CASTLEGAR NEWS, May 18, 1980

The early life of the Doukhobor people .

The following is an explanation of the history of the
Doukhobor people. This text is being made available with

the compliments of the Cultural
located opposite the Castlegar Ai
insight into the beliefs. of the Doukhobor people,

Education Center Restaurant
irport. It gives visitors some

making the

visit to the Doukhobor Village more meaningful.

Welcome to Doukhobor-
land.
This area, of course, is

not called by that name. Yet .

this is where, since 1908, the
Russian religious sect of
Doukhobors, under the name
of the Christian Community
of Universal Brotherhood
had chosen to establish its
main centre in Canada follow-
ing their brief stay on the
prairies of Saskatchewan
where they first started their
life in this country upon their
mass-migration in 1898-99.

Out of the virgin forest
that once covered this area,
these hardy pioneers created
a virtual Garden of Eden that
blossomed as a result of their
indusirious creativity. Thou-
sands upon thousands of
carefully planted trees bore
fruit of multiple varieties
forming a resplendent prac-
tical background to the
dream of spiritual brother-
hood on earth envisioned by
the Master-Idealist of some
2000 years ago.

This particular region is
called Ootischeniye, the Val-
ley of Consolation, so-named
because, in its own time, it
provided respite for the
newcomers at a very crucial
period of their history in a
strange land; respite from
similar pressures that
caused in the first place, their

tations, struggling for the
right to worship in their own
way. These sects were eXx-
communicated and persecu-
ted. One of the more out-
standing of such sects, the
Doukhobors, or
Wrestlers” — having power-
ful leaders, finally became
recognized by the Czar him-
self (Czar Alexander 1st) and
were temporarily given the
rights they sought. From all
corners of the Empire they
gathered at the Milky Wa-
ters in the Province of Taur-
idia, in the southern part of
the country where, under the
able leadership of Savelil

“Spirit...
“kindness,

passive ideology. However,
as it happened, this expec-
tation did not take place.
In the Caucasus Douk-
hobors made friends with
their new neighbours, finding
them receptive to human
hospitality and
good-will. Christian charity
on a simple and practical.
level prevailed. And it was
there, in the Caucasus, with-
in sight of the historic Mount
Ararat, that under the. in-
spiration of a woman leader,
Lukeria Vasilievna Kalmi-
kova, the idea was born of
total renunciation of the
principle of violence that was
died i

Kapustin, a large
settlement was established
and whore, for the first time
they were able to practise, in
relative freedom, the prin-
ciples and ideals they; ‘pro-
fessed. At last they were free
from the rigid ritualism and
dogma of the Established
Church with all its trappings
of mysticism which they re-
garded as a mockery of what
the teachings of Jesus Christ
really stood for.

But this, however, did
not last long. After 40 years
at the Milky Waters, where
the Czar himself visited the

on ‘two

in the 'y
service to earthly Govern-
ments: the systematic train-
ing of men for military action
— to kill in wars. War, as
Doukhobors saw it, was the
greatest sin on earth, a curse
from the bondage of which
they felt it was their mission,
as disciples of Christ, as
wrestlers of the Spirit, to
sever themselves once and
for all. Did not God’s com-

mandment say: Thous shalt’.

not kill? ... and did not
Christ forewarn that no mur-
derer has the life eternal
abiding in him? All men are

occasions (being a devout
Christian), Doukhobors, un-
dergoing a new wave of

exile from the M
..» and immediately after
that to lose again their
hard-won toil while on the
Canadian prairies .. .

To visitors unfamiliar
with the background of this
story it may be of interest to
know that some 300 years of
pioneering in the fields of
Christian thought and prac-
tice in group form preceded
the arrival of this unique
Russian peasant sect in Can-
ada. Back in the days of the
expansive Russian Empire
various religious sects
emerged which differed with
the Established Church in
matters of Gospel interpre-

repi g the
death of their benefactor
Czar Alexander, were forced
to move to the Caucasian
mountains as their new place
of abode. The church, under

* the new Czar who took Alex-

ander’s place, fearing the
growing power of the neéar-
autonomous Doukhobor
state, wanted to stop the
“heresy” from spreading. It
was believed that the rigor-
ous mountain climate of the
Caucasus combined with the

lawless elements, the war-.

ring hillsmen, the Turks, the
Armenians and the Georgi-
ans, would force the Douk-
hobors to inguish their

To the Spirit-
Wrestlers their duty was
clear. They had no-doubt as
to the divine justice of their
cause. They aspired to bring
it into fulfillment.

