of intricate computer programs, "announce" the winner half an hour after the polls close. I'm no luddite. I took to computers like a duck to water, and I'm looking forward to inventions that haven't been made yet. But polls should never have been invented.

There is an even darker side to opinion polls. Pollsters tell us that their surveys are only a reflection of public opinion. Don't you believe it. The moment the results of a poll are made public, it starts forming opinion, rather than reflecting it. The poll takes on a life of its own. People who, for one reason or another, are undecided, are tempted to go with the winner. Nobody wants to back a loser. As long as nobody knows who is in the lead, those people will have to make up heir minds on some other basis. A poll gives them the copout they need to avoid thinking about the issues themselves.

It's bad enough that John Turner should have swung public opinion in his favor by virtue of a well-rehearsed stage performance during the TV debate. It's offensive that the poll taken after the debate further contributed to Turner's rising popularity.

Unfortunately there is little hope that politicians will help beat back the armies of pollsters digging into our lives for information, because they are the main beneficiaries of polls.

Take Brian Mulroney's campaign performance. During the first three weeks, he tried to seduce us with his statesman act. He never went on the attack. His speeches were low-key and meant to inspire confidence. Verbal slinging matches were clearly below him. When he started slipping in the polls, his image-makers gave him a new bag of tricks. He became the tough guy. Chin stuck out, finger pointing warningly, Brian began raising his voice. Without the benefit of polls, he would never have known that Canadians weren't buying the diplomatic ruse.

The big loser in the poll-inspired image game is Ed Broadbent. Good ole Ed just can't seem to play anyone but himself, and that's a handicap that is costing him dearly. Pollsters argue that there is nothing wrong with politicians acting on the information they get from polls. The trouble is they don't change anything except their image.

The three leaders haven't changed one bit, no matter how different they may look to voters by the end of the campaign. Mulroney is still the same slick politician so many Canadians disliked a few months ago. Turner is still as unsure of himself as ever, and Broadbent, well he's still honest Ed.

The pollsters drew an image of what we collectively seemed to want our politicians to be, and the politicians are scrambling to fit that image. What a way to run a country.

The best solution would be to ban polls, if not permanently, then at least during an election campaign, but like I said, there's little chance of that happening.

The next-best thing is to boycott polls. Don't answer the questions. Tell pollsters is none of their business what you think of the party leaders and how you will vote. And tell them that's the way you feel 24 times our of 24 with no margin of error.

Or if you feel like having a little fun at the expense of the pollsters and their clients, lie. Lie through your teeth. Tell them you'll be voting for the Rhinos. Tell them you feel most strongly about the potholes on Highway 99. If you are asked who, in your opinion, would make the best prime minister, say Donald Duck. If the pollster says he's American, say that's what free trade is all about. Our politicians for their Donald Duck. Whatever you do, don't answer truthfully, because it really is nobody's business how you vote.

Maybe we can't legislate the beggars out of existence, but we sure as hell can express a disinterest in their product. And in a world still governed by the laws of supply and demand, that would be the end of polls.

PSSST, WANNA BUY BRITISH COLUMBIA?

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VICTORIA -- November 23, 1988 could well become a day of infamy in British Columbia. It may be the day British Columbians lost control over much of their land to a foreign multy-national company.

November 23 may be remembered as the day a New Zealand-based forestry giant gained control over a vast land area in north-eastern British Columbia. It may be remembered as the day the Social Credit government sacrificed on the altar of privatization what it should have continued to hold in sacred trust.

On November 23, a hearing in Mackenzie was to determine whether Fletcher Challenge should be granted a Tree Farm Licence, covering the entire Mackenzie Timber Supply Area, a staggering six million hectares or 25,000 square miles of Crown land.

Although their minds are made up, the politicians will probably not announce the final decision for a while. Not wanting to appear unduly eager, the government will allow us a period of mourning.

It is that period which constitutes the last chance, an admittedly slim one, for British Columbians to hold on to what is theirs and tell the government enough is enough.

It all sounds so innocent. Timber Supply Area or Tree Farm Licence. What's the difference? The difference is simply that no sane nation allows its natural heritage to fall into the hands of foreign potentates, be they political rulers of commercial emperors.

British Columbia is about to do just that. By granting Fletcher Challenge the Tree Farm Licence in question, the government will give the company virtually unencumbered control over the land. True, title of land would still be in our name, but the forests that cover its valleys and mountains have become the chattel of foreigners.

According to the South Moresby formula, the value of the Tree Farm Licence is about $2 billion, not a bad little windfall for the New Zealand company. And there is more to come. Another 36 million hectares are at stake.

By the time the government is finished with its forestry privatization plans, it hopes to have transferred some $14 billion in assets from public ownership to a few multi-national corporations.

The fact that this wholesale auction of our forests has gone largely unnoticed by the public is yet another fine example of Parkinson's Law. Large-scale concepts take second place to small ones which are easier to grasp.

While opponents of privatization concentrated their fire on smaller strategic targets such as the sale of tree nurseries, sign shops and highways maintenance, the government was able to proceed virtually unopposed with its far grander scheme of selling our forests.

And what did the guardians of our purse strings get in return for giving up control over the primary resource in an area nearly twice the size of Switzerland? Very little. Aside from paying the going rate in terms of stumpage fees, that would accrue in any case,

Fletcher Challenge has promised to undertake a $3 million upgrade of the existing forest inventory, build a new pulp mill and upgrade five sawmills.

I left out the $22 million the company says it will spend on brushing, weeding and juvenile spacing, because silviculture is now and always should have been the responsibility of the industry, regardless of what tenure it has in the woods.

What a deal, for Fletcher Challenge, that is. Unless the people of British Columbia put a stop to it at the last minute, the company will succeed in doing here what no other nation, including New Zealand, will permit. It will be master of our forests.

Both the government and Fletcher Challenge were, of course, hoping that the public would not become fully aware of the deal's implications. They almost succeeded. Public information was largely kept to a slick little color brochure, featuring little children hugging small trees and talking of "the mosaic values" of our forests.

So what can be done to prevent the plan from going through? A lot, actually. British Columbians could do the same that free-trade opponents did to Mulroney. They could raise bloody hell.

They could send telegrams and letters to Premier Vander Zalm, telling him that B.C. is not for sale. They could tell him that his past mistakes were nothing, compared with what this deal will do to his party, once the public understands its full implications.

They could enlighten the premier and his cabinet about the effects the transfer of control over the forests to multi-national corporations will have on small operators.

When the first Tree Farm Licences were granted in the 50s, hundreds of small forestry businesses were wiped out. The rest became completely dependent on the big companies. Unless the government is stopped, the same fate awaits more of them.

Eat your heart out, Margaret Thatcher. You ain't seen nothin' yet.