VICTORIA -— Already
tight security around Vic-
toria’s legislative
buildings is being beefed
up after two incidents late
in the week.

The first involved
Saanich-Islands Social
Credit finance minister
Hugh Curtis's constit-
uency office. A rock was
thrown through a window
and a package that was

’ ticking was found. When
opened, it contained an
_ alarm clock.

A-second clock — with
a sheet of paper on which
had been written the
word “Ka-boom” — was
left outside Premier Bill
Bennett's office in the

VICTORIA — Attorney
General Brian Smith says
he -wants - judges and
others involved in the
legal system to do their

part for restraint by
speeding up the legal pro-

Smith said the way to
avoid massive log jams in
provincial courts —
brought about in part by
government legislation
that will cut the Rentals-
man’s office, the human
rights commission and
the court reporter system
— is to save some time in

MAPLE RIDGE - Voters
in the B.C. riding of
Mission-Port Moody and
the Nova Scotia riding of
Central Nova go to the
polls Monday in what is
seen as the first test of
ive Conservative
leader Brian Mulroncy.

While Mulroney is
expected to have an casy
time of it in the Maritime
riding, party standard-
bearer Gerry $1. Germain
is facing a tough battle in
this Fraser Vallcy riding.

St. Germain is up
against NDP candidate
Sophie Weremchuk who

MANILA — The assas-
sination of opposition
leader Benigno Ninoy
Aquing has icd to
demands for the over.
throw of the government
of President Ferdinand
Marcos

Aquino was shot a

Mulroney's test
about to start

Ticking packages.
latest scare

legislature building.

With feelings running
high against the provin-
cial government's _res-
traint program, fears
about the safety of mem-
bers of the government
have already been ex-
pressed.

Security precautions
that began with an in-
creased police presence
in the fegislature, which
included the presence of
undercover policemen
seated in public galleries
during sittings, have
escalated to the point
where an office has been
established in the base-
ment of the building for a
special security squad.

Speed up courts
says | B.C. AG

the court system.

Smith suggested judges
should have the power to
dictate how much time
lawyers would have to
present their cases.

It is also possible, he
said, for judges to assist
in “simplifying and clari-

fying” issues before the

court during actual trials.
Smith adds that he has
discussed ways of stream-
and adding some speed to
the wheels of justice with
Chief Justice Allan
McEachern.

came within 600 votes of
winning the May 5
provincial election.

The riding was held by
NDP MLA Mark Rose
until his resignation
earlier this year to contest
the provincial election.

Also contesting the
election are Liberal Louis
Duprat and Gerry Party
member Betty Nicholson.

Interest in the B.C. by-
election is expected to be
high. Advance polling
held carlicr this week
drew more than 2,300
voters, indicating a heavy
turnout at = tomorrow's

polls.

Manila tenses
for reaction

week ago today as he
stepped off a airplane at
Manila Airport on his
return from self-imposed
cxile in the United States.

Funeral services were
held Thursday, setting off
demonstrations by more
than half a million
Filipinos.

b y Bob Hunter :

5

DESPITE THE HOT TUBS, the most dangerous
place to live in Canada is right here in the Lower

Mainland.

According to  recently-
released figures, Greater
Vancouver is the crime
capital of the country. Your
statistical chances of being
murdered here are 4.7 in
100,000, compared to only
2.3 in 100,000 in Toronto.

All that stuff about those
people back East being so
heartless doesn’t seem to ap-
ply when it comes to such
decidedly antisocial ac-
tivities as killing and maim-
ing and robbery.

We are the Miami of
Canada in more ways than
one. The incidence of
murder in Miami is, 32 in
100,000 which puts that city
at the top of the violence list
in the U.S.

Yet the only refugees we
have here in large numbers
are folks from the Prairies.
Does that explain anything?

Ina way, it does.

Paul St. Pierre of the B.C.
Police Commission shrugs
his shoulders when asked to
explain the phenomenon of
why crime rates, like drug
addiction rates, divorce,
and suicide rates rise higher
and higher as you get further
west in Canada.

But I think I can give you
the answer, if I may coin a
phrase. Let's call it the End
Of The Road Syndrome.

Simply, the kind of people
who are most likely to be un-
attached enough to the
human reality of other pco-
ple’s sufferings are bound to
be the drifters.

Canada is basically a
horizontal nation with the
great mass of its popultion
humped together in the East.

In terms of drift, the
movement is naturally west-
ward. In fact, in the Prairies,
_ drifting has been a way of
life since even before the
beginning of European col-
Onization.

For the most part, the In-

dians who found their way |

into the dead sea bottom
were already nomads,
displaced from somewhere
else.

To this day, Prairie
families are loosely-
scattered tribes. It is as if,
having escaped the con-
straints of more tradition-
bound culture in the
Maritimes, Quebec or On-

tario, Prairie folk have never _

quite found a perch to roost
on.
The sons and daughters of
drifters are probably inclin-
ed to keep on drifting them-
selves. Trouble is, once

_you’ve reached the West

Coast, there’s nowhere else
to go.

I base the idea that people
without strong community
connections are more apt to

become criminals on an in-—

sight gained by the Royal
Canadian Air Force during
the Second World War.

When it came time to
select pilots, and for that
matter any member of an air
crew, the ones who were the
prime candidates were those
with weak family ties, no
children, and, ideally, no
wives.

As one former officer told
me, “If you want to. send a
guy up into the air on a bom-
bing run over a foreign city,
you don’t want him to have
strong connections with the
ground.”

I'm sure that profile ap-
plies aptly to the type of per-
son most likely to wage his
own personal war.in the
form of a criminal act.

Vancouver functions
something like a filter in a
drain, catching the dregs and
holding them. A loser in St.
John's traditionally goes on
down the road to Toronto.
From Toronto, he goes west.

From Vancouver, he
goes.... well, finally, to jail.
If he gets caught.

ESTATE ADMINISTRATION
WILL PLANNING

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