north shore news VIEWPOINT ~— Sound test T first glance the testiness in Lions Bay and vicinity over ans to build a large Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage plant across the way on Howe Sound smacks of the old NIMBY syndrome. Westcoast Gas Services Inc. proposes the largest such facility in North America on a site approximately 7.5 kilometres inland from Howe Sound at McNab Creek. - Subject to government approval, the storage plant will be designed to liquefy up to 16 million cubic feet of gas per day. Up .to three billion cubic teet of gas could be stored at the site. ’. The storage tank will be 74 metres wide and 52 metres tall —- a massive structure. LNG stored at the site will be taken from gas fields in northeastern Southern Crossing project, a pipeline hook-up to Alberta gas for B.C. cus- tomers. On the Sunshine Coast the Westcoast development would be a good thing in some quarters. The pro- ject would realize hundreds of con- struction jobs and an eventual 14 full- time jobs once completed. Across the water, however, there’s concern about visual pollution, earth- quake hazard and questionable devel- opment thrust for the region. This issue is a test. The good folks in Lions Bay are right to raise a ruckus. The heat will bring to life a process that should be taking place at the . grassroots level. The future of the Howe Sound region is being deter- mined now. Is it a leisure playground? Is it an industrial breadbasket? Can it WE'VE COME UP - WITH A COMPROMISE iN REGARD To LOWERING a. GREENROUSE GAS TE ame FAUST EMISSIONS... "B.C. Westcoast’s intention is to provide a competitive alternative to the BC Gas be both? THE North Shore News Free Speech Defence Pund keeps on growing. ‘To press. time Tuesday, donations from over 2,000 News readers and free speech supporters to the fund stood at $143,412. Legal fees expended thus far by the News have already exceeded $200,000. All funds received will help defray the legal costs faced :. by the Biews in its battle with the Human Rights Tribuna! over a complaint laid against the news- ‘paper and its columnist Doug Collins by the Canadian Jewish Congress. The hearing into the matter, which began on May 12, concluded on June 27. The decision from tribunal chairman Nitya lyer . was handed down on Nov. 12. Full coverage of the decision appeared in the Nov. 14 News. Iyer found that Collins’ column was not hateful, but also ruled that, while the legistation under _ which the News was prosecuted infringes upon the Cnarter’s guarantee of free expression, it was constitutionally valid. Extra copies of the News’ Free Speech Supplement, which was originally published in the Aug. 20 News, are available at the News offices. Another excerpt from the thousands of respon- dents to the cause: O00 a “If people would only open their eyes and their vainds to all that you (Doug Collins) have written they might understand more about what is going on. We com- mend you highly for all you do for free speech.” — Doris Maclean of Regina, Saskatchewan Donations to the fund can be sent ro: 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, V7M 2H4. Cheques should be made out to the North Shore News Free Speech Defence Fund. — trenshaw@direct.ca north shore ‘| = Worth Shore Mews, founded in 1969 a5 an independem suburban newspaper and quaktied under Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tas Ack is published each Wednesday. 98-2131 (177) 980-0511 (319) ‘Trials to great to endure ...’ “TE the law supposes that,” says Mz. Bumble in Dickens’ Oliver Twist, “the law is an ass.” Never more so, one might add, than in cases like that of Robert Latimer. The 44-year-old Saskatchewan farmer, who killed his desperate- ly handicapped 12-year- old daughter Tracy in 1993, awaits sentencing Dec. 1 for second- degree murder. Under the law today the minimum jail time is life/25 years with no parole before 10 years. Public opinion seems pretty evenly divid- ed between those praising Latimer as a loving, compassionate father who should go scotfree and those who insist he should pay the full penalty for murdering a defenceless child. The case has reopened wide the whole soul-searing can of worms about euthanasia. It’s a debate with no foresee- able end, because the background of each individual case — from Latimer to Dr. Nancy Morrison in Nova Scotia to the late Sue Rodriguez to “Dr. Death” Kevorkian’s suicide clients in the US — is as different from the next as the human beings. involved. But in all of them the present law is adamant on one point: if you kill some- body deliberately, no matter what the cir- cumstances, it’s MURDER. First degree if premeditated with malice afore- thought, second degree if there is at least some extenuating factor. Testhatesl UndaSireat PETER SPECK Human Resoutces Manager Sales & Marketing Director Publisher 985-2131 (101) Photography Manager 986-2131 (168) On the other hand, manslaughter (which can attract a far lighter sentence) is the unpremeditated killing of a human being without malice aforethought. So as things stand, it’s clear nobody who knowingly carries out the mercy killing of another person, even at the latter’s wish and pleading, is guilty merely of manslaugh- ter. Since the act is both deliberate and premeditated, it’s mur- der. What to do about this Catch 22 tragedy which is likely to become increasingly frequent with our aging population? First, let’s have no illusions about the need for legal safeguards. There are many older people in feeble health whose death would benefit their families or other caregivers. Financially or by remov- ing an intolerable physical and/or emo- tional burden. Legalized euthanasia — the top of a very slippery moral slope — could spell open season on some of them well before their time. A far preferable answer would be to add to the Criminal Code a completely new crime: THIRD-DEGREE MUR- DER. It would be used exclusively in cases claimed to be a “mercy killing.” Conviction on this charge would be based on exactly the same tests as first- and second-degree murder charges: Was it deliberate? Was it premeditated? Was there malice aforethought (in which case the charge could be raised to second- or first-degree murder)? But if the jury LETTERS 10 THE EDITOR Letters must include your name, full address & telephone number. VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca Comptrotler Managing Editor 985-2191 (133) 985-2131 (116) oN @ apes Classilied Manager 986-222 (202) Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. decided it was a genuine mercy killing (i.e. third-degree murder), the judge . would have to consider a comprehensive list of sentencing factors. Among them: Was the death wish of © the victim proven? Was the victim in ter-. ~ minal agony that no medication could =“ relieve? Or suffering an unbearable quali- . . 7 ty of life which could only worsen? Was * the victim’s condition having an unbear- | able physical or mental effect on family or other caregivers? According to these tests, the new Criminal Code section would provide for -.. any penalty from a conditional sentence © (the convicted person goes free) to a jail term of years at the judge’s discretion. In the United Church nowadays they often pray: “From trials too great to endure, spare us.” Most mercy killing cases result fron precisely such trials, and it’s time the law —- if it'rejects Mr. Bumble’s accusation that it’s “an ass” — took that truth into account. Maybe the Maori version of the Lord’s Prayer, from which the above quotation comes, should be required reading in all law school courses. 000 MANY HAPPY RETURNS of tomor- row, Nov. 20, to North Van’s Rex Hundleby ... And more of the same tomorrow to North Van birthday girl Ethane Wardell. o00 WRIGHT OR WRONG: Always ride your horse in the direction the horse is going. HOW-TO REACH; US! Administration 985-2131 Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advestising 985-6902 988-6222 985-2131 906-1337 9e5--" 5 985-2104 Display & Real Estate Fax Newszo0m Fax Classified, Accounting & Main Ofiice Fax Michasi Guckss - Nows Editer 985-2131 (114) Andrew MicLredie - Sports/Comentmity Editor 985-2131 (147)