We took it fair and square

SEND FOR the cops! ‘‘Racists’’ are popping up all over.

First it was anyone who ques-
tioned Quebec, then it was anyone
who opposed bilingualism, then it
was anyone who opposed rot-
your-country immigration.

Then the Indian gai on the
Spicer Circus said that the col-
league who dumped on that show
was a racist. And now Chief
Justice Allan McEachern is one.

That, at least, is the conclusion
to be drawn from all the bubble
and squeak arising from his deci-
sion on the Indian land claim.

How dare he find that the pro-
vince owns the province, and that
Joe Mathias & Co. are just ordi-
nary folk, like the rest of us! How
dare he quote someone who said
that before the whites arrived, In-
dians’ lives were nasty, brutish
and short!

Let’s have none of that truth
trash around here. Truth is not
what the gliberal gang wants to
hear. It wants to hear that B.C.
has been handed over to people
who couldn’t manage it anyway.
That way we can prove we’re not
racists. And now the churches
have joined the maniac chorus.
Which of course was to be ex-
pected.

Nor did the CBC let us down.
The day the decision was an-
nounced its Evening News spent
20 minutes putting it down, com-
plete with a tame professor who
viewed it with alarm. (The CBC
has a whole rack of tame pro-
fessors to whom it turns when its
opinions need bolstering.)

Not that it was alone. The cries
of rage and pain were on most TV
newscasts, and blubber merchants
had a Wailing Wall of a time. Jim
Fulton the NDP MP was heard to
say on radio that the decision was
a “racist decision.” Joe Mathias
sang the same song.

Similar drivel was peddied by

W V residents debate

LOCAL RATEPAYER and
community groups attending a re-
cent annual budget meeting told
West Vancouver District Council
to hold the line on spending dur-
ing what many believe will be a
tough economic year.

By Maureen Curtis
Contributing Writer

Adding all the “wish list’’ items
to the proposed 1991 budget cf
about $31 million, would increase
the budget by at least 17.6 per
cent, a figure deemed unaccep-
table by both council and West
Vancouver ratepayers. Adding in
two major discretionary items — a
new No. 5 Firchall and second
recreation centre — would push
the budget up by 41 per cent.

Ald. Andre Danyliu doubted
that the budget could be brought
in under a 6.5 per cent increase
over last year’s $26-million total
for the municipality.

“IT personally won’t vote for
anything in excess of 6.5 per
cent,’ he said.

But representatives of the
Ambleside & Dundarave
Ratepayers wanted the budget
lowered much further.

“In the face of ongoing reces-
sion, this association does not
support any increase whatsoever,’
submitted Capt. George Murrell.

West Vancouver Mayor Mark
Sager said that failure to keep up
with inflation in the budget would
make it difficult for the
municipality to comply with union
agreements for staff salary in-
creases without cutting programs
elsewhere.

The Ambleside & Dundarave

Doug
Collins

ae

ON THE OTHER HAND

Bill Wilson. Remember him? He’s
not a racist of course. He just
thinks his folk should have killed
all the whites in the first place. If
they had, though, he would never
have gone to university. A little
gratitude would be in order, Bill.

Enough daftness has been com-
ing from the media on this thing
to fill the Fraser River.

Reporters have been acting as if
they were public relations people
for the misnamed First Nations,
and it wouldn’t surprise me if they
al} turned up on the Lions Gate
Bridge wearing blankets, banging
drums, and shuffling their feet
along with old Joe.

Terry Glavin of the Vancouver
Evening Wimp is that paper’s
native affairs reporter, and the
day before the decision was an-
nounced he took readers to an
Indian cemetery where an Indian
with the unlikely name of Don
Ryan pointed to the gravestones
and said, ‘‘These are the plain-
tiffs.’ Alas poor Yorick! Gavin
was at it again later in a bilious

WEST VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL

Ratepayers had other suggestions.

Although he was pleased with
the preparatory budget work done
by the municipality’s new finan-
cial task force, Roff Johannson
called for even more financial
planning, ‘which should be tied
specifically to the community
plan.”’

