§ - North Shore News - Friday. August 11, 2000

= VIEW

ANY lawyers like to say that

they don’t fight their cases in
the media, they fight them in
court.

Not so for the lawyers of West
Vancouver resident Allen Richardson.
They have been waging trial by media
since fast fall. Seems the usual route is
not working for them. Richardson is
an American prison escapee who vault-
ed from an New York state work camp
in 1971. He was serving an up-to-
four-year sentence for trafficking $20
worth of LSD at his then-school,
Rochester Institute of Technology.

Seems like a big price to pay for so
little dope. The judge took into
account Richardson’s admitted ram-
pant dope dealing on campus. The sen-
tence was upheld on appeal. Three
months into his jail sentence,
Richardson said bye-bye to his coun-

miatiivox

Cuts hurt society
* “Dear Editor: :
‘Due to recent plans, the Canadian Mental
’ Health Association will be cutting its advoca-
cy program, The Consumer Advocacy
Program: has helped reduce the revolving
door syndrome we see in society from mental
illness to drug and alcohol dependence, wel-
fare’and people being institutionalized in a
mental health or correctional facility.

#In-the short term the money spent on

advocacy may have saved the taxpayer millions
of dollars but it does not show up on the bud-
..get of the federal or provincial governments.
"Through. direct assistance and education,
the advocacy, program promotes indepen-
dence, networking and self help for con-
sumers.on the North Shore and throughout
British Columbia. The program assists mental
- c health consumers with issues related to dis-
"ability benefits, CCP benefits, appeals, med-
ical issues, tenancy/housing disputes, trans-
portation options, accessing community
resources, among other valuable programs.
-: In essence, this program has become an
integral link from the time a patient leaves the
«hospital to the time. when they are able to
*“gdjust to. a normal life in society.
“Doctors, social workers, or other health-
“care professionals lack time to deal with the
+, amany pressures that address a lot of the issues
-mental health consumers face during an aver-
‘age day. Definitely. more people. will fall
..* through the cracks of an already overwhelmed
« social network system we call society and end
-up on skid row, welfare, or an institution.
-~ Prevent the. degradation of our healthcare
system and society.
ce T hereby verify that I am not in favour of
cutting: the Mental Health Advocacy
Program. - : :
_ Patrick Ryan’
- North Vancouver

Hasth Shore News. tounded in 1969 as an Independent’
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Wednesday, Friday and Sunday is 61.562.

Michael Becker

try’s legal system, made his way to
Canada and took on an assumed iden-
tity to live happily after. Richardson,
by many accounts, is now a law-abid-
ing, compassionate 50 year old. He
must have had at least one enemy
though. Someone tipped off police.

Let’s be clear, although
Richardson’s situation has been fogged
with emotional and side issues,
Richardson is in trouble now for
prison escape, not pushing a little bit of
dope in the ’70s. Richardson is lucky
he is not charged with prison escape
and Canadian immigration infractions,
not to mention Canadian crimes asso-
ciated with his big lie concerning who
he really was. No authority could allow
Richardson to walk again.

The nine months he wiil likely spend
in jail until March is probably the
smallest price he could pay.

A prince among prem

Quid principi placet habet
legis vigarem.

WHAT a aaive dream.

It should have been obvi-
ous. HEL? B.C.’s lawsuit
alleging that the “New
Democratic” government
lied its way back to power in
the 1996 clection by fudging
budget figures was doomed
before it began.

The only shock — which slowly stirred
false hopes even among hardened cynics like
me — was that HELP B.C., led by plain
Kelowna printer David Stockell (almost
rhymes with Stockwell), jumped the prelimi-
nary court hurdles en route to the Supreme
Court of British Columbia.

There, Madame Jusdce Mary Humphries
threw it out without ths slightest attribution
of merit to HELP’s case. |

Which was that the Gien Clark govern-
ment projected a $200,000 budget surplus.
And which turned out to be a $355 million
deficit. :

HELDP’s accusation wasn’t that the gov- -

ernment’s figures were wrong. It was that the

government knew the figures were wrong.
Surprise! Madame Justice Humphries

found for the Establishment. :
You'll recall the anger when it soon

became clear that the 1996 budgets were way

off and that the voters who narrowly
returned the NDP government in May that
year had been conned. Oops, had just been
influenced by honest error, maybe.

