6 - North Shore News — Friday, September 15, 2000

———— = VIEW POINT-

Sit

ANCOUVER is turning into
a small town.

The Canadian j jews “fl of a city on the
Pacific Coast is risking the loss of its
international big Jeague appeal. That
appeal came to fruition during Expo
86.

Let’s look at the New Year’s cele-

‘bration for the Year 2000 in the
Vancouver area. [t was a great night if
you were a cop. There is nothing like
working triple overtime in a ghost
town. Why didn’t we just roll up the
sidewalks and ‘save ourselves zhe
international embarrassment?

Now nine months later, the plight
of the First Narrows crossing
between Vancouver and the North

gap bridge

Bridge is a good word for a bad idea.
Putting new parts on an old, outdat-
ed bridge continues to look like a
stopgap measure.

If the refurbishment actually
works, and the jury is still out on this
important point, and when every-
thing is finished, another big ques-
tion mark, there will be essentially no
changes. We remain stuck in a three-
Jane time warp.

For Vancouver to be a big city with
a future, a tunnel across the inlet is
the only option. A third crossing, not
a bridge makeover, makes more sense
looking down the road. Vancouver’s
future could include a successful win-
ter Olympic bid. The tunnel pay off
will be worth the cost if done right.

{ WORK MY BUTT OFF,

STANING AS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE.
AND FOR WHAT? ONLY TO,.HAVE MY

OLNMPIC DREAMS DASHED
Just BECAUSE You
COULDN'T “VAY
OFF DRUGS..-

CIRICBZOO

Shore highlights the myopic mentali-
ty enveloping us here.
. Refurbishing the Lions

Gate _ better.

a mailbox: -
‘School thanked for
~ help in finding son

_ Open letter to Mr. Bill Reid, principal, Ross Road school:
We went through a day no parent would ever want to go
7 through: As the parents of James (Jamie) Palmer, we have

“never felt so helpless as we did when we realized our five-

year-old ‘son was missing. When we first received the call

informing us Jamie was not in attendance for school, our first
reaction was there.was a simple mix up and things would be
‘straightened out over the tele phone. It didn’t take long for
everyone to realize we ha.‘a much more serious situation on
our hands. After communicating with the daycare and being
informed Jamie was dropped off at Brooksbank, we immedi-
“ately went to locate him, When we were unable to find bim
there, the feeling of panic then set in.

[We attribute the success of yesterday ‘firstly to the call-~

. back system which alerted us to Jamie missing from school.
Secondly, for. your team taking over. by contacting
Brooksbank school, the daycare and the RCMP.

“Ag didn’t. stop there. Photocopying Jamie’s picture with

~ personal information, organizing a group of Grade 7 stu-
‘dents, to: search the area, faculty, going. to assist at
Brooksbank; recording s step-by-step events and generally try-:
ing.to make us feel as comfortable as possible. The staff were
calm,’ organized “and: professional throughout ‘the -entire

i ordeal: and we: admire everyone for their efforts. Although

iencing made us feel like we. were not alone. Thank you
very much to you and the staff. .
Mark’and Wendy. Palmer oe
North Vancouver foe a

LIKE TO SHARE AN OPINION? .
Business Hours: Tim Rinshaw -
“.-. .- Managing Editor,
. 985-2131, local 116 —
. 985-2104": :

Send a fax.’ a ©
BS trenshaw@nsnews.com

S44 Paragraph 311 et the Excise Tax Act, is pubtshed

2 each: = Wednesday, Friday. and Sunday by HCN

Publications Company “and distributed to every door :
in: the North” Shore. Canada’ Post Canadian, FB
Publications Mail Sates Product Agreement No.
00g7228. Maaling rates available 0 Tequest. Entire ~
contents ° 2000 HCN Publi ns Company. All
“rights raserved. Average. circolation - for.
Hectnesday, Friday nd Sanday is 64, ant. ,

It’s the Year 2000. Vancouver and
the North Shore should be getting

ERIC LAMAZE SUFFERS THE REPERCUSSIONS
OLYMPIC DISQUALIFICATION

Polls falsify abortion opinion.

LET'S test your knowledge —
not your personal opinion:

A majority of Canadians favour abor-
tion on demand (the present legal status
of abortion) — yes or
no?

If ft can put it this
way: I suspect that a
miajority of my readers
think that a majority of
Canadians answer “Yes.”

