4 — Sunday, October 18, 1992 - North Shore News

Caught

in the

constitutional
legal driftnet

Danae z

STRICTLY PERSONAL

MY WIFE and I are one of
those hard-breathing, mort-
gage-hoiding homeowner
couples who got real jittery.
real fast, when it looked
like the banks were going to
jack up the interest rates.

We figured it out on a Monday
night. My wife whistled down to
the bank first thing Tuesday
morning and started the process in
motion to get us out of a six-
month, 5%% mortgage, which
had looked like the greatest thing
since toasted bread just a few days
before.

We had, in fact, paid penalties
to get out of a previous mortgage
arrangement in order to take ad-
vantage of the 5% deal.

Hey, I’m old enough to
remember paying 20%! Back
then, } was writing columns about
how under Islamic law the
punishment for usury was having
a hand cut off. How sweetly rea-
sonable that seemed.

In the event of an Islamic take-
over, every last Canadian banker
would be one-handed, a naticnal
tragedy, although, on the bright
side it would generate badly need-
ed jobs in the prosthetics industry.
Something lost; something gained.

And now, yea these many years
later, with interest rates finally
down to a relatively reasonable
level, che playing field shifts again
because Brian Mulroney says the
sky is falling, and the Royal Bank
purpurts to tell us how much it'll
cost.

And so there was my wife skid-
ding to a halt in front of the loans
officer’s desk just minutes ahead
of the human wave of mortgage
holders, saying *‘Hey, on second
thought, why don’t we go for five
years instead of six months?”

No problemo, says the nice
loans officer. Oh, by the way,
that’l] be at 84%.

Poof! There goes a couple of
hundred dollars a month more
down the tubes, although my wife
(a genius at this sort of thirg)
assures me that by getting ahead
of the stampede, we avoided hav-
ing to lock in at 8%. Which is
where long-term mortgage rates
ended up after the interest rate
boost.

Eight and a quarter is still so
low compared with what we’ve
been dealing with as homeowners
for the last 15 years that she fig-
ured this was about as good a deal
as we could reasonably hope to
get in the foreseeable future.

Ah yes, the foreseeable future.
Not so foreseeable any longer, ch?
In this country, I don’t know
anybody who can foresee any fur-
ther than Oct. 26, except to say
that the zone layer will be thin-

ner and ve’ ll all stifl be paying
taxes to someone. .
The point is, my wife and J

Were getting a teensy taste of what
the money markets call instability.

And this was just a preliminary
ripple, if vou accept the assump-
lions built into economic doom
scenarios issued by the banks and
small businesses.

Wait until a full-blown
separatism crisis hits, they say.
Watch for a shock wave turning
the foundations of our financial
system to gravel. —

Think of a crane smashing
through the walls of nearly
everyone's lives. Like that.

Let us assume my wife and |
are fated to negotiate another
mortgage down the road, Is there
any chance of even wildly guessing
what the interest rates will be five
years from now, if by then
Canada’s keel has struck bottom?

No. Instability has been known
to feed on itself, like some sort of
Chaos Theory that gets up and
shambles away, out of control.

‘*Apres-moi,"’ cries Mulroney,
““Yapocalypse!"*

Supposing it's true? Supposing,
just for once, Lyin’ Brian isn’t
lyin’?

These are troublesome thoughts.

But one thing is sure. It’s no
fun having to gallop through bank
doors first thing in the morning,
desperately trying to avoid being
caught in a disaster.

Hard not to think of oneself as
a gnat scurrying across 4 vast
chess board, subject to being
stomped, without anyone above
even noticing, any tine.

How often can we expect this
sort of tremor to cumble through
the financial system withott dire
consequences becoming an in-
evitable side-effect?

As the referendum clock begins
10 seriously tick, E find myself
starting io think with my pocket-
book more than my heart.

My feclings about the Charlot-
tetown Accord (this being written
a couple of days before the release
of the legal text) are still almost
entirely negative,

But my uncertainty about the
future, my fear that things can
and very probably will get much
worse, is sometimes almost over-

* whelming.

