Seente golfand country club
IMAes Mountiins and ecedan
with greens and furways,

ant ie

‘

SWISS BLISS

Wilham Fell Restaurant's
Swiss Varmer’s Butter
not to be missed.

NEWS photo Nell Lucente

DELTA FIRE Department members get up to ful! speed during the antique hose reel race at the
13th-annuai Hose Reel Festival held Saturday at Mahon Park. The packed event drew partici-
pants from fire departments throughout the Lower Mainland.

Squamish Nation to unveil its own Lions Gate option

A SQUAMISH Nation leader claims his
people have been taken for granted in
the process to replace the Lions Gate

Bridge. The band therefore plans to
release details of its own proposed First
Narrows crossing on May 25,

By Kate Zimmerman and
Anna Marie D’Angelo

Future bridge traffic to the North Shore will
likely travel across land owned by the Squamish,
as it does now.

But Squamish Chief Philip Joe told the News
that the band, a major stakeholder. feels it has
not been sufficiently consulted by the provincial
government and other bridge interest groups.

it has therefore decided to become part of the

process, rather than remain on the
bridge plans, Joe said.

The band and a consortium including the
Montreal-based engineering firm SNC-Lavalin
Inc., phins fo build a toll bridge.

Details of the proposal will be released at 3
p-m. next Wednesday at the Robson Square
Conference Centre in Vancouver.

But North Vancouver-Lonsdale NDP MLA
David Schreck rejects assertions that the
Squamish Nution was not adequately consulted
or was shut out of the new crossing process.

“Chief Joe Mathias plays a prominent role in
many aspects of relations with the provincial
government,” said Schreck.

“He can pick up the phoue and talk to whoev-
er he wants lo whenever he wants.”

Schreck added that “it’s been known since
Day One" that an agreement with the Squamish

fringe of

Nation is necessary if & new crossing is situated
on native land.

Betty Nicholson, manager of communications
for major projects al the Ministry of Highways.
also denies that Squamish interests have been
neglected.

“The ministry has had a number of meetings
with the Squamish Nation because the Squamish
Nation is a key stakeholder,” she said.

Engineers, bureaucrats and city planners have
been working for years on a variety of plans to
replace the failing Lions Gate.

All are complicated by the fact that the
Squamish own substantial parcels of reserve Jand
on the North Shore and the federal government
owns Stanley Park.

The bridge causeway is leased to the provin-

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