DRUG PARK BRAWL

Vancouver Mayor's Jab At Alberta Premier 'Pathetic'

Vancouver's mayor fears Premier Ralph Klein will use his coastal city
as a dumping ground for Alberta junkies if a drug park is created for
B.C. 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.

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

It was, Turtle said, a bizarre way for the Vancouver mayor to dodge a
serious proposal in 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 burgeoning junkie
population.

But Turtle said the mayor went overboard in rejecting one possible
part of that plan, a safe-park for drug injectors.

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 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 onto his programs.

"Given the record of the government of Alberta, I would be concerned as well."