6 — Sunday,

news wiew point

{HE GUN control bandwagon i is getting
top heavy with rhetoric. And while the
goal of getting weaponry out of the

hands of criminals is commendable, the
Ineans to that end have got to provide some
practical solutions,

Control for the sake of control does more
harm than good.

The latest entrant in the gun control-at-
all-costs department is North Vancouver City
Coun. Stella Jo Dean.

Presented at the Nov. 14 city council meet-
ing, her six-peint proposal for changes to the
Criminal Code would make it a criminal
offence: to possess a gun not registered in
your name; to fail to produce any weapon
that may be registered in your name when
ordered to produce said weapons by police
officers; to allow your registered weapons to
fail into the hands of anyone else.

Jail terms and fines would be applicable to
the above.

But the real headliner in Councillor
Dean’s list of proposed changes would make
it a criminal offence to be the occupant,
owner or tenant of any premises where an

‘ unregistered firearm is found.

Laudable in intent; ludicrous in practice.

Unwittingly being in the same room as an
unregistered weapon can hardly be consid-
ered a dangerous criminal act.

Eaforcement of such laws would be a
nightmare and do more to alienate honest
citizens from the police than it would to cut
the death toll exacted by guns and criminals.

Guns need to be controlled, but some com-
mon sense is also needed to control the gun
control lobby before the whole issue reaches
the theatre of the absurd and gets laughed
off the public!stage.

SO YOU think Canada,
including our own socialist
neck of the woods, is a free,
democratic society with jus-
tice for everyone guaranteed,

In that case meet Norma Janzen,
a §2-year-old Langley teacher of
learning-disabled children who,
with 24 years teaching service, was
fired in 1990 for refusing to join a
union after her school board negoti-
ated a closed-shop contract with it.

Under the Rand Formula used in
other provinces you are forced to
pay union dues but need not be a
union member.

That’s bad enough.

In socialist B.C., however, you
must not only pay but belong.

Mrs. Janzen believes, like many
other Canadians, that being forced

_ to join a union in order to keep her ,

job violates her individual freedom
of association guaranteed by the
Charter of Rights.

Backed by the National Citizens
Coalition, which undertook to pay
her legal costs, she launched a court
challenge against her dismissal
which also sought damages from
the school board.

But she was not up against just
the Langley school trustees for
long.

The Canadian Labor Congress,
with its army of top-priced lawyers,
decided this kind of “anti-union”
nonsense must be quashed once and
for all.

It applied to participate in the
proceedings with “intervenor” sta-
tus,

Earlier this year the B.C.
Supreme Court granted the CLC
request to intervene in the case
without any prior agreement on
costs.

’ Go figure, then, where Mrs.
Janzen would be if she lost.

Stuck not only with school
board costs but also with the $200-
an-hour tabs of the CLC’s battal-
ions of barristers and those of ‘any
other intervenors.

Potentially, the fina! bill could
run to hundreds of thousands of
dollars — bankrupting Mrs. Janzen
or even her NCC backers.

She applied, therefore, to appeal
the B.C. Supreme Court ruling on
open-ended costs for intervenors to
the Supreme Court of Canada.

On Nov. 3 the Supreme Court
refused permission for thé appeal.

“In backing the B.C. court, the

HOPE AINS ATE WTAE LB i oS AO

Noel
Wright

HITHER AND YON

Supreme Court of Canada has
essentially declared today that rich
and powerful groups should have
carte blanche to unlimited costs,
should individuals dare to chal-
lenge them in court,” said NCC
president David Somerville.

The ruling, he declared, “has
just priced justice out of the zeach
of Canadians.”

Mrs. Janzen trusted in the
Charter of Rights and equality
before the law. As a result, she’s
been robbed of her 24-year career
and livelihood with no practical
possibility of redress.

And that — to paraphrase
Walter Cronkite — is the way it is,
Nov. 20, 1994, in the People’s
Republic of British Columbia.

SIGN-OFF: Missing from the late
November calendar this year: will
be the annual show of new paint-
ings by West Van artist Daniel
Izzard at the Harrison Galiery..A
severe bursitis in the elbow of his
painting arm slowed down his nor-
matly prolific summer output, post-’
poning the display of his latest
works until sometime in 1995 —
but he's still managed to raise $800
for the United Way by painting
auctioned T-shirts ... Many happy-
retums of today, Nov. 20, to North -
Van's Ethane Wardell ... And still
in North Van, more of the same
today to Rex Hundleby.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: In mid-
dle age so much goes to waist.

Poter Speck.
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