Bob Hunter

the word
is floating

1 SEE that
“*separatism’”’
around again.

Somehow, | didn’t think it was
going to go away completely. It
was just too bad that it attracted
such a bunch of loonies last time
around not only were respectable
thinkers scared away, even
characters like me were eventually
overwhelmed with despair.

But in fact, thinking about it
historically, how could the subject
go away so long as Canada remains
the kind of lopsided, weighted pork
barrel political entity it is, with the
ballast all Down East?

{ haven’t heard so much dark,
outfront muttering about the cen-
tral Canadian bias in national af-
fairs since, well, at least two years
ago, when everything the Liberals
did was further proof of centralist
perfidy.

The Tories have now taken on
the Eastern Liberal’s Burden of
providing largesse to Quebec and
sucking up to Ontario.

One slight change in the picture
which I have detected out here is
the increasingly radical view of the
Canadian constitutional deal taken

| by some of my old media
colleagues.

Marjorie Nichols, for instance,
came out a little while ago with a
description of the Canadian
political system that sounded like
one of those far-out columns I
might have written back in the early
"80s.

Quoth she, in the Nov. 13 edi-
tion of The Vancouver Sun:
“There is absolutely no evidence
that Canadian voters know or care
that only the king of Saudi Arabia
has more arbitrary powers than a
Canadian prime minister with a

} Commons majority.”

Nevertheless, the feisty pon-
tificator continued, the fact is that
“commonplace U.S. democratic
forms make our parliamentary
system look more and more like a
benign dictatorship.’’

Strong words, Marjorie!

That’s a perception I have en-
dorsed for many years. Canada’s
vaunted democracy is seriously
flawed by built-in loopholes which

| allow politicians to invent laws as
they go, and generally run the show
by Orders-in-Council from behind
closed Cabinet doors.

f My main objection to metrifica-
tion, by the way, was simply that
it was a perfect example of bully-

{boy mandarins ramming rules
through, ignoring the democratic

| niceties of maybe asking us peons
first via the increasingly-token in-
strument of Parliament, at least,
what we thought. :

° strictly personal ®

Jamie Lamb, The Sun’s excellent
Ottawa bureau columnist, had few
rather radical things to say himself
before he headed off on a
fellowship.

On Suly 31, he wrote:

“An outsider having watched the
daily activity of the nation's capital
for five years is faced with one in-
escapable conclusion about the
relationship between British Col-
umbia and the federal government:
the concerns and welfare of B.C.
and its citizenry don't amount to
a hill of beans in Ottawa.

“What's worse, it never will.’’

The ‘‘bedrock truth’? was, Lamb
solemnly admitted, that the money,
industry, population, media and

culture that affect the feds is [

located, just as you always knew,
in Ontario and Quebec.

Now, [ notice, broadcaster Rafe
Mair, a calm, decent guy, has come
around to sadly uttering words to
the same effect.

In the Nov. 21 Globe & Mail, |

Mair, a former Socred cabinet
minister, writes:

“Canada is governed by a system
in which the majority has, in the
absence of a minority government,
a five-year dictatorship, and titat
majority is made up mostly cf
Quebeckers and Ontarians...

“British Columbians...feel not

just ignored, but penalized for be-
ing political outcasts because,
under the system, they don’t count.
The electoral brides, Ontario and
Quebec, after they succumb to
Liberal or Tory blandishments, get
the dowries -~ the bridesmaid gets
a bouquet and little else.
“After a while, the perpetual
bridesmaid tends to feel a bit
Strange about the entire mating
process.”’

Gee, with all you media folks
coming around to the view that
B.C. is being raped under the
balance sheets, it can only be a
matter of time before common
wisdom has it that, indeed, this is
a permanently screwed-up political
relationship.

Of course, we might not bolt the
ranks of confederation, no matter
what provocation. Maybe we like
it this way — divided authority and
all that.

But, I'll tell you, there are only }

a few other places that come to
mind where the natives are quite so
quiescent.

Face facts. At best, B.C. is a |

satellite,

Once, we were a colony known
as New Caledonia. | don’t think
anything has really changed, to tell

you the truth. Now we are a col- |

ony named British Columbia.
Only the HQ of the empire has
changed.
Seal the Kicking Horse Pass!

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High winds knock out
some WN. Shore power

WINDS GUSTING to 60 km/h
Tuesday night helped blow out the
lights of about 2,400 B.C. Hydro
customers on the North Shore and
900 customers on Bowen Island.

B.C. Hydro spokesman Peter
McMullan said two major circuits
in the Capilano area of North
Vancouver and one servicing
Bowen Island were knocked out by
falling trees and high winds during
the storm.

He said the first circuit, servic-
ing an area bounded by Cotton-
wood Drive on the south, Tall Tree
Lane to the north, Capilano River
to the west and Pemberton Avenue
to the east, was out from 5:08 p.m.
to 1:13 a.m.

The second, bounded by
Capilano River to the west,
Deibrook Avenue io the east,
Edgeraont Boulevard to the north
and the Upper Levels Highway to
the south, was out from 7:09 p.m.
to 3:59 a.m.

The Bowen Island circuit was
knocked out at 8 p.m. and service
was restored at 5:35 a.m.

McMullan said isolated pockets
in Deep Cove were also without
power from 3 a.m. to later. Wed-
nesday morning.

In all, 20 major B.C. Hydro cir-

cuits from Mission to Cortez
Island were knocked out during
the storm and about 45,000 cus-
tomers were without power at
various times through the night.

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