4 - Wednesday, November 16, 1988 - North Shore News Bos HUNTER ° strictly personal © THE KEY issue in this election is generally agreed to be the free trade deal, which I for one supported mainly because I trusted then-trade minister Pat Carney. Once the deal’s fate was passed into the fumbling fingers of John Crosbie, my own confidence began to unravel. Ditto, it seems, for a lot of other people. And since Captain Mulroney nailed his colors to the mast of the free trade deal, as the pact goes up on the rocks, so flounders the good ship Tory. Yet for ali the sound and fury, the free trade issue — barring its potential environmental! impact — should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be the central issue of this campaign. “ Te environment should be the great issue of this election. By the time the next election comes around ... we are going to be in deep do-do, as George Bush would say.’ Pen we fe ts vee It is November and our short memories of last summer are already fading. But for a while there, in the blistering heat that scorched the Prairies and lowered water levels throughout the American Mid-West, the spectre of an ecological Apocalypse Now took on terrifying vivid form. The environment should be the great issue of this election. By the time the next election comes around — which could be four years, in 1992 — we are going to be in deep do-do, as George Bush would say. Intuitively, Canadians know this. And at the start of the cam- paign, it seemed the three major parties had all come to realize it was time for serious action. As the election unravelled, how- ever, the focus, as usual, came down to narrew, short-term, self- ish issues, such as whether pen- sions or culture or medicare or jobs would be affected by free trade. In the face of acid rain, collapse of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, contamination of the water supply, loss of the rain forests and depletion of the soil, all of these other issues don’t matter a tinker’s damn. What good is a pension if you can’t go outside without getting skin cancer? What good are jobs if the water you drink is poisoned? Medicare isn’t going to save us from mass leukemia. And as for culture, give me a living forest over any amount of Canadiana on the bookshelves any time. This has turned out to be an election about subsidies and tariffs at atime when the sky is demonstrably falling! Rescue team From page 1 good condition on a_ beach. Winters stayed warm over night by covering himself with tree bran- ches. The North Shore Rescue Team recommends that people planning to spend time in the wilderness should take a flashlight and alert others regarding the intended des- The politicians who all started out trying to appeal to the growing environmental sensitivity quickly reverted to form, promising billions of dollars worth of goodies to all the special interest groups with their little vested interests. And the environment once again became the wallflower at the ongo- ing dance of consumerism, welfarism and industrial growth. Watching Ed Broadbent, John Turner and Brian Mulroney leap- ing over tall buildings wearing capes made of red-and-white maple leaves, at a time when the maple tree itself is endangered, makes me sick. The election has come down to a question of patriotism, when we should be thinking more globally than ever. We live in a world where, when you go to buy a hamburger at a fast-food outlet, you actually destroy 55 square feet of rain forest in Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil, which is disappearing at the horrific rate of 72,000 acres a day! Why should we care? Simply because the rain forests absorb carbon monoxide and give off ox- ygen. They are the lungs of the planet. Their disappearance will do to the biosphere what cancer or TB does to the human lung. According to David Suzuki, an entire species of animal is being destroyed every hour! That's 24 species a day, 8,760 species a year! That’s a God damned holocats.' In the 40 days of the election that our politicians spend vying to run up the biggest deficit, 960 species will have been consigned to oblivion. In Canada — where we are wail- ing and gnashing our teeth about national identity and subsidies for movies ~ there are 142 en- dangered species! Farley Mowat says the oceans — all of them — will be sterile within 20 years. And I believe he is being optimistic. This is madness! Not only will there be nothing left for my grandchildren, there will be nothing left for my kids. So, when it comes to voting in this election, my primary feeling is a nightmarish sense of paralysis, as though I am in a bad slow-motion dream with crazy people running around babbling about things that don’t matter, when the very foun- dation of existence is trembling. What is so frustrating is that if there was ever a time to act in terms of using one’s vote effective- ly, this is it! Later is less, that’s all there is to it. Options are narrow- ing rapidly and the lead time re- quired to turn the eco-catastrophe around — if, indeed, it can be checked at al] — is running out. Next: How I’m going to vote® warns hikers tination and the anticipated time of return, If overcome by darkness, stay put and listen for whistles and the shouts of the search teams. Do not attempt to hike down an unmarked creek gully. North Shore gullies may look safe in higher elevations, but they usually turn into steep, overgrown and hazardous can- yons. WV woman guilty AN 18-YEAR-OLD West Van- couver woman was placed on pro- bation for two years and ordered to pay $3,825 in restitution after she pleaded guilty in North Van- couver provincial court to FOR N.V. DISTRICT ALDERMAN ELECT VIPOND NORM) X STOP HIGH DENSITY DEVELOPMENT international: ; Plaza Complex * 1979 Marine Drive North Shorea” 966-3487. Ren Zaike Fitness - Connection 2660 W. 4th Ave, Kitsilano 736-0341 Ron Zaiko Muscle Connection - 2625 W. 4th Ave, Kitsilano 6-034 defrauding a West Vancouver gift shop. Tamaris Jane Cassettari was originally charged with defrauding Bowring Bros. Ltd. in Park Royat of 33,825 by making up false of fraud return slips for articles that she claimed had been returned for re- fund when they had not. She was also ordered to perform 100 hours of community work ser- vice. A PROVEN RECORD * Member of Legislative Assembly of B.C. (6 yrs.) * Member of North Vancouver District Council (4 yrs.) * B.C’'s first Rentalsman * Highly successful Radio Talk Show Host * Resident of West Vancouver for 16 years BARRIE CLARK ALDERMAN WEST VANCOUVER