Lukeria Vasilievna
worked incessantly to pre-
pare her followers for this
Historic task. It was one small
insignificant sect pitted
against the mighty establish-
ment of the Monarchy and
the Church fully equipped to
crush and to destroy. But it
had to be done. She tutored a
man of strong

junto a huge. bonfire that

lighted up. the sky for miles
around. And as they watched
and prayed during that fate-
ful night, cossacks flayed
them with their whips, laying
the groundwork for another
wave of cruel repression. In
the military barracks, one by
one, the young men serving
there, following the example
of Matvei Lebedoff, returned
their guns, on Easter morn-
ing, to the officer in charge.
They too, suffered brutal
treatment, many unto
death: .. Be

At the height of the in-
evitable onslaught of per-
secution and dispersal that
followed, when the writer,
Count Leo Tolstoy, came to
their aid by spreading the
word to the, world of what
was happening, Doukhbors
felt it. was God's hand at
work. And when the English
and American Quakers
joined the Russian humani-
tarian in their defence, Douk-
hobor belief in their cause
increased to even greater
heights, knowing then, that
after all, their efforts would
not remain barren. And so, in
1898, the Russian author-
ities, d itici:

Peter Vasilievitch Verigin,
for the leading role, and in
41895, on the day of St. Peter
‘and Paul (June 29th) Douk-
.hobors symbolically des-
\troyed every weapon in their
ip jion by ‘king them

and ‘unable to cope with the
‘ fe hie!

Canadian governments
caused doors to open for the
7,500 religious exiles who
looked forward with hope
that here, in Canada, relli-
gious persecution would not.
happen. But most important
of all, there would not be
obligatory service in the
army to force their consci-
ence. The fact of their being
accepted into a part of the
British Commonwealth made
it truly appear that the
religious concepts of the

Doukhobors were acceptable -

to the British democratized
way of life, something that
did not apply to the more
rigid concepts of Russia.

To the Doukhot

“conditions of individual pro-

prietorship.. And - second!

before obtaining complete
rights to. its ownership, a
solemn oath must be sworn
pledging allegiance to the~
British. Crown. These. con-_
ditions,. coming upon’ the
heels, of their enforced mi-
gration, reopened _ the
wounds not yet healed from
the heavy hand of the gov-
ernment they had just left,
and caused feelings of dis-
truct toward their new pro-
tectors. who p d reli-

stacles — the sacrilegious
oath — that stood in the path
of their new life in Canada,
Here, amongst the vast
mountain ranges, the mighty
rivers and the high forests,
they civared tie iand,
planted orchards, built roads
and bridges, jam factories;
packing-houses; warehouses
and stores, sawmills, flour-

nessing the wanton destruc-
tion of this people's toil, is
attempting to prove, with the
help of the arsonists them-
selves, that Verigin himself is
responsible. A vicious cam-
paign of slander

derground press

attack the Verigin leaders in
a continuous ‘stream. The
pressure is again being built

Workin

VM GLAD I'mnota farmer. fascination ofa rabbit facing away from the beef prices in

Um-glad Ins not a number of
things: a bur-tender, a doc-
tor, a goal-keeper, a fighter,
Chairman of the Treasury

‘+ Board, among many others.

But I'm particularly glad I'm
nota farmer,

A bar-tender must cope
with a low class of people,
forever trying to tell him
their sordid secrets,

A doctor must handle

_ some of the lowest parts of

the human anatomy: piles,
bowels, ingrown tocnails,
seed warts onthe sole.

A fighter, professional or
merely domestic, must con-
stantly be on guard against
low blows, physical or vocal.

The Chairman of the
Treasury Board is faced with
trying to sell savings bonds at
a low interest rate when
everyone else — banks, trust
companies, and jumped-up
usurers of every color are of-
fering the moon in interest.

But the farmer is faced
with the worst low of all —
Jow income, low prices, and
the low opinion of the vast
majority of iowly-informed
people in the land.

