editorial comment

Is negligence
also abuse?

Stanley I Yy School Pri David
Hogg. is a concerned man. And he should be.

Out of the 200 students in the grade nine class at his
school, only 60 are prepared to receive an immunization
shot which will prevent them from contacting certain

That's 60 out of 200.

In a society that emphasizes safety for both mind and
body, especially among its young actions of the
Students (or their parents) in that class is both unusual and
Jeads one to wonder just what the heck is going on. The stu-
dents were given authorization forms that were to be filled

out by their parents, thus giving approval to receive shots |

that would dispel any risk of contracting both Tetanus and
Diphtheri

This disease can also be transferred by a healthy person
who is, without realizing it, a carrier.

By not receiving the required shots, a person is left to
their own defenses against these maladies. If these defenses
were strong enough, there would be no need for immuniza-
tion now would there?

». There's no peace-of-mind in that.

It was only last year when two Meningitis cases, which
surfaced in the Trail area, became an issue of concem for
many West Kootenay parents. Suddenly, every child or
teenager who complained of a sore neck and headache was
casually monitored.

‘The. fact that the immunization service is a free one and is
still not recognized as a good deal is also baffling.

So, what does it take to ensure that these forms are
retumed to the school for the immunization process to work
as effectively as it was designed too?

The answer: one case of Diphtheria or Tetanus being

at Stanley F ies Si ry School.

Wi ky

The Gitar sun
AS

1S POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT AND A
MEMBER OF THE STERLING NEWS. SERVICE
Established 28, 1990

c es
Why is it that whenever moving
day arrives, so does inclement
weather?

The autumn had been as wet as

P d, for Ve
are all rainy. But on moving day,
we had our first winter's snowfall.
It wasn’t that we weren’t prepared,
for all our belongings were going
into storage for several years.

It was the logistics of leaving
Vancouver in winter and arriving
in Australia in spring that present-
ed problems. So, it was totally
unexpected that I would be stand-
ing knee-deep in a snowdrift wear-
ing sandals, for all our winter
boots were packed away. Fortu-
nately, it was only for two days!

Our arrival in Australia was a
little easier for we had taken a few
days in the Fiji Islands to make the
transition from winter to summer.
Fiji had been hot and humid. We
were very grateful for the air con-
ditioning system in our hotel room
and the pleasant, relatively cool
waters of the nearby lagoon, per-
fect for sailing and windsurfing.
We were warned not to venture
beyond the reef for sharks had
been spotted there that morning.

Years later, we were to learn.
that there are always sharks near
the mouths of reefs for they feed
on the abundant reef fish. Most
sharks have. little or no interest in

on for hi

anything human, unless you hap-
pen to be silly and incautious. One
young Fijian boy was spear fishing
on the reef and speared a coral
trout. Since there were other trout
about, he decided not to bother
taking it back to shore and,
instead, tied it to a line around his
waist. A shark, spotting the bleed-
ing, struggling fish naturally

Seasons

ELMA
MAUND

attacked !

We had negotiated our way
through the formalities of taking
up residence in a foreign country.
The weather was pleasantly warm
but not hot, so we made a gentle
transition into spring “down
under”.

We had both managed to adjust
to driving a vehicle on the left
hand side of the road, sitting on
the left hand side of a vehicle with
a steering wheel in front of you, or
on the right hand-side with just the
dash in front.

After a few dozen changes back
and forth, from right to left, you
find you can drive easily either

Ground rules of society

One would have had to be living
a life of rustic solitude for the last
couple of years to be ignorant of
the remarkable changes in our soci-
ety. The most recent milestone was
the case of a lesbian corporal in the

Nigel

Hannaford

Syndicated
Columnist

armed forces, who was awarded
$100,000 in back pay and reinstat-
ed after the government declined to
take up the court challenge she
offered. In another Vancouver case,
the female half of a homosexual
couple who had ‘divorced’ after
several years, was awarded
‘spousal’ rights and a share of the
‘family’ home.

The scene seems set for the
courts to decide the very definition
of the family. Is it just man and
woman, married, or may it be man
and man, woman and woiman, or
three or more consenting adults of
either sex with or without their
union blessed by the church; how
about with an animal? Nothing
seems too weird any more.

Leaving aside for another discus-
sion the substance of these things,
let _us review the process. You will
notice that these changes stem from
court decisions, not from parlia-
mentary legislation. This is quite
sinister for the simple reason that
whereas you elect your MPs and
have, in theory, some control every
four years, you have no direct way
of bringing a judge to heel. And if
you do mean to try, you'd better be
loaded. In other words, government

by the courts is grossly undemo-
cratic and flies in the face of the
nearly eight hundred years of con-
stitutional development to which
(Canada was an heir.

