EES

FECT

OPINION

October 14, 1992

»\
The C:
“A

PUBLISHER

editorial comment

It's your right

It's absolutely amazing that there are people in this
country, and in this community, who are eligible bat
refuse to vote in el +—whe ther pal, pi
or federal.

Do these people realize what they are passing up? Giv-
ing up? Surrendering?

North Americans are spoiled. Democracy is taken for
granted by most people (especially those who have lived
here their entire lives) and the system is taken for granted.

By refusing to vote, a person is actually giving up their
chance to take part in a system which allows us a freedom
that is envied by so many other people. People who are
not free to choose, free to elect, free to vote, or free to
think or speak for themselves.

Casually deciding to opt out of the democratic process
by not voting is not a casual thing at all. Yet only a certain
type of person realizes this: maybe it's the i immigrant, who
fled persecution, war and an inability to choose, maybe
it's the veteran who fought for the freedom of others, and
realizes that democracy achieved has it's price; or maybe
it's the Canadian who has had the fortunate experience of
traveling to another country, and witness first hand what

when d y is lost to d and mar-

tial law.

"But I don't understand the issues, how can I vote?”

As a citizen, it's your obligation to find the information
and make a decision based on what YOU know and under-
stand to be the facts. Take, the constitutional referendum
as an example. It's very likely you've been receiving infor-
mation on the accord on a day-by-day basis. It's also like-
ly the information is from agencies, interest groups or
political parties who advocate either a 'yes' or no ‘vote.’

Sure the mail starts to pile up. But the information has
been sent for a reason—NOT to line your bird cage, at
least not until after you've read through it once!

Getting to an issue which affects only Castlegar resi-
dents, the civic by-election takes place this Saturday. Here
local voters will make decisions on two issues: who will
take the vacant seat on council; and if the city can borrow
$1.7 million to build a new RCMP building.

Democracy in action. Why not get in on it?

Whether a municipal election, or a federal referendum,
by refusing to vote, you forfeit the chance to contribute to
the direction in which your community or country is
going.

‘That's a major sacrifice. Sadly, it would only be recog-
nized as a loss by some people, if their right to vote was
taken away.

By Don Addis

») I ie
The Casting jgar Sun
AS

1S POLITICALLY INDEPENDENT AND A
MEMBER OF THE STERLING NEWS SERVICE

lays
465 Columbia Ave., Castlegar, B.C. VIN 1G8

Now is the season to house our seniors

The “baby boomers” succeeded
in pushing the plight of our seniors
right out of the picture.

Housing seniors has not been a
high priority for government or pri-
vate developers. Housing in Cana-
da has, until recently, been
designed and built for growing
families. Houses have been grow-
ing in size and opulence until we
have, finally, come to view these
monsters as the obscenities they
truly are. A drive through the com-
munity of Langley on the Lower
Mainland is a very good example
of housing excesses. Developers
are bulldozing tracts of bush/farm-
land to build, cheek by jowl, enor-
mous houses, most of which are
incredibly ugly, particularly to
anyone who believes that “Less is
More”. No wonder people are flee-
ing to the Interior and the Koote-
nays!

Our independent seniors have,
until relatively recently, been of
insufficient numbers to impact on
policy. So it is surprising that the
need for seniors’ housing has crept
up on us, until suddenly it becomes
a crisis priority in many, communi-
ties. Castlegar is no exception. It
can be that when one mentions
seniors’ housing, the first thought
is of nursing homes, such as Moun-
tainview Lodge or Castleview Care
Centre. These institutions are care

facilities for our frajl elderly. They
provide care at several levels, from
care for those with some day-to-
day difficulties, to those who can
no longer cope on’ their own and
need twenty-four Nour care. These
facilities are NOT seniors’ hous-
ing!

When we speak of housing for

seniors, we are referring to housing
that is designed for seniors accessi-
ble for seniors and, hopefully,
affordable for a wide range of
seniors. Housing needs vary with
financial means, from those who
have substantial savings and pen-
sions, to those who have nothing
beyond their old age pension. Our
societies must provide housing for
everyone.

Castlegar is fortunate to have
several facilities for seniors who
need subsidized government hous-
ing. We do not have sufficient for
the apparent demand. There are
waiting lists for every complex,
while government rejects proposals

to build more or expand existing

does it take to entice developers

faci The is b g
clear, Federal and provincial gov-
emments are unwilling to continue
to build and operate the necessary
infrastructure in sufficient volume
to house everyone, let alone those
who are in real need of it. Our
communities must look to Seniors’
Housing Co-operatives and other
means of providing for our ever-
growing older population.

