yy Castlegar News Janvary 20, 1988

VALLEY VIEW .. . Scenic shot of Castlegar in the distance captures the magic of winter scene. Retur-

ning snow falls should keep winter activities going for the next little while.

CosNews photo

Lawyer hel

By GARY KINGSTON Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — He is a Stoogeophile and an Ear! of Esoterica who counts a meeting with rock ‘n’ roll legend Dick Clark among the great thrills of his 43 years.

But there is more to this soft-spoken trivia buffs encyclopedic mind than the films of Larry, Moe and Curly — the Three Stooges — and the answer to who recorded Love Stinks.

Tony Serka is an expert on one of Canada's most perplexing problems — street prostitution and Bill C-49, the two-year-old Criminal Code section that has been largely ineffectual against it.

“I can't think of another criminal law in Canada that's ever been in the books that’s as glaring an example of something that shouldn't be a crime as this one is,” says the Vancouver criminal lawyer.

DEFENDS HOOKERS

Serka’s tenacious defence of the spandex-clad hookers who stroll the city's dimly lit streets has earned him the label “patron saint” of prostitutes. It has also seen him villified by anti-hooker activists, angry at the all-night noise of curbside sex sales.

The son of Yugoslav parents doesn’t mind the attention.

“Yeah, I can be a bit of a showman,” Serka says in an interview in his modestly appointed office in Vancouver's trendy False Creek area. “But law is an attention-getting business. How else are people supposed to know about you if you don’t get attention?”

It was Serka who in 1978 successfully argued the landmark Hutt decision in the Supreme Court of Canada.

The court decision, named after Serka's client Debra Hutt, required that prostitutes be pressing and persistent to be convicted of soliciting. It tied the hands of police, led to ¢ity bylaws that the courts ordered repealed and ultimately to Bill C-49.

The federal law prohibits communication in a “public place .. .and any motor vehicle located-in a public place” for the purpose of prostitution.

Serka has won several acquittals under C-49, including a recent case where he employed one of his most cherished tools — the dictionary. Using the definition of located, he

Aglow luncheon well attended

The January Women talk were many beautifully Aglow luncheon held last rendered songs. Wednesday at the Fireside | The Feb. 10 luncheon will

Place was well attended.

Grace Legebokoff of Rob son shared briefly on her early life in the area until the present. Ann Wilson shared a solo.

Linda Hunt of Nelson was the main inspirational speak er. Interspersed with her

feature Art and Gladys Dah len from Rosebud, Alta. They will share singing and speak ing ministry.

For this meeting the women are invited to bring their husband or a friend. Reservations are requested by Feb. 9

ps hookers

successfully argued that the moving vehicle in which his two clients talked privately about the sale of sex was not a public place.

“It's great to win,” says Serka, his Three Stooges watch peeking from beneath the sleeve of an expensive suit jacket as he stretches his gangling arms above his slim, six-foot-five frame.

“The worst thing to do is not to lose, although I hate to lose. The worst thing to do is not to try.”

To that end, he refuses to have his clients plead guilty on the communication charge. “

ALWAYS PREPARED

“I've been in the courtroom and I've heard the judge gasp in the background, ‘Oh no, Serka.’ But I think the judges know I prepare for my cases. I don’t present argu ments that I think are a waste of time.”

The balding Serka, a married father of two children, took time off from law three years ago to develop and promote a music trivia game with two other lawyers. In the late 1970s, the three were the Earls of Esoterica who, for two consecutive years, were winners on CBC-TV’s Trivia show.

Their game — Billboard's Top 40 — got Serka introduced to Clark and other music industry stars, but it didn’t sell well and he returned to law “with a vengeance.”

While continuing his heavy load of prostitution cases, Serka won a Supreme Court of Canada judgment that struck down a minimum seven-year sentence for importing nar- cotics as cruel and unusual punishment.

EARNS RESPECT

But it's his work as a hooker's lawyer — often at legal-aid wages — for which he is best known.

Marie Arrington, spokesman for Prostitutes and Other Women for Equal Rights, describes Serka as “an honest, up-front lawyer who doesn’t sugarcoat anything.”

