HONESTLY..'WE PROBABLY COULD MANAGE JUST FINE BY OURSELVES...

NEWS VIEWPOINT ~ Canadian rights

deserves a fair and expeditious trea- ty settlement but Chief Joe Mathias’ call for distinct society status for his band

Tes SQUAMISH Indian Band

is unnecessary.

In a speech to 500 people at the longhouse Thursday, Mathias revealed the band’s ‘‘declaration of principle.’’ The declaration states that the band’s right to exist as a distinct socie- ty gives the band ‘‘the right to use our traditional lands and the resources of those lands, to govern ourselves within our ter- ritories and all other rights necessary to

Capilano Reserve

keep our society whoie.”'

But in a very real way Canada is already

6 - Sunday, August 19, 1990 ~ North Shore News LY ES ET ee |

they be native, ethnic or linguistic groups. Whether dif- ferent cultural groups arrived here thou-

INSIGHTS

francophone, or other

sands or hundreds of years ago or yester-

day doesn’t have much bearing on the po- litical fact of today: we are all here now as citizens of Canada.

Canadian citizens are guaranteed certain rights. Native Canadians share these rights and Section 35 of the Constitution Act recognizes aboriginal distinctiveness.

Yes, natives deserve land claim settle- ments by way of treaty. It is necessary to

redress the wrongs of the past. But let’s

not create more borders.

NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK

“I perpetrated some of the worst advertising ever foisted on the public.’’

Private consultant Larry Sher- wood, explaining how a question- able ad campaign won him the post of national promotions coor- dinator for Imperial Oil.

“(How bad were they? They were so bad that people remembered them.”’

Marketing consultant Larry Sherwood, on a series of ads he did for Imperial Oil.

“I'd be willing to take my own sledgehammer (to remove them (planters).”’

Seymour Parkway resident, commenting on the value of

envelope.

North Shore News, lounded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Paragraph tlt of the Excise Tax Act. is published each Wednesday. Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North _ Shore. Secand Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Subscriptions North and West Vancouver, $25 per year. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibilty tor unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures 8 which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed

planters installed along Mount Seymour Parkway.

“The problem lies with the drivers, speed and alcohol. You'll over regulate everything if give the chance.”’ .

Seymour Parkway area resident Doug Copp, responding to rec- ommendations in a questionnaire put together to find solutions to the continuing carnage on Seymour Parkway.

‘This is a job for people in the army. They’re into fighting. But leave the rest of us who aren’t in- to fighting alone.”’

Edmonton resident Lewis Roberts explaining to an inquiring News reporter why he wouldn't

fight in a war against Iraq.

“I was at a loss. I was just devas- tated. The police had the street blocked off and there were pieces of mulch floating down the street.”’

North Vancouver artist Victor Paquette explaining how he felt when he found that his basement containing his art work had been flooded after a car struck a fire hydrant outside his home.

“That scares the hell out of me when I say that.”’

Local fitness instructor Patricia Daw pondering the physical challenges facing her as a partici- pant in this year’s 140.6-mile fronman ultra-triathlon.

A joker could be the voter’s winning card!

DOES A sense of humor help a politician? That was the recent question put to me by an aspiriag North Shore candidate. In most cases (I was tempted to repiy) only

after he’s been defeated.

Politicians, by and large, are scared of humor and the longer they serve, the more their funny- bones atrophy. They learn at momma’s knee that clowns are not elected — unless, of course, the name is John (“tequila Sheila’’) Crosbie.

Public business is serious business — in public, at any rate. But just wait until our dedicated public servants let down their hair in private with trusted cronies. You'd be horrified by the cynical mirth with which even the most outwardly solemn of them will talk about the great unwashed who voted for them.

Especially about the squeaking wheels, business-suit panhandlers, rent-a-mcb protesters, scurrilous columnists and blasphemous car- toonists who litter a politician’s landscape from Day One.

Let’s face it: for anyone with a sense of humor both the electors and the elected in our democractic system can be equally comical much of the time. So it’s manifestly unfair that only one side — when not yelling — is allowed to laugh openly at the other.

If the pols could occasionally have their turn at making public fun of the fickle voters, without being fired for taking their duties too lightly, we’d have a far healthier political sense.

Humor, after all, is the great safety valve. Nobody can hate and laugh simultaneously. And politi- cians free to laugh in public — about themselves, their deeds and their constituents alike — would be the ones least likely to abuse their temporary power.

Think about it, anyhow, this fail when you listen to my ques- tioning friend with the itchy fun- ny-bone — and any other can- didates similarly afflicted.

The joker in the pack might be just the card to win you better government!

nkek NEVER ONE to flinch in the lions’ den, Associate Defence Minister and Capilano MP Mary Collins hosted an informal supper Wednesday for the North Shore media to meet Deputy PM Don Mazankowski, here on a swing through B.C. to test the local waters. North Shore News guests Peter Speck, Doug Foot, Gary Bannerman and yours truly, together with the Squamish Times’ Claude Hoodspith, happily bom- barded the two feds with all the

tough questions YOU would have asked — on Oka Mohawks, law enforcement, the economy, the GST and the overblown Ottawa bureaucracy — and, of course, got all the smooth answers you'd expect.

Mazankowski, who’s also agriculture minister, comes over as a well-balanced, outgoing person- ality with a lot of political mileage still ahead (though he denies lead- ership ambitions).

But cabinet loyalty must be tough going at times for the more intelligent ‘‘team players.’’ One had to pity these two a little — stuck with defending, willy-nilly, lousy government policies against overwhelming evidence of their folly.

anak HAPPY HOURS: At her retire- ment party the other weck after 27 years with North Van District Library its Seycove Branch super- visor Betty Crane was feted by colleagues and friends with gifts, flowers and praise — but it was the eight-word message on the jumbo-size card they gave her that said it all: ‘‘None of us want to see you go!’’ ... Meanwhile, in North Van today, Aug. 19, a very happy birthday te ~..nnifer Adams ... The same again to 99-year-old Joseph Wright (no relation), who still walks to Silver Harbour Cen- tre for lunch each day ... And yet another birthday card this Sunday to West Van’s Gordon Rowntzee.

aee WRIGHT OR WRONG: Two reasons by Mark Twain always to do the right thing: it gratifies some people and astonishes the rest.

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MEMBER

DON Mazankowski mileage ahead.

...political

of “ee

RETIREE Betty Crane ...the

card said it all.