BC Politics with Hubert Beyer

PRIVATIZATION WILL HURT NORTH

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VICTORIA -- If the first two privatization deals don't get Premier Vander Zalm the salesman-of-the-year award, nothing will.

He unloaded two dogs for a cool half million in cash and an estimated savings to the treasury of $180,000 a year.

Small wonder the premier was all smiles when he announced the sale of the Queen's Printer publication section in Victoria and the Kelowna-based soil, feed and tissue laboratory.

The problem is that with two good deals under his belt, the premier will now feel cockier than ever and push for the liquidation of the highways and bridge maintenance with renewed vigor.

There is, however, a world of difference between two puny and relatively obscure government operations and the responsibility for keeping 42,876 of miles of highways and 2,624 bridges safe to travel on.

The government may even save money by letting the private sector look after our highways, but that shouldn't be the only criterion. What about public safety? What about the quality of an extremely vital service to the public?

The sale of the Queen's Printer book store and the soil, feed and tissue lab will affect very few people other than the former public servants who purchased the operations. And they may live to regret the day they bought their jobs from the government.

But even if it was one of those rare deals that's good for everyone involved, the same doesn't necessarily apply to the privatization of the highways and bridge maintenance function. One of the problems in British Columbia has always been that the province is governed from the populated and developed south by people most of whom haven't got a clue about the needs of citizens in the vast reaches north of the 50th parallel.

When the wolf-kill controversy made headlines, many a southern politician gave more credibility to the cries of little old ladies in Vancouver, who felt sorry for the cute animals, than to the people of the north who are familiar with another side of the story.

Few MLAs sitting on the government side of the House have any idea of what the presence of the highways ministry means to people in the remote areas of the province. And those who do, will have to live with the consequences of their silence, induced by slavish adherence to the government line.

To northern communities, the highways ministry is one of the most important lifelines. Without the top-notch service they are used  to getting from their highways crews, they are completely at the mercy of the elements, and they're a lot more hostile in Fort Nelson, Dawson Creek and Fort St. John than in Vancouver and Victoria.

One of the reasons the service has been excellent is the fact that it's been provided by government, which doesn't have to watch the bottom line. And while frugality and parsimony are to be recommended for most government operations, they should not be the prime consideration in the delivery of a vital service.

Modern and enlightened societies charge their governments with certain responsibilities that should not and cannot be measured in monetary terms. A government should no more try to save money on keeping highways and bridges safe than on buying modern hospital equipment or mounting rescue operations.

A private company must keep expenses to a minimum or it will lose money. That's why pharmaceutical companies aren't eager to develop drugs that would benefit only relatively few people, no matter how badly they need them.

A private firm looking after the maintenance of highways and bridges will inevitably try to save money at every turn, regardless of the performance standards the government may write into the contracts. It follows that the service cannot be the same as that provided by the government.

The best, I suppose, we can hope for is that most of the contracts will be awarded to groups of former highways employees, but they, too, will have to watch their pennies or go under. At least, they have the expertise and, it is to be hoped, the dedication they brought to their former role.

Assigning responsibility for highways and bridge maintenance to the private sector may, indeed, save the taxpayers some money, at least in the short run, but that saving will be realized at the expense of service.

And once again, it is the north that will have to bear most of the consequences of a bad idea hatched by a southern politician.

JOURNALISM OR LOW-GRADE SENSATIONALISM?

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VICTORIA -- In a rare display of anger and displeasure with the news media, Attorney General Brian Smith recently accused British Columbia Television of stooping to an all-time low in Canadian journalism.

What prompted Smith's outrage was a BCTV interview with an escaped prisoner. At the heart of the controversy is not only the question of whether the television station should have conducted the interview in the first place, but whether it should have notified police as to the escapee's whereabouts.

Let's take the story from the beginning. On January 2, 13 inmates escaped from Oakalla prison in the Lower Mainland. A day later, BCTV aired an interview with Terry Hall, who had escaped earlier from the same prison.

It turned out that a go-between had contacted the TV station, saying Hall would be willing to be interviewed if BCTV undertook not to disclose his location to anyone, including police.

For BCTV's benefit I will assume that it didn't make the decision lightly to go ahead with the interview. On the one hand, it had a chance to get a good scoop; on the other hand, by agreeing to Hall's terms, it would aid a fugitive from justice to avoid capture. Hall's undertaking to turn himself in at a later date probably made it a little easier for BCTV to agree to Hall's conditions.

The interview wasn't exactly detrimental to BCTV's ratings prospects, always an important factor in television programming, whether it's news or entertainment, but it was still a genuine news story.

Hall said he and his fellow inmates had escaped to draw attention to the unbearable conditions in Oakalla. He talked of brutality by prison guards, of guards being drunk on the job, and of bad food. Keep in mind, that these are allegations by a prisoner who cannot be considered an impartial observer.

The interview seemed to have an almost immediate two-fold effect. Smith, who had previously confined the investigation into the mass breakout to an internal inquiry, ordered a judicial inquiry as well, and a number of prison officials began to give their side of the story, talking, albeit anonymously, of their problems, including being under-staffed and over-worked.

So much for the story. What of the propriety of helping an escaped prisoner to stay at large in return for an interview? Did BCTV act properly?

