ee ee aa AE I RINE A NRTA em em met a aro oe A6-Wednesday, August 6, 1980 - North Shore News _ editorial page Duty to the future It is good to hear that North Vancouver District council is going to take a look at the possibility of contributing to the purchase of the historic Stoker Farm site at Lonsdale and 29th. District council will debate the matter August 11. Meanwhile, City council has already instructed its land agent to study how the City could purchase “all or part” of’ the property in order to preserve it for future generations. The Stoker family wants to sell the farm soon because it is reportedly costing them $1,000 a month just for heat and taxes. The price tag is estimated at up to $1.5 million and commercial developers are said to be “waiting in the wings” with offers. Im these difficult economic times we are all in favor of strict control over the spending of taxpayers’ dollars. Nevertheless, there are still occasions when councils -- and the communities they represent -- have a duty to the future as well as to the present, as Alderman Peter Powell pointed last week. We think the opportunity to save Stoker from the developer’s bulldozers for the lasting enjoyment of posterity is one of those occasions. The North Shore has all too few monuments of this kind to the achievements of its pioneers. It can ill afford to throw away the handful that remain. We hope North Van's two councils will reach the same conclusion. For inspiration they need only glance south across the First Narrows. H money had been alli that mattered, Stanley Park today would be 1,000 acres of highrises. No contest Russia claims that the U.S. boycott of this summer's Olympics was a failure. A great time was had by all present and the Soviets, of course, emerged the winners of the games. Which was hardly surprising. Out of the 20 Olympics of the modern series the U.S. has won 14 and Germany (which also stayed away) one. In that sense, at least, the boycott assured a Russian victory. sunday news north shore _— news 1139 Lonsdale Ave North Vancouver, B C V7M 2H4 (604) 985-2131 NEWS 085-2131 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIED CIRCULATION 980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chiet Robern Graham Noel Wright Advertising Olrector Eric Cardwell Classified Manager Production & Office Administrator Tim Francis Berni Hikard Faye McCrae Managing Editor Andy Fraser News Editor Photography Chris Uoyd ENsworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Barbara Keen Morth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent Commun ty newspaper and qualified under Schedule I Pan I Paragraph I ot the Excise Tan Act is published oach Wedneaday and Sunday ty North Shore Free Press (td and distributed to every duo on the North Shore Second Class Mail Reystration Number 166% Samacriptions $20 per yom Fate contents «980 North Shore Free Press Lid Afinghts reserved No responsibility accepted tor manusciipte and pictuwreag which slamped addressed return envelope vanracite Weed! onatonial Stecnnsied bye ete VERIFIED CIRCULATION 60,870 Wednesday 49,913 Sunday THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE tre We ae Sarygy companied try oa CANADIAN COMMENT BY PETER fARD OTTAWA (SF) - Defence Headquarters here is delighted with publicity surrounding the heavy spring NATO naval exercises in the ‘Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic off the Straits of Gibraltar, because the allied activities have’ underlined Canada’s naval vulnerability. The set of three exercises, involving seven Canadian warships and nearly 100 warships of other NATO nations, were staged at a time when the backbone of NATO maritime strength - the U.S. Navy - was stret- ched to the very limit. Task forces of the USN in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, on station because of Afghanistan and Iran, meant that virtually everything on the U.S. eastern seaboard wearing USN colors was at sea and on duty, away from home. As usual, Soviet naval forces were on hand to watch, gathering electronic intelligeuce on NATO naval tactics and making it plain that the Soviets are a world maritime power with growing strength. NATO sources claim that the Soviets have roughly $50 billion worth of warships now under construction, including eight to 12 battle cruiser-type vessels, nuclear powered, and apparently Our navy: too little too late... destined to be the key ships in future Soviet task forces deployed in every ocean of the world. Such strength will allow the Soviets to send powerful forces within hours to any trouble spot in the world, offering at the very least psychological support to governments . or 337°M9 O.M \ \ \ S\ “Of course insanity is hereditary, Mrs. Figby. You get . it from your children.” B.C. Day being a working day for us inky- fingered scribes, it seemed as good a day as any to summarize all you ever western separatism, but ask. At the moment there are four western separatist movements, each promoting its own particular brand of separatism im lively com- petition with the other threc. The biggest — so far as they can be measured ac- curately for size at all at this stage — appears to be the Western Canada Federation Inc. (West Fed for short) based in Edmonton and Ied by a farm implement dealer named Elmer K nutson. At a mecting last week in Vancouver, attended by nearly 300 peopic, Kautson claimed about 5,000 members, including