ehoty ke ee ry 6 - Wednesday, March 20, 1985 - North Shore News Editoriai Page a ee oe) . north’shore ; News Viewpoint Not just words peaking Monday to a North Shore Gfocr group, Grace McCarthy aimed a few friendly potshots at the ‘‘negative’’ media. The Human Resources Minister, her par- ty’s most effective publicist by far, took as her theme ‘‘the good news is that the bad news is wrong’’. She delivered a glowing hype for last week’s budget, deciaring that the government is at Jast able to launch its economic initiatives because the hard, dif- ficult work has been done and our house is now in order. Coupled with that, she chided the media for obstructing free enterprise with negative attitudes (for which she gracefully admitted that politicians themselves are often to blame). There’s a little more to it than that, Grace. Government today is heavily into the pro- paganda business, as witness the 16% budget _ increase for Victoria’s ‘“‘information ser- vices’’. The first duty of the media in a democracy is to counterbalance government propaganda with independent facts and comment--and by definition these are in- variably going to be critical of the ofticiai story. The alternative is for the public to be fed only the government’s understandably self-serving version of its deeds. **Deeds”’ is the operative word. The media judge government by what actually happens, not by what the latter says is happening or planned. The test is not just honeyed words and good intentions, but concrete methods and results. If Mrs. McCarthy. and her colleagues can score reasonable marks in the two latter categories, they need worry no more about “‘negative’’ media! High flyers ime is money (lots of it) for the Mulroney cabinet. Communications Minister Marcel Masse recently put in an extra three-quarters of an hour at his desk by taking a government jet to fly with six other officials from Ottawa to Vancouver. The cost: $19,000 — compared to $2,736 for the alternative Air Canada flight which departed 45 minutes earlier and landed here five minutes ahead of him. Display Advertising 980-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 n ews § = =©Newsroom 985-2131 lant (Circulation 986-1337 Subscriptions ‘ 985-2131 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Marketing Director Operations Manager Robert Graharn Berni Hilliard Advertising Director - Sales Circulation Director Dave Jenneson Bill McGown Editor-In-Chief Noel Wright Advertising Director - Production Director - Administration Chris Johnson Mike Goodsell Classified Manager Val Stephenson Photography Manager Terry Peters North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule il, Part Ul, Paragraph #1 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Entire contents © 1985 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and West Vancouver, $25. per year. Mailing rates available on request. No responsibility accepted for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Member of the B.C. Press Council a : §5,770 (average, Wednesday SDA DIVISION Friday & Sunday) THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE --| WANT OU 10 CLOSE YOUR EYES AND Wish VERY HAR A test we've failed? the B.C. Press Council are the North Shore : QO: THE CARPET again tomorrow before News and its resident freedom-fighter, col- umnist Doug Collins — this time to answer a com- plaint against them by a Dr. Philip Pinkus of West Vancouver. Sad to relate, you won't be able to watch the show. Dr, Pinkus apparently asked for the proceedings to be held in camera and the Council has so ruled. Consequently, there’ll be no repeat of iast November’s lively public hearing on an earlier complaint of ‘‘rac- ism’? against the News and Collins, which was attended by over 200 citizens bent on seeing justice done. They weren’t disappointed. The Press Council in its wisdom threw out the complaint. Dr.Pinkus’s complaint tomorrow is along somewhat similar lines. It was sparked by a column Jast August in which Doug dared to attack the banning from Canada of “The Hoax of the 20th Cen- tury’, the book on the Holocaust which got the kooky Mr. Ernst Zundel into a heap of trouble. Our own man, be it noted, was con- cerned with the banning, not with the truth or otherwise of the book. In fairness to our Press Council friends, we'll reserve further details until tomor- row and give you a blow- by-blow account of the hear- LETTER OF THE DAY A career logger protests ing in our next issues, Meanwhile, out of the biue, we received the other day a letter to the editor from a Victoria lady hitherto unknown to us, Ms. Keltie Zubko. She believes Canada recently failed an important test. We feel her thoughts should be required reading today for a wide audience, quite aside from their rele- vance to tomorrow’s hear- ing. Here they are, unedited and unabridged: “The Zundel trial has been the most telling test of this country’s love of indi- vidual liberty to ever come along. It is always the very difficult things that show us how we are really doing, as individuals and as 3 notion. “S think we've Failed this time. “Ie is very easy to be magnanimous by allowing freedom to those with whom we agree; that is really no test at all, But when we are confronted with ideas op- posite to our own--those that we fear, would rather not hear--then we are truly ‘measured for our tolerance, our understanding, our se- focus by Noel Wright curity in knowing that ex- posing all ideas to the light of reason and debate will uncover the truth and make lies run away. “That Zundel was charged and convicted, that Keegstra has been charged, and that the book ‘The Hoax of the 20th Century’ has been ban- ned by some bureaucrat, are very serious indications that Canadians have lost faith in their ability to reason for themselves and must trust Big Brother te do it for them, “Therefore, we now have tie use of force against ideas--for that is exacily’ - what it is--and this will only lead to violence in retalia- tion. It will also lead those who can still use their minds independent of the state or any group to wonder what the perpetrators. of such measures are afraid of. “Such oppression makes one consider the parallels between those who wish to silence (he Zundels and Keegstras, and the very regime they say Zundel ad- vocates. Weren’t the Jews in Third Reich intelligentsia similarly persecuted? The Jewish Defence League out- side the courthouse in Toronto are the new storm- troopers of .the Canadian Reich. “By allowing such pro- secutions, we become that which we seek to stop--we create ‘racial and social ‘in- tolerance’. It always begins ’ with the unpopular Zundels, so the majority can feel righteous. But then repres- ‘sion moves on to other vic- tims until no citizen is safe. I am saddened that we have ‘Jost our trust in the freedom 1 thought my father’s generation sacrificed so much to keep. “We must have the courage to use reason in- stead of force as the only ‘weapon’ against ideas we don't like.” * * Thank you, Ms. Zubko. We wish we'd written that ourselves! rs Dear Editor: With all the controversy surrounding the Meare’s Island issue, | feel compelled to voice my opinion on a matter that directly affects my livelihood. These bleeding heart en- vironmentalists seem intent on destroying an industry that has brought prosperity to this province for more than @ century. As a career logger, | can’t help wondering if these peo- ple are aware that 70 per cent of B.C. business direct- ly or indirectly depends on the harvesting of our vast forests. Approximately 30 per cent of the standing timber on the West Coast is beseiged by one form of rot or another. Through the clear-cutting process of these trees, and replanting of our mountain sides with healthy young spruce and hemlock seedl- ings, we ensure our future for generations to come. So what are we to do? Save a tree and starve our children? Or implement guildelines for reforesting by the sometimes negligent ‘Jumber companies? (D.J. Lalonde, ~ \North Vancouver