4 - Sunday, July 15, 1900 ~

North Shore News

. 0 Tennis club

1 RECALL vividly, back in the late Sixties, sitting by the waves at Long Beach, contemplating the meaning of life, when a tiny dot appeared in the sky to the south. Within seconds, it seemed, the dot had become a shrieking low-

flying jet fighter.

My wife and two smail children froze in their tracks. So did everyone else on the beach. The fighter was following the tide line. It was barely more than three stories above the water. My only thought was that for some crazy reason the Americans had decided to attack. Maybe they were ticked off with all the draft-dodgers we were accepting at the time.

I scrambled to get to my family. Both kids were howling. My then-wife, a British ban-the-bomb peacenik, went dead white despite the tan she had won after several days of wandering the sands.

[ Sa jet is Slying at 100 metres above ground at 1,000 km-h, it can cause hearing damage.”’

It was exactly like a strafing run. The helpless horror of being a civilian in a modern war was suddenly something I could ap-. preciate,

It was all over quickly. Looking around as the jet vanished nor- thward, [ could see that everyone had hit the beach. We were all in various states of shock. Kids cry- ing, men shaking their fists. Dogs baying. It was as though some sost of science-fiction monster had dropped cut of the sky to ter- rorize us.

{ was so enraged | later wrote an op-ed page article for the Van- couver Sun. A lot of other angry holidayers apparently wrote letters and phoned their MPs.

The official explanation that came back was that a young pilot from Comox had gone ‘‘hot doge- ing.”’ Getting his kicks freaking out the tourists.

All I know is that the practice was curtailed, the pilot repri- manded, and peace returned to Long Beach.

Lucky for Long Beach. Lucky

’ for the tourist industry in Tofino.

I learned much later that the anxiety and tension we had felt for hours afterwards are perfectly normal. It’s called an alarm reac- tion. The noise burst from the jet triggers a continuous stress reac- tion, releasing adrenaline, increas- ing heart rate, causing distur- bances of the intestinal tract, and generating high blood pressure.

If the jet is flying at 100 metres above ground at 1,000 km-h, it can cause hearing damage.

As aresult of that experience more than two decades ago, I have been keenly sympathetic to the plight of the Innu people in Labrador, who have had to en-

dure low-level jet fights for years as part of Canada’s commitment to NATO. ! have never bought, for a moment, the military line that such flights do not have a dramatic impact on people’s psychological and physical well- being.

It is even worse for animals, birds and fish, who do not have the consolation of knowing that it was done in the name of keeping the peace.

The fact that the 10,000 [nnu of Labrador have had to live with up to 7,000 such flights per year strikes me as a particularly shock- ing example of contemporary co- lonial oppression. If the purpose of the flights is to protect the average Canadian from nuclear attack, then let the flights be con- ducted over the cities they are in- tended to defend. See how long that would last!

The military knows perfectly well shat the public at large would go bananas if they were subjected to this kind of horrendous racket. That’s why they picked so-called “‘remote’’ areas to conduct their flights. Unfortunately, remoteness is relative. If you are living in the Yukon, Vancouver is remote. One thing remote isn’t is the place where you are.

If you question this, ask the people living in the proposed fow-level flight corridor known as IR-910 across British Columbia.

Covering some 1,387 km, the route, which has been approved by Ottawa, starts in northeastern B.C. near Fort Nelson, and winds its way over Williston Lake, Babine Lake, passing close to Vanderhoof, Houston and Burns Lake, twisting south toward Bella Coola, endin= up near Port Har- dy.

Along the way, it passes near some 40 communities, including 24 Indian reserves (‘‘vemote,’’ you know, nothing to worry about). Roughly 20,000 people live within 34 miles of the corridor.

It also incidentally crosses the flight path of millions of ducks and geese, sweeping shatteringly over the habitat of moose, moun- tain goats, woodland caribou, mountain sheep, wolves and elk. The mating areas of bald and golden eagles are likewise violated.

The purpose of the corridor is to pave the way for Amcrican B-1 bombers bound for the U.S.S.R. in the event of war. Each bomber — and there are 200 of them assigned to this task — carries 24 armed cruise missiles, and each of them packs the nuclear equivalent of 27 Hiroshimas.

At a time when the East Bloc has been liberated and Soviet President Gorbachev is being in- vited to address the assembled leaders of NATO, it makes less sense than ever for Canada to be subjecting its peoples and wildlife to the nightmare of low-level mili- tary-preparedness flights.

Anyone agrceing that this is paranoid — and ecological — madness can let Associate Defence Minister Mary Collins know by writing to her at the House of Commons, Ottawa, KIA OA6, or by phoning 604-666-4500.

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yw pO IT UP RIGHT, BC

THE WEST Vancouver Tennis Ctub has received a $116,667 GO B.C. grant to go towards the club's $350,000 five-court tennis bubble project.

The new bubble, currently being made for the club, will cover five courts in winter, up from three

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courts covered in winter by the old bubble.

The project wil! be completed by Oct. 15, in time for the open- ing of the club’s winter season.

Sheila Scott, secretary manager for the tennis club, said the pro- ject enables the club to enlarge its winter membership from 350 to

500 members.

The provincial government grant covers a third of the pro- ject's cost. Scott said the rest of the money was raised through new membership fees and money in- vested in term deposits by current members.

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