6 - North Shore News -. Sunday, August 13, 2000

== VIEW POINT:

Ect

only the rest of this province’s
stalled treaty negotiations could be
decided as easily.

The Squamish Nation voted over-
whelmingly this week to accept an offer
that will add almost $1 million in cash
and the potential for ownership of two
new reserves to its holdings. More
importantly, the band increased its
potential to influence its own econom-
ic future with new jobs and the oppor-
tunity to co-inanage the Squamish
Estuary.

Negotiations with the band over

land control in the Squamish arca have .

gone on for almost a decade, but

pace cf negotiations picked up dramat-
ically ini the last two years or so as the
implications of the 1997 Supreme
Court decision known as Delgamuukw
percolated through government and
industry. It would seem that BC Rail

you sail it

» “°“Bor some reason.we shoot our own
:.| weunded in this country. It’s like the Greek
“who: was condemned to pushing a rock to
the top of the hill — that’s exactly what
we're acing in saving our history.”
°° Horseshoe Bay resident lan Newby on the
difficulties involved in turning the HALCS Cape
Breton intoa screen ‘star. (From an Ang. 6 News
: story. ) :

“He let us know where he was — he says

Hello’. constantly, starting at seven in the
orning.” at

Carla Grant’s neighbours kept track of Peso

Q the, at’s location. after he made an unsuc-

for: more SeaBeies' that the public. cannot ;

“for:more SeaBuses that the public cannot
“afford.”
John Mackintosh and fellow SeaBus passen-
are angry about being left behind during the
orig. and. afternoon commutes. Customer
advisory notices at the Lonsdale Quay terminal
-femind passengers of alternate methods to cross

Burrard Inlet. (Fron an Aug. Il News story.)
, 900)

“J don’t expect

-Bat if they could just slow.down
: Chief Leonard George, the 53-year- -old chief
f thé: Tsleil-Wauruth Nation is taking it casy

after he had a nin-in with a mountain bike last —
“Tuesday evening. George suffered broken bones, .

an 1 Aig. II News story.)

North Share Hews, founded in 1969 as an inoependent
suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule
111, Paragraph 11% of the Excise Tax Act. is published
each Wednesday, Friday“ and Sunday by “HON
Publications Company and distributed to every dino

people’ to stop riding bikes :

nomic sense

and the provincial government worked
harder to accommodate the wishes of
the Squamish after the decision than
before.

However the deal was done, con-
gratulations are in order to all who put
this one together. Economic coopera-
tion must be the foundation for reso-
lution of the province’s snail-paced
treaty negotiations. Talks are dead in
the water at more than half the 42
negotiating “tables” and progress is
impossible to categorize at the remain-
der.

A new commitment to economic
partnerships like that negotiated by the
Squamish might kickstart some of the
treaty tables. Are the federal and
provincial governments ensuring the
right set of commercial expertise is
being provided as a resource to all
those involved in negotiations?

Municipal mental

CLEAR skies; fosey
_ heads.

Must be vacation time. If
you’re unsure, check in at
your local municipal hall,
where mental vacations are
in full swing.
Consider, for example,
North Vancouver District’s
recent resurrection of a
municipal diversity policy.
The issie has been
exhumed sporadically over the past decade,
depending on the prevailing political climate
and the local good-deed index. But collective
community common sense has up to now rel-
egated it to distant back-burners.
, At the tail-end of the °90s, diversity fans
succeeded in assembling an entire cight-per-
‘son Districe Community Diversity Advisory
Committee (DCDAC). ‘It invested much ume

’ and earnest effort in drafting a district diversi-

ty policy aimed at, arnong other things, pro-
hibiting the use of public facilities by those
with unpopular opinions and instituting race-
based hiring — better known as affirmative
action— and zero tolerance of discrimination.
~ The previous district council wisely moth-

balled the whole misguided social engineering
project.

Bur, as they say in the rock and roll world,
rust never sleeps.

A new year, a new council, a new diversity

_ doctrine.

.Who cares if nobody asked for it; who
cares if nobody lamented the dismantling of
the previous doctrine; who cares if it’s offen-

-” sive to district citizens.

Actions with a whiff of good deed about
them are good pollitics.:
Veteran North Vancouver District Coun.
Janice Harris concedes in a July 26 News
’ story that chasing a district diversicy policy

_ organizations as :
_ Multicultural Society; that invitations to the

has been “a 1 process of °
exhaustion.”
Yet she’s now feeling “revi-
talized” and set to invest
more time and effort in its
pursuit.
Meanwhile, council new-
comer Doug MacKay-Dunn,
who’s manning the lead
shovel on exhuming the
diversity policy body, decried
the previous council’s dis-
missal of DCDAC’s recom-
mendations.

It brought the district’s tolerance into
question, opined MacKay-Dunn.

Let’s hope the diversity duo have since
returned from their mental vacations.

The quest for-the diversity Holy Grail has
been a process of exhaustion because the pol-
icy is superfluous.

And, contrary to what Coun. MacKay-
Dunn believes, it’s the diversity policy itself
that brings the district's tolerance i into ques-
tion.

It tells district hall staff and other district
residents that their behaviour demands more
than the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, more than the B.C. Human ~
Rights Code, more than unwritten communi-
ty standards to ensure that they will treat
their fellow citizens with fairness and dignity.

It demands an extra layer of municipal leg-
islation.

In response to diversity do-gooders, dis-
trict Coun. Ernie Crist points out in corre-,

spondence thar the district is already commit- -

ted to treating its residents with equity and
fairness; that it s upports with grants such
North Shore"

public to discuss the diversity issue in council
chambers have been met with a total lack of
interest from visible minorities.

INK, PINK,
You STINK

vacating time.

thi Maybe they're trying | to tell council some-, os
ing, ;
Maybe, like the rest of ‘US, they'd be more -
interested in a council initiative aimed at rec-
ognizing and supporting district unity, rather
than diversity, through participation rom all -
- segments of the district’s population i in build-.
ing a better community.
gO

Over in North Vancouver City, meanwhile,
more than mental vacations are on the menu.’

City council and all major department
heads recently travelled to Harrison Hot
Springs resort on the public tab to hash’ out:
some issues.

Topping the city’s Harrison retreat agen
da: spending priorities. | ~ .

Ironic, eh wot. :

That would be'an agenda i item, city resi:
dents might assume, focused on how best to
spend city funds.

Those same residents might then be
excused for vous why city and staff needed .:

* same thing — these junkets being contagious:

City Coun. Bob Fearnley is also asking

" that question, especially considering that no

city spending priorities resulted from the.

~ But fellow city councillor Bill Bell says the
retreat was worthwhile and was far froma

.. holiday because it involved sitting “in'a hote'

room with no windows and away fro!
‘family for a day and a half.”.-
‘ood point. :
Here’s another: Council. time and city. tax.
dollars would have been better spent in a
_ North Shore hotel room with no windows
That would have set ‘city council straigh
_ on at least one spending, priority: supporting,
local businesses... © :

your...

ac — tntrenshaw@h ne.cOm

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