To an unquestioning law-and-order person the answer will definitely be no. Prisoners belong behind bars, and no-one has the right to help them avoid capture. What if Hall, a convicted criminal, had committed a crime after the interview? Would not BCTV have been at least partly responsible?

Although these arguments are valid, there are other considerations. Should, for instance, a news outlet become an active participant in the enforcement of the law? Smith never really addressed that question. He said BCTV should have declined Hall's offer of an interview and phoned police. What good would that have done? Hall didn't tell BCTV where he was until the station agreed not to disclose his location. The result would have been the same; police wouldn't have found out where Hall was.

The other question is whether the government would have swept the whole matter of Oakalla's incredibly bad conditions under the rug. There's reason to believe that this is exactly what the government would have done. One direct result of the Hall interview was the revelation that there had actually been an earlier breakout in which three inmates, including Hall, escaped from Oakalla. The public was never told of that escape.

Oakalla is located in a residential area. If the government is unable to keep prisoners from escaping, it can at least warn the public that inmates are at large.

Smith said the usual policy is to notify the public, but added that, in some cases, it wasn't such a good idea. On he other hand, officials at the William Head penitentiary, a federal institution on southern Vancouver Island, always warn the public when a prisoner escapes.

I cannot help asking myself what I would have done, had I received the phone call from Hall's intermediary. Would I have agreed to the interview?

I certainly would have been tempted. No reporter will turn down the opportunity for a good story without hesitation. There is one consideration, however, which would probably have led me to decline the offer -- Hall's record.

If on checking it had turned out that Hall was a non-violent criminal, I might have accepted the offer. As it is, Hall is serving a sentence for a violent crime.

All things considered, BCTV may not be guilty of stooping to an all-time journalistic low, but I think the decision to conduct and air the interview with Hall was wrong.

HOWARD LLOYD GOES TO VICTORIA

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VICTORIA -- You can't really blame Howard Lloyd for believing that history does, indeed, repeat itself.

A few years ago, Lloyd came to Victoria to talk to then premier Bill Bennett on behalf of the Central Interior Logging Association, but Bennett refused to meet with him. Last week, Premier Bill Vander Zalm pulled the same trick on him.

"It'll be at least three weeks before the premier can see you," Vander Zalm's secretary informed Lloyd.

Who the heck is Lloyd anyway to demand an audience with the premier? After all, the man is pretty busy these days, defending his abortion policy to an increasingly hostile opposition.

Well, Lloyd is not only a Socred supporter from way back; he also was the Social Credit MLA for what was then called Fort George (now Prince George North and South) between 1975 and 1979. What's more important, Lloyd has an idea that could put a lot of people to work. Ideas, however, do not seem to be in demand at this time.

Lloyd was wandering through the corridors of the Legislative Buildings, all steamed up about fickle politicians who wouldn't recognize a good idea if they found it in their cereal bowl, when I ran into him.

"If we can't find jobs for 30,000 people in an area as big as Washington, Oregon and Idaho put together, an area with a total population of less than 250,000, there's something wrong," Lloyd fumed. "What's the matter with these people?"

"Woa, back up, Howard. Suppose we have a cup of coffee, and you tell me all about it?" After listening to his story, I agreed that he had good reason to be exasperated. Here it is in a nutshell.

The Central Interior Logging Association wants to establish a silviculture training centre at the former Baldy Hughes radar station, 27 miles south of Prince George. The association could train up to 200 people at a time. The course would stretch over 50 or 60 days and instruct students in all phases of silviculture.

The plan would draw on the area's unemployed for student enrolment. The association believes federal funding would be available to pay students during their training period. The money would be saved on unemployment insurance payments.

The association needs the provincial government to buy the site. It says that should be no problem, considering the province bought another former radar station near Kamloops for $5.5 million to accommodate 40 juvenile offenders in a minimum-security institution.

The only additional investment, according to Lloyd, would be the upgrading of the old heating system which now swallows about $150,000 in oil alone each year. Lloyd says the association wants to convert the heating system to use wood waste for fuel.

In terms of jobs, the proposal would eventually put up to 8,000 people to work. The association says that the economic spinoff effects of that many jobs would reduce unemployment in the area to virtually zero.

According to Lloyd, the only stumbling block seems to be a provincial government which vacillates on the question of silviculture. "I mean, either we are committed to the idea of silviculture or we let things deteriorate further," he says.

Lloyd believes that once the students have been thoroughly trained in all facets of silviculture, they'll be hired by the private sector. He says it's a golden opportunity to reduce unemployment and welfare rolls and give people a chance to contribute to society.

So what's the problem? Lloyd has no idea. Just a few months ago, a number of provincial cabinet ministers were all fired up by the proposal. Forest Minister Dave Parker liked it; so did Environment Minister Bruce Strachan who is the "minister of state" for the area. Now nobody wants to talk to Howard anymore.

The same goes for the federal government. Last December, the association was given to understand that it had come up with an excellent plan that could be used anywhere in Canada. Funding was supposed to be no problem. Now the government can't find the money.

Small wonder Lloyd is angry. Small wonder he believes the whole province is going to hell in a hand basket.

Well, Howard, that's what happens when dilettantes are put in charge. The people who are supposed to represent our interests in Victoria haven't got time to deal with trivialities such as the economy and proposals like yours when they have to give their undivided attention to the abortion issue.

You could, of course, remember that next time someone asks you to vote for a smile.