PAGE 4, THE HERALD, Monday, August 6, 1977 —(the herald } —_— Published by Sterling Publishers Ltd. Terrace - 635-6357 Kitimat + 632-6207 Circulation - 635-2877 PUBLISHER... GORDON W. HAMILTON MANAGING EDITOR... ALLAN KRASNICK KITIMAT.... ‘CHRIS HUYGENS CIRCULATION MANAGER... JACK JEANNEAU Published every weekday at 3212 Kalum St. Terrace B.C. A member of Varifled Clrcutation. Authorized as second class mall. Registration number 1203, Postage pald in cash, return | postage guaranteed, ‘ NOTE OF COPYRIGHT The Herald retains full, complete and sole copyright In any advertisement produced and-or any editorial or photographic content published in the Herald. Reproduction Plane nitted without the written permission of the r. take the lead — Expansion of facilities at the Terrace Library is long. overdue. The library has 17 percent fewer books than provincial standards dictate for a town of Terrace’s size. This is despite the fact the library _ has doubled its stock of books over the past five years. Government standards also dictate the library should have 25 percent more floor space. With amembership of 5,800, the library provides.. a service used by more than half the People in Terrace. Circulation has also been steadily rising over the past few. years. . _ There has been pressure for the Terrace Library to give the same service to outlying districts like Thornhill and Lakelse Lake, But despite the fact there is no similar facility closer than Kitimat, a law to share costs was defeated at a regional trict meeting a year ago. It’s not that the library doesn’t want to have anything to do with Thornhill and. Lakelse Lake. The problem is that the building is already overextended just serving Terrace. It’s been said the bookshelves are so closely spaced there is barely room for one person between ves, Other books have to be kept in the staff work room or in the basement. Having to cope with this, it’s not surprising the . library doesn't want to serve a larger area, Current problems would merely be intensified, An extension now would improve the library in the years to come. All too often, one looks for a book only tofind the local library does not carry it. The lack is most evident in reference materials. A good library is nota luxury. It is a necessity for acommunity so far from the centers of population. The library already sefves diverse needs. Special services are offered to people who speak foreign languages, children, senior citizens, the visually handicapped, schools, the retarded, the arts council and various community organizations. The Terrace library delivers books to shut-ins, gponsors a story hour, lends out records, shows ms and lets out space for art exhibitions and other events. In other words, the library is the cultural centre _ of Terrace. | . Plans for the addition were drawn up in 1972 and would double the floor space. - Cost of building an extension has been estimated at $175,000. But specific figures for individual expenses and the details of the general architectural plan have yet to be worked out. ‘It’s not yet certain how the extension is to be financed, but it appears the cost would be shared between the province, the district of Terrace and private sources. Until council knows what it is going to cost, it would not be fair to ask them to give the library capital funds. — ; The success of this project if it goes to - referendum, depends aon ‘council’s leadership. It is possible the library board would not be able to raise all the money from private sources. : If they aren’t already doing so, it is hoped Terrace council will do ‘all out’ to help this worthy project get off the ground. fERAAN ©1977 Univenol Pres Syadcote “IE \'ve got to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, what sort of fair trial is this gonna be?” ~ Council must _ ~ Pollution op by GORDON HARDY Number 2 in a series of five columns ‘“Privolous and vexatious” spluttered the dge, and with that he rew out of court a suit in which a young law student claimed that the Ontario government was damaging e environment by allowing a contracting company to cart away ‘sand dunes from & provincial fark. e judge did not consider whether the charge was true or not. He considered one thing, and that was whether or not the person bring the suit, in this case a law student named Green, had any special interest, ownership, or standing in the park. As a private citizen, the judge found, Green had no special interest, and so the case was _ dismissed without being examined, According to Greg MeDade, executive director of West Coast : Environmental ‘Law Association, ‘The problem of standing is the biggest obstacle in the face of environmental — law.” McDade claims that, south of the border; the situation is different. “In the United States, if is much easier for any citizen to sue a polluter or a company that damages the environment. Their law protects interests beyond monetary and property ones.” ~ In Canada though, it is only in very special cases that a private citizen without standing can get a case tocourt. This occurs if a suit is brought under - Environmental Law/A Series * . The trouble with this kind of suit, says Tim