And if you read a
new story that ran
across the nation Aug.
31, it would seem
you’ re right.

Example: The banner
headline i in The

Vancouver Sunt read: “66% are pro- -choice,

: poll finds.”

Well, that’s that. Case closed. No
room for argument, is there? So why
‘don’t these pro-life ‘ypes accept the
democratic majority; acknowledge that
two-thirds of the people disagree with
them, and stink away to dissolve like any
fringe movement such as the Flat Earth

_ Society?

Here’s why: Because no serious public

“issue is so open to fun with figures as this

one. Put another way: If you get the
power to ask the question, you can get
the answer you — or, in most cases, those
who are paying for the poll —- want.
Environics, the pollster. involved,

_ posed this question: “Every woman who
- wants to have an abortion should be able
to have one.” That drew the 66% affirma- .

af

tive response.
Walter Szetela says the truth — ‘and

the figures —- are almost exactly the con- Z

trary.

Szetela, note, isn’t a disinterested

y Tercy Peters

Pe senecerreseecsccoesenseeseresenesscsenoneaes

Baliiens

observer. He edits the newsletter of
Campaign Life Coalition B.C. Decades
ago, in my role as a sometime correspon-
dence editor, his naine became familiar to
me. And, being as vulnerable to mind-
ictures as anyone, I:
imagined he belonged -
to a, um, sincere but
somewhat low socioeco-
nomic class, maybe a
clerk or small-town
shop-owner.
In fact Szetela was a
University of B.C. pro-
fessor (now professor
emeritus), and of math-
emiatics at that. So he
has real credentials —
certainly more than that
pro-choice female student who led in
smashing a pro-life display at UBC which,
as usual, leit the gutless university admin-
istration silent. Maybe too busy preparing
the next speech extolling the university as
society’s flame-bearer of liberty and vehi-
cle of free i inquiry.

Szetela writes that the Environics poll
is “extremely misleading ... because it
glaringly evades conditions under which
those polled would support abortion.”

He has tracked Gallup Polis on this
issue-made almost every year since 1975.
The latest, last November, showed that a
majority of those polled, 55%, support
abortion only in specific circumstances,

Trever

garden
of binses

and a further 15% approve of abortion in os

no circumstances.

- “This result, showing that 70% do nat .
approve abortion on demand, the policy
prevailing in Canada today, is in ‘complete
contraposition to the narrowly worded
Environics poll,” Szetela writes. |: :

And the trend is slightly away from

: : the majoritarian pro- choice support ‘that .

LETTERS YO THE EBITGR must inclige your

name, full-address and telephone number.
Sebmit via.e-mall te: mbecker@usnews.cem | |

[After Hours Hews Tips: S85-213t (prass 3)

& Editorial Manager
985-2138 (160)
tpelersensnews com

Valerie

its proponents and their feminist allies in
the media would have you believe.
Szetela’says the Gallup figures show |
that between 1995 and 1999 support for
abortion in all circumstances fell Pom ;
35% to 28%, while opposition to abortion
in any circumstances rose from i3% to
% a
Folks, 1’ repeat myselé The Canadian
establishment, from the elected politicians
— with very honourable exceptions —~
the government-funded feminist organi-
zations, the big media (again, some
exceptions), the so-called intellectuals;
writers like Margaret Atwood who owes |
her reputation and sales of her propagan
distic novels to left-wing feminism, and’
the courts right up the bigee in Ottawa

“that Bertha Wilson dominated and. wrote

the majority opinion for in the 1988 case
that institutionalized abortion on demand
-—~ that establishment wants to shut down:
any further public discussion of the issue.
and stigmatize all dissidents from th
party line as ignorant bigots and
‘Chnstian “funcamentalists.”.

. That powerful class dossn’ ¢ want you
to think about i¢’— to prick the (bubtie)
zone and really ponder what's going on."

: And the best way to prevent that is fo:

Big Sister to keep you not just uni

: formed but mi

‘$0. there’s this’ game: ‘called brid;

a which you shuffle the decks. Yor ‘hide

what's in your hand,
-are tricks. And dummies, who ait 'still and:
do nothing. T saw it

~ - pwo-station TV. of Saturna Istand. ‘Time
\ my return for.when it. was all over.’Fel
. om as if avoiding the Second World

ind, » like war, was hell, ck

Distribution Manager
985-1337 (124) ©

bemognsriws.com

Classitied Manager °F
986-6222 (202)

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