4 — Wednésday, Novemtier 2, 1988 -

North Shore’ News _

CANADIANS, IF you think about it, have a unique role to
play when it comes to the environment.

As custodians of the second
largest sovereign hunk of territory,
with its attendant air space and
200-mile-limits at sea, we have a
relatively larger responsibility on a
per capita basis in terms of protec-
tion of the biosphere than any
other people on Earth.

We aren't conditioned to think
of it this way, but this is the truth.
If everybody has a bit of responsi-
bility for protecting a part of the
planetary system, we, as a few
people in a huge country, have
more responsibility than others.

You could break it down into
some sort of cubic units of
hiosphere per person. I have no
idea what it would be, but our
share, as Canadians, would be
larger than, say, somebody in
Japan, where there are far more
peopte squeezed into a far smaller
space.

Therefore, just in the ordinary
course of events, Canadians ought
to see themselves as carrying a
larger ecological burden, if you
like, than others.

During an election, and especial-
ly this one, coming as it does hard
on the heels of the first wave of a
massive ecological disaster, each of
our votes therefore carrics more
potential clout in terms of doing
something to stem the tide of
pollution and environmental
destruction than anybody’s vote in
any other country.

The beleaguered and befouled
Earth needs all the votes it can get
right now.

It is to no national Canadian
leader’s credit that al] three major
parties are thumping the en-
vironmental drum right now. As
usual, they are simply following
the polls. The environment is col-
lapsing, Canadians are getting
around to noticing, and so the par-
ties are finally making noises.

In the past, all three national
parties have been in agreement on
every single major environmental
issue — on the wrong side.

They unanimously supported the
seal hunt. They were all in favor of
the whaling industry and no one
complained when Canada pulled
out of the International Whaling
Commission in a snit, rather than
change its vote when it became
apparent the whalers were starting
to lose.

All three national parties sup-

V/V voters

THERE HAS been a substantial
decrease in the number of voters
on this year’s West Vancouver
District List of Electors, Ald.

David Finlay, acting chairman of
the Court of Revision, has noted.

The decrease to under 20,000
voters results partly from the fact
that British subjects are no longer
eligible to vote.

About 6,500 names have been
taken off the list, including British
subjects and people who have died
or moved,

There were about 1,400 new reg-
istrations, however.

According to returning officer
and municipal clerk Doug Allan,
West Vancouver District Council
approved an enumeration to up-
date the list. The last partial
enumeration was in 1984, and the
last full one in 1974.

Instead of undertaking a door-

port nuclear power. They all sup-
port megaprojects that trash the
environment, such as oil develop-
ment and hydroelectric dams. And
they automatically support such
traditional environment-wrecking
activities as mining and forestry.

The NDP, for all the noise it has
made about protecting the en-
vironment, is eager to subsidize
new energy development, despite
the fact that use of coal, gas and
oil is bringing on acid rain and the
greenhouse effect.

[, is to no national
Canadian leader’s credit that
all three major parties are
thumping the environmental
drum right now. AS usual,
they are simply following the
polls.’”

Ic dors not appear to have regis-
tered on the NDP that transmis-
sion corridors and pipelines
destroy farmland and wilderness,
and oil spills destroy the ocean —
all of which are the inevitable
side-effects of megaprojects.

The federal government is pum-
ping $5 billion into the Hibernia
oil field of f Newfoundland, an oil
sands project in Alberta, and an
oil upgrader scheme in Saskat-
chewan. Does the NDP protest
these environmental horror
stories? No. It only complains that
they were not brought on strean.
sooner.

The NDP would throw billions
and billions of dollars at the
resource industries, which have
been raping the land for over a
century, so that they can do it ona
larger scale — and then the social
democrats, in their new-found
ecological wisdom, would set up
an Environmental Clean-up Fund
amounting to a piddling $200 mil-
lion.

The Tories and Liberals, it goes
without saying, are no better. The
difference is that they have awful
records, having been in power,
whereas the NDP is unproven.

But on the critical question of
subsidized energy use, the three
parties are virtually indistinguish-
able,

decrease

to-door enumeration, the
municipality compared the
municipal list with the results of
the provincial enumeration, which
only registered Canadian citizens.

There were 12,000 discrepancies,
8,000 of which were obvious errors
{inclusion of middle name or initial
on one list but not the other).

About 5,000 names were of
people who had moved, while
about 1,000 were cither deceased
or their whereabouts unknown.

These findings reveal that the
last municipal election in 1986 saw
one of the largest voter turnouts,
ever.

Had the 6,500 names been ex-
cluded from the List of Electors at
the last municipal election in 1986,
this would have shown a voter turn
out of approximately 66 per cent,
as opposed to the 49.86 per cent
turn out that was reported.

Anyone not registered may do so
on Polling Day, Nov. 19, or prior
to that at the Clerks Department at
municipal] hall.

You have to keep in mind that
subsidized energy is the reason
Canadians squander it so
outrageously. Some 12 per cent of
our gross national product is spent
on energy, compared with a coun-
try like Japan where it only
amounts to five per cent —- a fac-
tor, incidentally, in the success of
the Japanese economy.

In terms of the environment, of
course, it is the free trade deal that
rouses the biggest fears and has in-
cited the wildest rhetoric.

Some 90-odd environmental
groups have come out against the
trade pact on the grounds that it
has ‘‘profound and disastrous im-
plications for the Canadian en-
vironment, and may fundamental-
ly undermine the principles of en-
vironmental protection and sus-
tainable resource management,’’
according (o an analysis prepared
by the Canadian Environmental
Law Association.

As a supporter of the free trade
deal, and a long-time environmen-
talist, this is the question that
disturbs me the most. Is it true? Or
have the environmental] groups
dragged out a red herring?

Next: Free trade and the en-
vironment @

2625 W. 4th-Ave..
Kitsilano:

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LEADER CLUB ANNOUNCEMENT

dim Moore, Regional Manager and Canada
Trust Co. Real Estate Division are proud to
announce that Michael! Stacey has again
qualified for membership in the Canada
Trust Leader Cluo. This is Mike's second
year as a Canada Trust Leader Club
member & Mike is also a top producer in
our West Vancouver branch.

The Leader Club was established to
tecognize and reward our top salespeople
for their outstanding accomplishments ‘or
the year. His largely due to their efforts that
Canada Trust has become one of Canada's
leading real estate brokers. For any of your
teal estate needs, put a proven professional
to work for you. Call Mike Stacey at
922-1244 (olf.) or 921-7605 (Res).

Ste