We have very little housing that
appeals to “empty nesters”, (family
units from whom the birdies have
flown), with financial means they
have accumulated over the years
“for their old age”. We have none
that offers comfortable and elegant
adult living. Those independent
seniors who ave wish to live in

into b in our area? Housing
that appeals to seniors and “empty
nesters", whose needs and desires
are very similar, is being developed
all about us. Creston, Nelson and
Grand Forks are well on the way to
iding appropriate acc

tions for ‘seniors. Our area is no less
a desirable place in which to live
Our seniors wish to remain here,
close to family and friends, and
things familiar. Why should they
have to move away? We cannot
afford to lose their expertise,
knowledge and experience from
our communities. Our seniors have
much to contribute. We cannot sim-
ply sit idly by and watch them
leave.

The Seniors Action Committee

more Pp:
with less maintenance and repair
worries, are competing with uni-

cs 1g P
for many seniors last autumn and
decided to do something about the

versity with
workers, and with each other. Per-
haps not all “empty nesters” are
seniors, but most seniors are
‘empty nesters”, in spite of the pre-
sent generation of children who are
increasingly more reluctant to leave
the comfort, care and safety of their
parent’s homes.

With the present demand for
housing of this type, it is a mystery
why so little of it has been or is
being developed in our area. What

They will be holding an
Open Forum next Tuesday, October
20, 1992, at the Community Recre-
ation Complex. Various housing
options will be discussed, and vari-
ous presenters will detail their ideas
and future plans for providing adult
housing. This is the opportunity to
have your say. If you have an idea
how senior scan be housed, we
would like to hear from you. If you
have a need, we would like to assist
you. See you there!

If referendum passes, B.C. will never be in the driver's seat

JIM NIELSEN

There is something noble when a
person accepts defeat with grace. At
least our society considers that to be
true. I would think few people enjoy
being defeated, but a healthy mind
and attitude can handle those

ig is

entirely different.

T have read and studied the refer-
endum accord. I have carefully
teviewed the 60 sections of the
agreement, have read the fact sheets
and the pamphlet provided by the
federal government. As earlier
before I had read all of the text, I
plan to vote No. I will not surrender.
Lose, maybe, that I can handle

If the Yes vote prevails and the
accord is accepted in a form similar
to that now available for reading, it
means British Columbia will forever
be a passenger only on the bu led
Canada. Our province will never be
in the driver's seat. Preserving at
least 25 per cent of the House of
Commons seats for Quebec means
that province will always have a
front seat and one hand on the steer-
ing wheel.

I cannot understand the sense of
fear so many Canadians seem to
have at this moment. To many of
them a No vote means the end of
Canada. Only Brian Mulroney has
stooped to that level of politics. It is
just more an unspoken message you
get from reading between the lines.
It is my belief, should Canada be
destined to break apart, it will hap-

pen whether we vote yes or no.

Since that is my belief, I am not
prepared to surrender my province's
due position in a future Canada
when B.C. will equal the population
of one or both Quebec and Ontario. I
have no problem with representation
by population for the House of Com-
mons. We have that at the moment,
sort of, despite our MPs representing
about 90,000 each while in Quebec
the numbers are one MP for about
75,000 population. True rep-by-pop
within 95 per cent is the aim of the
accord, except for the special status
to be given Quebec.

Defeat, yes, surrender no. Should
the people of this province. and the

people of the country give the feder-
al government the go-ahead then I
would accept that for the moment.
As an aside, it still is not clear what a
Yes vote would permit the govern-
ment to do. The referendum is really
a olebiscite, only ing an opinion
from the people. The ads say the
question must be approved by all the
provinces.

It is difficult to accept what our
federal government is saying about
this whole mess. Upon reviewing the
material made available by my MP, I
find the accord says the legislation
will be flexible enough to permit
gender equality in the senate. Their
fact sheets say the legislation will be

flexible enough to permit greater
equality. No mention of gender. The
pamphlet says there will be scope for
the provinces and territories to pro-
vide for gender equality or to desig-
nate seats for specific purposes.
Three publications by the same
government are to me each giving a
different message. Gender is in, then
it is out, then it is in with a new wrin-
kle: specific purposes, whatever that
means. As well, there will be Aborig-

inal Senators, Francophone Senators.

and who knows what else. For this,
we in B.C. are being asked to give up
our natural right to have an equitable
share of the seats in the House of
Commons. Not good enough.

