Bos HUNTER © strictly personal © IF 1 was the type, I’d set up a consuitancy from which I could reasonably expect to make a fortune in the near future. It would be called The Canadian Institute for The Study of Post- Separation Affairs. My main customers, after the next Quebec election, would be traumatized provincial govern- ments, and cities like Vancouver and Toronto, which are big enough, if they liked, to form their own city-states. It would be a bit like psychiatric work, but with a resident historian on staff and probably a profes- sional bioregionalist, if there are any yet. oe Like the Scots, the Quebecers think they can do better on their own in a continental free trade zone. ”’ Bioregionalists, as you may know, are peapie who believe that the geopolitical structure of the world was terribly messed up by the great age of imperialism, with its creation of vast, illogical em- Pires. Most of the empires — the Brit- ish, French and Spanish, for in- stance — have shrunk back to something appproaching'their original size. But the Soviet empire remains miserably intact, and so does the American one, albeit more happily — except from the point of view of the original hun- dred or so native federations and tribes. In the bioregionalist view, the modern nation-state is a monster of inequality and centralized authority which ought to give way, once technology permits a decent standard of living all around, to much smaller national units based on natural divisions such as water- sheds. By that criterion, British Col- umbia alone would break down . naturally into some two dozen bioregions, Canada would proba- bly constitute nearly 200, and the world, if divided along bioregional lines, would turn into a place with possibly as many as 3,000 little na- tion-states, maybe more. The Empire of Canada, up to this moment, has held together despite the long-standing animosity of its founding conquerors. But all signs seem to point to the end of a certain stage of history, at any rate, being in sight. Journalist Richard Gwyn recent- ly published a thoughtful column in which he coined the phrase “‘neo-independence,’’ attempting to explain the phenomenon of separatist movements gaining popularity from Scotland to the Baltics. He noted that in Yugoslavia last week the Slovenia parliament legislated itsel7 the right to secede from that somewhat unhappy fed- eration. In the southern republic of Montenegro, the bones of the last independent king were returned home and interred in a symbolic step toward re-establishing an old national identity. Spain’s picturesque Catalonia has officially declared itself a na- tional government rather than Bleed donor THE NORTH Vancouver branch of the Canadian Red Cross Society is co-sponsoring two upcoming blood donor clinics at Lions Gate Hospital. merely a state government, accord- ing to Gwyn. The goal of all three Baltic states in the U.S.S.R. has become, quite clearly, nothing less than in- dependence. Estonia has come right out and declared its intention to become ‘‘an independent sovereign Estonia in the Soviet Union.” In Belgium, we see that Walloonia and Flanders are sovereign in almost all practical respects. The Scottish Nationalist Party has adopted a similar slogan: ‘An independent Scotland in Evrope.”’ When Europe fuses into a single economic unit in 1992, the wily Scots hope to make their move, us- ing the argument that the national tarrif barriers which used to pro- tect them from unrestricted com- petition will be gone, and with them, the rationale for sticking in- side Great Britain. There is, according to the Lon- don-based Gwyn, a similar mood throughout Europe, with sub-na- tionalist rhetoric no longer being sounded by just the Irish and the Basques. All political predicitions nowa- days have to be hedged against the reality of changing climates, rising ocean levels, ozone depletion, deforestation and desertification. The implications of these vast physical changes is that the future shape of political boundaries is go- ing to be mussed up something awful once the number of en- vironmental refugees reaches a cer- tain critical mass. For instance, the populations of all those tiny Pacific island-nations are going to have to be evacuated en masse, probably within less than a decade. The New Zealanders are already planning an orderly retreat to mountain slopes. Over on the Atlantic side, there are going to be some stupendous disruptions too. The Italians are planning a $4-billion seawall to save Venice, where flooding now occurs 30 times a year instead of once every 30 years, And the Brit- ish and Dutch are looking beyond their own enormous dikes and seawalls to even larger defences against the rising sea level. Keeping that ia mind, the trend toward smaller being more beautiful is pronounced and not likely to abate. And the economic dynamics that are driving the European phenomenon are present here in North America — namely the wiping away of trade barriers erected along old national bound- aries. Like the Scots, the Quebecers think they can do better on their own in a continental free trade zone. Heaven knows, given the tiers of provincial trade barriers that exist in Canada, they are un- doubtedly righ. In the end, even though we are brainwashed mightily into thinking that the land we tore away from the native North Americans is “our land,” the idea of a country as big as this one, with so few people, is probably a short-term fiction, a large blip on history’s radar screen, and not much more® clinics held The clinics will be held from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., Oct. 16 and Oct. 17 in the LGH Medical Day Centre Gymnasium, 200 East 1Sth St., in North Vancouver. 5 - Wednesday, October 11, 1989 - North Shore News FITNESS CENTRE ON THE NORTH SHORE NO HIGH PRESSURE SALES * NO OBLIGATION! Use any or all of our services e Coed Weight Training ¢ Free Fitness Evaiuation Facilities ° Bodyfat and Cardio Testing ¢ Ladies Only Weight Training Facilities e Racquetball & Squash e All levels of Aerobics (incl. no bounce low impact) © Certified Instruction © Saunas, steamrooms and jacuzzi A very friendly atmosphere! uality | Largest Selection| Best Prices on All sizes of Bulbs on the North Shore Super Specials for Mass Planting Premium Tulips mixed colors 10 for 99° | Mixed Narcissus 10 for 99° Snow Crocus mixed colors or 10 for 79° or 100 for 6°° Winter Pansies 4” pot reg. 99¢ 3 for 19°} VAN FLORIST LTD 1821 MARINE DRIVE, WEST VANCOUVER. B.C. VIV 1d? 922-4171 FAX. 922-9735 922-3968