Serka says he wishes there was no street prostitution. He respects hookers, however, for enduring danger, disease and constant harassment by police.

He also syumpathizes with those in residential neigh borhoods like Mount Pleasant in central Vancouver where many prostitutes moved after being forced from downtown.

“No neighborhood should have people screaming and yelling, and yet we shouldn't live in a society where you're a criminal just for talking about something.

“What is wrong with a discreet conversation about a topic that is legal between two consenting adults?”

HEAR APPEAL

The federal Justice Department is evaluating Bill C-49, and a parliamentary review must begin before the law is three years old. The issue is also moving to the Supreme Court of Canada.

On Jan. 25, the high court will hear an appeal of a Nova Scotia Appeal Court ruling that declared the anti-soliciting law unconstitutional.

Serka said he hopes the Supreme Court will uphold the Nova Scotia court's position and allow him to “get on to other things.

“I haven't lost interest in this until it's decided,” he said. “(But) I really don’t want to get typecast .... 1 know I run that danger, but I just hope that seeing it through, it's going to end soon.”

faculty.

local 295.

are invited to meet with counsellors from UBC and the Universi

For further intormation contact the

kirk @ lege

YOU'RE INVITED

To Meet Advisors From...

MON ER UNIVERSITY

Area residents as well as Selkirk College students interested in post-secondary education Selkirk College, BCIT, Simon Fraser University, ty of Victoria, which is also bringing an advisor from the Education

The session begins Thursday, Jan. 21, from 7 to 9 p.m. and continues Friday, Jan. 22 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the main lounge at the Castlegar Campus of Selkirk College.

Counselling Department, Selkirk College at 365-7292,

CASTLEGAR CAMPUS. Box 1200, Castlegar, B.C. VIN 3J1 365-7292

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Refugees play waiting game

Editor's Note: Thousands of Central Americans are in refugee camps. Most eventually hope to return to their native countries, but many would like to come to Canada.

By DAN LEGER Canadian Press

NUEVO PUEBLO, Costa Rica — Sitting bare-chested on the stoop of a communal shower, Gene Thomas cradles infant daughter Soyla in muscular black arms.

It is hot and humid and there is nothing to do. Like thousands of Central Americans displaced by war, politics and hunger, Thomas never has anything to do.

Like most of the 1,018 Nicaraguan refugees at the camp here on the outskirts of Limon on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, Thomas ran from the war in Nicaragua.

Unable to ply his trade of fisherman, he relies on the Costa Rican government to support him. One day a United Nations agency may help him return to this home at Bluefields on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast.

The refugees at the Nuevo Pueblo camp live in rows of barrack-like houses built on the side of a hill, sharing washing facilities and open cook stoves. Kids kick around a battered soccer ball along a fence hung with gaudy colored washing.

Two Costa Rican policemen in army fatigues sullenly guard the front gate. It says “Security” on their guard hut, but it's not clear whether they are there to keep intruders out, or to keep the refugees in.

WAIT IN CAMPS

This is just one of dozens of refugee camps around Central America. In the camps, people mostly wait. They aren't allowed to work steadily, so they wait for the day — which may never arrive — when they can go home safely and live in peace.

Nicaragua's Sandinista government, which came to power with the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, was insensitive to the needs and aspirations of the people of the Mosquito Coast. They are mostly Indians and English-speaking blacks of Jamaican descent’ whose ancestors went to Nicaragua to work on railroads connecting banana plantations to coastal ports.

“The Sandinistas made it difficult enough for us that we left,” Thomas says in a lilting Jamaican accent.

“After they took over, things started to change there. Life started to come hard on the people. And then, the war of fear with the Sandinistas and the rebels... there were a lot of problems in the village.”

“For Thomas and thousands like . im, even the idle life of a refugee camp “is plenty better than to be there right now.”

Thomas has been living in Nuevo Pueblo camp for more than four years. Soyla was born there. Lots of children have been born in camps that sprouted in the wake of the brutal guerrilla war between the leftist Sandinistas and the U.S.-backed Contras.

