6 ~ Wednesday, December 11, 1985 - North Shore News Editorial Page Only one Canada he conviction of New Democrat MP ; Svend Robinson and Haida Indians for contempt of court in the Lyell Island face-off against the loggers raises a question fundamental to aboriginal claims. Whose law prevails in this land? The laws of Parliament and the provincial Legislatures, governing 24 miilion Canadians with a multitude of ethnic origins? Or the hereditary native “‘law’’ of the tiny Indian minority on which the aboriginal claims are based? The answer, obviously, is that the law of Canada must be obeyed until such time as it is changed by the democratic political process. Common justice may well demand changes but until those happen, the law cannot be flouted by citing the directly opposing ‘‘law’’ of 2% or.less of the population. As long 2s aboriginal claims — still largely vague in detail — suggest the payment to that ‘ 2% of vast sums in land, morey or both by the other 98% of the Canadian people, change is unlikely. Such a mammoth redistribution to so few of the national wealth earned by so many could only mean the latter have to be robbed blind for building a country envied to- day by most of the world. Wisdom therefore dictates that Canada’s native people define their claims in precise and realistic terms — the first essential for any meaningful negotiation. The Sechelt Band, " with its reasonable pian to form a municipal:- ty under B.C. law, seems a model of how to proceed. It also points the way towards the growing assimilation of Indians into the - Mainstream of Canadian life. Fairness and goodwill on the part of the _ white majority, plus realism and a readiness by the native minority to make its own unique contribution to the Canada of 1986, will do _ far more to solve the problems than MPs leading Indian citizens in law-breaking. There _ can be only one Canada. What next? t’s been an unappetizing year for food and drink lovers. We. started with . #L pesticide. cucumbers, moved on to con- “f{aminated water melon and then discovered antifreeze in our wine. Next, a million cans of tainted tuna arrived in the stores and the latest delicacy okayed by Ottawa is TB-virus buffalo meat. With just two weeks left, we’re thankful _ that turkeys are too stupid to make such headlines — but what next? ‘THE VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER Dispiay Advertising $80-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 ' : ; Circulation 986-1337 SUNDAY - wEOnEsDAY -irmoay Subscriptions 986-1337 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 publisher: Peter Speck advertising director operations mgr. Berni Hiltiard Linda Stewart editor-in-chief managing editor Noel Wright Nancy Weatherley North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an indepencent suburban Newspaper and qualilied under Schedule I!, Part Ill, Paragraph Hi of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Frday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd and aistubuted to every door on the North Share. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Entira contents <) 1985 North Shore Free Press Lid All rights reserved. Member of the B.C. Press Council 7a ol 56,245 (average, Wednesday Friday & Sunday) BUA DIVIHON Curbing the drunk driver in OUR way or Russia's? LAWS AIMED MAINLY AT VOTE-CAT- CHING are usually weak and often dangerous. The tough, new penalties {ur drinking and driving are no exception. Let me stress right away that I’m as eager as the most militant Mother Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) to remove every last DD from our roads. But simply promising a drunk driver who hits some- one a longer jail term than a homicidal maniac gets for a brutal stabbing isn’t the path to that goal. Inequity of this kind br- ings the law itself into con- tempt. Or it WOULD if there were any chance of such sentences being handed down regularly. But they are conceived primarily as deter- rents — and ‘deterrents are only as good as the number of offenders actually caught. Numerous experts on the subject believe the lesser penalties previously in place would have been a perfectly adequate deterrent if only a great many more drinking drivers had ever had to face then. The crux of the matter is that we simply can’t af- ford the scale of law en- forcement needed for the job. latest Doubtless penalties will make a few more drivers think twice be- fore mixing gas and alcohol. But even the most optimistic the Official estimates put the chances of a legally impaired driver being caught at only about one in 77. The Ot- tawa-based Traffic Injury Research Foundation has said they’re as low as one in 500 to one in 2,000. So short of recruiting thousands of extra police to man 24-hour roadblocks everywhere, every day of the year, the odds favoring the drunk with the ignition key remain alarmingly high. Meanwhile, arbitrary LETTER OF THE DAY Bay won't Dear Editor: A November 20th article, ‘“‘Horseshoe Bay to go BOOM in the night’’, con- tains several inaccuracies which may cause Horseshoe Bay residents unnecessary anxiety and | wish to set the record straight. The B.C. Ferry Corpora- tion will not be carrying out any blasting during the con- struction work that has already begun at the West Vancouver Terminal. In- stallation of soil anchors will be accomplished by under- water drilling. This is a very efficient and quiet pro- cedure. The article refers to quotes from Mr. Renaud. He, in fact, never spoke to your reporter. It seems that a let- ter from B.C. Ferries to the City of West Vancouver was the basis from which the ar-- ticle was written. Had Mr. Renaud been interviewed, he Noel Wright .the edge of a ‘from roadside breathalyzer tests themselves, though legal, have been criticized by no less an authority than Chief Justice Brian Dickson of the ® focus © Supreme Court of Canada as “slippery slope’’. The centuries-old Com- mon Law precept that the Crown and its agents must not interfere with the citizen without reasonable cause is not to be lightly abandoned, he cautions. ‘‘This freedom is the measure of everyone's liberty and one of the cor- nerstones of the quality of life in our democratic socie- ty.” In such a society it boils down to the fact that the drunk driver is an excep- tionally messy legal and practical problem which can’t be solved merely by threats of savage punishment for breaking a largely unen- forceable law. Considerably more effec- tive right away — if gov- ernment was really in earnest — would. have been a_ bill that simply doubled . or trebled the liquor tax. But ‘that, of course, would bump up .ur.cuployment vin the booze industry and lose 80 per cent of the popular vote. - Otherwise, the only ge- _ nuine hope:lies ina’ massive social education program like that. which has now reduced smokers to under 30 per cent of the population: Or — as the Chief Justice warns — in doing it Russia’s “way. Certainly, the new penalties are making people talk more about drinking and driving, and that’s .to the .good. But party-time chatter stil centres purely around the chances of being caught. Until it focuses firmly, as in the anti-smoking cam- paign, on the moral respon- sibility of the individual to avoid’ killing or maiming others as well as himself, we won't make much headway. Unless, of course, we set- tle for the ultimate alter- native: a police state. go boom! would have allayed any fears of undue noise levels during construction. The Ciiy of West Van- couver was advised of the repair program in part so that municipal ‘employees (such as the West Vancouver Police and Fire Depart- ments) are aware of the situ- ation and can respond to questions which might arise local residents. The B.C. Ferry Corporation at- tempts to maintain a very high degree of communica- tion between regulatory bodies and interested citizens as a courtesy to those who reside in the areas adjacent to our ferry terminals. [ hope | have clarified our plans to the point that resi- dents of Horseshoe Bay need not fear unusually high noise levels during this period of construction. Bill Bouchard PR Manager B.C. Ferry Corp.