6 - Sunday, March 9, 1986 - North Shore News

News Viewpoint

A ‘best’ too many

A

ta recent public meeting on Indian land claims,
Squamish Band Chief Joe Mathias made it dif-
ficult to avoid the conclusion that our native

neighbors want to eat their cake and have it.

Chief Mathias reiterated the Indian insistence on
aboriginal title, which means, in effect, that Indians
claim ownership of the entire North Shore from Deep
Cove to the Squamish Valley and Pemberton. At the
same time, he stressed the wish of his Band to be part
of mainstream Canada, presumably in order to share

more fully in its benefits.

Title to land, aboriginal or otherwise, implies the
right to realize its current value. Since the 19th century
the value of the vast territory claimed by the Indians
has soared a hundredfold, due almost entirely to work
and investment by white immigrants.

Therefore, acceptance of land claims based on
aboriginal title could, in theory at least, cost white
society untold millions, if not billions. Hence Ottawa’s
requirement that aboriginal title must be extinguished
before land claims are settled — and hence the B.C.
government’s refusal so far to recognize aboriginal title

at all.

Fair settlements consistent with today’s realities are
clearly desirable. But attempting to rewrite history in-
variably ends in grief for all concerned. In combining
aboriginal title with a wish to be part of the country’s
mainstream, Chief Mathias seems to want the best of
the white man’s present, plus the best of the Indians’

past.

That’s one ‘‘best’’ too many. The two are simply not

compatible.

GOOD DIPLOMATS don’t fink
on their government, even when
it’s on the brink of collapse.
Afterwards, they get on with the
job of serving its successor just as
loyally.

That’s the professional creed of
Luz Del Mundo, Philippine Con-
sul-General in Vancouver since
1984, and it caused her quite a spot
of trouble during the final days of
the Marcos regime. While Philip-
pine consuls and ambassadors
around the werld were hastening
to declare for Corazon Aquino and
tear down pictures of Marcos while
he was still in his presidential pal-
ace, Ms. Del Mundo figured he
was her boss until she received of-
ficial word to the contrary. As a
result, she was branded “pro-
Marcos’’ by local Filipincs and
had to call in the Mounties to pre-
vent them from ransacking her
consulate.

She told her story fast week as
guest speaker at the Lionsgate
Rotary Club, adding instructive
facts and figures about the pres-
ent-day Philippines and a few off-
the-cuff comments unlikely to of-
fend her new boss. She praised
Mrs. Aquino’s great honesty,
though she confessed to being less
certain about some of the presi-
dent’s male colleagues. And the
petite California-born diplomat
bluntly doubted whether the inter-
ests of the U.S. big business and
the U.S. military coincide with the
best future interests of the Philip-
pines.

Whatever her own future, Luz
Del Mundo comes across to Cana-
dian listeners as an able, articulate

spokeswoman for her country —
and a real ‘‘pro’’.

2s

“HOMEWORK HELPER”, the
imaginative TV program
spearheaded by Doug Ledgerwood
of North Van School District with
the cooperation of the North Van
Teachers Association and Shaw
Cabie 10, now makes Wednesday
the best night of the week for
swotting North Shore students.

Dr. Ledgerwood figured that
students happily spend hours on
the phone or watching TV. He’s
combined these two interests with
homework chores by providing a
team of teachers to help with
Grade 6-10 English and Math
assignments by phone from 6:30 to
8:30 p.m. each Wednesday, But
from 7 to 8 p.m. the teachers also
answer the most interesting student
queries — especially those with
strong visual content — live on
TV

A pilot project, and the first in
C., ‘‘Homework Helper'’
started February 26 and runs to
May 28. But fall plans include the
addition of a science segment and

NEWS photo Mike Waketiald
NANCY ALLEN...a heavenly
harp for St. Patrick's Day.

LETTER OF THE DAY

urning ban untair te

OPEN LETTER TO
N. VAN. DISTRICT
MAYOR MARILYN BAKER

lam writing to protest Council's
decision to ban all burning in the
District. | feel that this decision
was hasty, arbitrary and the result
of certain groups pressing for their
own point of iew with no con-
sideration for the majority of resi-

dents,

We have lived for over 30 years
on a large Jot, (more than one
acre) and have loved the beauty
that our trees bring us. We have by
actual count 170 evergreen trees,
ranging in size from 8°" in diameter
to 36” in diameter. These trees are
part of the beauty of the North
Shore, visible and recognizable
from the Lions Gate Bridge. They

THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER:

1139 Lonsdale Ave.
North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

56,245 (average. Wednesday
Friday & Sunday)

“PRO” DIPLOMAT...Philippine

Publisher:
Editor-in-Chief
Managing Editor
Operations Manager
Advertising Director