A number of things has
recently brought this to my
attention, though I've known

a rattlesnake, at‘a tiny, prime
rib roast of beef in.the meat
counter. iD Y

We turned simultaneously :

the supermarket for a couple
of years, without really
thinking about it, muttering,
snot really blaming the beef

to cach other and:as I Was.:,,farmers, but feeling hard

blurting, “‘'What

been two years.’** We bought
the little beauty, we slavered
as it roasted, and we attack:

it when cooked like a couple-;

the “hell” ‘done by.
wo? She was saying, “lt's'"

A bottle of whiskey of any
decent’ brand, costs cight
idollars plus, the price of
three pounds of prime rib
‘roast. Which would you

of Eskimos who have.been'';"prefer? Which takes more

living on, boiled » moccasins

for two months,” and have*

finally killed aseal.: *

‘tender loving care? Which
retyrns-a decent profit to the
producer? *

/ Bin Smiley

Lying groaning after the
orgy, | began to think. The
roast wasn’t much thicker
than one of the steaks you
tossed on the barbecue ten
years ago. It weighed 2.35
pounds. It cost seven dollars.

With whipped turnips,
roast potatoes and onions, a
tittle garlic rubbed in, and a
salad, it was something you
wouldn’t be ashamed to serve
Queen Elizabeth.” ‘

Then why was it such a big

In West Germany, people
are paying seven dollars a
pound for beef. If this hap-
pened in Canada, there'd be
lynching parties running
through the country-side,
looking for beef producers.

Same. day we bought the
beef, | picked up a five-
pound bag of P.E.!. potatoes
for 49 cents. Ten cents a
pound, I'll bet you'd pay
more for manure, if you
wanted to green your lawn.

for peanuts

butter, likewise, is up around
$1.45. A pound of eggs costs
about forty cents. A quart of
milk is ninety per cent water
and cosis around seventy
cents.

A lousy lettuce, imported
from California,’ costs a
buck. Same for a bunch of
asparagus. A pack ‘of cigar-
cttes costs more.

Six imported tomatoes,
shipped from New Mexico
green as bullets, and less
tasty thian mashed toe-jam,
will run you nearly a dollar.

There's something. crazy
about our way of life, our
prices, our values. i

We pay $1.25, and will”
eventually be paying $4.00,
to run a rusty piece of metal
from here to there. There are

CASTLEGAR NEWS, Moy 18, 1980

B3

RITERS’ DEN /

What StatsCan doesn’t say _

type of football player as a.

By

ALLAN FOTHERINGHAM

THE L PROBLEM
with Canada is that Statistics
Canada can't find the proper
measuring stick, It’s all very
well to be told that a massive
study snooping into the way
we look, eat, work, and make
love has revealed that 1.6
million Canadians are grossly
obese. Whether that .mouth-

about. six middl the
Arabs, the shipping com-
pany, two or three govern-
ments, the trucking com-
panies, the eventual dealer.
And we shudder as we
walk past the meat counter
and see that beef, choice, is
$3.38 a pound.

Would you rather have
two gallons of gas or a pound
of beef? Would you rather
have a quart of rye or two
and a half pounds of beef?

mills, oil-presses, brick-fac- up to discredit the Douk-
tories, irrigation systems and . hobors in the eyes of the
many villages, much im- world. However, 300 years of
proved from those they had’, perseverence has taught the
in Saskatch

gious freedom only on terms
suited to their nationalistic
order. '

Dankhot

Peter Lordly Verigin, who
gave them the spiritual sup-
port for the break with mili-
tarism, was the embodiment
of the Spirit of Christ ... and
Queen Victoria, as the figure-
head of the British Common-
wealth — a patron saint.
These feelings have not
changed to this day...

i did

refused to render

or Russia. people to believe in the

“Under the .wise and capable abiding power of God and
\ supervision of Peter Lordly humanity ‘which shall not
ae

lio his flock after 16 allow injustice to prevail

years in Siberia, the vision of forever. Truth, they believe,

the plan of life; with the help shall finally overcome.

of toil and song, took shape, So here, where you see
ing: in ‘

that, to them, was no dif-

ferent in Canada than it was

in Russia. To them, Jesus

Christ alone deserved their

allegiance; all else was a de-
ion and a il

na 1 ethe airport, the highway, the
sense, ‘that’ which was be- golf-course the Selkirk Col-
lieved to be'the essence of lege, the National Exhibition
the teachings of the Master Centre, the Doukhobor Mu-
Himself. i seum and the Cultural Ed-

