A6-Wednesday, October 15, 1980 - North Shore News editorial page Quality of life Deep Cove residents who turned out in force last week to oppose long range development proposals for their“Garden of Eden” are not alone. Their demand for things to be left the way they are is regularly echoed right across the North Shore — Stoker Farm, Fisherman’s Wharf Marina and West Vancouver's move to ban further highrises being other current examples. Standard counter-arguments by developers are the right of property owners to develop their properties; the increased tax revenue generated by commercial, industrial and high-density housing projects; and the “obligation” of individual municipalities to accept their share of the 50,000 newcomers flooding into B.C. each year from other provinces. 5 On the other side of the coin the first duty of local councils must be to the communities that elect them — not to outsiders or purely profit-oriented interests. Property owners are obviously entitled to improve their properties in accordance with current zoning, but they have no automatic right to rezoning on demand. And in practice the “tax base” argument is largely illusory. In most cases the extra revenue collected is offset by the extra municipal services required by the development. The claim that a community is obligated to change its lifestyle in order to accommodate hundreds of newcomers it doesn’t want seems to us little more than moral arm- twisting. We are not, after all, talking about refugees. Developers have obviously contributed to the North Shore's quality of life and can still do so. But the community alone has the right to decide what that quality shall be. Higher education Reporters report, editors edit, columnists analyze — and now Capilano College plans a course to educate newspaper readers in how to educate newspaper people to higher standards. This kind of zeal ts catching. The next logical step is a course to educate the educators who educate the public to educate the media. sunday news north shore news 1134 Lonsdale Ave: North Vancouver Ht VIM Ha (604, 985-2131 NEWS ADVE RTISING CLASSIFIED) CROLL A THON 985-2131 980-0511 986-6222 986-1337 Publisher beter Spend & Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright for Cet cdwell Classified Manager & Office Administrator Bern Hilliard Creative Director Tam Botanic os Production Pte bh Sotovert case aye Me Crane Managing Editor Andy fraser Nows Editor Cohwris bl koyes Photography b Meso tty (dnc soe Accounting Suporvisor tSear toate Keen, North Shore Newa footed VOU ea a dep eee berert rea ae Ty cverwenpaeaprer ean) cpesentibierdd capsctese Soe Prarhabe ME baat IN beer age ag ot IE of thre bomceme Fare At is gratibatierct oat Wechesdany an saeday bey North Shore bee bens fb arsed desteatscitesdd be ce bo oe thee North Stee Sse Chat Maal Pla genteatics | Nagriteas vest Switom, riptionn Bat peer yeu betwee oo eat DA ee Ce Forever Prrestse (tel AM riggtits. cea vend Ne: Fertgocernataidet yy eee ety rtae tf ta PT ate , CRYO ACW is TOA 6) cD LS ee whet Ree yt ee salaried) acne nce re tee are ome ge VERIFIED CIRCUN ATION 50.8670 We deescda, 40995 % Ge ¢ waDEN a THIS PAPER (IS RECYCLABLE voted, By PETER WARD OTTAWA (SF) — The problems which are in urgent need of attention as parhament meets again are sO mumerous that it is frightening. We have enough of the real kind of crises, let alone the manufactured ones like a constitutional impasse. In a manner which has become traditional with Trudeau governments, questions of the economy are shunted back to second or third place, while we deal with structure, life-styles, and politics. You simply can't have those _ things withoul economic strength, a fact which is apparent when you regard the gross national debit run up during the past 12 years. That debt, on which Canadian taxpayers must pay the ruinous rates of interest these days, is very close to $110 bilhon. Ih means that the interest payments are more per year than was the entire federal budget when Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau led the Liberals to power in 1968. Canada is in urgent need of a federal budget. We haven't had one which passed Parliament since November, 1978. We also need long-term energy pricing policies which will Canadian Comment BY PETER WARD enable business to pian ahead and raise oil prices high enough to _ force Canadians into the con- servation mode. We need a mechanism Breaking heads on a brick wall with teeth to keep the major ou compamies from using excess profits to buy up all o! Canada) The) monitoring agency set up bv Ottawa in summer 1s vet. another bureaucracy with no teeth creaced more for political! than economic reasons and so perceived by the tndustrv We need some drastic surgery on the federal public service, both to trim waste and to improve morale for those who are doing thei darndest to serve Canad. well..We need fewer aid: .. those who want to take more trom the system than tc. contribute and = more in- centives for those who really wantto work. We need the rational industmal policy which has