**We have to recognize that we
have no long-term plan,”’ said
Johannson.

He also suggested that there be
some sort of audit of managerial
effectiveness at municipal hall.

Another member. of the same
group, Lionel Lewis, complained
that West Vancouver's taxes have
gone up by about 30 per cent in
the last four years, making them,
he believed, the highest in the
Lower Mainland.

Lewis also criticized West Van-
couver’s practice of conducting
residential surveys and hiring con-
sultants to do work for the hall.

But parks director Kevin Pike
said the municipality hires ‘‘exper-
tise that we don’t have at the
hall.”*

West Vancouver
Good Government
David Hall asked why the
municipality compiles a ‘‘wish
list’? budget rather than trying to
keep it to an inflationary level
from the beginning.

Sager said council would be
looking at separating out many of
the discretionary items in future.

‘*But we don’t want to
discourage staff from putting
these ideas forward,’* Sager said,

Citizens for
spokesman

bellyache on CBC national radio.

One might as well expect Dr.
Squint to say a kind word for the
forest industry as think that native
affairs and municipal reporters
will say something that favors
whites. It’s the fashion.

Cast an eye where you would,
and the story was the same. Was
anyone, anywhere, allowed to say
“Hey, this decision is a damned
good thing and thank God for
Mr. Justice McEachern!’’?

Meanwhile. barring a miracle,
there is scant hope on the horizon.
For you may be sure that when
Mike Harcourt takes over, the
first thing he will do after increas-
ing MLAs’ salaries and putting
Aziz Khaki on the Human Rights
Council will be to hold a potlatch
in which the Red Brothers will be
the big winners.

Even Stanley Park won’t be
safe. You can see the drift in
Mikey’s sly statements.

As with Neville Chamberlain,
his ‘‘negotiate’’ means giveaway.
Mark my words, comrades! So it’s
a pity so many people are so con-
cerned about a non-issue like Fan-
tasy Gardens that they can’t see
the wood for the trees.

Apart from Bill Wilson, who is
in a class of his own, the Nobel
Prize for Strangeness goes not to
the media, the Indians or even the
pols, It goes to academe in the
shape of a professor called Terry
Anderson. If he was quoted cor- __
rectly, which one can hardly cred-
it, he said:

**We were the newcomers, the
invaders, and when you move into
someone else’s territory, whether
you're Saddam Hussein, or
whomever (sic) you have to make
a case for it.”’

We have made a case for it,
teacher. We took it fair and
square.

Allah Akbar! God is Great!

increases

“many of those items will have to
be addressed eventually.’’

Two such items, a long called—
for No. 5 Firehall and a second
recreation facility (to replace
Eagle Harbor Recreation Centre
which is going back to School
District 45 use) would push the
proposed budget up 41 per cent.

Hall criticized council members
for voting themselves a nine per
cent salary increase and question-
ed various budget items, including
a cross-country watermain, which
is intended to offset water short-
ages in summer and lower the cost
of purchasing water from the
Greater Vancouver Regional
District.

Chamber of Commerce presi-
dent Roger Cayford advised
council to look at each budgetary
item in terms of its advantage 10
the citizen of West Vancouver,
and in particular he questioned
the usefulness of participation in
so many North Shore advisory
groups.

Chamber past-president Bill
Soprovitch reiterated his ongoing
concerns with the viability of
businesses in West Vancouver and
questioned the need for a second
recreation centre in the
municipality.

West Vancouver's budget is due
to be finalized and submitted to
the provincial government this
spring.

About $26 million was raised in
taxes last year, but West Van-
couver spent $26.6 million on base
operations and $5.3 million on
capital expenses, which was offset,
in pan, by $5.9 million in reve-
nue.

The municipality also collects
money for the school district, the
GVRD and the hospital.

Wednesday, March 20, 1991 - North Shore News - &

Wolo

Correction Notice
EASTER MAGIC FLYER
Appearing Mar. 20, 1991
Page 9 — Evenflow Joyride
carseat should have read: Reg.
$81.98, Sale $77.99.

Woolco is sorry ior any in-
convenience this may have
caused its customers.

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