The source of the problem is the
, Charter of Rights, which
was tacked on to the
British North America
Act in 1982, when Mr
Trudeau brought it back
from London.

Here are a few more
‘re-definitions’ brought
about by the courts since
1982.

In 1987, affirmative action hiring

way, except when reversing using
a mirror. I once:-reversed out of a
parking space right into the path of
a large truck, fortunately one with
good brakes! The driver used
curse words I had never heard
before, nor since, but I’m grateful
to have several lives left.

We had moved to Australia to
expand an existing pulp and paper
mill in a small country town. The
town was nestled in a wide, open
valley amid rolling and undulating
gum-covered hills. The area is
known as the “Ruhr” of Australia
for its large deposits of low-car-
bon-content “brown” coal which is
mined in open pits and used to fuel
the many power generators, most
built before the advent of electro-
Static precipitators.

That past.of. Australia provides...

the power. generation. for. much of
the industrial plants of Victoria
and New South Wales. After a
short time in a small, suburban
home, we fled the redolence of the
valley for the surrounding hills.
We knew the house was too big
for two people and one large dog,
but we loved its ambience and the
commanding view of the whole
valley from sunrise to sunset. It
had been constructed by a local
builder as his own residence and
then, for personal reasons, aban-
doned. The house was set on a

sits and they are huge changes. In
the above list, you may find things
with which you agree as well as
disagree. You may even look for-
ward to the kind of world they are
building.

But - and this is the big but - we
didn’t vote for any of this. These
changes are being made by people
who were not elected to their posi-
tions and who are not subject to any
Periodic review. Supreme Court
justices may retire, but they cannot
be fired and their terms are not lim-
ited in the way of members of par-
liament.

Increasingly, parliament is

quotas were upheld in a Sup

Court of Canada (SCOC) decision
in Quebec; the judgement ruled that
human rights legislation must be
given ‘fair, large and liberal inter-
pretation’.

The following year, the SCOC
also struck down the federal abor-
tion law, ruling that it violated
women’s right to life, liberty and
security of the person under the
charter.

The charter was also used to cur-
tail freedom of speech, both politi-
cally, (Regina versus Keegstra in
1990) and culturally when the
Supreme Court upheld Canadian
obscenity laws, as a safeguard for a
vulnerable group.)

Then, last year, the Supreme
Court struck down the law that
obliged people found not guilty of a
crime by reason of insanity to be
automatically committed to a men-
tal institution; it held that this law
violated the charter right to liberty
by indefinitely confining individu-
als without regard to whether they
are a danger to society.

As one may conclude, the
ground rules of society are chang-
ing every time the Supreme Count

4 . Oh, they can
still talk and they can still vote, but
they now administer a society
defined by the courts. They cannot
bring in a law to govern abortion;

gh adventure

sidehill, with a fenced paddock,
trees and grass, and an established
garden. It was large, bright, with
lots of glass, and modern, with an
imposing front entrance that no
one ever used, preferring to enter
through the carport. It had a fur-
nace (!), its own water supply
tanks, and a sizeable outdoor pool.

A strategically placed, large
gum tree effectively blocked our
view of the mill, while it was
home to a family of kookaburras
who nested there every evening.
They provided us with many
enjoyable hours, watching the
birds jostle each other for prime
Positions on one particular limb
which was silhouetted against the
rising moon. In the mornings, the
valley would lie hidden between
drifts of fog while, in the hills, the
rising sun tipped the gums with
gold.

Magpies, rosellas and cockatoos
took turns at the bird feeder.
Bougainvillaea thrived in the shel
tered part of the garden, while
native Australian trees sprung up
along the long, winding concrete
driveway. Best of all, the nearest
neighbor was a block away! We
named it “High Taroo”. There are
many tales from “High Taroo”, for
living in the Australian country-
side held numerous adventures for
two Canadians who move a lot!

established by the court

they cannot pass laws to establish
boundaries in freedom of speech,
Pay equity, relations between the
sexes or the treatment of criminals,
if it doesn't meet the criteria laid
down by the courts. They have lost
control of the military, as evidenced
by our lesbian corporal and they
may very soon find that they cannot
even preserve the traditional defini-
tion of the family - assuming that
they want to. -

What you ask, can they do?
There remains to parliament the
task of taxing the people to Pay the
inevitable costs of all these newly
defined rights and the unfortunate
consequences of them.

As for you, if you have a prob-
lem with government, don't waste
your time in your MP’s office. Get
a lawyer.

ONE IN SAX LIVES IN POVERTY...

(ONE IN NINE EATS FROM FOOD BANKS...

