feR RS
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© CANADA, how sweet-
natured thou art. How meek
and patient are thy sons and
‘daughters, sorrowful only,
‘ that when struck they have
but two cheeks to turn. .
+ Thou art’generous to thine ene- “
Mies. Thou art generous even to thy”:
* friends, which is often a damn sight
harder, ; ,
» There has been no popular

welling up of nationalist fury as the -’

‘days pass and, as of this writing,
Bosnian Serbs continue to hold 55 /

- Canadian peacekeepers hostage in’.
the mess that is the former ;

- Yugoslavia. This speaks highly. of
the Canadian character. a

_* Or does it? Jf
“Certainly it is remarkable. In
other countries, and certainly in
most other times, sabres would be

“rattling all over the place. —

If it were 19th-century Britain,
cold letters protesting the outrage

- would be appearing in The Times,
soon followed by hot whiffs of
. grapeshot from British gunboats.

Canada, in contrast, is slow to

wrath. ‘ ‘

_.. In fact, for a change, the
Canadian government seems to be
well ahead of the people on this
issue — certainly in its indignation.

‘” Unless the situation has changed
rapidly since I bent my deadline
with this piece, Prime Minister
Jean Chretien is more impatient
about the matter than the average
Joe. ;

Trevor
Lautens

ae,

GARDEN OF BIASES

The wrinkle is that the main tar-
get of Chretien’s annoyance is not
the hostage-holding Serbs but the
Americans.

A classically Canadian stance
after all, perhaps.

Canada shrinks from being
beastly to all those who are deli-
cately described as “ethnics.”

But the Americans? Ha, they're
fair game. They're friends. What
else are friends for?

_ Actually, in this case there’s
more justification than usual for
scolding the Americans, who have
had a poorish week in these parts
— what with Baltimore squawking
like wounded orioles after the Grey
Cup game.

UN REFORM measures introduced
Wednesday by Justice Minister Allan
Rock shoot half-straight.

The suggestion to increase mandatory min-
imum sentences for those who use a gun dur-
ing the commission of a serious crime or
Criminal Code offence is right if we are to
distinguish ourselves as a people who have a
low tolerance for armed violence.

The safe society is a laudable condition to
strive for. We look to the south to see the path
not to take,

Such a measure will go far to mitigate the
outcome of plea bargaining. But we will have
to pay more for our criminal system to
secommiodate such a hardening of the line.

It is in the realm of gun and criminal where
any legislative changes should focus its atten-
tion. Slam those who possess stolea guns full
force. Step up vigilance at the borders to

choke off the flow. of illegal guns into the
country. Those who smuggle must be made to
pay in a meaningful way.

Throughout the debate and public rela-
tions jockeying that takes place’ across
Canada whenever the federal government
attempts to rejig firearms policy, the spokes-
men for those with legally owned firearms
scream of gun control hysteria.

They are right. Gun registration sounds
swell on the surface, but who will actwatly
gain by such a move? It will mean nothing to
the criminal. It means much to the gun owner.
If there are, as some figures indicate, approx-
imately seven million gun owners in Canada
holding 21 million weapons, the potential rev-
enue source in terms of registration fees col-
lected by government is substantial,

Gun registration smells of an easy cash
grab.

President Bill Clinton is backing
the crumbling Bosnian Muslims,
for heavy reasons of realpolitik.

The U.S. spin is that a sturdy
Bosnia would be a moderate
Muslim state, and thus a beacon to
states struggling to keep Islamic
fundamentalists at bay.

Skeptics suspect that, however
ugly the Bosnian Serbs and their
“ethnic cleansing” look, they're the
heavies primarily because they're
winning.

The other side(s) have histori-
cally behaved nastily too when
they’ve had the upper hand.

And everyone in the Balkans is
cursed with that most dangerous of
all powderkegs, a long memory.

But it’s the Serbs who are hold-
ing the 55 Canadian soldiers, and
hundreds frorn other major states. -
But not from the U.S.

Some staunch American allies
are getting pretty shirty that the
U.S. is talking big and carrying a
soft stick, ;

When U.S. Senator Robert Dole
blamed Britain for dissension in the
usually closed ranks of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization over
the recent air strikes —— which, as
so often is the case, seem to have
had little lasting effect — Britain's
defence minister, Malcolm Rifkind,
shot back that “it il] becomes peo-
ple in countries who have not pro-
vided a single soldier on the .
ground to make that kind of criti-
cism.”

But back to Canada and the

Canadians.

Are Canadians mad at the
Serbs? Nope.

Are the papers demanding the
saving of the national honor?

Are the people marching, bumn-
ing the Serbian flag (have they got
one?) in the streets? Are the car-
toonists drawing angry caricatures
of Serbs? ‘

Nope. nope, nope. I doubt if the
cartoonists would know a Serb if
they fell over one.

The only ethnic Serb in Canada
I know of is Mila Mulroney, and
she is yummy enough to be this
paper’s Sunshine Girl.

The question naturally comes to
mind: Would Serbs be as gentle
with Canadians if the boot were on
the other foot? Try to imagine.

Canadians are so maddeningly
decent that when Jacques Parizeau
gave a speech in Toronto recently,

he became very upset when a heck- .

ler simply got close to him and
shouted displeasing things.

He complained about his host’s
security provisions.

Gee. Pretty rough, Jacques.

I mean, all you're trying to do is
secede, a principle for which more
than 600,000 Americans died in a
four-year civil war, and in this ..
country the worst you've encoun-
tered is someone who has the -
impertinence to speak unkindly to
you.

Parizeau understands Canadian ,
decency perfectly. And, naturally, is
busy exploiting it.

gyyae thle ae

A full range
of sunshine

Dear Editor:

f have been a reader of the
Nerth Shore News for {4 years and
enjoy the time I spend reading and
catching up on community events,
classified ads, etc. Thank you for:
providing this paper to North Shore
residents all these years,

However, this moming as I was
going through the paper I was real-
ly offended and decided to. write:
you about it. I was offended that the
Sunshine Girl was. in a black. bra
and panties. Isn’t that silly, we see
catalogue and sales advertisements
everyday with women posing in.
their underwear, but this morming,
after reading several interesting.
articles, t was just plain offended.

I read editorials concerning the
same topic quite often and wonder
why you haven’t. changed the

‘Sunshine Girl's dress code. .

In any case, I wonder if there is
something more positive that you
could do with this area of the news-
paper. Maybe, havea’ Sunshine
Child. or Sunshine Family ‘or
Sunshine Person wherein there

- would be a shot of a person doing.

something useful in the community ©

—- maybe to promote ‘leadership

and good deeds in the community. -
This is the first time I have writ-

_ten in to anywhere, and I did so to

complain — isn’t that a shame?
Lorri Guyot
North Vancouver, ve

i

‘Timothy Renshaw Linda Stewart
Sales & Marketing Director

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Peter Kvarnstrom
Display Manager
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Trixi Agrios
Promotions Manager”,

Valeria Stephen son
Classified Manager _
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Poter Speck
Publisher
985-2131 (101)

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Comptroller

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