Understandably, Lordly ucation Centre now operated

The result of this refusal was
the uncompensated loss of
some 260,000 acres of land

develop. They developed
simply from the meeting to-
gether of two vastly different
worlds with unrelated con-
cepts. For instance, the com-
munally-oriented Doukhobor

if who: i a

acifist pl f the
Doukhobors, allowed them
exit from thé country.”
Thus it happened that
history, Tolstoy, the Qua-
kers, and the British and

land — Mother Earth — a
free eternal gift of God, were
now suddenly faced with the
stipulation that they can
have use of it only under

The Doukhobor Village located across from the Castlegar Airport

ped into p'

\through seven years of ardu-
‘ous communal toil valued at
many millions of dollars.
Doukhobors had another. cri-
sis on their hands, :

In British Columbia,
: buying new land (with: bor-
rowed money) from private
owners, Doukhobors -by-
passed at least one of the ob-

Camping stretches the vacation budget

Vacation budget stretch-
ing has become a national
past-time and in one area at
least, you can economize
and still get value for your
dollar, Fold-down mobile
accommodation can put an
affordable roof over your
head wherever you happen
to drive.

Avid anglers Harry and
Lois Watson use a half ton
pickup truck to tow their
boat and motor to fishing
hot spots.

Escalating costs of rent-
ing a cottage had forced
them to shrink their get-
away time to two weeks a
year.

Now, however, with a
Coleman Country Squire
truck camper on the back,
they can afford several
weekends as well as an
extra week-long trip in the
fall.

The 900 pound unit is a
low profile 52 inth cap
when folded down and fits
on the bed of the truck.
The low profile offers the
least wind resistance an
should translate into lower

inch beds fold out; a
screened door swings down
into position and the rig
becomes a roomy base
camp after a hard day’s
fishing. 5
Up front inside is a galley
with two-burner range and
a sink with running water
from a five-gallon tank.
Either side of the port-
able dinette table is a 16
inch x 55 inch bench seat.
On board also is a’Coleman
ice chest and a 20 pound
propane cylinder.
larry plans to add a forc-
ed air furnace to make the
fall trips more comfortable.

Trailers popular F

The Grahame are friends
of the Watsons.

With two boys aged five
and two, Joe and Doris
Graham are opting for a
Coleman fold down camp-
ing trailer becauise it can be
towed easily by their four-
cylinder automobile.

Like the Watsons, the
Grahams wanted a name
they could trust and. they

The trailer they chose
has a galley that swings up
to a comfortable working
height, with three-burner
range, sink and workspace
adequate for fixing family-
sized meals,

Wing beds pull out to
provide lots of space for two
lively youngsters to play on
dull days. :

Doris likes the portable
cooler that can be set up-
right inside the trailer and,
as it travels just inside the
door, is handy for on-the-
road use. Unlike Coleman
trailers, some fold-down
units have to be cranked up
to allow the travelling door
to be opened.

The camping club rallies
they attend are often in
group camping areas that
have few picnic tables so a
free-standing table is use-
ful outside as well asin.

The Grahams are consid-
ering an add-on screen
room that will duble the
trailer’s floor area.

Both families like the big
} wind

Ras B
. At the site, it cranks up
: to an inside height of 76
inches: two 44 inch x 76

that

it imp
all Coleman dealers are
required to have service
facilities available.

comfor-
table four inch thick foam
mattresses and_ interior
calanr arhame

+ Lighting is provided from
12 volt hookups with the

vehicle hatterv.

+ One thing these expert
jf hasize is the

comparison when you are
hi

need to use a check list for

g for your family’s
home on wheels.

was d and revered. a8 a Doukhobor vegetarian
by his people. However, restaurant...on these very
there were some in Canada grounds throbbed and
who wanted him removed. In thrived the living Commun-
1924, a bomb exploded in a ity described above, under
railway coach in which he the emblem of Toil and
was travelling, killing him Peaceful Life. As you look

‘and other passengers who around, you will see vestiges

happened to be there. By all of this community: villages
evidence it was an assas- still intact (one is just south
sination plot, but to this day’ of- the College), old fruit
the identity of the perpat- trees, the hanging bridge
rators has not been revealed. ~ across: the ‘Kootenay River,
Peter-Lordly’s' deat’ was‘a ‘and on the rock bluff above
shattering blow to the Com-’ lies the tomb of the Verigins
munity... ts holding the remains:of those

