A SCANT two dozen people ‘showed up last Friday night alt the North Shore Winter Club “to hear Bloc Quebecois MP Michel Guimond present his -party’s case for a sovereign Quebec, By Greg Felton Contributing Writer Nortly Vancouver Reform MP _Ted: White, who hosted the event "and a luncheon earlier that day, said he invited Guimond so that his con- Stituents, who expressed to him confusion and upset over the Bloc’s separuist policies, could address their concerns ta a Bloc member . directly, “+ Despite its modest size — 170 scats were set out even though White only had a commitment for Q-— ‘hose in attendance were any- thing but confused and more than ready to challenge Guimend on ach point, 9¢-The Bloc’s thesis is that the | “Canadian federal system doesn’t ork and that a sovereign Quebec, “188 a part of the North'American “economy, is the only option left for the Quebecois people. _ 4). For Guimond, this is a.given: /Canada is going through a divorce. ind all that is left to do is negotiate ho gzts to keep what. : - But instead of a cohérent argu- ment for separation, the audience heard from Guimond only vague generalizations, dogmatic asser- -Uons, and rion sequiturs: Ts ut At one point Guimond said the / main reason for sovereignty was Canada’s overly bureaucratic stzuc- ture, a, At other times, lie equated the eed for sovereignty directly with the failure of the Charottetown and Meech Lake Accords. : “Many inthe audience told. Guimond that B.C. has many of the Same. grievances as Quebec does, ‘FAMILY, FRIENDS and “police are without clues regarding the disappearance ‘Thursday.-of a . North * Vancouver woman near West '| .Queens Road and Westview Drive, By Anna Marie D’Angelo _ News Reporter The woman, Merritt Susan Roth, 30, was suffering from . depression and was in need of medication when she left her aunt’s house for a watk at approximately 6 p.m. To press time Tuesday, Roth’s whereabouts were ‘unknown. Said Roth’s mother, Doris, “If “she didn’t harm herself, maybe somebody picked her up. We don’t know what happened.” Doris Roth said her daughter. _[ Tay appear disoriented or preoc- Blaxland said he found it amaz- “ing that the Bloc spoke of holding a referendum in Quebec and then : deciding’ whether to separate, with- out consuning the rest of the coun- try. cated than that, Blaxland said, offering an example of the issues the move would raise. “Ave you prepares to assume and pay off your part of the (national) debt?” Guimond, a lawyer who has been to court many times on divorce cuses, likened the separa- - tion to the'end of a marriage. He said Quebec would pay its portion of the debt, out it would | decide how much that was. Blaxland asked if the Bloc had spelled out to the people of Quebec how it intended to pay its share of the debt'and what it owed in terms of other federal institutions. : Guimond offered no hard fig- ures and ‘acknowledged that “...maybe we don’t have the eco- nomic power to deal with this situa- tion.” : But, he said, “...we will be the masters of our own decision and we will put sovereignty where we want.” Chamber president John Lakes said that for the last 40 years, B.C. has been paying the bills of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. He asked whether B.C. would receive any of that money back. Guimond was frank. “I don’t think so,” he said. -A woman in the audience spoke for several members when she asked whether Quebec wauld be granting the land claims of aborigi- nal residents of their province. Guimond said that natives, like other Quebecers, would get a chance to vote in the referendum to decide whether they wanted to remain in Canada. : . But, he said, the borders of the province would not change. Referring to the natives, be said, “They don’t know nothing about Quebec and Canada.” The situation is far more compli-., Van chamber Guimond was later confronted on the statement by TV reporter Pierre Martineau of CBUT, © In French, Guimond ‘told Martineau he meant that the natives . didn’t participate much in-the dis- cussion ‘of sovereignty and although they were interested in politics, very few of them vote... || Another member of the audience asked what would happen in Quebec if the Liberal party wins the next provincial election. Would there be a referendum? 7 Guimond said there wouldn't be a referendum in that case, but he said the separatist Parti Quebecois would win and conduct a referen- dum. / Would Quebec continue to use Canadian currency, a woman want- ed to know. “It’s our right to use the: same currency....” said .. Guimond. ‘ poe After a few years Quebec could a switch to U.S. dollars, he added... ” Guimond did not always directly — answer questions posed by the crowd.. A woman wondering whether her relatives in Quebec would lose their Canadian citizen- ship or their.pensions found out only that people who had paid into the pension had a right to receive it. MP White asked what the Bloc’s position on the Official Languages Act would be if Quebec voted “yes” in the referendum. .. |. | Guimond said the. English minority in Quebec is well-treated but he had recently tried and:failed to get serve’: in French at an Air Canada counter in B.C. vee North Shore News Associate Editor Noel Wright asked Guimond what the Bloc’s position was on retaining a land link between Canada and the Adantic provinces. Guimond said he had no answer. - Asked by the News whether the Bloc would have a detailed strategy in place for Quebecers before the party held its referendum, Guimond said the Bloc would hold a caucus’ with members of the - Parti Quebecois in mid-June and would work for two days on strategy for the provincial election. Committees have also been working for several months on practical details of separation, he said. oa | animals after they have attacked people?