Wednesday, October 14, 1992

The Castlegar Sun

Letters to the Editor

FROM QUEBEC

Slings
and
arrows

Nigel
Hannaford

Syndicated
Columnist

e case of the American boy
who ‘divorced’ his parents raises
some pretty fundamental issues
about the family.

On the one hand, the boy claimed
and the court accepted a miserable
tale of neglect, abandonment and
lovelessness perpetrated on him by
his drug-addict mother. As one com-
mentator put it, ‘he certainly had the
violins on his side.’

On the other hand, notes the same
writer, there were adequate legal
provisions already existing to see
that this youth did not retum to an
abusive home. Why was this ten
dentious ‘divorce’ necessary?

Whatever the answer to that may
be, it is grist to the mill of those who
would want to alter, reduce or com-
pletely eliminate the family as an
institution.

If this landmark case becomes a

widely-followed precedent, where
might it end? At the time of writing,
many of the more extreme outcomes
seem p *Child spanked,

further, should not - prevent a child
from hanging out with undesirable
‘friends’? Article 13 grants children

divorces parents’ “Child denied ice
cream on Friday nights, divorces
parents.’ ‘Child obliged to attend
Sunday School, divorces parents.’ It
doesn’t sound likely.

Stranger things have happened
though, as anybody who has
watched the news for the last twenty
years will attest. Who would have
thought, in 1972, that by 1992 some
churches would ordain homosexu-
als, marry them and that the govern-
ment would extend spousal rights to
the union? Who would have thought
that women would be sent to war
when there were able-bodied men
available? Who would have
thought... well we won't get into the
abortion thing again, but what pass-
es for acceptable fare on T.V. these
days would have been prosecuted
twenty years ago.

There would seem to be much
elasticity in the public’s patience.

The fact is that Canada is signato~
ry to a UN-authored document
about the rights of the child which
defines many ‘rights’, the definition
of which is almost as vague as the
Charlottetown Accord. Depending
upon prevailing public sentiments
and the attitude of a particular judge,
we may well see some decisions in
the years to come that shock us.

Take for instance Article 15 of the
afore-said document which grants
children freedom of association;
does that mean a parent cannot - and

‘freed of exp > cynical

teachers may argue that they seem
to have that in effect anyway, but
one would hardly want to entrench
the right to be cheeky in law. Article
19 grants the state the right to take
all measures to protect the child
‘from all forms of physical or men-
tal violence’. This could undermine
parental discipline of children in
every way. Article 20 grants chil-
dren the right to be removed from
families for “their own best interest
when necessary”. How is best inter-
est going to be defined? Who is
going to define it? Article 14 grants
children ‘freedom of thought, con-
science and religion’.

In all these ways and more, the
agreement subverts the authority of
the parents and interferes with their
ability to raise their children. Ulti-
mately, it paves the way for the
removal of children from the family
because the parents idea of appropri-
ate upbringing doesn’t coincide with
the aims of a government.

We have already seen the ground-
work laid for this. From time to

hours or more and the ultimate reve-
lation that the whole episode rested
upon nothing more than a child’s
lurid imagination and desire to be at
centrestage for a while

Don’t misunderstand me. There
are often very good reasons to
apprehend a child. On the other
hand, a rogue social-worker can
wreak huge damage; a well publi-
cized case in England ended up with
the ministry of social services apolo-
gizing to no less than sixty families
whose children had been taken from
them on frivolous grounds. Rare
though cases of such enormity are,
many a community has fainter
echoes of them.

What it boils down to is this. The
authority of the family has been
eroded somewhat in recent years
and replaced by that of the state. So
far, the erosion is relatively slight
and in supportable areas. (I don’t
think any of us would want to leave
a child in a bad home, for the sake
of preserving the principle of
parental rights.)

On the other hand, the warning
bells are sounding. The public will
accept anything if it’s given time to
get used to an idea, the constitution-

time, we see in the iF press
that social workers have removed a
child from a home where abuse was
suspected and that the charge was
found to be unsubstantiated. The
parents then tell a fairly standard
story of the peremptory, sometimes
covert way in which the children
were removed, their inability to find
out where they were for twelve

al fi for the usurping of the
family by the state is in place and in
the USA, a landmark decision has
been taken. As goes the family, so
goes the nation. We may survive the
Charlottetown Accord, we may sur-
vive the PQ, Brian Mulroney and
Mr Bourassa.

What Canada will not survive is
the destruction of the family.

Constitution can work for

us instead of against us

Dear Editor:
We are Canadians living in
Quebec who wish to express a

express negative attitudes toward
Quebec. At the same time, the
voice of Canadians who are more

desire to stay her and work
together as a country.