Peter Petrovitch Verigin who played a leading role.in
— Chistiakov, son of Lordly, the latter history .of the
arriving in 1927, instituted movement, ‘These are: Peter

many reforms to put the
Community on a more stable
footing, and avert insolvency.
However, before he

away in, 1939, following a
colorful career during which
an attempt was made by the
Canadian government to de-
port him illegally, he saw,
despite desperate attempts
to prevent it, the disinte-

" gration of the roaterial frame-

work of the community his
father had built up. The De-
pression of the Thirties,
combined with the increased
depradations from fanatical
elements within, and relent-
less pressures from financial

‘corporations, caused the

Communal enterprise to dis-
solve. The courts hastened
the process. The system pre-
vailed. The material loss,
again, went into the millions
of dollars of hard-won toil.

Needless to say, neither
Chistiakov nor his people ac-
cepted defeat because of this
tragedy, the third major one
for them in Canada. A new
plan was formulated under
the name of the Union of
Spiritual Communities of
Christ, more suited to the
needs of the times. This new
plan is effective and  de-
veloping successfully.

John J. Verigin, grand-
son of Peter  Chistiakov,
along with a well-organized

Verigin-Lordly; Peter Veri-
gin-Chistiakov, and Anna P.
Markova. The wives of the
two Peters are also interred
there.

On the flats below you
will see the new USCC Cul-
tural Centre, the pride and
joy of the people who refuse
to ‘forsake the dream . im-
planted in, them by the spirit
of their forefathers. Ask any
USCC member and he or she
will tell you why and how this
Centre became a reality and
the role it plays in the great
controversy now raging be-
tween the forces of light and
the forces of darkness on the
battleground of Doukhobor-

- land! We want to assure you,
dear friend, when you hear of
burnings and bombings in the
Doukhobor midst, they do
not come from the USCC, for
its members are builders and
not destroyers. They are
committed to thé historical
obligation of proving toil and
non-violence is the ultimate
weapon of the Christian faith
for peace on earth. There are
those who practise violence
under the Doukhobor name,
elements against whom the
organization has to guard and
protect itself day and night.
These elements, under non-
Doukhobor leadership, but
using the Doukhobor name,
deliberately wish.to create

pres-
ently serves as an Honorary
chairman of the new com-
munity. His mother, Anna P.
Markova, daughter of Chis-
tiakov, helped tremendously,
before passing away recent-

- ly, to strengthen the organ-

ization culturally and spiri-
tually. Experiencing the rig-

in the people's
minds. We want you to
understand this clearly, and
pass the.word along to
others. ..

* ‘We are not saints, nor do
we pretend to be. But know-
ing the message handed
down to us by our forefathers
and assisted by an unbroken

ours of the revolutionary line of spiritual guidance
period in Russia she knew from genration to generation,
only too well the importance we are convinced of what our
of preserving the faith and duty is and are determined to
the vision by which the fulfill it. We invite you to
Doukhobors lived through come to our Youth Festival
the centuries. held annually in May where

However, both of these you will see and hear our new"
: eerie

important of the of C

Verigin family were objects | Doukhobors reflect the’ cul-
of attack by dissidents with- ture that has been: handed
in. John Verigin’s family down tothem from antiquity,
residence was twice des- expressed in two languages.
troyed by arson and millions ~Doukhobors have accepted
of dollars were lost in the the principle of integration
destruction, by these same into the multi-cultural Can-
dissident terrorist elements, adian mosaic, but stubbornly
‘of other communal property. refuse to relinquish the price-
Latterly, the Crown, wit- less inheritance of their faith.

it, peripherally, for years.
Last Saturday, the Old
Lady and | gazed, with the

deal? Because we, like so
many shortsighted, spoiled
Canadians, have been shying

A pound of bread, shot
through machines, is about
seventy cents. A pound of

Would you rather have a
pack of fags or ten pounds of
potatoes?

Patched, bleached & softened

I think I'm safe in saying that I have devoted the last 15
years of my life to jeans. *

T've shrunk ‘em, ravled ‘em, patched ’em, bleached ‘em,
softened ‘em, aged ‘em, and pounded the, wrinkles into
,submission. Cooped up ina utility room with nothing but jeans
for that long can make you strange. f

“Tf you ask me,” I said to my husband, “jeans have gotten
out of hand. They're all anybody, wears anymore.”

“What's the matter with that?”

“{ read the other day where a bride went through her
entire ceremony with her fly open.”

“You exaggerate.” ‘

“I do not exaggerate. I went with your daughter the
other day to one of those places with wall-to-wall,
ceiling-to-floor jeans. I was the only one in the entire store
with a skirt. I looked like a chair. Someone tried to put a wad
of bubble gum on my knee. :

“Why are you buying more jeans?” I asked her. “For
once, why don’t you buy a nice wrap-around skirt and a ‘T-shirt
with a little sweater knotted around your neck like. Marlo
Thomas? Aren't you sick and tired of sounding like you're
trying to start a fire without matches everytime. you walk
across the floor? If you don't want-to consider me, think of

ees}

your grandmother who asked me just the other day if we
couldn't chip in and buy you.a pair of legs."

-/Erma
7 Bombeck

person. When I dress I want to be unique. Don't you
understand? I want to be me.”

“She said this surrounded by 26,000 pairs of jeans all
alike. I'm worried,” I said to my husband. “If jeans get any
tighter .. . do you know there's a place in New York where
you actually lie down on a car bed under a mirrored ceiling
and three salespeople zip you into your jeans? According to -
them your eyes should bulge when you put tliem on.”

“The fat has to go someplace,” he said logically.

“You haven't heard the worst of it. Our daughter came
out of the fitting room, flung her jeans at me and said, ‘mom,
you'll have to shrink ‘em two inches in the waistband, three
inches. in the hips and four inches off each leg. Then, tip out
the pocket, take out the hems and fray the legs so they'll drag
on the ground, wash them 16 times just to soften ‘em up and
bleach them for 15 minutes in the seat.” s

“Why are you buying them?” I asked tiredly.

a)

“Look mom,” said our “Tm an i

-

ae 8 fs
/ Ann Landers

Dear Ann Landers: | saw you on TV several days ago and
heard you say you've been writing the column for nearly
25 years. | was 17 years old in 1955 and remember
reading your column during English class at Senn High
School in Chicago. Now | have a son who Is a freshman at
Francis Parker. He reads your column during lunch hour.
When he disagrees with you we hear about it at the
dinner table. : :

My all-time favorite was the column about the
woman who did her housework in the nude. It created a
sensation around the country. My cousins In Cincinnati
and Pittsburgh talked about It for weeks. My aunt in New
York called my mother in Philadelphia and read it to her
on the phone. Disc jockeys read it on the alr. Business
executives laughed about It over lunch.

Will you please repeat that column and give a new
generation of readers a real treat? Those of us who have
read It before would love to see it again.

‘i — Windy City Fan
Dear Fan: The letter you refer to did, indeed, cause a
great deal of comment, and | am happy to repeat it. It
was actually the response to a previous letter which
needs to ba printed as proper background. Here we go:
Dear Ann Landers: | am a homemaker, age 30, and have
a good husband and three fine children. We are upper
middle-class folks who tive In an upper middle-class
neighborhood and have upper middle-class friends.

- When I'm in the house alone in the morning, after the

children go off to school and my husband jeaves for work,
1 like to do my housework with no clothes on, Yes, you
read correctly — with no clothes on. | pull the shades and
draw the draperies. No one can possibly see me.

Last week | confided this to a friend, and she said |
must be off my rocker — that there is something immoral
or sick, or both, about a person who would walk around
the house nude. | don’t know why I do it. All 1 know is |

: enjoy it. Please give me.your opinion, Ann Landers.

— Lady Godiva
Dear Lady: 1 can only guess that you. enjoy your
housework with no ‘clothes on because you like the
feeling of total freedom — the same way some swimmers
get extra pleasure from swimming In the nude. :

1f you choose to walk around in your own home
naked as a jaybird, or wearing a raccoon coat, whose
business Is it? It may be unusual but this doesn’t mean it
is immoral or sick.

The following letter points cut-one of the hazards,
however. | hope all you women out there who are doing
your housework in the nude will pay careful attention.
There’s a lesson to be learned here:

Dear Ann: | wonder if Lady Godiva saw the news Item in
the paper about an Ohio housewife. She was doing her
laundry in the basement and impulsively decided to take

, off the soiled housedress-she was wearing and throw it

into the washing machine. She had Just put her hair up In
rollers, and the pipes overhead were leaking. The woman
suddenly spotted her son's football helmet in the corner.
She put it on her head for protection.