Display Advertising 980-0511
Classified Advartising 986-6222
Newsroom 985-2131
Circulation 986-1337
Subscriptions 986-1337
North Shore News, founded +
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Avadatie On taqu DETUG§

VAS an nGependent suburban teow!
Sday Fratay and Sunday by te

HICOME Dut we Cannel ACCEPT teaspoon

Peter Speck

Noel Wright
Nancy Weatherley
Berni Hilharc
Linda Stewart

408 qualhed unde Schaguie ut Paragrape it co the
oe Press Lid dtd aisttmutet 10 every Gore! OF

at Wars? Vancouver, $25 per enat Maning cies
ity fof UNsObeiAd material inciuding ManUscrots

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NEWS photo Mike Waketleld
Consu!-General Luz Del Mundo

greeted by Lionsgate Rotary Club vice-president Bud Parpia.

= TT Ti

HOMEWORK HELPER... Sutherland Secondary’s TV teacher Elaine
Spilos makes the Wednesday night assignments easy.

Noel Wright

possible extension to two nights
per week. Among other pluses, the
program reinforces regular
classroom teaching and help from
parents, as well as showing the
general public just what it’s like to
be at school in 1986.
*¢ +
WHAT TO DO with West Van
resident Robert PelJat’s $10 cheque
is our next problem. He mailed it
to The News ‘in trust’’ to start a
fund for lighting the DECK of the
ions Gate Bridge, saying the
,000 Guinness-rraser strings
of ‘amps do only half a job. A fot
of folk agree, so out with the sharp
pencil. The deck is easy compared
to those giddy-making cables.
North Shore households number
53,000. For 10 bucks apiece we
could complete the lighted silhou-
ette — with money over for spare
bulbs,

How about it, North Shore?
asks Mr. Pellatt. But right now,
pledges only, please. We'll start
collecting cheques (and interest)
after the first $1,000!.

also provide clean au. taking in
carbon dioxide and putting out
oxygen, and I would thin. paying
their way. They are also suviect to
the vagaries of the weather. Every
high wind finds us with windfalls
ranging from small branches to
some as long as 20 feet and 6”’ in
diameter. We diligently clear up all
this debris cut the heavy branches
into firewood Jengths and pile the

® sunday brunch e

SCRATCHPAD: Grey power is
buck power, too, when the cause is
good, as John Blair, resident of
the North Van Kiwanis’ Whiteley
Court, can tell you. He collected a
cool $1,000 for the Heart Fund in
just two days last month — almost
all of it from senior citizen
neighbors in his own building ...
Salute Grade !2 Argyle student
Darren Wood of the 19th Seymour
Scout Group who’s just received
the coveted Queen’s Venturer
badge, the highest award conferred
by Boy Scouts of Canada on 14 to
18-year-old participants in the ven-
turing program .... Ernie Timbers
of the non-profit North Shore
Community Concerts Association
promises a St. Patrick’s Day
foretaste of heaven with world-
class harpist Nancy Allen, the star
of their 8:30 p.m. concert March
17 in the Centennial Theatre.
Season ticket holders only — call
Ernie at 988-8696 to check whether
there are any left ... Over 1,000
youthful performers gather here
next Friday and Saturday (March

Entire contents ©
1986 North Shore
Free Press Ltd. All
tights reserved.

G

NEWS pholo Mike Wakefield

GREY CARE...John Blair with
part of Whiteley Court’s $1,000.

14-15) for the biggest vocal jazz
event in the B.C. and northwest
U.S. school calendar — Carson
Graham’s 10th annual Choral Jazz
Fest. The two-day competition
winds up Saturday evening with
the awards ceremony and a grand
concert — call Robert Karr or
Peter Taylor, 987-9341, for further
info And watercolor lovers
shouldn’t miss the fresh, delicate
studies of local scenery by Eagle
Harbour’s Forrest Johnson,
featured artist exhibiting this
month at West Van Memorial
Library. :

ee

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Success
comes in cans, failure in can’ts.

NEWS photo MI Wakelieid
COVETED AWARD...Argyle’s
Darren Wood with his Queen’s
Venturer badge.

‘the majority’

you have done.
{t also seems to me that the

rest for burning, latterly at six
month intervals. Sometimes we
have a oile over 6’ high. It has
been difficult enough burning at
six month intervals, but for you to
ban all burning is putting an im-
possible burden on us.

We are not the only people in
this situation, and I’m sure there
are many who do not realize what

engineering department is not
prepared for the excess that they
will now have to cart away.

I ask that you amend your by-
law to at least allow burning by
permit.

Mrs. Marguerite Anderson
North Vancouver