We believe t hat such an
expression is urgently needed and
that a “Yes” vote on October 26
is the best way to do this. Look-
ing at it from any particular point
of view, the Charlottetown
Agreement is far from perfect.
However, as a whole, we feel that
it represents a compromise upon
which Canadians can build a bet-
ter future.

In Quebec, the “No” side is
arguing mainly that the deal not
give as much power fo the
Province as had been hoped for,
and that the rest of Canada is still
unwilling to recognize that Que-
bec deserves special status within
Confederation. The “Yes” side is
arguing that the deal is the best
that could have been achieved
under the circumstances, and that
the rest of the country has come a
long way towards recognizing
Quebec's needs.

Of the thirty percent of Que-
beckers who are undecided, it is
our perception that many are
equally concerned about the way
the rest of Canada responds as
they are about the fine print. It it
shown by television and newspa-
pers in Quebec that people in the
other provinces are unhappy
about what concessions Premier
Bourassa has been able the gain,
they will likely decide against
federalism and will vote with the
“No” side.

If, on the other had, it is shown
that English-speaking Canadians
are sympathetic to Quebec’s
needs, many will vote with the

“Yes” side

The problem is that the Que-
bec media are likely to dwell on
those instances — and there will
be such cases — where certain
people in the other provinces

ng of Quebec's needs
will go unheard, partly because it
doesn’t make for very interesting
news. The solution is for individ-
ual English-speaking Canadians
who support the deal to commu-
nicate directly with Quebeckers,
simply asking them to support the
Charlottetown agreement.

You can do this by writing a
short letter of a few sentences to
the editor (rédacteur) of a Québec
community newspaper. Don’t
worry if you can't write in
French. Put a brief not at the top
asking the editor to please pub-
lish your letter in English, or to
translate it if possible. The mes-
Sage need hot be complex. What
matters is that Canadians build
for themselves a stronger sense of
unity.

Here are some addresses of
newspapers you can write to:

Rédacteur, Haute-Ville Ex
press, 1380 Boul. St-Cyrille

“Ouest, Québec, G1S 1W6.

Rédacteur, Hebdo Rive-
Nord/L’Artisan, 1004 Notre-
Dame, Repentigny, Québec,
JSY 189.

Rédacteur, L’Echo
Dimanche, 73 St-Germain Est,
C.P. 410 Rimouski, Québec,
GSL 7C4.

Rédacteur, Le Portage, 25
rue Lévis, Riviere du Loup,
Québec, GSR 2 R2.

For those who have not yet
read the constitutional agreement,
you can get a copy by phoning
toll free 1-800-561-1188.

Each Canadian, looking at the
agreement from his or her own
Perspective, will find that it is far
from perfect. But it will work if
Canadians want it to work. As
long as there is a national will to
build a better country, we can
make the constitution work for us
instead of against us. Without the

Political awareness
is put on hold

Dear Editor:

Re: Editorial Comment — A
Creeping Malaise

As a student at Selkirk Col-
lege I resent the suggestion
that the remaining 950 stu-
dents, who did not take time
out to talk to Tom Perry, were
making plans for “The Week-

Many students were in class
when Mr. Perry was available,
many students do not have
classes on Friday and many,
like myself, who go to school
full time, work part time, and
are single parents use what free
time they have to study or do
assignments.

I agree we should take more
time to be politically aware but
sometimes, when life is full to
overflowing with commit-
ments, this along with other

a Luxury
2 Bedroom
WATERFRONT

things (like weekend fun) have
to be put on hold

Joanne Caron
Student
Selkirk College.

Sun
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will to work together as a nation,
no constitutional arrangement,
regardless of how well it is writ-
ten, can ever hold the country
together. Ultimately, it is people
who hold countries together.

Mr. Steve Harris, community
newspaper editor, Cantley,
Quebec.

Mr. Jamie Linton, writer,
Cantley, Quebec

Ms. Sian Service, homemak-
er, Cantley, Quebec

Ms. Deborah Vuylsteke,
teacher, Cantley, Quebec

Something is
missing here!

Dear Editor:

Richard Widdifield has done it
again, creating another fine mural
for the Community Complex. But
wait, something is missing
Where are the billowing
smokestacks of the pulp mill?
Modest company, that Celgar, not
to object that their plant was left
out of the picture fer which they
paid.

Or could it be that a thermal
inversion has simply obscured the
old Skunk-works from our sight?

George Stein
Robson

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