Although people like Gene Thomas want to return — 34 Nicaraguans from the camp were preparing to leave for

ee cent of Costa Rica's population of 2.3 million is made up of people seeking haven from war and poverty in their homelands. PLACE OF PEACE

Canadian officials describe Costa Rica as a model in its treatment of refugees. The country is an oasis of peace and stability in Central America and has a long history of

Bluefields shortly — things are still tense on the Mosqui' Coast and on the way there from thé“more populated western part of Nicaragua.

In late November, travel to Bluefields was banned after a series of Contra raids on riverboats travelling down the Rio Escondido from Rama, the last stop on the road from the Nicaraguan capital of Managua.

Official UN estimates put the number of registered refugees in Costa Rica at 32,000, about 8,000 of them organized in seven camps. But Costa Rican authorities say there might be as many as 200,000 refugees living in the country illegally.

If the higher number is true, that means almost 10 per

people fleeing oppression or ii in neigh boring countries.

But Costa Rica isn't alone with its refugee problem.

Honduras, Nicaragua's neighbor to the north, has within its borders more UN-supported refugees than any other country in Central America, with some 47,000 on official lists. As in Costa Rica, there might be double that number living illegally in Honduras.

Nicaraguan, Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees are all sheltered in Honduras, a country that is the hemisphere's third-poorest after Haiti and Bolivia.

Some attempts are being made to repatriate Sal

vadorans, especially since the five-country Central Ameri-

can peace plan was signed last August at Guatemala City. In

October 4,300 Salvadorans went home en masse and are

trying to re-establish themselves in their native areas. ISCUSS RETURN

Talks are continuing among UN officials, Honduras and Nicaragua on the return of Miskito Indians to Nicaragua. The Miskitos, and the blacks from Bluefields, say they don't enjoy equality with the mainstream Spanish-speaking groups in Nicaragua.

Some 10,000 Miskitos have already returned, despite the presence of Contras in some of their home areas. Honduran authorities now estimate there are only 7,000 Nicaraguan Miskitos in their country, down from a high of 20,000 in 1986.

Guatemala and El Salvador, two countries with appalling records on human rights, have different refugee problems. People want to leave El Salvador and Guatemala to escape the political killings and guerrilla wars that have plagued the two countries for years.

The situation after eight years of civil strife in El Salvador has become so threatening that Canada and other countries have special immigration programs that will allow Salvadorans a faster flight to safety.

SOME TO CANADA

Canada has had such a program for political prisoners and oppressed people since 1983, and during 1987 about 1,000 Salvadorans entered Canada.

However, some Salvadorans, perhaps fed up with refugee camps, have been returning home at a rate of about 100 a month, says the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

And last October, 4,300 Salvadorans went home en masse with the co-operation of Salvadoran authorities and the UN high commission.

In Guatemala, killings by paramilitary death squads have actually increased since the peace plan was signed, say political and human-rights sources in the country.

Most Guatemalan refugees have fled to Mexico, where economic conditions are not much better than in their own country.

Guatemalans qualify for special immigration consid- eration by Canada if they are shown to be oppressed for their political beliefs. However, fewer than 2,000 Guat- emalans have been able to gain admittance to Canada.

Last year Canada imposed a requirement that Guat emalans have visas before entering Canada for visits, a step criticized by human-rights groups who say Canada should be more open to refugees.

| B.C. MINISTERS STUMBLE.OVER CONFLICT RULES

By RON SUDLOW Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — British Columbia cabinet ministers have stumbled over provincial(conflict-of-interst guide- lines like a New Year's Eve reveller with a snootful of Okanagan Valley plonk.

The result seems to be a continuing hangover for Premier Bill Vander Zalm, who has the sober task of enforcing the eight guidelines that forbid ministers to mix public and private business.

While most Canadians focused on the investigation that found Tory MP Sinclair Stevens violated federal conflict guidelines 14 times, 1987 saw three B.C. ministers resign over conflict allegations.

