6 — North Shore News - Friday, April 28, 2000 Closure RIDLOCK city, here we come. North Shore residents and business operators who depend on functioning bridges had untii last week slept relatively peacefully think- ing that all possible measures had been taken to minimize traffic troubles as construction at Lions Gate progresses. Wrong. Delay on the work will now see scheduled bridge closures take place throughout the busier spring period. To rub extra salt into the wounds, the British Columbia Transportation Financing Authority (BCTFA) has quietly increased the number of planned closures. * Last year about this time, we were being told that the bridge deck replacement would begin in January 2000, there would be fewer than 40 - night-time closures, and the new deck mailbox ———— VIEW POINT: would be in place by August 2000. The BCTFA now expects about 60 closures. Mast of us were completely unpre- pared for the traffic gridlock experi- enced three years ago during the repairs on the Second Narrows Bridge. Traffic to and from the North Shore was disrupted. Local traffic ground to a halt as well. During the worst of that tic-up some Seymour residents stewed in traffic for over 90 minutes just to reach Park and Tilford Shopping Centre. Wednesday’s closure for several hours of the Second Narrows Bridge after a truck lost its load provided a brief glimpse into the future. When the Lions Gate is closed, the Second Narrows will provide a tenuous link at best. DIDN'T } TELL YOU To CLEAN UP Your ROOM? WHY JANET RENO SHOULD NEVER HAVE CHILDREN. MP’s referendum democracy blasted gain Ted: White negates our responsibilities as our Member of Parliament. In one of his recent advertori- - (April’5 News) lic was positively frothing at che mouth over California-style referendum democracy. This is a pol- ‘adopted by the newly named Canadian Alliance party. am amazed at this party’s ability to ignore the democ- racy we-have in Canada. Do they not believe that we should. be able to directly and eftcctively tell our elected Acern to. us?:Do Ted; and the new Canadian Alliznce, belicve that for the people’s voices to be heard we need to through ‘a: “costly and time-consuming referendum ‘T'don’r want that kind of process. If we want a better kirid of democracy, then we need a different MP because I the 51st state. It may not be the perfect ‘system but I am proud of the type of democracy we have here in Canada. We elect our representatives job for us. We give them the responsibility to use mscience that they are : given (such as it is). . Jearly Ted docs not enjoy: or want-the trust that the ters of North Vancouver have placed in him. look forward to our “referendum” on election day finally get a representative who actually rep- Publications “Company and distributed to every door the; ‘North “Shore. Canada Post Canadian fy Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 087238, Mating tates available on request. Entira contents ©2000 HCN | Publications Company. All x . tights “reserved. “Average circulation for : Wednesday, Friday and Sunday,is 31, 582. WHERE’S the Commonwealth secretary-general? Where’s Lloyd Axworthy? Wi Where’s Jean Chretien? Where are they, while Zimbabwean dic- tator Robert Mugabe tramples on the rule of law and ignites racial hatred and slaying of white farmers? And where are the hee partes the Western ress, ents an Pulpits who assigned Ian South to the role of vil- lain and cast Mugabe as hero in the Rhadesian strife of the 1960s-80s? Easy to answer about the latter. They averted their eyes after Rhodesia became independent as___ Zimbabwe in 1980, and hurried on to other trends, The rare, usual small, 2 and often dis- tinctly embarrassed piess ing years afterward made it clear that Rhoeabe was the usual Western-educated Marxist black dictator, and that Zimbabwe was collaps- ing. I sharply recali how British papers like The Guardian and The Observer trashed Tan Smith — a delight for cartoonists with’ his louche eyelid, caused by a Second World War wound, that made him cruelly caricaturable. When Smith declared Rhodesia’s unilat- - eral independence in 1965, the United Nations, led by a guilt-ridden socialist - Britain ashamed of its colonial past, imposed economic sanctions and blud- geoned the country as an international ~, pariah. - And now? “Twenty years of Mugabe’ 's communistic soenceeasccccsee: Vovecocceswcccceceven: snesecece rule and suppression of democratic rivals have “ ic “progressively ly” ruined Zimbabwe. d of course economic inequality remains, as it does everywhere, giving the world’s Mugabes a permancnt stick and an unsilence ible drum. About 4,000 white farm- ers own most of the best land and generate mest of Zimbabwe’s agricul- tural wealth. The farm labourers are black. Yes, life is unfair — but never more unfair, and murderously so, than when Marxist collec- tivists try to redistribute agricultural land (to favoured groups and ~ cronies, inevitably). Experience ringingly shows that state collective farms are an ideological fantasy producing aeither equality nor enough The Soviet Union, the world’s biggest and resource-richest state for three-quarters of the 20th century, slew its suzbborn pri- vate farmers and imposed centrally planned collectives that never produced as much as they could have, and then joined with such a lousy distribution system that much food rotted or was eaten by fat little animals. _ A gpical idiotic distortion of its com- mand economy: The stats so extravagantly subsidized bread that farmers fed it to thet cattle — because it was cheaper than grain. I hope this little history lesson is a use- ful reminder of what is quickly being for- gotten (and suppressed) by the still-leftist Western elites in politics, the academy and the higher bureaucracy, ~ Now, up to date. Where are the right- eous voices, as blacks, spurred by Mugabe and his flunkies, beat “and murder white LETTERS To THE EurreR must include your - name, full address and telephone number. Sanit via e-taail ta: irenshanw@asnews.com Timothy iy Reiska : we Managing Editor 985-2137 (116) Where’s outcry over Zimbabwe? farmers? (You've seen the gory pictures.) The Commonwealth secretariat? Haven't heard a word, Who the hell is sec- retary-gencral these days? I don’t know. Does it matter? Lloyd Axworthy? What a joke! Our for- cign affairs minister was quoted as saying -> he is “dismayed” by the violence. (Shades . Of Michael Sharp, who, in Axworthy’s job in 1968, made a similar wimpy statement |- as Russian tanks rolled in to crush the “Prague Spring.”) * But Axworthy does say he'll raise the. issue Tuesday when the Commonwealth. . Ministerial Action Group meets. How hotly will he speak? o And our prime minister? Um, aftet his -" Middle East tour, Chretien better stick to’ 7 “foreign affairs” in Canada; like tacklin _ western alienation. Not to exonerate racism ‘and its ‘very real nastiness, in any colour: But the dicta torship, poverty, civil war and genocide in + much of black Affica is sub-racial: not black vs. white so much as tribe vs. tribe ——..: today’s political alignments based on oh tribal identities. And, whatever the i impositions of the . . “wicked, imperialistic” West, only black “Aftica can sort them out. - 00a. As for democracy closer.to : hom West: spouses were: Van trustee Rick Francis sa invited to the school retreat at Ocean Pointe. ore 3 iF Erxica Bell- Lowther, Mary Fawicy) say,’ Spouses ' were paar Clive Bird i is silent; now-fanio My view: You're doing the public ; business. Get open or get out. .. == lautens@axio 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouve Sear ER yrs home ACN pte