AG» Wednesday, June 3, 1981 - North Shore News

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/The LGH circus

It may be high time to consider having the people who run Lions Gate Hospital chosen by the people it exists to serve — the 134,000 residents of the North Shore.

Presently, the hospital board is elected by only four.or five per cent of those residents. After last year's drive by the opposing

_ factions in the ongoing abortion dispute, membership of the North and West Hospital Society: stood at 5,500,0f whom 3,500 at- tended:and voted atthe annual meeting. —

Members of the Society, who pay dues of $5, remain sharply split on the abortion issue which promises once again to be virtually the only factor «weighed ‘in the election of directors at this year’s annual meeting, scheduled for September 2. ‘The: hundred-and-one other important

tows ch already makes the board _ Telougnt each year already makes the ’ As‘such, the choice of its members should not be left:to a mere‘5,000-6,000 fee-paying voters mesmerized by a single subject.

Three years to go

The 24 pages.of highly personal questions which one : Canadian household in five is required to complete in today's census smack unpleasantly. of police state techniques -—- especially when you can be jailed for three months for refusing, for example, to state the asking price for your

ome, , wo

It will mean more efficient government, we're assured, Three years from 1984 that's exactly what many people fear.

Saantay News>.

Vere Ue setters ee

news

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So amv teem

we

The real western anger at ‘a federal well-head tax on natural gas and oil resulted in the Alberta government drilling three natural gas wells without private en- terprise involvement, so those wells could be used as a court test case.

court test

A number of readers have slapped me on the

It’s history now that the Alberta ‘Supreme Court

an

he Canadian Comment

agreed with the contention of the provincial govern- ment, that the feds had no right to tax a_ totally provincial enterprise. It's there in the law; you cant tax a provincial crown corporation at the fedéral level.

The case, of course, is now under appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada, sent there by the feds, who are attempting to reverse the Alberta court ruling, and there is a trememdous amount riding on the verdict of the federal Supreme Court.

If the Alberta court's view is upheld, then watch for the Alberta government to start taking steps to nationalize

oi be) the oil and gas industry, so

&- §6could

that the feds can be cut off at the legal pass over taxes on hydrocarbons. Such a move

y bankrupt the federal government.

There might also be an

A objection or two from the oil

wrist for a recent column entitled “Unwinnable War Our Best Bet?”. In it I suggested that ban- the-bomb activists -- whose goal I regard as being several stages holier than motherhood - are unfortunately not very practical about the means of reaching that goal. As a result, some people apparently concluded I am a paid agent of the

Pentagon.

“May I explain a little further?

The current Big Idea of the ban-the-bomb brigade is a worldwide referendum on nuclear weapons, to be organized by the United Nations.

In Canada, the U.S., western Europe and all other countries which still onjoy a free press I'm pretty sure the answer of millions of nice, ordinary citizens would be almost unanimous: ban the nuclear horror completely.

I may be denso, but I still can’t sec how you conduct a free public opinion 1 at the present time in the Soviet Union, the Buropean Bastern Block or Communist

ma.

Since this Communist world controls 50 per cent of the nuclear “balance of terror’, which is now capable of virtually wipi out the planot within a day, find it a little difficult to underatand how a referendum confined to the free nations would help at the moment.

MORAL EXAMPLE?

Presumably ono of ita alma would be to oxert proasure on the U.S. and ita bomb- owning allies to disarm

unilaterally. In theory this would set a noble moral example which Russia and the Communist world would eventually be shamed into following. For the Bomb- Banners, Washington is just as big a nuclear villain as Moscow even bigger, maybe, when you recall Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

. So what happens next, after tho Pentagon goes into voluntary Haquidation, Gismantles its missile silos, recalls its Tridents and invites the Kremlin to do likewise?

The Kremlin might agree. of course -- just as there may be fairics at the bottom of tho garden after all.

Or, the Kremlin might hang on to its own nuclear hardware while leaving us unmolested for the being. More fairies?

The third alternative ts that Uncle Leonid would conclude we were at long last ready to be brought into the great Communiat fold, enriching it with all the woatorn wealth and technology it so badly needs. There wouldn't be much to stop him.

rankly, I think the un- ploasant choice for the moment is between alter- native No. 3 and the present balance of terror. And it's

time

industry, but some com-

‘panies would doubtless be

willing to talk turkey if the price was right, to put

by Noel Wright Ce

perfectly arguable, of course, that oven life under a Russian-appointod dic- tatorship might be Preferable to the continuin risk of being incinerated alive without warning. Having personally ob- scrved life under such dictatorship at fairly close Quartors, I'll reserve judgement on that choice.

RINGING TRUE

As Kreminologist David Levy, for many years the

CBC’s man in Moscow, points out, the missing Mgrediont for nuclear

disarmament at this stage in the lack of any opportunit

for a human dialogue with the Russian peoplo them- selves. Until the Soviet news media grant western

‘into the

When you follow throu the implications of a possibie Supreme. Court rulin favor of Alberta, it the problems of - sititutio agreem miniscule by comparison:

_If the provincial cro corporation gimmick for Alberta on three gas wells, Saskatche British Columbia would same sof arrangement. Theoretica it would be possible::{ provincial governments wit producing hydroce resources to cut of federal government acent. It's not something which likely to happen, bu

the groundwork is being fa should the-provinces feel | ultimate

atmosphere which deve when different levels government see cach oth as rivals, rather then with different are Canadian life to ordi Canadians are suppos be famous for usin delicate art of compromis We're rapidly losing the

spokesmen. the 5828 freedom of expression. Soviet spokesmen enjoy’ in the western media, no meaningful ‘‘world! referendum is possible. Bu that doesn’t mean there are no rays of hope at all on the horizon, wore I can't recall ‘as totalitarian system in history that has survived indofinitel -- whereas democracy, with all its warts, has . bee steadily developing an rofining iteolf for centuries,: ave all dictatorshi necessarily ended in holocaust. Some, as in th case of Franco's Spain, hav finally been replaced fairl peacefully by intern ressuros representing th Froad will of the people. The ‘Solidarity:

union

movement in Poland is 8. pointer along the same road,’ - So the real challenge for. the west, I suggest, is to” demonstrate ancy’ that ou of doing things ~ in": dom combined

wa dividual free with economic and social

justice -- works. better for

mankind than any other. If

we can make that mossage : ‘true, ‘modern. com.

ting

munication technology: will.

et it across, regardless of

ron Curtains, - If we. fall: to message ring true, shadow of all we deserve, ei hy

PLANT

TREES! f

make the life in the: ¢ Bomb may be”