SUPPORT GROWS FOR THE VERIO LIBERAL PORT LPADERSHIPCONDDSIES.. to learn about NEWS VIEWPOINT cean herit eventually become a coastal system of marine parks. Unlike the heated environmental issue of the moment — clearcut logging practices in B.C. — the depletion of marine life due to poliation and overharvesting remains for _ most of us a hidden and silent affair. If local waters are alive with sailboats and weekend anglers, then all seems well with our watery world. The aggressive pursuit of strategies such N THE surface, the recent federal } designation of the waters off Whytecliff Park in West. Vancouver ‘as Canada’s first marine protected area was Mitte more than an easy way for politicians “to. score’ a. few enviro-poiats with the public. The designation: means: that fishing for . and’ removing - marine life from a 328- foot-wide (100. metre) strip of water along a gged perimeter of; the park is pro- : hibued. “Met Vancouver. Aquarium director John Nightingale is right to call the designation a ‘forward-looking strategy.”” its’ a“ good beginning for what could we as the designation of marine protected areas and the establishment of artificial reefs to regenerate diminishing stocks: of marine life is necessary if we are to. sustain the continued viability and diversity of our ocean heritage. LETTER OF THE DAY ‘Hopefully. council can fine-tune bylaw "Dear Editor: vIf we.can be clear that a ‘‘noise ; bylaw” concerns only ‘‘ndise,”’ some aspects of West Vancouver's proposed anti-noise bylaw have possible merit, eg., no chainsaws ‘or mowers before 6 a.m. on Sun- days, control of construction noises to normal working days. If we can rest assured and con- fident that, by definition, noise is: “a sound that is not musical or pleasant, (it is) a loud or harsh sound ... a group of sound waves which are not periodic, and which are produced by irregular vibra- ‘tions’? (Gage Canadian Dic- tionary, 1983:771), it is. obvious that we, the many musicians of the community, will be able to practise to our hearts’ content, and play our marches on the streets of West Vancouver in our annual Remembrance Day and Community Day parades. If, though, a neighbor of Irwin Park School (band reom) misinterprets our rehearsal music “noise,’’ is each member of the band individually liable for pro- secution? For that matter, am I liable for misinterpretive harrassment by ‘someone who feels that my at- home flute practising (which to me is music) could be labelled “noise”? (1 suppose 1 could always practise in 15-minute _ Spurts!) By definition, the stream that runs through my property is pro- ducing ‘‘noise’’! I pray that the council, in its collective wisdom, fine-tunes (pun intentional) this bylaw. The way it reads now, practising of music would be subject to the whim of an especially sensitive neighbor, all our pool/patio/ house parties would be impossible, and as for Christmas carolling in the neighborhood ... forget it! Hilary Clark West Vancouver Adult Communi- ty Band Publisher... Managing Editor Associate Editor... Sates & Marketing Director Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore Nows, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newSpaper and qualified under Schedule 141, Paragraph Hi! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. by. North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada. Post Canadian Publications Mail. Sales Product Agreement No. G087238. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot ‘accept. responsibility for unsolicited materia! including manuscripts and pictures which should be accotnpanied by a stamped, self- self- addressed envelope. ~ v : _ Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Peter Speck |; ah GD This newspaper contains Distribution ~ 986-1337 (ok Subscriptions 986-1337 Fax ~ 985-3227 bee Administration 985: 2131 Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Mj fecyCied tiore . Notth Snore managed MEMBER —— SR’ 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, SDA DIVISION North Vancouver, B.C. ° V7M 2H4 61,82 (average circulation, Wednesday, Frigay & Sunday) Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. pL 33! TEN MILLION BUCKS would have funded'an awful lot . of transition houses and other help for battered women over the past two years. Instead, your tax dollars and mine have been squandered by a bunch of radical feminists on stoking new fires of gender discord without providing a cent’s worth of practical assistance for a single abused female. Don’t get me wrong about the Report of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women, released last week by Capilano MP Mary Collins, minister for the status of women. Violence against women is abhorrent and it’s undoubtedly far more widespread than a majority of decent Canadians of both sexes have known froin direct experi- ence. Exactly how widespread is another matter, despite the | shocking figures given in the report — 40% raped, 31% victims of attempted rape, two out of . three women sexually assaulted (anything from rape to “unwanted sexual touching’’), etc., etc. The numbers come from a survey of 420 Toronto women aged 18 to 64, or approximately MARY COLLINS... ‘discrimination’? one woman in every 3,200 in that one Canadian city. Women in all the rest of the counry were ap- parently ignored. As well, it’s not clear whether the 426 were selected by the opi- nion poli industry’s scientific ran- dom sample methodology or by some other process. Nor do we know what questions were put to the interviewees, or in what form. All these variables are capable of having a major effect on the statistical results of such a survey. The trouble with statsitics as sensational as those in the report is that they immediately take on an unchallenged life of their own. Unless their accuracy can be shown to be beyond reasonable doubt, this can lead to some very skewed conclusions. In the present case the panel’s costly _ conclusions boil down to sheer... hysterical liatred of all males. “‘In a society whose very structure condones male violence, all men, whether or not.they are violent, derive substantial benefit. from its institutionalization,’’ shrieks the report, ‘‘, . . All women pay the price of mate violence.’ That's right in line with that proposed Thornton Park memori- al ‘‘to all the women killed by men.”’ It tells the vast majority of Canadian males who would never lay a finger on a woman that they’re ail just as bad as the most brutal rapists and wife-beaters. This, one gathers, largely HITHER AND YON because men who work | throughout their careers may earn up to one-third more than. women: who interrupt their careers for |: child-bearing and rearing; because - Ottawa (read you and 1) has no’ ©: _ money for national daycare; - because judges are gender-insen- sitive and Roman Catholics refuse to ordain women priests. { So lurid is the report’ 's ‘condem nation of the entire male sex that it sparks an interesting thought Thanks to Mikey.and his jackboots brigade, B.C. now has Bill 33, the ‘‘anti-hate”’ few which forbids ‘‘publication of : any state-. -ment that discriminates by face,” color, ancestry, place of/origin, religion, marital or family status, ° . physical or mental disability, SE. , sexual orientation or age” (the: capitals are mine). : ; Surely that entitles me to haul the Hon. Mary Collias — “‘publisher’’ of this. scurrilous at- tack on all members of my sex — before the B.C. Human Rights: Tribunal and demand exemplary damages from her? Ten million smackers, say — which we rotten but harmless’. males would then happily donate to battered women shelters across Canada! ooo SCRATCHPAD: Next in the North Shore Nature Walks series © is Sunday’s (Aug. 8) Capilano : Canyon Walk, starting at 9:30. : a.m. — call Lynu Canyon Ecology Centre, 987-5922, for details . .... ,, Next monthly meeting of the _ Crossroads Women’s Support Group for women facing the ; >. challenge of middle age takes::*: place Monday, Aug. 9 at:7:30: p.m. in the basement boardroom: of Lions Gate Hospital's Evergreen House .':'. Local are invited to be part of the Cub tural Database operated by the North Shore Arts Commission — |. -” for info and a free listing contact Jen, 986-3559 . . . Many happy returns of today, Aug. 4, to the world’s best ioved royal, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, who-turns = 93... And also today,’ happy. birthday wishes to West Van - Kiwanian Red Vosper. -— WRIGHT OR WRONG: The time to relax is when you don’t have |... time for it