The

AN OPEN line phone caller this week was more profound
than he reslized when exasperation got the better of him.

Incredulous at the
constitutional agreement reached
by the first ministers, he asked,
““Were they all suffering from
something like The Stockholm
Syndrome?

He referred to a phrase added
not only to popular colloquialism,
but also to the lexicon of the most
noted forensic psychiatrists and
psychologists.

The condition relates to hostage

’ incidents and criminal abduction.
-Amid the crucible of unbearable
anxiety, victims held at gunpoint,
or with knives at their throats,
frequently seem to develop a
perverse affection toward their
captors

With their lives, food and even

" bodily functions under the control
of the abductors, the syndrome
begins to grow. Every small
‘courtesy or kindness from the

‘criminal earns a grateful response.

‘. Besperate to win favor, the
hostages frequently find.

R themselves believing the pro-

a. paganda, as the wrongs of the

~ world are cited by the perpetrators
to justify their heinous behavior.
~.) Soon, the police and the
authorities — trying to win their
freedom — are seen as the enemy.

T have negotiated three hostage
incidents. One of these — still a
landmark incident in Canadian

_ penology — became a Canadian
example Of the Stockholm Syn-

_ drome before that phrase had

~ entered the language.

"This was the incident that ended
in the tragic death of Mary
Steinhavser.

Gary
Bannerman

OPEN LINES

There was no doubt that a sex-
ual incident had occurred between
one of the three criminals and one
of the 16 hostages (not Mary, as
incorrectly speculated in a dread-
ful motion picture about the case).

So intense was the psychological
trauma that many of the hostages
never went back to work.

The Stockholm Syndrome: fa-
miliar territory.

Enter the premiers, native lead-
ers, territorial representatives and
the prime minister. They begin a
week with a desperate determina-
tion to reach agreement.

Years of debate, hideously ex-
pensive task forces and commis-
sions, the false promise of the

MUNICIPAL
AFFAIRS

~ AGENDAS

, ‘North Vancouver City Council:
Next meeting Monday, Sept. 14.

: North Vancouver District Council:
“ Next meeting Monday, Sept. 14.

‘west ' Varcouver District Council:
Next meeting Monday, Sept. i4.

~ DEVELOPMENT
os PERMITS

All agenda items are restricted by

“ARE YOU.
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INTEREST RATES?

"Now. is. the time to icok at

diversifying outside Canada.
We offer a wide variety of
foreign currency government
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‘For more information, please call
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DQMINION
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space. For a complete listing of
West Vancouver agenda items,
call 922-121 after business hours
for recorded information. A com-
prehensive agenda is also available
at the West Vancouver public
library. Comprehensive agendas
for North Vancouver City and
District are posted at the respec-
tive halls and are also available at
the public libraries.

previous Meech Lake agreement,
and a July 7 accord led to the
mid-August finale.

For the first time since the col-
lapse of Meech, Robert Bourassa
was in attendance.

A number of factors hovered
hauntingly over the proceedings.
The financial cost of indecision
was incalculable. Every aspect of
Canadian life has been debilitated
by the process.

The public had grown bored,
angry and intolerant of the ex-
travagant patronage-ridden
constitutional exercises.

The leaders knew as they started
the first meeting that failure was
not an acceptable outcome.

Day after day they poured
through a parade of items, each
day a topic in itself. Each day
there had to be a press conference
announcing agreement, and a
move to the next step and the next
topic.

The people in the room had far
more in common than their areas
of difference. But they were
hostages to a process.

They rowed bravely onward,
fully aware that they were piloting
a leaky boat over dangerous reefs.

Incorrectly, some of them
assumed that any deal was
preferable to no deal.

Britisn Columbia's two
foremost constitutional
authorities, former provincial ad-
visor Mel Smith and the eloquent,
internationally renowned Edward
MceWhinney, were genuinely stun-
ned by the weakness of the British
Columbia position.

Dr. McWhinney, whose exper-
tise in international law has long
been established from postings at
the United Nations, New York
University and from his current
base at Simon Fraser University,
says the dea! is far worse than
what exists at the moment and in-
ferior to the Meech Lake agree-
ment,

He does not see Quebec as the
villain, He told me his guess is
that Bourassa likely went home
surprised by the generosity of the
process, with far more than fie
expected.

McWhinney blames a weakness
of federal leadership.

He said the big winner is not
Quebec, but Ontario.

Not only has the central pro-
vince an increased stranglehold on

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Sunday, August 30, 1992 - North Shore News - 9

Parliament, it can add to that an
economic clout the rest of Canada
can only fantasize about.

“Bob Rae outsmarted
everybody,’ McWhinney said.

The eastern press has savaged
Mike Harcourt. He has been
described as ‘‘the laughing stock’’
of the constitutional process.

He should not be concerned
about that verdict.

The legendary Premier T. Duf-
ferin Patullo, fighting an arrogant
Royal Commission on Domi-
nion-Provincial Relations in 1940,
accused the commissioner and
Winnipeg Fress Press editor John
Dafoe of ‘‘error, misconstruction,
misinterpretation, misrepre-
sentation, falsification, lying and
libel.””

Premier W.A.C. Bennett was
christened ‘“WACKY” after his
journeys east.

After premier Dave Barrett’s
first boisterous performance in
Ottawa, Pierre Trudeau devas-
tated the image of the new B.C.
representative: he circulated the
opinion that Barrett was incapable
of completing a sentence without
using the ‘‘f?? word at least twice.

Toronto media unanimously

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middle of the road is a dangerous place

predicted Bill Bennett's defeat in
each of his three elections.

After his tough budget trim-
ming, he was ‘‘Attila of Lotus
Land.” This was conveniently
forgotten when British Columbia
developed the only healthy
economy in Canada. We have
never looked back.

They feasted on Bill Vander
Zalm., It was a gift. At last, a
British Columbia eccentric who
DID self-destruct. They were
eager to pluck the next turkey.

Harcourt’s dilemma is unique,
however. His predecessors were
ridiculed for their powerful —
even obsessive — hometown
chauvinism. Harcourt has quickly
developed a Benedict Arnold rep-
utation: too eager to please, a
famb among the wolves.

He ought to have remembered a
comment of Aneurin Bevan, one
of British history’s greatest
orators, and a democratic social-
ist: ‘*‘We know what happens to
people who stay in the middle of
the road. They get run down.”’
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