There she was, stark naked (except for the football
helmet), when she heard someone cough. The woman
turned around and found herself staring into the face of
the meter-reader from the gas and electric company. As
he headed for the door, his only comment was, “| hope

your team wins, tady."” .

." she said. “They're perfect!”

w ig fact was
during the love-making. re-
search is not stated, though

since we do know our Ottawa ,

masters are always’ with us,
it does present new job-
opportunity bait for aspiring
statisticians,

The knowledge that a
little Masters and Johnson
cell is busy at work desp
within the bowels of Stats-
Can does much to enhance
the prestige of this dull
science.

The massive snoop, the
third probe since 1974 into
what you might call our soft
underbelly, is labelled Per-
spectives Canada, and
through 312 pages and 823
charts provides such dull
stuff as proof that there are
624,000 Canadian alcoholics
and that 22 per cent of Can-
adian students have used

* marijuana. ve

THE MOST POPULAR
leisure activity, if you can
believe StatsCan, is love-
making, though where this
leaves NFL football I don’t
know. I am sure there is a
large portion of the female
population prepared to come
forward under oath and
provide a worn TV knob as
evidence that it ain't so.

Show me an Ottawa
statistician who can prove
that the delights of love
outrank lawn-pruning and I'll
show you a clerk who has
spent too much time fondling
his slide rule. eee

The real weakness of
Perspectives Canada III is
that it doesn't describe to a
foreigner, or to us, what this

Ci

Feed

‘There goes a Canadian..1 understand

they're an endongered species.

country is really like.

Does the fact that deaths
from lung cancer have in-
creased 177 per cent since
1967 tell you anything about
the warp and woof of this
strange dominion?

NO. WHAT YOU HAVE
to know if you want to
understand Canada is that it
is the only supposedly civ-
ilized and autonomous coun-
try in the world that has its
118-year-old constitution sit-
ting.in a musty vault in the
possession of another coun-
try across a large ocean, and
doesn’t have a wit (or cour-
age} to figure out some way
to get it back.

That's what makes Can-
ada unique, not the number
of bathtubs per subdivision.

Canada is the only coun-
try on the horizon that forces
one portion of the country
(the West) to’ sell its re-
sources to another portion
{the Centre) at cutrate
prices, but then forces that
same portion (the West) to
pay full going rates for the

.. gas-guzzlers and other manu-
.factured goods made in that
other portion (the Centre).
Unique.

Canada possesses ‘the
only sports pages in the
world that refer to a certain

“non-import.”

Know what a “non-
import" is? A Canadian, Only
country in the world that is
ashamed to call its own
citizens by their own name.

WH DOESN'T
StatsCan, seeking the impor-
tant things, tell us that
Canada is probably the only
advanced country in the
world that has a capital that
you can't get to? A capital
that you can’t fly from-to an
adjoining capital? ‘

You can't fly from Ot-
tawa to Washington. You
can't fly from Ottawa to New
York. Who designed a coun-

try like this? Get to it,

StatsCan. :

The CBC, which does
good work, and is admired by
foreigners like the Ameri-
cans, is forced to. carry ad-
vertising so as to make it look
like the commercial stations
and emulate the Americans.

Voters have just re-
elected a man whose only
promise is that he would quit.
Premier Davis of Ontario,
who says he loves Quebec
and wants to keep it within
Confederation, won't build
one French high school: to
prove his sincerity.

The Liberals, who in-
vented the Foreign Invest-
ment Review Agency to curb
greedy foreigners but then
let it allow even. greater
outside control of our econ-
omy, now pledge to make
FIRA do what it was set up

do.

The Tories, who proved
they couldn’t even count the
number of votes before they
forced a vote of non-confi-
dence, now confess they have
an image problem. Mainly as
mathematicians, one sus-

pects,

THESE: ARE THE
important things, StatsCan.
Stay out of the bedroom. You
won't find anything going on
there.

