6 - Friday, October 28, 1988 - North Shore News

INSIGHTS

ebate gave no answers

to the vital questions

IF MORE PRESSING BUSINESS or pleasure kept you
away from the tube between 5 and 8 p.m. Tuesday, relax.
The Great Election Debate produced not a crumb of helpful
new information for undecided voters.

They number only about one in
four, of course. For the three out
of four whose minds are made up
and don’t want to be confused by
facts it was simply a case of wat-
ching their convictions take on
human shape — with executive
haircuts and clad in suitably
solemn suits. It frequently made
great television, too, as Turner and
Broadbent hacked away at
Mulroney (who survived mainly
with fast footwork) and slashed at
each other.

But the three-hour marathon left
all the gut questions on major
issues such as free trade, taxes, en-
vironment and abortion
unanswered by Mulroney, who
carefully avoided even the word
“reply.” Instead, he ‘‘responded’’
— by repeatedly deflecting specific
challenges into the safer area of
generalities. The doomsday ques-
tion ~— how to cut the governme-
nt’s $300 billion debt — wasn’t
even tackled.

REV. JOHN ROBERTSON
..-Venerable new assignment.

issues as free trade.

TEWERS ABSORBING the full six hours of
debate between Prime Minister Brian Mulroney,
Liberal leader John Turner and NDP leader Ed

Broadbent should new be awash in political rhetoric,
but bereft of any real new information on such major

it is doubtful whether the debates wili have swayed

Turner’s patriotic passion came
over this time with impressive sin-
cerity. Broadbent did his stock
number as the likeable, downhome
champion of ‘‘the average Cana-
dian.’’ Mulroney, the evasive
salesman, merely said ‘‘trust us,
we’ve got a super deal for you!"

Just how ‘‘super’” we'll examine
in more detail on Sunday.

hat

HEADING NORTH next week
with wife Ann is Rev. John
Robertson, longtime rector of St.
Monica’s, Horseshoe Bay. From
Monday onward he'll become the
Venerable John Robertson, Ar-
chdeacon of the Caledonia
Diocese, stationed in Dawson
Creek. He’s tended the flock of the
North Shore's most westerly
Anglican parish for the past 19
years and played an active role in
the wider community — par-
ticularly in the area of help for
young people with problems and as
chairman of the West Van Family
Court Committee. At 10 a.m. this
Sunday, Oct. 30, he conducts his
last regular service at St. Monica’s,
followed by a farewell reception in
the parish hall and, 24 hours later,
quite a change of scene for the
couple. Their new Dawson Creek
home sits on a 10-acre lot in grizzly
bear country and comes complete
with a tractor —- though as ‘‘No.
2’ to the Bishop, supervising some
44 churches, John likely won’t
have too much time for the mo-
ment to play with the tractor!

gan

IT’S OPEN HOUSE tomorrow,

- Saturday, Oct. 29, at North Van’s
Seymour River Hatchery hosted by ;

the Seymour Saimonid Society.
That’s the community volunteer

massive numbers of voters, and unclear whether there
was any decisive winner as there was in 1984 when
Brian Mulroney dealt then-prime minister John Turner
a mortal blow oa the issue of Liberal patronage ap-
pointments.

What viewers got in Tuesday night’s debate was a
defensive Mulroney, a reasonable Broadbent and a
passionate Turner.

And it is perhaps the latter who won on sheer emo-
tion and scored extra points for relentless badgering on
a subject he appears to be genuinely concerned about:
free trade.

Turner, who fared so poorly in the 1984 debate, was
not expected to fare much better in 1988. So his show-
ing was all the more impressive.

When Turner attacked Mulroney en the proposed
free trade agreement with the United States, he did so
with a passionate appeal to Canadian patriotism and
with accusations of sell out to the great American
economic machine that would have been hard for any
Canadian to ignore. .

While Broadbent's delivery was cool, calm and rea-
sonable, it was also somehow lacking in animation,
lacking in fire.

And to win the passive minds and fickle hearts of
television viewers requires copious amounts of both.

group which took over the falter-
ing operation last year, upgraded
its equipment and now has, in the
holding and rearing facilities, more
than 180,000 incubating eggs and
fry-size (two-inch) fish — coho,
chinook and steelhead. SSS presi-
dent Don McDermid says the 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. tours are a ‘“‘thank
you”’ to the public for its support
to date and will also show what
still remains to be done. Free buses
to the hatchery leave the top of
Old Lillooet Road (GVRD Rice
Lake Gate) every hour from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.

wth

SCRATCHPAD: One recent in-
ternational news item came as a
personal shock to West Van’s Jim
and Betty MacCarthy, back home
from a six-week fall vacation in
eastern Canada and Europe. Part
of their holiday was spent in the
Mediterranean with another West
Van couple, Art and Marguerite
Bolton, aboard the 9,000-ton
Greck cruise ship *‘Jupiter’’ —
rammed and sunk by a freighter
two weeks ago while filled with
British school students ... Two
lively workshops at Lonsdale Quay
Hotel for entrepreneurs wanting to
start their own businesses wind up
Small Business Week tomorrow,
Saturday, Oct. 29. Call 666-7703
(pronto!) for details of the morn-
ing and afternoon sessions ($50 the
two) or take your chance turning
up at the hotei before 9:30 a.m. ...
That elusive ‘‘29"’, the million-
to-one perfect crib hand, was dealt
last week to North Van’s Edna
Hamner, playing with hubby
Howard in their East Keith home
... And a very special birthday
greeting today, Oct. 28, to Eva
Sewell, matriarch extraordinaire of
Horseshoe Bay’s best known fami-
ly, whose generation was taught
that ladies never tell their age!

weet

Publisher

Associate Editor

welcome

envelope.

bees Peter Speck
Managing Editor... . Barrett Fisher
Seas Noet Wright

Advertising Director .Linda Stewart

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Entire contents © 1988 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved.

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Think-
ing, said Henry Ford, is the

hardest work there is — which is
probably why so few do it.

Tom Butler photo

78-YEAR LINK...in the quiet grotto of Lite Flower Academy Sister
Mary Berthilda, 92, of the Sisters of St. Ann chats with ointh-grader
Shana Burrows, 14, of West Van. The centennia’ of SSA as a religious
teaching order in B.C. is being celebrated Sunday, Oct. 30, at Holy
Rosary Cathedral.

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