” reef enn Dt phe ty -toneal 6 — Friday, March 15, 1996 ~ North Shore News 1139 Lonsdale Avenue Marth Vancouver, 3.C. PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (ist) Managing Editor 885-2131 (116) Promotions Manager 995-2131 (218) : Sonny & Ren! Exteto Fax Faerene fest Rocaumting & Miks Cifies Pax Werth Shere Mei, founded in 1969 ax an tuburben arwspeper and quiliied under Schedule 111. Paragreph JIE of the Excise Tax Act, is published cach ‘Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Ene Press Led. and diveibuted to every door on the North Shore, Canada Post Cansdian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 0087234. Mailing rates availeble on request. Entire contents © 1996 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. REDE MOSER ERTS ELT CENA LIRR ht SARA news viewpoint Passport to justice EWARE THE wheels of Canadian justice. They are getting down- right beastly. Just ask Siamak Ashrafinia. This recent immigrant to our fair jand has had the full weight of Canadian frontier justice brought to bear upon him: a three-month sentence to be served on the electronic monitoring sys- tem. Meaning that he has been ordered to return home after being roughly mana- cled to an ankie bracelet that can be monitored by the authorities to ensure that he doesn’t wander too far from the spartan comforts of his house. FONE eae. = le Trevor Lauiens PPPPPFEESFFFT! That’s the sound of a dream punctured, ail that sweetly scented rose-colored air escap- ing. Greater Tiddlycove, aka West Vancouver, evidently won't get an arts and theatre centre on the Canada Post site at 17th and Bellevue. The project is dead. Not dead in the water, but near enough —— just across from John Lawson Park and the Hydro substation that sadly mars the splendid sweep of West Vancouver waterfront at that point. Even I, witness to many an exploded hope and human disappointment, felt some twitch of my old, gnaried heart, proving to unkind skep- tics that 1 still have one. ! sympathized sincerely with our muscular young mayor, Mark Sager, when he announced the death, funeral services and interment of the project in abuut 30 seconds at the start of Monday's council meeting. Our usually upbeat chief. magistrate looked tired and crestfallen. Packaging the art and the- atre centre With a private development, the latter helping to make the former viable with the gift of a well-known West Vancouver “angel.” would have been the. gem of his administration. His vision was of a 200-seat, 7,000-square- foot theatre, plus other facilities for the arts. Mayor Sager was enthusiastic lient, if you happen to have encountered that word before — when f asked him about the pro- ject just two months ago. Several potential developers were already jumping at the opportunity, he assured me then, Too graphic for you? Read on. Mr. Ashrafinia received this peculiar form of Canadian brutality after being convicted of forging Canadian pass- ports, Sure, he flagrantly defrauded his new homeland. Sure, he collected social assistance all the while as he charged up to $1,500 for a forged passport. Sure, he used the services of Farsi interpreters and sign language inter- preters all at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer during his trial on passport fraud. Sure, he thumbed his nose at the resi- VE, SURE, | CAN SHIP THIS ORDER To YoU THIS AFTERNOON YOU GOF ANOTHER, ROUND OF TRADE TALKS COMING UP WITH GONADS MISTER KANTOR?... The municipality had taken / an option to buy the property from Canada Post. Asking rice, a rather steep $5 mil- ion. In the event, six developers submitted formal proposals. An advisory committee of three was struck to study them. The deflating news came last week, The committee couldn't recommend any of them. It’s a reasonable assumption that the various developers weren't prepared to give the public side of the project a fair enough shake to make it attractive to the municipality. Or, put the other way, the municipality's demands made the private side of the develop- meat an unprofitable non-starter. For what it’s worth — little enough, you may well say — I'm a fairly confirmed pessimist about community-backed theatre in this day and age. They are costly to build and run and, flatly, they require endless subsidy and begging. A brave little local production can be excel- lent but it struggles for attention and publicity against big-league extravaganzas like Showboat and the grossly over-hyped spectacles of Andrew Lloyd Webber, writer of mostly forget- table songs and producer of technically gim- micky musicals, with their immense advertising budgets — and ticket prices only for the afflu- ent. {c also competes with a “free” evening of watching PBS, A&E and other television fare, some of it classily superb. You may be a couch potato, but, by God. a literate couch potato, just staying at home and of biases dents and democratic ieniency of this overly fair land. But three months lashed to an elec- tronic monitoring device? Brutal, no? The judge who handed out the sen- tence, B.C. Supreme Court Assvciate Chief Justice Patrick Dehm, opined during the sentencing the same day of a teacher for sexual assault that electronic monitoring was a more difficult sen- tence to serve than jail time itself. Now that’s Canadian-style justice. And it should scare Ashrafinia and all prospective incoming frauds real good. Because it certainly should scare all , law-abiding citizens real good. tax tales: CANADA'S MAJOR political par- ties may have their differences :but when it comes to soaking the tax- payer, they're all in the same boat: Believe it or not, the Canadian subsidies to: ,. the . ‘Conservative, . NDP - and.“ Bloc Quebecois parties. Even the Reform .- ‘party, which opposes. these. hand- “wuts, took the money. it’s.a’ perfect- ly legal rip-off. Under the Canadian ‘Elections Act, the major parties are entitled to have 22.5% or their cain: paign expenses reimbursed by tax- payers after each election... -. vy After the 1993 federal clection; |. here is what.some of ‘the political “ parties received: a & The Liberal party: $2,076, 624: @ The Progressive Conservatives: $2,339,753 “about $1, 169, 876 per’ seat!); i 8 The NDP: $1} (675,702; : @ The Reform party: $329,710. and *: the separatist’ Bloc’ Quebecois: ' _ $426,631. — From Tales from: the Tax Trough I1, a National Citize 18" Coalition publication. ; s urst on arts dream ‘practising selective viewing. Regrettably, live theatre struggles ev even in’: ‘London and New ‘York, leaning heavily on sure". fire revivals and big-name stars. | West Van corp surely took a look at the eco- nomics of North Vancouver Centennial Theatre — which, I'd bet, is seriously under-utilized. The real political blow Monday may:have . . been administered to the ambitions of Coun. Pat: . Boname, council's most ardent arts supporter... She sat silent while Mayor Sager had the painful ; task of announcing the obsequies for an idea that broke when hardly out of the box. The deepest reason West Vancouver has rejected photo radar, ‘tis believed, is not abstract principle but because police prefer stopping . speeders so they can check for other nayghti- ness. Sympathy to well- ‘liked West Vancouver: - Capilano Liberal MLA Jeremy Dalton, whose’ mother, Margaret, died recently. Only devotion to duty would keep me from a farewell roast for retiring West Vancouver- Garibaldi MLA David Mitche!! last week at the Blarney Stone in Vancouver. And it did. Hope it went well. sf een And, somewhat out of our territory, I'm sad about the death at age 100 of comedian George Burs (a lot fuiinier *~ old age than on radio half. a century ago With‘ «. seloved Gracie Allen, who tiresomely portrayed a stunned fémale, I can attest). We need all the old men smoking cigars and swilling martinis we can get. Loved his reply when asked how his doctor viewed those habits: “My doctor is dead.” taxpayer is currently being com-... - 7 pelled to pay raulti-million dolar ..°: Liberal,:..: