6 - North Shore News - Friday, March 10, 2000 JHE capacity we humans have to twist, pull and manipulate the meaning of words in the name of law never ceases to amaze. A case of “wrongful birth” involv- ing a North Vancouver child with Down’s syndrome, as outlined in a B.C. Court of Appeal judgment released on Monday, offers just such an example. Birth by all rights is a blessing and a point of wonder. Any way you might choose to cut it, the term “wron; birth” represents an example of double speak of the highest order. Inherent to the concept is the notion that some- how the child born is responsible for its condition and in fact simply should not be. The legal issues attached to this case are equaily dangerous. Lawyers for the mother argued that the woman VIEW POINT: e speak “would have elected to terminate the pregnancy if she had been informed of the fetal abnormality in time,” accord- ing to B.C. Court of Appeal Mr. Justice Kenneth Mackenzie. Dr. Stanley Fred Morrill was found negli- gent in a 1997 lawsuit in failing to inform the family of the availability of amniocentesis testing. Amniotic fluid may be analyzed tor genetic informa- tion that would disclose whether a fetus had Down’s syndrome. According to court docunients both parents are weil-educated. Most par- ents-to-be at any age group make themselves aware of the process and challenges of pregnancy and do their homework. Informed women in their mid-30s will know that they are in a high-risk group for genetic abnormal- ities. Laying all of the blame at the feet of the doctor is wrong. WITH WCB mailbox Don’t sacritice neighbourhoods for third crossing © ‘Dear Editor: - _ T have to say that I really enjoyed the humour and spirit of Ray Sutton’s letter regarding my position on a car-based third crossing of Burrard Inlet. Ic’s just too bad that he had to put words in my mouth to make the points he wanted to make. Nowhere and at ‘no time have I ever said that cars areii"e a permanent and important aspect of contemporary society. Nor have I ever said that people only ought to use cars on the weekend. In fact, Plt let Ray and everyone else know that I am part of a two-car family. My family finds it impossible to get to work and transport kids around without two vehi- cles... - ©. Bue the difference between Ray and me is that 1 don’t » think that my or anybody clse’s reliance on automobiles ‘merits building a new crossing. : -.More to the point, [’'m just not vain enough. to think - that the temporary convenience I might get in having a new car-based crossing merits the permanent desteuction of neighbourhoods in close proximity to a tunnel termi- “nus or the long-term financial and environmental conse- quences of a tunnel. ; As to the question cf who’s smoking dope on this _issue, I have to say it’s the Transvision tunnel backers. °“They might-be able to get a tunnel for $600-$700 mil- lion — on a good day, going down hill, with a tail wind. -.. On a regular day, as Noel Wright has correctly point- "ed out, such a project will run double that. And if that’s ~ the case, it will only be a matter of time before the tun- ‘nel’s financial backers will be asking for the public to bear “the expense of it in the name of the “common good.” -Then we will find out what the term joint venture realiy means. eye : Craig Keating | *" Councillor -- North Vancouver City (tect Shore News, foonded in 1969 2s an COMPLYING REGULATIONS: A COMPROMISE & \ To Keer THE SMOKING Chiefs sound petty comp! AW, get serious, Chiefs Joe Mathias and Edward John. There are real problems between B.C.’s native Indians and the Ethnically Rest of Canada. Huffing at Lieutenant-Governor Garde Gardom for quoting a 208-year-old historical snippet is a foolish diversion from trying to resolve them. Declaration of inter- est, repeated: I briefly worked for Garde more than 15 years ago when he was interprovincial relations minister and I was out of the newspaper business. He was, and is, a prince of a man ({he’d make a betier prince than some actual ones that come to mind). Mathias and John were incensed — but, notice, Gail Sparrow, a former chief of the Musqueam, wasn’t — because Garde quoted a passage from the jour- nals of Capt. George Vancouver, written in 1792 when he was charting the Pacific * coast. The “offensive” words were: “The " serenity of the climate, the innumerable pleasing landscapes, and the abundant fertility that unassisted nature puts forth, requires only to be enriched by man to render it the most Jovely country that’ can be imagined.” it’s that “enriched by man” phrase, and the implication that the land was empty of human beings, that enrage Chiefs Mathias and John. Vancouver saw the potential through the eyes of an Englishman of his time. In fact his journals show he was relatively sensitive to the people he met, soberly recording their appearance and customs without much cultural chauvinism — though of course he would have felt “superior.” His long expedition had only a couple of brief hostile encounters with them, perhaps more proof of his prudence than of his proto-multiculturalism. The journals also show that his vessels went into many areas where there was no sign of human habitation. Density of populazion was, and is, a relative notion. Europe’s popu- lation in 1789 was about 173 trillion. Diamond Jenness, the New Zealander whose study of Canada’s Indians was once a standard work, esti- mated the country’s pre-European Indian population at 125,000. Any wonder that Capt. Vancouver saw these lush coastal lands as under-utilized, under-populated, by the dynamic stan- dards of aggressive, questing : Englishmen? And should his words never see the light of day, or emerge from the lips of a licutenai:t-governor, because they accu- rately reflect their times? . It’s hard for an old white guy to express, without sounding insincere, pro- found sympathy for the cataclysmic col- lapse of the Indian world. As when the “smelly white men,” as Chief Bill Wilson once (no doubt accurately) described them, showed up on these shores. I don’t want to imagine the smell of anybody 200 years ago. Nor can I imag- . ine that Garde was anyxning but gen- uinely astonished that his quotation ‘town hall, TransLink, or anywhere in the .,; would be taken as offensive by Chiefs : Mathias and John. . They should have better things to do. 90a . I get a sardonic laugh out of the increasing official concern: about fare eva-_ sion on public transit. It smacks of» - hypocrisy. . a When new West Van Blue Bus driver Susan Falls found rampant fare evasion and blew the whistle on it a couple of years ago — reflecting badly on the over- whelmin,-y male culture of bus driver- dom, she then being one of only two Blue Bus women drivers — she wasn’t. -. praised. She was fired, She is still fighting . to get acceptable severance pay. Ifa single voice at West Vancouver’ oy transit establishment was raised in her - defence, it must have been muttered under somecone’s breath in an empty ~~ room. : we EE I did hear one complaint about her myself. A not-tco-elderly woman told mi she was nettled when Susan asked to se edged that the petite d; of humour. wt The good lady told m heard her say to someone who showed her his transfer, “That transfer is old enough to eo GOON oes North Van District mayoral candida! David Sadler's complaint way back in October against a‘Don Bell supporter whom he alleges he saw stealing his cam paign signs was dropped by. North Vancouver Crown counsel Wednesday just days after I was told it was “unde: Disgraceful! . “ —antens@axionet.com independent suburben newspxcer and quafified | under Schedule 112, Paragraph 11% of the - Excise Tax Act, is published cach Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by HCN Publications Company and distributed t0 every door on the ait Sales Product Agreement No. 0087236. Torry Peters Photography Manager 085-2331 (160) tpelers@nsnews.com LETTERS TO THE EDITCR Letters must include your name, full address & telephone number. ViA e-mail: renshaw@nsnews.com —- Display Advertising Manager 9G0-O511 (317) -- dwhitmengnsnews.com Haws isin tr hou) ‘Baa 2134 (press