heen promised so often. and never delivered) We need opportunity for the Canadian entrepreneynal spirit. rather than red tape which chokes it. and we need leadership not manipulation. The record shows alas that pohtics. structure and the constitution are the brick wall upon which our elected parhamentarians breaking thetr heads will Ne Human rights vs. custard pies Just in case you should have strong feelings on the matter, pray be warned that this column says something good about Premier Bill Bennett. Those who don't fee equal to reading any further can turn to our pei.ceful Community Roundup pages until it’s all over. Mr Bennett has had a rough year. First i was the Dirty Trmcks scandal ansing out of bogus letters to editors dunng the 1979 election campaign Then came the htthe matter of unreported campaign ex. penditures, culminating tn the resignation of veteran Socred organizer Dan Campbell That was followed by the “Grace's finger” affair with rts stall unresolved allegations of fiddbng with electoral boundanes Now we have the fiasco of the costly Kaiser takeover by the B ¢ ment Resources Invest Corporation the Bennett baby which its once proud father has meanwhile disowned lo the reported distllustonme nt of the business world Finally as the Socred annual convention on November 6 approaches there are rumblings of mutiny about a leadership review from the party rank and file itself “MOTHERHOOD” AW of) which obscure the fact that on one tends to vitally important issuc the Trudeau constitutional Premice Bennett appear to be talking a great deal more sense than most of He's against the Trudeau demand package his detractors dead for a charter of mghts to be cashrined in the patriated Copmstitution At fiest) thast a came tuuional charter of mghts sounds hke an idea as pure as motherhood In a recent media handout (too long to reproduce here in full) the premier has some telling arguments why tt is nothing at all hke motherhood “We have had a lot of hubbub lately about what ts wrong with (hts country,” he observes Tthmk we ought to talk a htthe more about what is right with Canada ~ He addresses himself to our present freedoms under common law, and those con usape traditions Writing freedoms stitutional into a document, — he contends, 18 no guaranice them pointing oul that the Soviet consttubion, for example _ ts one of the that we have most perfect constitubonal documents in the world in providing papet guarantees of freedom But whats the practheo im the Soviet Ulnton he asks COURTS WOULD DECIDE The place oto enshrine human nghts says Bennett isnotina Constitution buat in a Bill of Raghts through enacted le pishation capable of and being strengthened as required through legislation in parhaments and legislatures responding to the wall of the people If those whe sayoowe should write everything inte a Comstilutlhon were to have thear way the «ourts amd met the legishaturcs would have Noel Wright the final say about wnting the laws of our Country he “Would democrauc’?” What about freedoms that negate other says declares that be freedoms?” Suppose Bennett a pornographer set up shop in your neighbourhood on the that CR pressk xn grounds “treedom of was guaranteed under the «onstitullon Useless to protest to your clected representatives would be powerless The only place to direct your they beet would be the Supreme Court of Canada at the nmsk of losing thousand several dollars in Costs As to the rnght) of free movement oof people and goods the premier poms out that i cxwsts already Soa othet quoting the au C anadtaas from provinces B ( last ycur Bat fur mahving soot oo right for all time in the who onmoved te consditulbon could again trample on other freedoms Phe mene act ool caecuer aging emplovers in an area of mgh unemployment « “hire locally become = illepai people in remote areas with the necessary Skills would legal meht to be Offered first crack alt a jot first would Nalive Nave nw opening Municipal couneciis would be legally debarres from giving Jocal supphers contractors of workmen 4 break On local proyects DANGEROUS TRAP And what about the many other subtle would almost rights tha inevitably be overlooked in permanent constitubionas charter” Would they be los! forever” dralting 4 Bennett ob saying that mghts are living growing. In essence changing = things like the people to whom they apply And therefore thal u is the people not nine remole Supreme Court who should from time to time elected MPs and councils judges, dew re through MI As what those the nights should be Mr Benneu smart at may not be tow dodging poltical custard pies Bul he's way ahead of most of his (including Mr Barrett) an crithes recognizing the dangerous traps into which could fall by templiag of ocen Canadians accepting the Trudeau concept shnning human mghts i 4 written constitulion Mr Bennett calls ul cotombing) buman rights and he deserves to be listened to attentively (ona scale of ten the gravity of the charter of tights rsd registers the full ten porns By comparison — the past years Jocal scandals would rate at mast (wo