—FP Publications _

By RICHARD GWYN

ONCE THE REFER-
endum is done, no matter
whether the bad oui guys
win or, as now seems more
| and more probable the

good non guys do, a chorus
“will arise coast-to-coast,
like bull-moose late in the
tutting season, “The con‘
stitution must be changed.
The status quo must go.”
. Let: me be heretical.
Rather than trying to.
change our constitution,
why don’t we leave it
alone? “Patriate” it, or
bring it. over here from
Westminster, as Conserva-
tive MP Bill Yurko has
proposed, _ imaginatively,
‘and as the Commons, un-

Bring the BNA

terests of the British Em-
pire.” :

e.

That puts us in the
same category as the Flat
Earth Society. We exist to
promote the interests of

- something that doesn't ex-

ist.

See what I mean about
our constitution being
meaningless? It devotes
more space, and care, to
describing thé’ provisions
for disbarring a senator —
section 31(4): “If he is
attained to treason or
convicted of felony or of
any infamous crime” —
than it does to apportion-

Act home then leave it alone

ing the. jurisdictional
powers of the federal and
provincial governments.
L “KINDS OF
high-minded people, begin-
ning with Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau, going on
to Jean-Luc Pepin and

John Robarts with their -

Tast Force on

The common denomin-
ator of all these proposals
is that they don't work.
The most any new con-
stitution can do is to slice
up the existing pie in new
ways. It can't, though,
increase the size of the pie;
so it can't satisfy every-

i de-

Unity report, and to Que-
bee Liberal leader Claude
Ryan with his “beige
paper,” and on down to in:
numerable academics, law-
yers, and assorted com-
mentators, have concocted
shiny formulae for a new
constitution, 5

an i
tively, has agreed to. But
then leave it be.

To advance such a
proposition: isn't easy. It
brands one as an uni-
maginative fuddy-duddy
(what upwardly mobile in-
tellectual wants to be in
favor of the status quo?)
and worse, coarsely insen-
sitive to the needs of
Quebecers, Westerners,
Newfoundlanders, Mariti-
mers, Indians and Inuit,
and no doubt also women,
old people, troubled youth,
and the halt, lame, and
blind.

MY OWN PROPOSI-
tion, however difficult to
defend, is at least easy to.

state. The great advantage
of our present constitution
is that it is quite mean-
ingless. Therefore, we can
read into it, and invest into
it, whatever meaning we
judge we need to, to ac-
commodate, not some juri--
dicial ideal, .but political
reality.

Ina perverse way, the
part about ovr constitu-
tion, the British North
America Act, that I like
best is where, in its pre-
amble, it declares that the
purpose of Confederation
is to “Promote the in-

for increased

power.

Attempting to change
a constitution leads always
to the same result: dis-
appointment. In the past
100 years, no country has
managed to do it in peace-
time. (Switzerland, in 1874,

was the last.)
Instead, if we just ig-
nore the constitution, we
can do anything we want.
BILINGUALISM,
for example, which has
made a greater difference
to Canada’s social and
political character than any
of the constitutional
changes anyone has prop-

Federal provincial
conferences, as another
le, which it

, the referendum a majority

structure than any of the
ingenious constitutional
proposals, such as to re-
place the Senate with a
House of Federation (Tru-
deau’s idea), or with a fed-
eral council (Ryan's).
Take, as a current
example, the fact that no
matter how they vote in

of Quebecers support some
form of special status for
their province. By this is
meant i

an entirely, new “fourth”
level of government, and
which again have done
more to alter our political

- status,

Es
since Quebeg in
fact, already has, and has
had since Confederation,
special status in practice
{its own language laws, its
own school system, and so
on). But the other nine
provinces jealously refuse
to allow Quebec to attain a
legal, special status, higher
than theirs,

Okay. Allow Quebec
to call itself a state. It
would have: no more
powers than the other nine
provinces, but among them
it would be, symbolically,
“special.”

A LAST EXAMPLE.
Several provinces, led by
Quebec, demand the au-
thority to regulate broad-
casting, which Ottawa has
refused to give them for
fear, the national system
would be fragmented. But
technology (everything
from pay-TV to video
discs) is about to fragment
broadcasting anyway,
making it as inappropriate
an activity to be regulated
by government as maga-
zines, say. So Ottawa (pro-
vided it held on to the CBC,
of course) could hand over
broadcasting jurisdiction
without, in fact, handing
over anything.

Confederation doesn't
work or fail to work be-
cause of the constituion,
but by political log-rolling
and wheeling and dealing
and plea-bargaining. By, in
a phrase, common sense.
Let's keep things that way.
— Toronto Star

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