ap- prozimately 500 in BC. West Fed calls for an clected constituent assembly to draft a federal constitution for the four western provinces plus the far north. Closer to home are the Vancouver-based Western National Party (WNP) and the Western Canada Con- cept (WCC) working out of Victoria. The WNP ts headcd temporarily by its secretary. realtor Stan Bennett, and 1s scheduled to clect a president and Icadcr at tts next general meeting “INDEPENDENT NATION” Bennett puts present WNP membership at “somewhere” between 1,000 and $,000 mostly in B.C. though with inroads starting to be made into Alberta. Let's be gencrous and concede him maybe 3,000. The WNP’s big project is to run candidates in as many B.C. ridings as possible at the next provincial election. The WCC, led by Victoria wanted to know about thought it bad taste to. lawyer Doug Chnstie who split from the WNP a few months ago, says it has about 1,500 members — _ 1,000 fairly evenly spht between B.C. and Alberta, with 300 in Saskatchewan andthe balance in Manitoba. Like West Fed, the WCC wants a “new independent nation” comprising every- thing from top to bottom of the map west of Ontario. And its immediate plan, like that of the WNP, is to run provincial candidates with the aim of winning control (in the style of the Parti Quebecois) of all four western legislatures. Finally comes the Unionest Party (the name is a combination of “union” and “best” which ts a scparaust group of quite a different stripe. It was launched in April by former Saskatchewan Tory teader Dick Collver who crossed the floor of the legislature to sit as an in- dcpendent. It calls for the four western provinces to quit Canada and become part of the United States. Collver claims to have about 1,000 supporters signed up, with 300 of them n BC TAXES, TARIFFS Whatever thetr dif: four groups agree that the west pays too ferences. all much in federal tarnes for what it gets out of Ottawa And all four are mad at the tarslls that protect manufacturing industry jobs in Ontano and Quebec at the expense of higher prices for westerners They also agree that ffoghsh should be the by Noel Wright language of the new country — which West Fed and the WwccC say should be a constituvuonal monarchy. Even by their own op- timistic) reckoning the combined membership of the four groups from the Manitoba border westward totals at most a litth: over 10,000. In itself this may hardly be enough to cause Prime Miuinister Pierre Trudeau sicepiess nights. But what of the hitherto stient onlookers in the four westerm provinces? North Van-Bumaby MP Chuck Cook recently polled his constituents on the westerm scparatism question, receiving more than 1,200 rephes. The nub of the response was the question of increased powers for BC visa vis Ottawa Given increased powers for the province (though 1 wasn't quile clear cxactly what they were to be), 90% of Mr Cook's respondents opted for remaining within Confedcraton However, if no increased powers were forthcoming. 3O% favored western scparatism m= some form, S% wanted BC to go tt time for Canada and for the western alliance. How the West could be lost revolutionary movements of the Soviet ideological stripe. NATO nations, most of them, are worried about the new Soviet appreciation of sea power, and the spending Moscow has ordered to give her this superiority. There are new warship programs in the U.S., Britain, Holland, France, and Germany. Canada? Well, we're seriously thinking about building six new budget anti- submarine frigates, but the program is too late by at least 10 years. In 1970 Canada had a 30- ip navy. Today there are 20, 16 of those destroyers due for retirement pensions. By the time we couild put the six new ones in service, even at an optimistic estimate, all those 16 older ships will be meat for the bone yard. That will leave us with 10 effective warships in 1990 at an extremely crucial alone as a separate sovereign state, and 4% advocated B.C. joiming the United States. A single swallow does not a summer make. But if Mr. Cook's 1,200 constituents are in any way represen- tative of B.C. and western sentiments at this juncture in our history, they at least provide some unpalatable food for thought in Ottawa. PRICE FOR STAYING Nourishing political food, at the same time, for Premiers Bill Bennett and Peter Lougheed as they heat up the western fed-bashing campaign against Ottawa on the division of powers with the provinces. You can be assured that both premiers are watching scenarios like Mr. Cook’s with a much keener interest than they would admit publicly at the moment. For Mr. Cook's scenario indicates, at its face valuc, that better than one out of three British Columbians are already prepared to set their price for staying in Con- federation — just like Premier Rene Levesque's supporters in Quebec. The ominous difference being that western scparatism 15 3 comparatively new conccpt with its potential growth period still ahead. Mr. Cook, who personally wants B.C. to remain in Confederation, fears that one false step by Ottawa — such as the imposition of an unfair tax measure or 4 unilaterally repatriated constitution — could quickly fan the present Mlickerings of B.C. and western separatism into a consuming blaze. The starting fucl is already to hand. And the moment often produces the messiah. Mr. Cook may be unduly pessimistic. But stranger things have happened before in the course of history.