NEWS photo Paul McGrath

car driver Zbigniew Kowalczyk with failing to yield on a left turn. Kowalczyk was taken to hospital and released.

A CAR and dump truck collided-at the corner of Riverside Drive and Mount Seymour Parkway on Saturday. The police charged

Press Council
makes ruling
on columns

THE B.C. Press Council has

upheld, in part, a complaint

against the North Shore News

over. the accuracy of some of

freelance writer Doug Collins’
‘ columns.

- The complaint’ by Lionel Kenner
of North Vancouver detailed his con-
tention that the paper showed flagrant
disregard. for the truth when it pub-
lished several Collins columns ‘in
1993. and 1994 in which the colum-
nist took issue with widely held pub-
lished views respecting the Holocaust.

‘Mr. Kenner complained that Mr. Collins had;
: repeatedly used people’ 's comments out of context,

~ < which gave.a false impression of what the speaker

had really meant, and that it was unconscionable
_ for both Mr: Collins and the News to “publish those
... distortions.” He said the columns had violated the

. first article (accuracy) of the Press Council's Code

‘of Practice, namely that “Newspapers must guard

against deliberate or careless publication of state-

ments' designed to rnisfead.”

‘And he asked the Council to rule that the
columns breached this article, to instruct Mr.
Collins und the News to issue corrections and
apologies where appropriate, and to condemn both
writer and paper for conspiring to publish “lies on
a matter of the highest public importance.

‘North Shore News managing editor Timothy
Renshaw disputed the ullegations, saying the paper
published Mr. Collins because he did what a good
opinion columnist should do: provoke “disagree-
ment and discussion” on numerous issues.

». Doug Collins, ut the July 24 press council hear-

- ing, defended his right to question assumptions
-- about the Holocaust or anything else.
“The road to the democratic state was long, hard
and bloody and if democracy is to survive we must
have the right to challenge orthodoxy.”

Lionel Kenner wrote later that he had “no vest-
ed interest in the Holocaust (were that it never hap-
pened!) but f do haye an interest in an. honest
press.” What is in question, he said, “is not freedom
of nt speech. but veracity.”

PARTS UPHELD

“Among the numerous points with’ which Mr.
Kenner takes issue, the Press Council finds the fol-
“slowing to be particularly salient to the complaint.

. Specifically, they are from the Collins column
of Aug. 18, 1993,°The Story Keeps Changing’. and
from a letter written by Mr. Collins and published
by the News headlined “Taking Tabloid Trash .to
Task’ on Oct. 9, 1994, In the latter case, the Council
regards the letter as another freelance opinion piece
because it touches on material relevant to this com-

plaint.
In the column, which challenges the commonty

‘NORTH SHORE News columnist Doug Collins (left) named, The |
along with the News, in a B.C. Press Council complaint lodged
by North ' Vancouver resident Lione! Kenner (right).

accepted nimber of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

_ Mr. Collins quotes Israeli scholar Yehudah Bauer as

saying, “The larger figures have been dismissed for
years, except that it hasn’t reached the public yet."

Examination of the original text in which that
quote appeared, namely the New York Times of
Nov. 12, 1989, shows clearly that Mr. Bauer was
referring specifically to the number of Jews killed
only atthe German concentration camp Auschwitz
in Poland.

However, Mr. Collins used that quote to support
his challenge of the total number of Jews killed in
all concentration camps.

In the column, Mr. Collins refers to the Red
Cross as a source of information that challenges the
number of persons who died in the Holocaust.

He said. “So what difference does it make
whether the figure was six million, or 300,000, as
was stated by the Red Cross after the war?”

In this case, the Council finds that while Mr.
Collins. apparently ‘accepted in good faith two
reports ostensibly written by the International Red
Cross about the number of concentration camp vic-
tims, Mr. Kenner has provided information from
the International Red Cross headquarters in Geneva
that unequivocally refutes the authenticity of those
reports as being genuine Red Cross docunients.

And further, the IRC states emphatically that
“the figures in these two documents cannot be
interpreted to be representative of the total number
of deaths in the Nazi concentration camps.”

Most glaring was a quote used by Mr. Collins,
in his Oct. 9 letter, io support his statement: “Il do
not believe in the gas chamber stuff?" Mr, Collins
quotes Jewish academic Amo Mayer as writing that
sources on the gas chambers are “at once rare and
unreliable.” 2

In fact, the full quote goes on to state... “Sources
for the study of the gas chambers are at once rare
and unreliable ... there is no denying the many con-
tradictions, and ambiguities in the existing sources.
These cannot be ignored: although it must be
emphasized strongly that such defects are altogeth-
er insufficient to: put in question the ‘use of gis
chambers in the mass murder of Jews at
Auschwitz."