J like to imagine that | see fairly
clearly, that § can think boldly,
talk bravely, and act decisively if 1
have to.

But faced with 2 set of consti-
tutional proposals so complex that
the word **Canadian™ should
replace the word ‘‘Byzantine”’ in
the dictionary, { find that my in-
stincts are fuzzy.

A Manitoba-born half-Scot-
lish-Canadian, nearly-half-Fren-
ch-Canadian, one-thirty-second
Huron, an adopted British Col-
umbian, living as an expatriate at
the moment in Ontario, my gut
loyalties are all over the map,
quite literally.

Intellectualiy, | see this as an
incredible chance for Canadians to
re-think their entire approach to
the type of political union we
share.

Asa middle-class guy with kids
and a mortgage, intellectual ideas
might be the stuff of columns, but
in the real word they amount to
piffle.

l simply don’t want to see — or
do — anything that rocks the
boat, costs me money, or puts
anybody out of work.

But scared as I may be of in-
stability, higher interest rates, a
Jower GNP, the full Royal Bank
economic bummer, I can’t shake
the feeling I’m caught in some
sort of legalistic driftnet. And
ought to resist the deadly tugging
from above.
SEE

(These writs were filed with the
court registry in’ Vancouver be-
tween Oct. 5 and Oct. 15, 1992.
Information is taken from the
statements of claim.)

Plaintiff: BHP Trading Canada
Ltd., 740 Nicola, Vancouver.
Defendant: The owners and inter-
ested parties of the ship Dakila
Uno, Port of Registry Manila,
Philippines; Maranaw Luzon
Shipping Co. Ltd., 7th floor,
Kokusai Building, 13-11 Nohon-
bashi, Kayabo-cho, 2-chrome,
Chvo-k, Tokyo, Japan; and
Daiichi Chvo Kisen Kaisha, 503-
221 West Esplanade, North Van-
couver; and Fraser Surrey Docks
Ltd:, 11060 Elevator Rd., Surrey.
Claim: $26,341.98 for breach of
contract.

Plaintiff: Dean and Faye Leung,
«/o 7972 Cambie St., Vancouver.
Defendant: Bernard Isman, Suite
202-308 West 2nd Ave., North
Vancouver,

Claim: Aggravated, punitive and
exemplary damages for unsatisfac-
tory legal proceedings concerning
the sale of Fantasy Gardens.

Plaintiff:
Pinewood Cres.,
couver.
Defendant: Grey William Knight,
c/o suite 270-10711 Cambie Rd.,
Richmond.

Cathy Morris, 1152
North Van-

Tug team

CATES TUGS await action at the foot of Lonsdale in North Vancouver Cliy.
The towing company was recently sold to the Washington Corp. of Missoula,
Montana. The sale takes effect on Nov. 1. No changes in the operations of the
company are anticipated.

CIVIL SUITS

\

Claim: A declaration that defen-
dant holds in trust for a percent-
age of proceeds of a property sale.
Plaintiff: ICBC, I51 West
Esplanade, North Vancouver.
Defendant: Rudolph Bosanac,
17409 63rd Ave., Surrey.

Ciaim: $139,622 for damage to a
tractor/trailer unit.

Plaintiff: Hong Kong Bank of
Canada, 885 West Georgia St.,
Vancouver.

Defendant: The owners and all
others interested in the ship Ra-
diant, #306-255 West First St.,
North Vancouver, and Guy
Milligan, 3911 Wancrest Rd.,
Campbell River.

Claim: Mortgage default judgment
for $457,777.59 and an order that
the Radiant be condemned for the
sum of $365,000.

Plaintiff: Awatea Holdings Ltd.,
1590 Marine Dr., North Van-
couver,

Defendant: Barbara Stiffon and
David Ernest O'Kell, RR#1, P.O.
Box 104, Bowen Island.

Claim: $7°,017 for lease arrears.

en yr nee reynirnie we

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