Wednesday, December 2, 1992

The Castlegar Sun

Letters to the Editor

Aquatic critic

Kindly allow an “old-timer” to
respond to Fern Sch: 's

only for the special use of “syn-
bh Dyas eat ,
di for the Oly

letter in the Sun (Wed., Nov, 25).

I feel that her criticism of the
Castlegar Aquatic Centre was
unkind and unfair.

The Aquatic Centre was built
for the use and enjoyment of all
Castlegar and District folks -
young, old, and indifferent, not

CORE euphoria diminishi

Dear Editor:

When the Commission on
R sand Envi
(CORE) was established, a lot of
hope and expectation for a bal-
anced approach to land use issues
a resource extraction prevailed
across B.C.

That euphoria is evaporating as
we find through the local and
regional processes that we are in
fact looking at a Super Inte;
Water Management Plan
(IWMP). SoCred-left-over
IWMP’s did not and could not
work because Water Users did not
have any decision-making power,
etc.; but you know all that.

So, what's wrong with CORE?
For one thing, there is no funding
for participants. While members
of Ministry of Forests and Indus-
try are fully paid, Water Users
should live on polluted air as they
try to defend their basic right to
clean water.

Next, the time table for the
CORE process is unrealistic
when you consider that the
Forests Resource Commission
had three years while the B.C.
Roundtab Envi and

T am an “oldtimer” who really
enjoys relaxing in the beautiful
environment that the Aquatic
Centre provides; the excellent
murals are very pleasing to the
eye, thus they contribute to one's
relaxation. Also, it is a pleasure
to watch the “little people” enjoy-

staff is leaving the Nelson office
which does not help.

Even though we don’t have a
timber inventory, 1991 was a
record year for clear-cut logging
in B.C. (Increase in volume but
not in employment) A few small
areas enjoy a deferral on logging
for a short period of time and the
Promise of setting aside 12 per-
cent of the land base for parks
and wildemess is only set for the
year 2000 after some of these
areas are partially logged.

Too many people like Jack
Munroe don't want to understand
that a replanted clear-cut is NOT
a forest but a I free

ism was unkind and unfair

ing the “extras” as they revel in
the pool.

Mrs. Schwartzenhauer, please
refrain from too much public crit-
icism of our City Council. I am
‘sure that the members are not out
to “skin” us, the taxpayers.
to all.

Dear Editor:

answer it seems is NEVER!
I know you all the

Heavy problems for hea

we d for the Py

vy equipment buyers

This is a much belated letter to all of our Heavy Equipment buyers in answer to your phone calls to the
Past year or more as to when we were going to have another Gove:

mment Surplus Auction. Well the

with, A

Pauline R i

ing like a forest

Process clearly favours logging
with minor concessions to water
protection,

Economy before Ecology.

Oh yes, there is hope for water
users: the document suggests
“alternative sources of water sup-
ply”. So, if a watershed gets
trashed, the water users may get a
well or some chlorinated water
from somewhere. This govern-
ment is in a bind. They know
that, due to gross overcutting, the
rate of tree harvest (Annual
Allowable Cut) has to be reduced
and that people in B.C. want a
drastic change in the current

i On: it for-

orchard. And long before these
seedlings mature, global climate
change will have given us what
we deserve: a catastrophic reac-
tion to greed and idity. Ozone

est practices. However, it also
means a reduction in revenues at
a time when the provincial deficit
is growing. As well, a change of

i d life

express our interest. I'm sure
tendering a bid in time.

To make a long story shon, the bi
us in the “Boonies” of the Kootenays end up with i

If you the contractors and loggers of the East and West Kootena
tact your MLA and raise a little bit of hell.

Kootenays for 15 years or more Prior to the Vander Zalm regime. You the tax payers were given the oppor-
tunity to bid on this equipment in your relevant areas, and you supported us well, as you did in the latter
years Russell Auction of Castlegar, The record shows that we got a fair return for the Government, and
you the tax payer had the opportunity to buy equipment in your own area.

During the Vander Zalm years the System that had worked so well for so man‘
i were forced to bid

ig boys are grabbing the cake, and taking it all to the big centres, and

ys are not happy with this situation con-

ng Ci in the East & West

Alex Ewashen,
Jual Auction Services (1979) Led.
Creston

Next recycling day set for Dec. 5

Dear Editor:

Castlegar’s volunteer recycling
Project is almost all set for the
next collection day - Saturday,

levels are declining and soon the
Photosynthesis process will break
down, resulting in major crop
failures.

The CORE Land Use Strategy
makes wonderful reading. But, so
far, there is no indication that the
Promised balance between envi-

‘aad a

style. CORE has to promote a
much needed protection of our
environment.

