6 - Sunday, April 26, 1992 — North Shore News WHERE'D THEY GET THE CONVEYERS ? FROM SOME OF THE SAW MILLS THAT HAVE SHUT DOWN. Milgaard case oS) Spray Te DREADED spray having (¢all- en, all appears quiet on the North Shore health front. And while it may be too early to accu- rately measure the outfall from the initial phase of the local Asian gypsy moth aerial assault, the most unsettling side-effect of the program thus far has been the rousting of residents from their slumbers at 6 a.m. by the ominous sounds of low-flying air- craft. There have been some ccughs and a few assorted complaints, but the feared mass health complications from the aerial spray- ing of the bacterial insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (Btk) have not mate- rialized. And while many of those who have mounted soap boxes and bent media ears to fight the good fight against the spraying fallout program have based their actions on heart-felt concerns, others have merely ridden the wave of hysteria to the highest elevations of public exposure possible. Appeals to the United Nations to stop the program hit the peaks of such hysteria. Some of those against the spraying of Btk are the same folks who have rallied in the past to save stands of old growth trees in the North Shore area, a cause with which few could find argument. But an established gypsy moth popula- tion could do more to ravage those same old growth trees than any perceived human threat. The question therefore is whether those in opposition to the spray program are really opposed to that program er merely cpposed to any cause that sounds environmentally fashionabie. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “You think you're in a fairly serious game of delivering the news, and the night you change your neckwear, that becomes an issue in itself.°° BCTV anchorman Tony Par- sons, on wearing a bow tie on the air. **Nobody cares -—- the owner, ICBC, the RCMP, the whole works. I’m in wonderment over the whole thing. There is so much non-caring here.”* Unemployed North Vancouver man, Cal Scott, on being forced io sleep in a garage after his basement suite was flooded by a fire hydrant that had been hit by a car being chased by the police. ‘*,..it wili be fun, and it will be a wild display of teenage zit angst rock.... Don’t be afraid to sup- port your community, the North Shore, home of Karen Magnussen, Jim Pattison, Bryan Adams — Tomahawk Barbecue, Skookum Chief Hamburgers.”’ West Vancouver’s irrepressible Nardwuar the Human Serviette, reaching out to the greater North Shore for support for his latest tock and roll production. “Wildlife and peopie are not nec- essarily compatible and people and chemical contamination are not necessarily compatible," Environment Canada spokesman Paul Kluckner, on fac- tors that will be investigated to determine the future public acces- sibility to the Maplewood area waterfront. Publisher Peter Speck Managing Editor .. ‘Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor Noel Wright Advertising Director .. Linda Stewart Comptroller Doug Foot North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 141. Paragraph It! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Ciass Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year, Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material inciuding manuscripts and pictures which should be accomparied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Newsroom V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. 980-0511 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 § Administration 985-2131 MEMBER ESE VAN SOA DIVISION Distribution Subscriptions North Shore managed 985-2131 a <> 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday. Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Al! rights reserved. ‘a trial of the justice system THE LEGAL limbo into which David Milgaard sas now been dumped is as bizsrre as it is intolerabbe. Until his status is clarified, the Canadian justice sysicm itself is on trial. Did Milgaard, now 39, murder Saskatoon nursing assistant Gail Miller in 1969? Or is he — as he’s claimed throughout his 23 years in jail — innocent and wrongly con- victed? In effect, the recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling ‘‘pardon- ed’’ him without pardoning or exonerating him LEGALLY. It said his 1969 conviction was fair at the time — but that later evi- dence, not then available, in- dicated the possibility of a miscar- riage of justice. So the Supreme Court recom- mended a new tria}, while adding that — even if convicted again — Milgaard should not return to jail. One can hardly blame Saskat- chewan Attorney General Bob Mitchell for rejecting a retrial. After nearly a quarter of a cen- tury police, lawyers and witnesses are now scattered, dead or with failing memories. And anyway, there could be no further prison sentence. But that decision itself also automatically continues Milgaard’s life sentence, albeit as a free man. Legally he remains a convicted murderer until legally declared innocent — which the highest court in the land has declined to do. Even if he were formally pardoned, the stigma of a murder conviction would remain with him until he dies. Milgaard — then a 16-year-old — claims he was “‘railroaded"’ at his 1969 trial. Denied a retrial, he and his lawyers are now pressing for a public inquiry into the way the prosecution handled the DAVID MILGAARD... left swinging in the wind. KEVIN SHORT... big-time opera voice visits. Wright HITHER AND YON charge. A precedent is the case of Doneld Marshall, the Nova Scotia man who spent I1 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t com- mit. To date, Attorney Genera! Mit- chell has also rejected such an in- quiry — which would presumably face the same time-lapse problems as a new trial. Morcover, it would be directly second-guessing the Supreme Court, which has already ruled that the prosecution WAS properly conducted, given the evi- dence to hand at the time. So Milgaard is left swinging in the wind. His conviction stands, but is now based on a possible miscarriage of justice — a possi- bility confirmed by the Supreme Court, yet in practice apparently incapabie of being either proved or disproved 23 years later. Canadian law traditionally gives an accused the benefit of any “reasonable doubt’’ rather than punish a possibly innocent person. If no way now exists ever to reach the truth, why would Milgaard not qualify for that benefit — by having his convic- tion overturned and being legaily acquitted? What alternative does justice now have? SIGN-OFF: Winding up North Shore Community Concerts’ cuz- rent season Friday, May 1, at the -Centennial Theatre is gifted, up- and-coming young bass-baritone Kevin Short of the Metropolitan Opera ... Honored recently for his 10 years’ service with the naming for him of an endowment scholar- ship open to English-as-a- , Second-Language students was veteran Cap College ESL instruc- _ tor and coordinator Nick Collins ; — ... Volunteers — including singles and teens — who enjoy working in a social setting with seniors are needed once a week, 4:30-7 p.m.,° to serve group evening meals. Call North Shore Health, 986-7111 ... Meanwhile, many happy returns of toraorrow, April 27, to North Van birthday boy Gerry Williams and West Van Kiwanian Robert Lowe. WRIGHT OR WRONG: Life’s problems are like cloverleaf ex- changes on the highway. Unlikely as it first seems, there IS a way out. EE