HOW DOES ANOTHER $264 A YEAR GRAB YOU?
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VICTORIA -- Your reaction to Finance Minister Mel Couvelier's 1988-89 budget will depend to some degree on the vices in which you indulge.
If you're a smoker, you'll probably get mad. Ditto, if your recreational activities include the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
But even if you live a clean and healthy life, you will have ample reason to place Couvelier on your private most-wanted list.
Contributors to the Medical Services Plan, which includes all of us, will have their pockets picked by the finance minister.
If, on the other hand, you are a small businessman or woman, you'll have reason for mild enthusiasm, while alternative health care practitioners will be very satisfied.
Enthusiastic supporters of the budget will include committed Socreds and those who believe that the deficit must be reduced at any cost. Among the bitter opponents you will find committed NDP supporters, trade unions and doctors.
How will the budget affect the average family? According to the B.C. Institute of Chartered Accountants, a family of four with one smoker and social-drinking habits will have to fork out an additional $267 a year to finance this budget.
Those who believe that politicians are a sneaky lot will have their suspicions confirmed. The government is squirrelling away $450 million that could be used right now to balance the budget.
Instead, it will go into a special fund, presumably to be used at a politically more opportune time.
Now for the details. Total provincial spending is expected to be $11.8 billion during the 1988-89 fiscal year. Total revenue is expected to be $11.4 billion. The anticipated operating deficit is $395 million, compared with $800 million during the last fiscal year. An impressive reduction in the deficit, but sorry, no balanced budget yet.
The largest spender will, once again, be the health ministry. A total of $3.9 billion, one-third of all government spending, will go towards health care.
To put the brakes on spiralling health care costs, the government will place more emphasis on preventive health care and put the squeeze on doctors' fees.
Couvelier stresses the government's commitment to the continued use of chiropractors, podiatrists, physiotherapists, orthodontists, massage practitioners and naturopaths under its Medical Services Plan. The emphasis of the health care system, he says, will shift from "the merits of sustaining wellness rather than paying for sickness."
Here are some of the measures that will affect the pocket book of the average British Columbian. Sales tax on alcoholic beverages will be increased from six to 10 per cent. That will include draught beer.
Motor fuel tax will go up by 1 cent a litre. Tobacco tax will go up by 9 cents for a package of 25 cigarettes. Medical Services Plan premiums will go up to $29 a month for single subscribers, $52 for a family of two and $58 for a family of three or more.
Those figures are up by $9, $15 and $16 respectively. Trying to pre-empt any criticism, Couvelier points out that the new fees are still lower than those in Ontario. He also stresses that more people will be eligible for premium subsidies.
Rural property taxes will be increased for both homeowners and businesses. The average increase for homeowners will be $39 a year. Tax on car insurance premiums will go up from three to four per cent.
Of significance is the establishment of two new funds, meant to stabilize government spending and reduce the $6 billion debt load we've racked up with deficit financing in the past few years. The Budget Stabilization Fund with an initial injection of $450 million is to "absorb fiscal shocks." When revenues are good, money will be transferred into the fund and when things turn sour, money will be taken out of the fund and put into general revenue.
That money would have been more than enough to wipe out this fiscal year's anticipated deficit and produce a balanced budget, but why do it two years before the next election, eh? "Our objective will be to avoid borrowing or cutting back social programs," Couvelier says.
The second fund will be known as the Privatization Benefits Fund. Any revenue derived from the privatization of government operations will go into that fund and will initially be used to reduce the accumulated deficit. When that's paid off, the fund will be used to bolster general revenue.
To support the small business sector, the government will provide loan guarantees of up to 75 per cent of individual loans of up to $50,000 made to small businesses by financial institutions.
At first glance, the budget is not an exciting one. It's a very conservative document that places emphasis on frugality and sound fiscal management, two ingredients the government believes it
badly needs after the array of mega project fiascoes of the previous Socred administration. The budget's weakest spot is the drastic increase in medical services premiums, but even the critics of the government will have to admit that without substantial premium increases, the whole health care system might have run into serious problems in the near future.
The ever increasing number of senior citizens will place unprecedented pressure on the system in the coming years, and without proper funding, there could easily be no system at all.
NO POSITION TOO LOW TO STEEP TO
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VICTORIA -- The problem is we keep forgetting that on the eighth day, God created the NDP, liked what he saw and said: "Go forth and be righteous."
If we could just remember that, we would appreciate the fact that the New Democratic Party has a divine monopoly on apple pie, motherhood, the maple leaf flag and everything else that's good and wholesome.
We would then be as outraged as Bob Williams, NDP MLA for Vancouver East, at the appointment of one Baron Ekhard Freiherr von Maltzahn to Premier Vander Zalm's council of economic advisors. The good Baron's misfortune, in the eyes of Williams, is that he is a director of the Friedrich Krupp GMBH, a company that was known in the Thirties as "The Merchants of Death."
Williams said he found it offensive that the premier appointed Maltzahn to his advisory council. "Maybe I'm young and naive -- I was just a kid during the Second World War -- but the Krupp name is one that I, as a result of my understanding of those days, would never, ever again want to be associated with," Williams said.
"The Krupp corporation were the merchants of death in the Second World War. The Krupp corporation was the manufacturer of armaments for Nazi Germany. The Krupp corporation and others were financiers of the Nazi Party in the 1930s," he said.
Williams added that the company was convicted of war crimes after the war, and that 75 per cent of the company was ordered sold off "so that this monster should never rise again."
So much for Williams' tirade. Now for some observations. Williams is neither young nor naive. He is instead one of the shrewdest politicians around. He's a master of political subterfuge, able to blend fact with oratory to create impressions that are as far removed from reality as our lieutenant governor is from real power. And it shows in this instance.
The Krupp concern was, indeed, one of the financiers of the Nazi Party. It was the major German arms manufacturer during the Second World War. It was convicted of war crimes and, indeed, ordered split up. Williams got that right.
His contention, however, that the "monster" somehow survived is fiction. When no buyer could be found for the huge concern, it was split into more than a dozen companies after the war. Today, most of the fragment companies are controlled by shareholders.
Some are in public ownership. Today, the Krupp Group of companies is a multi-national concern, true, but the family enterprise which once financed emperors and fuelled Hitler's stupendous war machine is no more. The monster Williams spoke of is dead. It did not survive.
Now to the baron. According to information provided by the consulate general in Vancouver of the Federal Republic of Germany, von Maltzahn is in his late 50s. Like Williams, he was "just a kid" during the Second World War."
His brother, Hasso von Maltzahn, was the West German consul general in Vancouver from about 1980 to 1984. And unlike the Austrians, the Germans have confronted their infamous past and wouldn't be caught dead sending anyone abroad as a diplomat who's even remotely tarnished by any association with the Nazis.
So why all the moral outrage about a representative of the death merchants on the premier's economic advisory council? Because all's fair in politics, at least in Williams' book. No position is too low to stoop to if it tarnishes the image of an opponent.
Taking Williams' rationale from the ridiculous to the sublime, he should object to the inclusion of a nun on the premier's advisory council on ethics because her church burned innocent people at the stake during the middle ages.
The premier pointed out, quite correctly, that you can't hold today's directors of any of the dozen or so Krupp companies responsible for what the company, then owned by one powerful family, did half a century ago. To do so isn't only cheap politics, it comes close to bigotry.
The creation of the economic advisory council was one of Vander Zalm's better ideas. So was von Maltzahn's appointment. British Columbia's economic ills and those of the nation, for that
matter, can't be cured in isolation. What better way to gain access to international markets than by seeking the advice from the movers and shakers in those markets.
The attack on Vander Zalm for appointing von Maltzahn was a dumb move. If the NDP has to go back half a century to hack away at the premier's image, there's hope yet for Vander Zalm's political survival.
ANOTHER MINISTRY GOES ON THE BLOCK
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VICTORIA -- Energy Minister Jack Davis calls it a sort of privatization, but no matter which way you look at it, the government is getting rid of a ministry.
No, I'm not referring to the bridge and road maintenance of the Highways ministry. I'm talking about Premier's latest brainchild -- the privatization of the ministry of energy, mines and petroleum resources. The latter two of the ministry's three functions are to be transferred to two boards which will funded jointly by the government and the mining industry.
The scheme was laid out before ministry employees last week by deputy energy minister Bob Plecas with the explicit warning not to talk to the media. But when you're up to your fanny in alligators, you tend to ignore warnings that the water might be polluted. Some of the employees couldn't get to a phone fast enough to spill the beans.
Here's the plan. Within the next six months, the government will establish a Petroleum Resources Board and a Mineral Development Board. The two boards will oversee and implement all policies now looked after by the ministry. Only the development of policy and the collection of revenue will remain in government hands.
Plecas told the 200 employees they would remain public servants, even though they would be working for the new boards. Their job security wouldn't be threatened.
The B.C. Government Employees Union is skeptical on that point. Union spokesman Mona Sykes says the crunch will come when the government cuts back on funding for the boards and when the boards will, in turn, cut back on staff and wages.
That suspicion is understandable, considering that the energy minister expects a savings of $15 million a year out of a current $25 million budget when the transfer is completed.
Ad that's about it. With the stroke of a pen and a solid majority in the legislature, the Socreds are about to wipe out half a ministry.
The most alarming part of the plan is the intention to place responsibility for the implementation of energy and mining policies into the hands of the industry. Talk about putting the goat in charge of the cabbage patch.
The boards will, for instance, be responsible for gathering all data that determine royalties; they will oversee safety regulations; they will be in charge of mine inspections.
Glen Clark, energy critic for the NDP, calls this latest privatization venture "insidious." He says the Socreds don't understand the difference between the public interest and the interests of the private sector. While the latter is driven by a desire to maximize profits, the public's interest is not only a fair return on the resources they own, but their protection, two aspects the industry couldn't care less about.