Anyone who feels that logging
at all costs is more important than
life-sustaining necessities may
find themselves residing in a
giant clear-cut called B.C. with
inated water, air and food.

Resources had been going round
and round for three years. (All
fully paid). Plus, some CORE

is being followed. -
The most recent preliminary
draft charter for the local CORE

What good will a pay cheque be
then?
Gunter Retterath

Catholic church and volunteers thanked
for contribution to successful flu clinic

Dear Editor:

Recently the citizens of this
city demonstrated their generosi-
ty and willingness to help their
neighbours.

also provided free tea and coffee.
Our hospital nutritionist was pre-
sent and answered a‘variety of
questions. A pharmacist from the
hospital was also available to
check on medicati in

entertainment.

For many seniors the day
tured into an important outing.
Some sat back, enjoyed their tea
and being with people. Many
b into old friends and had

In the past, flu i ization
clinics, primarily for people over
the age of 65 years, were held in
the Central Kootenay Health
Unit. This location was difficult
for many people to access
because of-timited parking and
long lineups. People felt they had
to mush out to make room for the
next person.

This year things were differ-
ent, thanks to the generosity of
many people and organizations.

The Roman Catholic Church
offered the use of their hall. They

brown bags) and gave informa-
tion on medications being taken,
ie. side effects and interactions
and disposal of outdated medica-
tions.

People were given the oppor-
tunity to have their blood pres-
‘sure taken. Oh yes, flu vaccine
was also available for those over
65 years.

Volunteers helped set up tables
and chairs, serve tea and coffee
and guide people from activity to
activity. School children provided

Search for 'White Knights’ is

Dear Editor:

H.F. Killough (25/11/92) is
looking in the wrong place for
“White Knights”.

They will not be found in the
United Nations, whose members
are subject to much arm-twisti
by the more rich and powerful
nations. In his comments about
Yugoslavia to the Senate Com-
mittee on Foreign Affairs last
June, peacekeeper Colonel Don
Ethell commented: In war, there
are no innocent parties. This is
Particularly true in Yugoslavia
where, in an eery replay of the
1930°s when Europeans bowed
under pressure of German mili-
tary might when one act of
courage on their part could have

Trophies

B.C. 1976 Led.

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prevented WWII, they recently
bowed under pressure to German

might
against the better judg: of

a visit. Having the annual “flu
shot” became a social event
rather than a chore. .
We, the staff at the Castlegar
Health Unit, would like to thank
the Catholic Church and many
volunteers that made this “flu
clinic” such a great success.

Shirley Hunter-Ogiow
Marcella Mugford
Administrators

in wrong place

political leaders the war in
Yugoslavia could have been
avoided by peaceful if rambunc-
tious iations. Let us take

every European nation -
Croatia and the compounded
their error by granting recogni-
tion to Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Had there been only one white
knight amongst our world and

another look at those Canadian

generals H.F. Killough refers to.
In drawing the attention of the

world to the fact that Muslims

See WHITE KNIGHT 11A

5. All we need is a few
more people to help us sort and
pack the materials that day.

Thanks to the City of Castle-
gar, the collection site will move
indoors this month to one of the
old North end Works Yard Build-
ings. This site, located behind
City Hall in downtown Castlegar,
is accessible from 13th Avenue
(Front Street).

Watch for the sidewalk signs
donated by the United Brother-
hood of Carpenters and Joiners
(Local 2300) directing you to the
Site.

Newspapers (sorted & bun-
dled), aluminum cans
(uncrushed), cardboard, office

Paper (sorted) and other materials 2

may be brought to the temporary
depot from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

jv AS we mentioned above, we
do need some; more volunteers to

help us with the collection this Z

month as no formal group has
come forward to take responsibil-
ity for the work.

Please call Alice at 365-2750,
Nina at 399-4719 or Ann at 365-
5077 if you have two or three
hours to spare on Saturday and
would be willing to help us sort
and pack the materials into the
RDCK Recycles truck.

Groups are starting to come
forward to take responsibility of
collections in the new year (Jan.
9, Feb. 6, March 6, April 3, May
1 or June 5) but there are still
some gaps in the schedule. We

have put together a very detailed
and easy to follow list of respon-
sibilities re a collection’ day for
any group willing to “take on” a
day.

Please contact one of the
above if your group would like
more information regarding help-
ing out with this worthwhile com-
munity effort.

See you December 5.

170

Invites Al member: & invited guests to their
DECEMBER BIRTHDAY BASH & DANCE
Saturday, December 19th « 5PM - 7PM
featuring “John Cresswell’
Dance: 8pm - 12am
MEAT DRAW

There's A
Colouring Contest
In Town

bee

little ones on your Christmas list.
Contest Deadline December 18, 1992

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VOH 1H0 id