And while Stevens prepared to appeal, the scorecard in British Columbia showed two Social Credit ministers making quick returns to cabinet, with one still out at the start of 1988.

The Socred government says there was no criminal wrongdoing by any of the three ministers. The Opposition NDP counters that the guidelines announced a year ago are toothless because they are not enshrined in

BILL VANDER ZALM ... half right

CLIFF MICHAEL ... paid price

twists than a mountainside logging road

In 1986 Rogers was forced to resign as health minister because he didn’t list all of his business interests. He was given an absolute discharge after pleading guilty to two counts of breaching the Financial Disclosures Act.

CAUGHT AGAIN

Rogers was back as environment minister after the October 1986 election, but got into trouble again when he opened up 20,000 hectares of parkland for mining

legislation and there are no specific for breaking them. DISCLOSE ASSETS

British Columbia gets top marks from some observers for requiring ministers to disclose publicly their financial assets upon taking office — a more stringent demand than federal guidelines that allow blind trusts to be formed.

But there's plenty of dissatisfaction over the fact that Vander Zalm has the prerogative to decide whether there will be investigations or penalties after allegations of conflict.

“He's taken the applause-meter approach to deter- mining whether there is a conflict of interest,” charged Moe Sihota, the NDP member for i

His family trust held shares in a company that could benefit from the move.

Out of cabinet for a few hours in March, Rogers returned as minister of intergovernmental affairs. Now, he's also got Michael's highways job.

In August, Hughes determined that Advanced Education Minister Stan Hagen had breached the guide- lines after the company of which he was listed as manager signed a contract with the University of British Columbia. Hagen returned to cabinet after Hughes found no criminal wrongdoing. od

John Langford, director of the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria, agrees Vander Zalm shouldn't be in charge of enforcing the ideli But he says the premier’s on the right track

The latest B.C. minister in trouble was Cliff Michael, a boy scout president from Salmon Arm who lost the highways protfolio in November — and more than $30,000 in salary because he now gets backbench pay — for trying to sell lakefront lots to people-doing business with the government.

An investigation by deputy attorney general Ted Hughes found “it was a dumb thing to have done for which he paid a big price” but there were no grounds for criminal charges.

‘ALWAYS CHANCE’

Michael said the report vindicated him and he promised to work hard to return to cabinet. Vander Zalm, however, has stick-handled around the question faster than Wayne Gretzky.

The premier said in mid-December there is “always a chance” Michael will return to cabinet.

NDP Leader Mike Harcourt said Michael “faces no consequences for his action and that's why this is all so appalling.”

Steven Rogers, the heir to a sugar fortune and a

former line pilot, is the leading man in British Columbia's conflict-of-interest soap opera that has more

by having mandatory public disclosure of assets rather than having them placed in a blind trust as was the case with Stevens.

HALF RIGHT

“It's not that the B.C. situation is as wacky as it normally is,” says Langford. “Vander Zalm has half the story right” with public disclosure of assets and the opposition and media as watchdogs.

“What he's got missing from the equation is some kind of third party, arm's-length administration and enforcement of the guidelines,” Langford added.

Langford said British Columbia is more susceptible to guideline breaches because of a preponderance of small businessmen in government. Other jurisdictions have “a greater sprinkling of professionals who have codes of conduct coming into government.”

He says the guidelines are simple — “Don't put yourself in a situation where you're violating the public trust” — but lead to traps for business people who become ministers.

“Small business is riddled with conflict of interest all the time . . . you work with your pals and you do inside deals, essentially.”

‘POLICE' WATCHING |

Power thieves beware!

By MIRO CERNETIG Press

VANCOUVER — They crawl up power poles, fiddle with electrical meters and even try to tap into natural gas lines to save a few dollars.

It's called utility theft and thousands of Canadians use wire splicers, wrenches and whatever it takes to steal

neighbor is engaging in this illegal activity.”

Bell has a “full-fledged security force,” though Kulbach won't say how big the staff is. The company also has developed its own computer software designed to catch people trying to breach seeurity.

