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VIA Intemet: trenshaw @ dlrect.ca COMPUTER BBS - 980-8027 Worth Shore News, founded in 1907 as an indpendert suburban newsquper und qpalifled under Schedule Hf, Pangraph TIE of the Bxcse Tan Act is published each Wealresaday, Friday nd Sunadry bry North Shoee Free Press Lad. and distntetod to every dour on the Nort: Shure. Crue Post Caradisn Publications Mail Sales Prodat Agreement No. OOS7234. Mailing ras avatar mayest. led gts member Ga GO GIN": Entite contents ' © 1996 Nosh Shore Free Press tt. All rights reserved. - Das ae : LIP ERTOL ORME TANGLE DL TEES AANA CEP OTL et teh RE GALINA Heave th ANADA’S federal gag law is dead. And now its provincial counterpart, enacted by the NDP to muzzle debate during provincial elec- tion campaigns in B.C., must dic too. The fed gag law wasn’t really all that funny. It threatened with imprisonment any independent citizen or group that spent more than $1,000 during federal elections to express a political belief. It was challenged by supporters of The National Citizens’ Coalition. The group saw the law as an infringement of free speech. An Alberta court agreed and ruled the law unconstitutional ear- lier this summer. GLEN CLARK'S RATIONALE FOR WAITING UNTIL OCTOBER 291K To Tew Wis SIDE OF THE DEFICIT: NYAH, nyah, told you so. That ought ,to-be what:Don Graham, displaced by “faultless” technology from his job as lightkeeper at Point Atkinson light- HOUSE, SAYS CO caecsscsssnsesseserstegazeeessetnesens the Canadian Coast Guard. ; ! Wouldi’t blame him if he stuck his tongue out, too. _ The Coast Guard, apparently going for the gold as ‘ the most pig-headed and insensitive Canadian bureaucracy, is closing up West Coast lighthouses in defiance of massive public disapproval that has joined such opposites and unalikes as Sen. Patricia Carney the New Democratic Party government in Victoria, and the councils of West Vancouver and North Vancouver District. And last week Graham and his allies were ring- ingly vindicated by the failure of no less than four automated weather stations at West Coast light- houses before and during a raging storm. But the Coast Guard still won't adinit its de- stafling program is ill-advised and dangerous to human fife on the seas, Grahanv’s job ended May 31. But he is still liv- ing on the Point Atkinson site, in Lighthouse Park. He said that he continued to provide (unpaid) weather reports from June | to 20, but his old superior ordered that they not be received. West Vancouver council is negotiating with the federal government for a lease to preserve the site and the now-displaced 1912 equipment for histori- cal purposes. When I questioned two Coast Guard employees (who were barring entry to the site) last May, I was told, as justification for the closures, The federal government has since opted not to launch a Supreme Court of Canada appeal. The NDP’s Election Act gag law must surely also be in con- travention of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This paper you are reading now is under attack. We face fines for daring to publish “ads” objecting to provisions of the provincial Election Act which limit the amount of advertising that can be bought by interested third parties dur- ing an election campaign. Regulations under the act require third parties to register as sponsors with Elections B.C., the provincial GOSH! LL NEED AT LEAST UNTIL THEN To MAKE SOMETHING uP! i? i Storm underscores lightkeepers’ loss | thar it takes 300 staff to support each lightkeeper. That/of course can be read as a damning admis- sion of bureaucratic inefficiency — not asa ratio- nale for de-stafting the lighthouse. | O00 Sure; you can call this plain self-interest. But I hail Ottawa's decision, following the ree: ommendation in a report by George Radiwanski, to stop Canada Post from delivering advertising Ayers —: a Crown corporation competing with pri- vate-enterprise newspapers like this one. The Crown corp was “an unfair competitor,” Radwanski concluded, though he couldn't deter- mine the extent to which it was using its mail monopoly to cross-subsidize its flyer delivery — charging retailers less than the cost of the delivery. i ana I've long declared that nobody named Trevor can be entirely bad, but Trevor Carolan and 1 stiare more than the same name. + Carolan is a poet, writer, translator and teacher. No, no, that’s not our bond. I can’t possibly interview all the North Shore candidates for the Nov, 16 municipal elections, but Hd advise North Vancouver District vaters to give a thought to casting a ballot for Carolan. As president of the Deep Cove Community Associatio::, ut has labored for more thoughttul developnicn and for saving the Seymour area wilderness, He is not a tree-hugging extremist. His father, John, operated a family stonemasonry and ‘Trevor has both experience and affectionate per- sonal tigs in the building, business. But he has joined in the fight to limit the pro- posed United Properties development on the waterfront near Cates Park — a project whose erit- ics want to scale back from 179 to 100 units, and from seven storeys to four. “We're willing to countenance growth,” said Carolan. “But we don’t want ‘Mission Contra? at ngs agency that administers the Election Act. The North Shore News and Cariboo -: Press papers did not register on the « grounds that we had not sponsored =: anyone, We simply expressed our. own opinion, The papers received: warning letters and phone calls from Elections B.C. telling us to register or face being fined $500 a day per paper. A free press — the free and open dis- cussion on the part of the public using the press as a means of expression — is under attack, The battle has shifted to, the B.C. Supreme Court. It’s a fight none of us can afford to lose. / A mailbox Ernie’s attack upsets reader Dear Editor: er If any single action can indicate, when an individual has overstayed his . welcome, Ernie Crist’s diatribe in the ' Oct. 20 North Shore News ‘can, be, taken as a prime example. oo His self-serving, vicious, ‘Vand, mean-spirited distortion of the truth, as it relates to the role. of Mayor. Murray Dykeman in the issues befor “North Vancouver District Council; should indicate to all: fair-minded people one of the changes needed in: the makeup of the council. ©... Murray Dykeman_ is. ending :-hi distinguished civic career after. eight’ years of service as a councillor and ‘six. years as mayor, at a time of his own » choosing. Ernie Crist should end his time as a councillor on election day, Nov. 16, and that time ‘should be chosen tor him by the voters of North Vancouver District... -; { ; Trevor Watsor: *. ay North Vancouver : \ the Greater Vancouver Regional District telling us how much of the region’s growth we should be: accepting. o “We're obligated, as God’s stewards, to look.“ after our area in the very best way'we can. We've had one development after another shoved down our throats” —- and, speaking as one who loved Woodlands and boating on Indian Arm 30 years ago, [can attest that some of the developments: have been ugly. ee: Cwolan also took part in the protest against the. reprehensible “art" portraying the Pope and urine at the Vancouver Art Gallery, which Ta non- Catholic —- noisily denounced too, He’s runnin: as an independent, remarking that he agrees with the fiercely independent Ernie Crist “eight times”, out of 10." That's about an ‘appropriate ratio, I'd: say. Musti’t let Ernie thik he’s perfect, you know, O00 re Derrick Humphreys’ autobiography, edited by Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker bio rapher John Munro, has been published in time for the municipal elections, and former mayor and aspiring West Vancouver councillor Humphreys will be autographing it at The Book Company in Park Royal on Nov. 6-— his 83rd birthday. Publisher Ronsdale Press has renamed it The Making of a Grey Panther: The Derrick Humphreys Story — catchy, but I preferred the more modest working tithe, Good Morning, Mr. Mayor. . Either way, it’s a far more interesting tale than most self-serving autobiographies, and handsomely produced, about a man secking a remarkable return to West Vancouver council at an age when most men are snoring by the fire. : — The North Shove News believes strongly in free- dom of speech and the right of all sides in a debate to be beard, The coltonnists published in the News pre- sent differing points of view, but those views are not necessarily those of the newspaper itself.