4 - Friday, March 1, 1991 - North Shore News ABOUT HALF of all of Canada’s constitutional records — an irreplaceable data bank of facts, analysis, commen- tary, and common sense distilled by experience — were destroyed last week. Eugene Forsey died. He was 86 and he was brilliant and he was opinionated. Heaven help the public figure, the politi- cian, the fool (sometimes all three crammed into one person) who wrote or uttered something about Canadian constitutional law or history who got it wrong. Forsey, in a few short and ut- terly definitive sentences, very often by way of a letter in the Globe and Mail, would devastatingly set the blunderer straight. Many such a miscreant would siink away, a sadder but a wiser man, peppered by Forsey’s detail- ed knowledge of the subject. Yet I can’t recall that any of these Forseyian volleys was per- sonal. Forsey was witty, but the wit never descended to sarcasm or a cheap shot to entertain the crowd — admittedly a pretty intellectu- ally sophisticated crowd. He ad- dressed the error, not its perpetrator. I speak with the experience of once being one of his very minor victims. I was then perhaps 21, and therefore knew everything. (Well you may say, dear reader, that time has not cured me of this misconception. Well, that’s you, and who asked you anyway?) Forsey was then research direc- tor for the Canadian Labor Con- gress. (Mel Hurtig’s Canadian Encyclopedia describes him, with admirable economy and accuracy, as a constitutional conservative and social radical.) He'd already had a distinguish- ed academic career and was an unfailing source of journalistic quotes, so he was very well known by the sort of people who know very well. Why he came to talk io a night-school, first-year economics public inspection UNPAID, DEFAULTED AND OTHER CONSIGNMENTS CANADA GOVERNMENT CUSTOMS CLEARED CERTIFIED AS PERSIAN CARPETS, ASIAN, TURKISH, AFGHANI, CHINESE, etc. HUNDREDS OF RUGS, RUNNERS, PALACE CARPETS OF WOOLS AND SILKS, CATEGORIES INCLUDE TABRIZ, KASHAN, SAROOK, KIRMAN, BOKHARA, AFGHANI, CHINESE, ETC. | AUTHENTIC HIGH VALUE CARPETS jf * released only for immediate disposal, payment and removal * 10% freight, brokerage and warehousing charges to be added * each bale will be unwrapped and pieces tagged individually for © each carpet labelled with country of origin and fibre content. Certified genuine hand made, Rand at ted reco * proper ID required for registration, dealer tax exemption certificates required to be tax exempt * terms: bank cheque, cash or credit cards DELBROOK COMMUNITY CEi 600 West Queens Avenue (Cedar Room} North Vancouver SATURDAY, MARCH 2nd AT 2 PM SHARP Viewing from 1:30 p.m. Trevor Lautens GARDEN OF BIASES class at a medium-weight universi- ty — some old tie of affection or personal obligation, perhaps? — 1 don’t know. But he came. There was this small man, shooting rays of intellectual and physical energy all over the place, at the front of a roomful of bemused apprentices in economics who were still grappling with the mysteries of elastic and inelastic demand. He waved his arms in great cir- cles that communicated better than words the dynamics of eco- nomics — especially, as I recall, to accompany his dismissal of the notion that mankind’s needs would ever be satisfied. “There are those who say that these needs can be and should be met. Can any sensible person imagine a time when all peopie’s needs will be met?’’ said Forsey, or anyway his arms, as they made those great, impatient circles, rebuking the very idea of econom- ic humility and passivity. I believe he linked that idea to the ruling classes, employers and such, who used it to try to shame workers into not having the im- pertinence to ask for more. A deliriously ‘eft-wing student had the audacity to ask him when he finished: ‘‘Shoukin’t the object be to separate our society’s democracy froni capitalism, and then destroy the capitalism?’’ Eugene Forsey was, as previous- ly mentioned, a master of terseness. ““No,”’ he snapped. This raw and presumptuous young ideologue — whose name | would not divulge under torture —- wilted. But he never forgot Forsey’s lesson. Forsey was a democrat and a socialist, one of the old Co- ‘@ operative Commonwealth Federa- tion intellectuals, but was a Lib- eral appointment to the Senate. And when he retired from the Red Chamber, he didn’t retire from lobbing his opinions into the cir- cles where public policy is made. His memoirs, A Life on the Fr- inge, were published only last year, and had the copyright Forsey sense-and-sandpaper touch. An unapologetic federalist, he dealt scathingly with separatism: ““We English-speakers have been told ad nauseam that we do not understand French; that the French word ‘nation’ means ‘a cultural and sociological group.’ Yes. But it also has a political meaning ... A skilled verbal jug- gler (and Quebec is full of them) Eugene Forsey: our genuine know-it-all can make it mean either. ... **As long as we allow ourselves to be fooled by this kind of legerdemain, we shall be sitting ducks for evezy separatist or hemi-derni-semi separatist in the country. ... “The drama of appeasement has been played out on the domestic stage right under our noses. We have had plenty of would-be Chamberlains. We shall be very lucky if we escape a Ca- nadian Munich. ...”" Fortunately, Forsey died without seeing that. But he also died in the unshakable conviction that if Quebec does separate, Canada could survive without it: «|... [have faith that Canadians, both English-speaking and Fren- ch-speaking (of whom there would still be over a million), would be able to face the future united.’’ Words to live by. Words fora nation to live by. All candidates forum set for district byelection AN ALL-candidates meeting, featuring the four candidates seek- ing the lone aldermanic seat in the March 9 North Vancouver District byelection, will be held March 5 starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Coach House Inn, 700 Lillooet Rd., North Vancouver. The seat was leit vacant after former alderman Bill Rodgers resigned the post when he was appointed a North ‘Vancouver provincial court judge. The four candidates running in the byelection are engineer Bruce Edwards, economist and market- ing analyst Joan Gadsby, lawyer Anthony Jasich and paramedic Tim Jones. Also on the byelection bailot will be a referendum question ask- ing voters if they are in favor of the district dedicating all of the land within Lynn Canyon Park as a park. Advanced polls for the March 9 byelection will be held at the North Vancouver District hall, 355 West Queens, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. March I, 4 and 5, and from $:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on March > or more information on the all-candidates forum, call Salim Kaderali at 980-0922. - Profiles of all four candidates will be published in the Wednes- day, March 6 issue of the News. pote eT te TL Hag HH PTZ) Nae for ai Sec wa CNA Ager acor 2 ADIT FT EE RE AHACH O All Table e hams ed | 50% FF. price) “n> Biz- of colors | [Om bist: $134.95 me ...° and 2 7 ie AS MM FrANY mee Lamp | | 2499 RA ye 4702 E. HASTINGS ST. 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