Yes, even though diggers like Vancouver
Sun legislative columnist Vaughn Palmer
found that Clark’s minions ordered a series of
finance ministry projections and chose the

. “optimistic” one — and that some ministry
bureaucrats who honestly predicted a deficit

Peter Speck
98522131. (101).

pe

General Manager
$85-2131 (133)
dtootensnews.com

Newsroom Editor
S85-213% (316) -
becker @asnews.com

deeacoecesesncenesserecescvensscocncosacsccurs

Editorial Manager

a Valeris Stophorson

POINT:

WELL, YEAH,

WE WERE SCARED
WHEN THE CANADIAN
NAVY SENT IN
THE SEA KING
HELICOPTERS

were later quietly moved
out of their jobs.
And even though Palmer
wrote that the auditor-gen-
eral was under quiet pres- -
sure to make nice to the
government's “gee, we just
made an honest error”
spin. :
{n fact his report was
objective and courageous.
Not traits that get a gov-
ernment’s shiny awards.
(I'm waiting patiently for Victoria to bestow
a Dogwood or something on Jacques
Carpentier for his forthright exposure of
Dave Stupich’s massive corruption tied to the
NDP.)

But I'd bet the farm that the government
knew that it was sure to beat the scandal in
the bottom of the ninth. ;

7 Because ... think of the implications had it
lost.
We'd have an anelected judge in effect
deleyitimizing a (supposedly) democratically
elected ¢--vernment of this province.

‘Even the NDP, still in power under Ujjal
Dosanjh, might not have the nerve to tough
this one out — though I wouldn’t underesti-
mate the vast reserves of gall and arrogance

_that it might summon up. _ - ;

Theoretically, only NDP defections trig-
gering a lost vote of confidence in the legista-
ture could unseat the government. But the
public would suspect heavy partisan pressure
on the selected lieutenant-governor, the
Hon. Garde B. Gardom, to use his office’s
potential for subtle persuasion and his ulti-
mate power. ;

And the public is fickle. Also
servative, fearing instability.

“Its sympathies might swing to the poor li'l
workers’ party if it thought it was being bul-
lied. Or it might jealously resent being: ©.

, Trevor
autens

garden
of biases

basically con-

.10U KNOW
HOW MUCH DAMAGE

THOSE THINGS CAN

DO WHEN THEY
FALL ONTO A
suip’s peck?

iers... stil

denied the pleasure of kicking out the NDP.
on its own terms — fair and square in an >".
election. ar
And if the court had ruled against the °.”
government: What then the status of laws . 7:
passed since 1996 by a fundamentally illegiti-
mate government? Wouldn’t civil suits fall -
like snowflakes? ‘ vet

Allow that HELP B.C. may have present- A _

ed its case poorly. Or that it failed for iack of

evidence of what was said or done in Premier". :.“

Clark’s inner sanctum with‘his most trusted
political cronies. Or that the suit was perforce °
too narrowly directed at three NDP MLAs.
(Insufferably, and typically, one, Graeme --
Bowbrick, called the case “a drive-by smear
and hoped it would generate “a bit of a=)
bounce” for the NDP — yes, ina neat trick
of Big Lie-type inversion, in the coming elec:
tion expect the NDP to hoist the court's rul-
ing as a triumph for the government’s budget
prowess.) ° : art :
Allow, then, that Judge Humphries’
sion was soundly based in law. I still say tha
only in an unimaginably flagrant dereliction
by a government would a court swing wide
the door of chaos. -: . “8
... Surely cur judges are taught in law.scho
the words at the top of this column. Which
form a medieval legal precept: * What és ple
ing to the prince bas the force of law.-:>
Today in our nominal democracy the
prince is still with us — yea, with Hardly less
power under the cosmetics than in the days
of the Medici. But now we call them
miers and prime ministers. : 2 he
; OOO
Amused observation while perched ona’
Gulf Island: B.C. Ferries is getting whacked
for not halting the Horseshoe Bay-Nanaimo
-.run. It’s also being whacked for proposing:
end the Brentwood Bay-Mill Bay.run. The
poor corp must feel it can’t win for losing.”,
pepe . — lautens@axio: t.£0

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