1139 Lonsdale Avenue Horth Vancouver, B.C. V7 2h4 - ~ PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) Comptrotier Operations Manager . 985-2131 (133) 985-2131 (166) Managi oS 2131 (1 (Ty ‘SoogetT | si Morth avec! News, founded in 1969 am independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedile 111, Paragraph II! of the Excine Tax Act, it published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Froe Press Lud. and distrifputed to every door on the North ‘Shore, Cansda Post Censdian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No, 0087238. Malling rates salable ou request. Entire contents . © 1996 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved, x news viewpoint Selective recall should pay strict attention to the fol- lowing. It could be vital to the future of the province. “Memory Man” Bill Clennan appeared at the Jan. 18 North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce luncheon, which no doubt helped refresh a few memories locally, but provincially memories need far more acute refreshment, because Glen Clark is peised to take over the NDP reins — which some pundits think could help the NDP win another term in office. And that, readers, would make for some future memories that would be hard to forget. Because the voting public suffers from Pisteatinay OF failing memories chronic Short Memory Syndrome, a quick review of past NDP deeds spear- headed by Mr. Clark is needed. Remember that, as finance minister, the man who according to press reports would now chop the size of the provincial civil service with impunity heiped increase the provincial debt from $20 bil- lion to $26 billion. And don’t forget that the suddenly fis- _cally responsible Clark also established ‘the BC 21 public works program of squandering taxpayers’ money and ensured that the cost of the massive Vancouver Island Highway project would be as high as possible by restricting its construction to overpriced union labor. He has also stood enthusiastically behind the NDP’s anti-free speech legislation pushed through the legislature under the guise of Human Rights Act amendments. The so-called friend to the working man is no friend to the taxpaying working man and no friend to the free-thinking working man. But his support is growing. Memory is a funny thing. . . Left unsupervised it quickly removes past unpleasantness and replaces it with fuzzy pleasantness. A bit like the govern- ment itself. But such selective memory is a luxury that B.C. can no longer afford. , THE SWEARING IN OF LUCIEN BOUCHARD “A SCIENTIST raised in’ India, citing as evidence that after 27 ycars in Canada’s public health service he has ever been promoted, com- lains of racism. Two suspicions. One, I suspect he's right. Two, I suspect that his superiors’ “racism” is completely justified and understandable. Shiv Chopra and three other members of so-called visible minori- ties have complained to the federal human rights commission of, in effect, invisible racisiis. As an Ottawa Citizen report put it, there are “no nasty slurs, no alle- gations of Archie Bunkers occupying the bosses’ offices. The scientists are attempting to prove the system dis- ctiminates in subtle ways.” I pause to remark that in my genial opinion human rights com- missions are for the birds. These _meddiesome instruments of the intrusive state have their own ideo- logical prejudices. They underline the rule: The more the state intervenes, the more it screws up, the more it alienates and subjugates (and ultimately bank- rupts) a free people. But back to the Ottawa hearings. “The most explosive evidence,” the Citizen report says, is a 1992 memo by an assistant deputy health minis- ter who noted that minorities are bet- ter at technical jobs than in manage- ment: “When we start looking for Trevor Lautens - garden of biases the ‘soft skills’ such as communicat- ing, influencing, negotiating — quite often their cultural heritage has not emphasized these areas and they are ata disadvantage.” This unnamed person deserves a trophy for Clearest and Most Honest Goverment iviemo of the Decade. For the reality is that expertise, technical skills and diplomas are only a step on the promotion escala- tor within the office “culture.” “> Office gossip is the real curricu- lum vitae. Gab, chat, wit, the knowl- edgeable triviality, the teasing put- down (of self as much as of others), the gorgeous fluency of our beautiful language and its ability to send nuanced but pungent signals —~ the . chemistry of everyday conversation — that’s what really matters, that’s what contributes so much to making - workaday life bearable, even enjoy- able. I say with the greatest serious- ness: If a nation’s jokes are beyond the immigrant's grasp, he or she will! bump into the humor ceiling. I would never claim I know French (six years of formal study don’t ° count) unless I could recognize irony in French when | encountered it. The requirement is a depth of familiarity with the “dominant cul- ture’ here and an ease with the lan- guage that —— well, that many immi- grants, perhaps most, and especially those beyond the largely English- speaking countries, will never attain. Sad. “Racist,” if you pump up the term. Not “fair,” perhaps. But true. Just as it would be — is — the other way around, I would never expect to fully “belong” in India, Saudi Arabia, the black Caribbean, indeed the largely white France. Some accomplishments, you know, have to be left for the children to make. They simply can’t be made within a generation. Some immigrants carry inhibiting cultural baggage. Some don’t. Some succeed whatever they bring in with the luggage. And some have wonderful per- sonalities that overcome everything. Some would fail anywhere. Some would be mediocrities in heaven. Some -— vile criminals who abuse Canada's hospitality — deserve to be swiftly kicked out of the country. _ hs largely a matter of tempera- mailbox Life lesson Dear Editor: I was at the Squamish Highway crash that took two lives on Dec. 30, young lives, only 23 and 24. Itwasa head-on crash between a small com-":; pact car and a propane, tanker truck : with dual trailers, and I was in‘ the. vehicle directly behind the car. : ' With my first aid waining I was. out the van door and down to the car. in a flash, so I was the first person to - experience the aftermath. “My first thought was, they’re gone to a better place; I’m‘sure they felt nothing, they: didn't even know what happened. The horror isnot just in what I: saw, but its cause. How. many times have you or I done the, same: thing just wandered over the middle lines little bit, because | something attention? I am trained : _ Occupational’: Level “ment, isn’t it?’ Some of us, noting where we oe started life from — ~ modestly - = grateful. Some, measuring how’ far ; others‘are ahead, are angry and .° resentful. (The natural constituency ie of the. socialists.) ' A Dr. Chopra says regarding his . complaint to the human rights. com-, ° mission that he and the other com-: plainants" ‘are no longer afraid. We .. are about to retire, our mortgages. are paid, our children raised.” - Steady work for 20 years or more. Mortgages paid. Children raised. Has Canada — have. . an Canadians — treated Chopra (and the other complainants) so Y badly? Is’ he showing much courage now that, " he has “nothing to lose?” * i Liberal Jeremy Dalton, conscien-, tious West Vancouver-Capilano ~. MLA, is on record for supporting the principle of school board amal-.” gamation but “I will not support amalgamation in ary form” between: : “ the West and North Vancouver . boards “until the North Vancouver : deficit matter.is resolved.” And, also for the record, while he’s too kind to put it so bluntly, West Van Mayor Mark Sager thinks:. my column last week was nonsense. ' He insists that ourtowncan |.) afford to go ahead with both a west. ' em recreation centre and an arts/the- atre centre on the post office site, in ’ a development also including both: _ retail and residential uses.