Such telecommunications theft is carried out by “ freaks” — people who simply get a thrill out of

from Canada's hydro, teleph and cable

But thieves should beware. The utility police are watching.

Utility companies, trying to cut losses from the ofien overlooked crime, don't intend to be easy on victims. Most have jdevoted full-time staff to keep an eye on customers who may be bilking the system.

“All utility companies in North America are becoming increasingly aware of the problem,” said Bruce Main, energy use supervisor for B.C. Hydro. “These people are just trying to get something for nothing and they cost everyone more.”

The utility police don’t carry guns or wear shiny badges. Often they are non-descript repairmen trained to be more ci They drive ps cars looking for damaged electrical meters or suspicious wires dangling from power poles.

They use cameras, take fingerprints to prove meters or circuit board tampering, and occasionally obtain warrants to search homes and seize equipment.

“We use good old-fashioned detective work,” James Kulbach, security manager for Bell Canada, the country's largest teleph pany, said in a teleph interview from Toronto. “In most cases we get irrefutable proof.”

Sometimes utility thieves are brought to justice by a snoopy neighbor wondering why the guy next door is tinkering nocturnally with his gas line.

COMPUTERS HELP

“B.C. Hydro is assisted by computer records which can show large swings in bills,” said Main. “But sometimes we just get a call from someone saying their

talking over long distances — and computer hackers

seeking free access to electronic bulletin boards around the world.

“There's an underground network of software

to i I jicati systems,”

said Kulbach. “But it’s getting harder for them.”

Utility companies won't give details of how people steal power or telecommunications. But finding out isn't always as tough as it should be since popular technical magazines often carry classifieds offering how-to book- lets.

One of the biggest losers may be cable companies, who provide television reception to about 65 per cent of Canadian households and receive in excess of $800 million dollars annually.

Frank Eberdt, executive vice-president for Rogers Cable TV in Vancouver, Canada's second-largest cable market, estimates as many as two per cent of households are hooked up illegally. About half of that is likely outright theft, he said, while the rest may simply be administrative error.

“It's a pretty universal problem around Canada,” he said. “There's no question there is theft or service and we have a full-time staff of four who are checking on this all the time in the Vancouver-area market. It's cost effective.”

Utility thieves often take great risks in trying to cut their bills, particularly those who slice into highly explosive natural gas lines.

Power line study confirmed

OTTAWA (CP) — Can- ada’s two largest electrical utilities plan a $3-million, three-year study to deter. mine whether power lines and other sources of elec- tromagnetic fields can cause cancer in workers, officials have coi 1.

Ontario Hydro and Hydro- Quebec expect to begin the study this summer with the French utility, Electricite de France. The plans were con- firmed by Ontario Hydro official Dr. Murray Walsh and Hydro-Quebec's Dr. Michel Plante.

Hydro-Quebec initiated the

study and likely will co-ord- inate it, Plante said. Al- though the three utilities haven't decided how the cost will be shared, Walsh said Ontario Hydro could con- tribute up to $1 million. The Quebec government ordered its utility to conduct a study of the cancer risk from electromagnetic fields after public hearings into a transmission line in 1984. Plante said the state- owned French utility was asked to participate because its 110,000 employees, added to the 20,000 at Hydro-Que- bee and the 30,000 at Ontario

Hydro, provide a large stat. istical base.

The study is part of a re search program Ontario Hy. dro is planning into the pos- sible health hazards resulting from worker and public ex posure to radiation emitted by power lines and electrical appliances, Walsh said.

Plante said Hydro-Quebec plans a similar program.

In the United States and Europe, the issue of cancer and other health risks from electromagnetic radiation has prompted research for years.

Canadian authorities have

given little attention to the subject, Dr. Maria Stuchly, an electromagnetic radiation specialist with Health and Welfare Canada, said.

Gary Cwiteo, national rep- resentative of the Commun- ications and Electrical Work- ers of Canada, said “if any industry is important to this country it's the production and distribution of electrical power — up to now virtually nothing (research) has been done.

“The key research issue is cancer — we need to answer the question.”