4 - Wednesday, November 9, 1988 - North Shore News Bos HUNTER © strictly personal ¢ Tefen ALTHOUGH IT has hardly surfaced at all as an issue dur- ing the federal election campaign, so far as I am concerned the most compelling reason for voting against the Torics this time around is their utterly wacko plan to waste billions and billions of dollars on nuclear submarines. In the crunch, even though I remain more or less a believer in the free trade deal, and would be willing to support them for that reason alone, I cannot bring myself to vote for a party that is going to steer Canada into the nu- clear arms race. Defence Minister Perrin Beatty ciaims that it will only cost $8 billion to build 10 to !2 nuclear subs, depending on whether we buy a British or French model. This claim has always been dubious, but last week an American defence expert blew even that figure out of the water com- pletely. Richard Barnard, editor of Defence News and a former member of the U.S. Defence In- telligence Agency stated that the $8 billion price tag ‘tis only the beginning.”* In reality, (he Cana- dian taxpayer is looking at $16 to $20 billion to build these subs. His estimate confirms what crit- ics of the program have been say- ing all along — namely that the cost will be at least double the fig- ure Perrin Beatty is tossing around. In any event, while price is cer- tainly a factor — and the credibili- ty of the defence minister and the entire Conservative Party are cer- tainly factors — the overriding consideration is the sheer weird- ness of Canada's decision to escalate the Cold War at a time when the superpowers themselves are backing off. The choice of submarines as our big-ticket defence item — as op- posed to more fighter jets or tanks — is singularly peculiar in view of the fact that this is the one military area where the Soviets are actually downsizing their forces. The rate of construction of new Soviet subs, according to John McCoy of the International In- stitute of Strategic Studies, has dropped from close to one a month a few years ago to only four or five so far this year — and these were mostly conventional ones for export. So the question has tc be asked, does Canada have a secret ambi- Man guilty of sex assault A SECHELT man will return to North Vancouver provincial court next month for sentencing pro- cedures afier he recently pleaded guilty to sexual assault. Gordon Edward Laidlaw, 30, was charged with sexually . "EROS, SHER . RUM BRAKE DISC. BRAKE: assaulting a woman following an incident between April 1, 1985, and June 30, 1985, in Sechelt. The court is scheduled to hear a pre-sentence report on ihe charge Dec. 6. Grateful She Wasn’t Aborted Sandra Wade, adopted 18 years ago — “I challenge anyone to say it would have beer: a just act to destroy my life by abortion.”’ “It’s hard to believe my life was a mistake for my natural mother; yet I guess it was. But, for my adoptive parents, that same mistake was the fulfilment of a dream. | wish my natural mother were here today. I think she’d be proud.” “Pm glad I was born in 1969 when my pre-natal life was protected by Jaw.” Advertisement sponsored by North Shore Pro Life | tion to climb up to nuclear super- power status? Does Beatty dream of projecting Canadian maritime muscle inte the South Pacific, the Mediterranean, maybe the Antarctic Ocean? Who, exactly, do we plan to go after with these long-range weapons? The hokum about protecting Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic has never made any sense at all, unless we are looking for a fight with the Americans and British, who are the only known in- terlopers mucking about in the Northwest Passage. “e Ihe hokum about protecting Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic has never made any sense at all, unless we are looking for a Sight with the Americans and British ...”" The supposed Soviet threat is mostly political hype. No evidence exists that any Soviet submarine has ever entered ‘‘our'’ Arctic. Why should they? The Passage is long, torturous and jammed with dangerous ice. To push through it is to invite becoming a nuclear Titanic. Such is the range of the ballistic missiles on Soviet nuclear sub- marines that they have absolutely no need to manoeuvre through the Arctic islands. They can fire their missiles at any target in the U.S. 2625 W. 4th Ave. Kitsilano. 736-0341 while remaining safely an their Barents Sea bastion north of Murmansk. The idea that we would same- how go nose-to- nose with the Soviets under the arctic ice is ab- surd. For one thing, without ballistic missiles of our own, there would be virtually no contest. We are much more ligtle to run into Americans up there. And inen what? Legally, there is nothing we can do about them anyway, since they consider the Northwest Passage 2a international waterway, and the issue has not been put to the World Caurt for the good reason that Canada would most likely lose the case. Therefore if there is a political rationale behind the sub program, { fail £0 see it. Militarily, what is the value of nuclear submarines? Mainly, they are offence weapons. Their best use would be on long-range patrols deep into enemy waters. To use them for static defence — shuffling around in the Northwest Passage, for in- stance — is a waste of their main strength, which is the capacity to travel incredible distances without surfacing. Finally, there is the fact that a Canadian fleet of nuclear sub- marines would torpedo one thing for sure: the world's fragile nu- clear non-proliferation systems. Canada would become the first country to use a loophole in its agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to get a nuclear propulsion system for a military vessel, thus setting a precedent that other non-nuclear countries might decide to follow. All of which is to say that the nuclear sub scheme is nuts. And the Tories ought to be thrown out on their asses for even considering it. @ NORTH VAN Third SeaBus scheme rejected DESPITE PRESSURE from North Vancouver City Council, BC Transit has again decided not to increase the number of SeaBuses to the North Shore in_ its 1988-89 budget. **We've been making the same tequest since 1983,°’ said North Vancouver deputy city engineer Don Bridgman. But BC Transit indicated that insufficient ridership during off- peak hours made another SeaBus beyond budget, said Bridgman. Ald. Frank Morris said it was difficult to tell if another SeaBus was viable because ‘‘no place in its (BC Transit’s) measurement does it isolate revenue from the SeaBus or from its North Shore operations.”’ Bridgman said it was difficult to isolate revenue because passengers sometimes transferred across one or two zones before boarding the SeaBus. Ald. Stella Jo Dean said council should continue to pressure the transit system. “The squeaky wheel always gets the oil,’’ she said. “‘The more we hammer at BC Transit, the more chance we have (of success.)””