The Press Council upholds the
complaint on these points and finds
that they breach the Code of Practice.
Article One, in that they mislead the
reader and misrepresent the original
authors.

PARTS NOT UPHELD

The* Press Council doves not
uphold Mr. Kenner’s. contention that
several other points contained in the
Aug. 18 column breached the Code
of Practice. nor will it instruct the
News to publish corrections and
apologies; and it is unable to endorse
the complainant's contention that Mr.
Collins and the News conspired to
mislead or to “fie.”

Council respects Mr.
. Kenner’s painstaking efforts to show

that several other references in the ©

Aug. 18 column were deliberate dis-
tortions. However, Council -believes the Code's
accuracy provisions must not be narrowly applied
here because Mr. Collins was engaging in. the
expression of opinion, not writing a news Story, and
enjoyed the widest possible latitude.

Therein lies the most rigorous expression of this
Council's deep commitinent to freedom of speech,
Notwithstanding, the Council reminds Mr. Collins
that such freedom is not licence to alter or misquote
the expression of others.

Accordingly, the Council does not believe cor-
rections to be appropriate because publication of
this adjudication by the News will effectively cor-
rect the three points of the complaint already
upheld.

The Council feels compelled to offer some .

cogent words about what it believes to be at the
heart of this complaint — the freedom to disagree.

It must be noted that Mr. Kenner has been
engaged in a war of words with Mr. Collins and the
News for years, and now that war has spilled over
into the Press Council's lap. And it is a dispute the
Council cannot settle to anyone's satisfaction
because the crux of the conflict is insoluble: differ-
ent versions of “historical truth” held by two
strong, articulate men.

That said, the Council believes it is inappropri-
ate for Mr. Coilins and the News to apologize for
publishing opinion columns the complainant docs
not like or approve of, and because, in a real sense,
this complaint is yet another chapter in a long, sim-
mering disagreement over an interpretation of his-
tory.

In addition, the Council will not condemn Mr.
Collins or the News for exercising their constitu-
tional right of free expression any more than it
would Mr. Kenner for exercising his. The Council
believes that unpopular or controversial voices
must be challenged but never silenced.

The Council notes that the News did, and does,
offer access to the airing of opposing views on its
letlers page,

And Mr. Kenner’s 40,000-word complaint

‘shows that he is capable of sharing his views with

the public. something that could only enrich his
community should he choose to do so.

rejects
Roche
Point

Band road

plan nixed
THE TSLEIL-WAU-
TUTH (Burrard Indian
Band) has -been refused
access to a North
Vancouver District: road
for a planned condomini-
um development — on
reserve land in. eastern
Seymour.

NORTH VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL
By Martin Millerchip

A 5-2 majority of council
sided with local residents on
Monday and voted against a
southward extension of Roche
Point Drive “at this time.”

Council also advised the
Burrard Band that “the district
Strotigly recommends a direct
road connection to Dollarton
Highway to provide vehicular
access to the proposed
Windsong and Adult
Conimunity developments.”

The two. sites. totalling
approximately 4 hectares (10
acres), are planned to hold
some 500 multi-family units.
The development would ‘sit
closer to Dollarton Highway
than Mount Seymour
Parkway.:

But development plans
unveiled | recently © by the’
Burrard Band* called for. a’
northerly road tie-in to Roche
Point Drive because of the:

“expense of negotiating steep

terrain down to the closer
Dollarton Highway.

The band had_ proposed
paying for the required exten-
sion of Roche Point: Drive
until such time as the district
required the road ‘to access its
own land holdings i in the area.

An ‘access {route has
already been clearcut on the
reserve. 4!

But mounting local oppo-
sition to the Roche Point link-:
up caused council to defer a
decision Sept. 18 and co-host
a public meeting with the
Burrard Band on the issues.

Residents said they feared
the traffic generated from the
development will overload the
already rush-hour jammed
intersection’ at Roche Point
Drive and Mount Seymour
Parkway, leading to shortcut-
ting along Garibaldi Drive.

They also fear that any
extension of Roche. Point
Drive would increase the like-
lihood of: creating a through
road between the Parkway
and. Dollarton Highway. A
route, they say, that is poten-
tially unsafe at the Dollarton
end because of the steep
grade. .

Coun, Pam Goldsmith-
Jones warned Monday that the
connection could still happen
as part of the trafic planning
for the area.

Meanwhile
Point extension

said.’ Roche
opponent

See Road page &