4 ~- Sunday, January 12, 1986 - North Shore News

SEPARATISM would seem to have gone the
way of the dodo, not just in Quebec, but in

4 THE GVRD's eighth annual of a family membership to number, school, class and a_ control, regional services
Bob Hunter Secondary Schools Essay either the Vancouver Public bibliography. and Greater Vancouver in
Contest will be held again Aquarium or the UBC The topics for the 1986 the year 2001.

e strictly personal ©

New topics for essay contest

this year with four new
topics.

The contest is open to all
Greater Vancouver students
in grades 9, 10, 11 and 12,

First prize is $300, second
prize is $200 and third prize
is $100. There are 10
honorable mention awards

Museum of Anthropology.
Submissions may be made
throughout the school year
no later than Fri., Apr. 11.
Entries should not be a max-
imum of 2,000 words,
typewritten double-spaced
and inchide the student's
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contest are: the impact of
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Western Canada too.
Remember? It wasn't all
that long ago — just 1981
— when some 1,500 people
showed up at a rally in
Vancouver to listen to a
Western separatist named
Elmer Knutson fulminate
against the Toronto/ Ot-
tawa/ Montreal axis.

-A poll of the North
Shore around that time
revealed that an amazing
15 per cent of the popula-
tion was willing to consider
breaking away from Con-
federation.

A guy named Kestler ac-
tually got elected a year
later on a separatist plank

plete clunk and blew it in
no time at all.
[| Here in. B.C., the
separatists milled about
together briefly under the
name of the Western
‘Canada Concept Party, but
quickly fragmented
themselves down to
nothing, taking one former
provincial Tory leader with
{ them, thereby proving once
again that the New Left
had ‘no monopoly on fac-
tionalism.

*"..a@n amazing
15 per cent of
the population
was willing to
consider
_breaking away
jrom
Confederation. ’’

For a while there, just.as
part of my job of trying
different viewpoints on, I
flirted . outrageously with
the idea of ‘separatism.
Trudeau, you will recall
darkly, was deep in his co-
coon at the PMO, his little
Commie heart throbbing
with centralist impulses.

I had talked, in my time,
to fairly intelligent chaps
from Quebec who could
make @ good case for it be-
ing in their own interests to
clamber out of a
bureaucracy-shackled fed-
eral sysiem called Canada
and go adventuring on the
world stage on their own.
They wanted more power.
That was understandable.

The Western variety of
separatist, by contrast, was
a disappointing lot, lacking
as much in charm as in
cranial capacity, as if those
wowboy hats did, after all,
stunt the brain's growth. °
‘Too bad. There was a lot
to be said for the small-is-
bevutiful school of
thought. Imagine if B.C.
did somehow break away
from the Canadian empire.
We could join the United
Nations, chop our taxes in
half, vote on the big issues
of the day, maybe make
ourselves into one of those
Pacific Rim miracle
economies.

On the downside, if we

fin Alberta. He was a com- -

. arinking a lot

' order of business.

got rid of Ottawa, who
would protect us from Vic-
toria? There’s the rub.
Canada works precisely
because the powers of the
state are so delightfully
fragmented into federal
and provincial fiefdoms.
We wind up with a lot of
little Caesars, but no one
tyrant with the whole ball
of wax in his hands.

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“In Quebec,
they’ye gone
back to fretting
about their sex
lives and

‘of beer...”’

With the departure of
the Parti Quebecois from
power in Quebec, the
mundane business of the
Canuck geopolitical entity
shambling along is petty
course from day to day and
sea to sea becomes once
more (yawn) the main j

Canada is dull again.
There are absolutely no
provocative ideas on the
horizon. No political
furore. No truly passionate
outbursts of nationalist
zeal. No uncontrollable
anger. No righteous wrath.
No tears. No blood. Hard-
ly any sweat either.

It is vintage Canada-as-
usual, fretting about ‘sales
of maple syrup and whither
the CBC.

The other Maritimes, the
few left who haven’t gone
to Ottawa, still gripe half-
heartedly about the out-
come of the Napoleonic
wars, and everybody
knows whose dog mated
with who else’s dog and
when.

The Toronto people con-
tinue to perform their odd-
ly Baroque dance in front
of each other with a warm }
flush of pleasure, discuss-
ing which New York res-
taurant they like the best.

In Quebec, they have
gone back to fretting about
their sex lives and drinking
a lot of beer while wat- |
ching hockey on TV.

On the Prairies, they
have reportedly eliminated
the mosquito. {’m told life
is bearable at last, after all
those millenia, except fox
the period from the end of
October to late May.

On the Coast, | am ad-
vised, everyone is into
maturity now. Not driving
while drunk, Regulating
your intake. Exercise. That
sort of thing. We are
becoming civilized, ap-
parently,

Separate? From what?
Who? What are you talk-

wwe,

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ing about? -
i think that what has re- NORTH VANCOUVER
ally happened — across

Canada — is that apathy is
back in vogue. Kinda
Canuck, eh?

986-4291 BED svinoe|