"The trend is clear. There is absolutely nothing in British Columbia that isn't for sale," Clark says.
If he's right, what's to stop the government from doing the same thing with the forest ministry? Actually, that process has already begun. By placing close to 70 per cent of the province's forests into Tree Farm Licences, the government will in effect turn over much of the forest ministry's responsibility to the private sector.
It's difficult to believe that Premier Vander Zalm doesn't realize how shifty the ground is on which he is building his and his party's political future. Mike Harcourt couldn't do a better job of making sure that the NDP will form the next government.
The premier has become the architect in charge of designing and the foreman in charge of building the NDP's election platform. And what a job he's doing.
His scheme to privatize the highways ministry's road and bridge maintenance alone is enough to lose him the next election. Alex Fraser, the old Socred war horse from the Cariboo, predicts that this move will cost the Socreds about 15 seats. The fact that 70 municipal councils have passed resolutions imploring the government not to sell off the highways ministry lends credence to Fraser's forecast.
The other big mistake was his decentralization scheme. When the public realizes that the plan is a mirror show at best and a subversion of the parliamentary system at worst, a few more Socred seats will go down the tube.
He also will get no thanks for his mischievous attack on confederation in last week's throne speech. He may not know it but most Canadians don't view confederation as an investment club.
The more Vander Zalm reveals of his agenda, the more he shows that he's not only out of touch with the people but with the system he's supposed to serve.
SECHELT AGREEMENT GOOD COMPROMISE
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VICTORIA -- Like most agreements reached to the relative satisfaction of all participants, the Sechelt Indian Band's newly-acquired autonomy is based on a compromise.
The deal is a far cry from what many native leaders envision for their people. They would prefer total autonomy, absolute self-government, protected by the constitution, with powers similar to those of the federal and provincial governments.
In a perfect world, perfect from the Indians' point of view, this solution would make perfect sense. After all, they were here first.
They felt secure in their life style. They didn't ask the white man to come to them, nor were they in need of his institutions. Why should they now subordinate their right to self-determination to any government, established long after they had evolved their own style of governing?
Alas, the world also has to make sense from everybody else's point of view, and absolute autonomy for the Indians under a new level of government, which answers only to itself, makes no sense at all to the rest of us, who now share this land with the Indians.
The model of self-rule, adopted by the Sechelt Indian Band, on the other hand, makes good sense all around, even though it falls short of the expectations of many other native leaders.
Last week, the band on British Columbia's west coast threw off the shackles of the Indian Act to become master of its own economic and social destiny. Band members celebrated their new independence from Ottawa's paternalism with traditional dances and the unveiling of a new totem pole.
The agreement reached between the band and the federal and provincial governments accords the band the same powers and rights enjoyed by B.C. municipalities.
"We now have total control of whatever the Sechelt Indian Band wants to do, in terms of our lands and our band members," Chief Thomas Paul observed during the ceremony that marked the end of the federal government's rule over the band.
Some of practical benefits of the band's new municipal status are immediately apparent. No longer will the band members have to go, cap in hand, to Ottawa to get permission for any plans that involve the use of their land.
The first project of that nature is already in the works. This September, the band will sign an $8 million deal with a gravel company for the removal of high-quality aggregate from band land.
The band now qualifies for provincial revenue-sharing grants accruing to local governments, and its homeowners are eligible to receive provincial homeowners' grants.
The more militant native leaders aren't impressed with the Sechelt Indian Band's deal. What worries them most is that the agreement doesn't recognize the Indians' aboriginal title to much of the land that is now British Columbia.
"It's extinguishing recognition of aboriginal people and replacing it with fee simple title of land," says Saul Terry, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.
Terry, who is spokesman for 194 bands, representing more than 50,000 Indians in B.C., says that although the Sechelt Band made it clear that it didn't want to jeopardize the right to self-government sought by other bands, Ottawa was already using the Sechelt agreement as a potential solution all across Canada.
It's not the solution, though, as far as Terry is concerned. The Indians, he says, should not have to settle for self-government under the authority of the provincial and federal governments, which amounted to nothing more than "delegated authority."
What Terry has in mind, instead, is "an authority of government that would have identical powers to the federal and provincial governments."
I'm sure he does. I'm also sure that every mayor in British Columbia would beam in anticipation of such autonomy, but I'd rather not think about the implications of the scenario.
The Sechelt deal should not be viewed as a relinquishment of native land claims still to be negotiated between numerous bands and the federal and provincial governments. Those negotiations must and will still be conducted.
In the meantime, the Sechelt model is as good a compromise as can be reached in an imperfect world by people of good will. Nobody gets everything in a compromise, but everybody gets something.
The Sechelt agreement may not be adequate restitution for the hurt, the humilation, the paternalism and the injustice, inflicted on the native people over centuries by a race which forcefully planted itself in their midst.
But it lays the groundwork for equal partnership, albeit centuries late, between natives and non-natives in a land they are now bound to share.
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