VANCOUVER MAYOR FEARS INFLUX OF ALTA ADDICTS

Vancouver's mayor fears Premier Ralph Klein will use his coastal city
as a dumping ground for Alberta junkies if a safe "needle" park is
created for British Columbia addicts.

"They have a lot of one-way Greyhound bus tickets that the premier of
Alberta would like to hand out to a lot of people in Calgary and
Edmonton and they'd all be here in hordes and I think that's not good
for anybody," said Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen.

The premier's spokesman, Gordon Turtle, last night described the
comments as "outrageous," "ludicrous" and "pathetic."

It was, Turtle said, a bizarre way for the Vancouver mayor to dodge a
serious proposal for his drug-troubled burg.

"That seems to be a pretty pathetic excuse not to institute a program
to assist people with drug-abuse problems."

Owen made the comment yesterday while unveiling a $30-million plan
with 31 recommendations to address the B.C. city's junkie population,
which he estimates at 12,000.

But Turtle said the mayor went overboard in his reasoning for
rejecting one possible part of that plan, a safe park for drug
injectors. The safe-park concept is in operation in Geneva,
Switzerland.

"He's being flippant about a very serious matter. I would say these
comments are ludicrous and inappropriate and they certainly have no
basis in reality." Klein, he predicted, will ignore the insult.

"I think he'll just laugh it off. It's obviously not something he
should take seriously."

But, in fact, said New Democrat Brian Mason, Albertans should take the
comment very seriously.

"I would remind people that one of the ways that the provincial
government dealt with people on social assistance in Alberta in the
early '90s, when they cut the financing for social programs, is they
gave people one-way bus tickets to B.C."

The Vancouver mayor, Mason said, should get Klein's promise that
Alberta won't "off-load" junkies on to his programs.

"Given the record of the government of Alberta, I would be concerned
as well. I would encourage the mayor of Vancouver to get some
assurances from the province of Alberta that this won't happen again."

Alberta's Associate Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky called Owen's
remarks "disrespectful."

"I think the mayor's comments are unfortunately maligning many
individuals who come from different parts of Canada to live in that
province," he said. "It sounds to me like he's trying to deflect the
blame on to other provinces and in this case his blame on Alberta is
very unattributable and very disrespectful."