SO THE the Land of Oui has become the Land of Non. Or perhaps Qui-Non. In any event the same old argument will continue, with the appeasers falling over themselves to suck up to the separatists. That came through loud and clear Monday night. And the first of many who came through with offers of appeasement was Preston Manaing, who rattled on about the need for “change” and how this 50- 50 split was “a wake-up call” fora different kind of federalism. Does he really think the Reform party, or for that matter English Canada, is interested in more grov- elling? If he does, he’s the one who needs a wake-up call. Fact is that there's been enough change already, and every time something has changed we have been the losers. . Last Sunday, this column rec- ommended that Quebec should go. Thad many calls about it and they were all favorable. I was surprised to leam that Conrad Black feels much the same way as I do. Black is a Canadian who owns a good portion of the western world's newspapers. And he is a patriot. In a speech delivered at the University of Alberta he said that ~ Quebec began the 1960s as a “sullen, inward-looking place with little interest in its English-speak- ing compatriots.” But as Quebec “awakened with a start from its long torpor, many English Canadians were disposed to make jurisdictional concessions to it, hoping their good will would be reciprocated, Unfortunately ... it has not been.” That’s putting it mildly. Thiny years ago, the politicians, the ~ media and the academics started being over humble. ; i caemeenenaneamenunsemntatannuepaatnatnrnsntenmeaieanimmnmadeaianemmiamatial Dou Collins on the | other hand ET remember it well. Liberals and Tories vied with each other for Quebec's favor, with the NDP providing flank support. Anything for that Quebec vote. And then the ‘Tories came up with the idiotic “deux nations” con- cept. Bilingualism reared its ridicu- lous head and royal commissions furrowed their brows over how we could make Quebee happy. We never did. We still haven't. And we never will. So we might as _ well face it, In Black's view, a major trouble has been shat Ottawa developed the mad idea of trying to define a country by its social agendas. “A massive program of muassag- ing money from Ontario, Alberta and B.C. to Quebec, with crumbs to other provinces, was imposed. “With the constitutional revi- sions of 1982 we became the first country in world history to estab- lish regional economic equatity as an Official raison d'etre for the existence of the country. It was an exercise in lunacy, he said. “People move to the resources, not the other way around,” The price, he went on, has been ra per capita public debt levels more.’ than twice as big as those of the ~ ULS., a nearly 30% devaluation of our currency against the U.S. dol- Miao x Cable cabal concern Dear Editor: - I strongly object to Rogers gob- bling up our Shaw Cable. - Shaw has worked very hard to get to where it is —a very good sta- tion with original, creative material, which has been copied. Why ‘is: it-in our free-enterprise system that the big-money business- es must always be greedy and swal- low up our successful smaller com- panies? Rogers should not be allowed to dictate. They have also stopped BC Tel from entering the cable busi- ness. What is going on here CRTC? June M. Vos West Vancouver DRAPERIES BY S. LAURSEN | & SON CUSTOM DRAPERIES, TRACKS AND VALANCES Labour $8.50 per panel unlined, $9.50 lined. CUSTOM BEDSPREADS & BLINDS At low, low prices. For FREE Estimates \ ' call 987-2966 (Ask about Seniors’ Discounts) Serving the North Shore for 24 years “dar tax levels 10 to 15 points high- er than in the ULS., unemployment level” half again as high, and the departure to the U.S, of hundreds of thousands of our most talented people. Black recalled a wonderful phrase coined in 1968 by Ernest Manning ~- father of Preston. All these concessions to Quebec, Manning Senior stated, asnounted to.“a constitutional Munich.” In other words, futile slices of cake given to people who wanted the whole thing, “We could stop bankrupting ourselves trying to bribe Quebec to remain in Canada,” said Black. “We might even succeed in inspir- ing ourselves.” He believes we could flourish if we jettisoned “the Ozyiiandian wreckage of a failed bicultural state." English Canada, he declared , has done everything it can to accommodate Quebec. To no avail. But now the Mutes of appease- ment are trilling again. 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