Mackenzie, a lawyer who has handled environmental. cases, is that to get standing “‘a private individual must prove that he has suffered special ‘injury over and above that suffered by the general public.” New: Brunswick fisherman who brought a public nuisance charge. against a pulp and paper company And that’s not. easy. ae _ McDade cites thecaseofa . ponents ofte whose water destroyed his fishing beds. The court rejected his suit, saying that he had not suffered injury over and above that of the public at large. . Sometimes, however, a private citizen, or group of citizens; can press the Attorney-General, as tector of the people, to ring charges against the offender under ‘public nuisance. < But the WEst Coast patton had i grounds of public nuisance. Levesqu By CLAUDERYAN Montreal Le Deyoir - Four premiers have disclosed the reaction of their respective overnments to the divation addressed them ‘by Quebec Premier Rene Levesque last week concerning the possibility of interprovincial agreements of reciprocity in education. After reading the answers of Messrs. William Davis Ontario, Allan Blakeney, Saskatchewan, Richard Hatfield, New Brunswick and Alex Campbell, Prince Edward Island, the most that can be said is that the harvest is rather poor. Quebec did in fact obtain the public relations success Levesque wanted. - It now is also certain that discussions: will take place among the provinces’ about the problem raised by Quebec. ut aside from these minor | ins, the idea of bargaining inguistic rights implicit in Quebec's proposal runs into a non-acceptance which is rather humiliating for a province which always, until recently, was in the avant-garde in the country in respecting linguistic rights. . . nless there is a major change in the Quebec government’s » current ition, the chances of a uitful dialogue between Levesque and his coleagues: from other provinces remain poor. . 4 Messrs. Levesque. and Cultural Development Minister Camille Laurin would in effect open conversations on a tit-for-tat basis, ; . Now, Davis’s letter and the statements of Hatfield in -particular could lead to the conclusion that Quebec is in a different position from Ontario and 4 From other papers @ initiative g New Brunswick, even Saskatchewan. In concrete terms, these provinces are often less advanced than Quebec in recognizing minority language rights. Yet in terms of policy, they are ready today to resolve this {issue at a higher and more perraanent level than that of simple statutory legislation which is subject to change according to the whims of governments and: legislatures. tever injustices ma have occurred in the past, many Quebecers, on this issue, would prefer . stable constitutional guarantees to laws which change and often differ greatly from on e of the country to another, Levesque may also have thought to isolate Ottawa in proposing strictly inter- rovincial agreements. | ere again, his colleagues remind him that reality is ‘interpretation of 4 ' ood P.R. not that simple. It is a misreading of the attitude of the premiers of angolphone provinces to think that they would exclude Ottawa from a. field as important as linguistic rights. ‘Quebec's insistence that | the remainder of the. country understand its ‘distinctive national reality . 48 ‘understandable. But Levesque's advisers and - speechwriters should make greater. efforts to understand the res tof the Canadian ‘reality, which they tend to over-simplify.. Laurin indicated “that eventual agreemtns would in no way annul the Quebec using Bill 101 to option 0 limit access to English schools. His explanations indicate a rather restrictive C) eventual scope of the proposed agreements. language rights, itse f, especially the heavy an unite, away from Quebec. the House of Commons mnt million English was officially proclaimed. By RICHARD JACKSON Ottawa -. It seems to have slipped by almost unnoticed, but Joe Clark of turned around the Conservative position on the Official Languages Act. He's still strong for English and French - ut he says that the Act. -handed way it 8 been laid on the country b overnment, has done far more to He's dead on, of course, knows it like the people who and Eastern Ontario, just a river-crossing Tt was 5:30 p.m, of May 27 in 1969 when passed the Official Languages Act by a vote of 197 to 17. Bilingualism as national policy - the uating of six million French with 16 in provision of government services in the two tongues:- 8 sort discardin the vide and nobody ive in Ottawa reporter dash emotional as the earller and controversial folding of the historic Red Ensign with its Union Jack for the new Maple It was such a stirring journalism’s supposedly sacred bu imposaible objectiv ed down the stairs from the _Parliamentary Press Gallery headlong into the Opposition Lobby shouting at the Honorable ‘Members as they emerged through the curtains: ; "Ts there no man here ready to stand up. - for the English language?” my, There were only To this day, eight years later, eight of them remain igh the Conservatives: ; ; Former Prime Minister Kiefenbaker, Waiter Dinsdale of Brandon-Souris, Jack Horner of Crowfoot (since ' recanted and become a Liberal, entering | the Trudeau cabinet), . af flag. event that y this he 17. Commons, . all Stanley Korchinski of Mackenzie, : .. © _ —|OTTAWA OFFBEAT Tories shift stance on Stanley Schumacher of Pallister, — Bill Skoreyko of Edmonton East, and Robert Coates, of Cumberland-Colchester North, the only one of the 17 from east of , comi ‘ becoming im: n not heard Environmental Law Association warns, ‘The position of the Attorney- General is a_ political appointment. of overnment MLA...and it ollows that in some cases it - may be difficult to persuade him to start an ag¢tion against a large industry if there are political reasons why this action would not be desirable.” Recently, the Attorney- General of Ontario started court action for the people of Mulmar, Ontario, against - Orange Productions, a promotion company that wanted to hold an outdoor rock festival in the town. The Attorney-General claimed’ that the rock festival ‘would be a public nuisance. He told the court that at an earlier festival of about 40,000 people excessive noise, nude bathing, and open . gonsumption of aleoho) and ¢ Ontario court banned e rock festival, and one judge was quoted as. saying ‘The whole fesitval was a social disaster to those who normally live in the drugs had occured, th | neighbourhood,” ~Of course, taking action against the group of rock promoters is not like taking on some economic Goliath, It is the citizen who owns or. occupies land who is. generally better protected under the common law. This can even include tenants, The citizen can“take the law into his own hands” by taking the offending parties to court in ’ the ime and ° ggads walt “ : spo a elvil remedy or a-law ‘sit ‘unter the common law. . But even for the’ person -with standing“in his own vate property it is not al] hat wasy. © -- “ Environmentalist) McDade . says, The main drawbacks ‘to common law actions are expense,”’ _ iL He cites the case Of a Fruitvale, B.C. .- family whose property rights had “been damaged’. by air ojlution and vibrations rom ‘an envroaching sawmill. - From start to trial, the case will probably last three years, and it will cost thousands of dollars.:' The costs of experts and | their court testimony, too, are very high. The advantages Of a civil - remedy, on the other hard, are that the person who brings the action, the plaintiff, may be able to get a court order against offender almost immediately and may be able to get damages. Next:_ A man’s home is his castle. vO SE Persons considering court action should. contact. their lawyer or the West Coast Environmental Law Association, Suite 1012, 207 West Hastings Street. Fora copy of the bookiet, Pollution & Environmental Law please contact the Vancouver People’s Law School, The booklets coat fifty’ centa each, plus ge. Write to 2110-C West Twelfth Avenue, Vancouver V6K .2N2, or phone 734-1126, Jf _-WASHINGTON in warm _ WENATCHEE, Wash. - (AP) —. Ite - rattlesnate. weather around Wenatchee these days, Dry conditions and last week's heat wave apparently ‘brought "the reptiles down from the hills into people’s backyards, looking for water at this city 100 miles east of Seattle. Georgia McKinney had one crawl across her hand Wednesday as.she unrolled a water hose. She yelled and ‘her husband bashed the snake with a shovel, a common snake weapon, Gib Shelton on Mission Creek killed two. in his ‘backyard last week, one of them with a lawn chair. . And Kathryn Florence - who lives up Black Canyon near Methow was putting some cherries in her freezer when she found a snake coiled up and rattling beside ' her. She said she rushed out of the fruit room and stayed . out until her granddaughter killed the snake, which had 11 rattles. “Now before I go in, I kind of through the door,” said Mrs. Florence. Jim Mares of | the Washington. State game department said. more rattlesnakes are being re- ported, especially in brushy areas around streams and springs. And ‘this year because of drought an temperatures in the 908, more of them are showing up earlier than ustial. No - snake bites have been - Rattlers roam "EE! sad snk so -+Maréa said“snakes seek meisture and also follow thé _ rats and mice they normally feed on. These rodents have left the dry hills to come . down *'for:::some:water themselves. tak, -Mares cautioned fishermen and hikers to “keep their heads down’! when walking through. brushy areas, ‘especially creek beds - where treams or lakes. He said there have several snakes killed up Swakane Canyon, a Mary Brazel, athe went at the game departmen' offices on the Chelan. Highway ‘killed a rattler ‘Thursday right outside the office near an irrigon water: faucet. OG And Mrs. West says:. “I {ust keep. shovel right in he yard so it’s ‘pretty handy.” Q . PUNCH LINE, C) >| MARRIAGE . “RUN BY WOMEN, AND: FINANCED BY MEN, the Manitoba border, ‘They were the bigots and rednecks of their ays 80, too, were all who questioned and go, too, do the wisdom of bilingualism, they all remain today, ‘ Except: - , ‘eA Foe Clark hde sald, bilingualism . has become co damagingly . + English :Canada increasingly is ressure of blatant blackmail by French separatists, and not all of them in Quebec either; under - And the former redneck, even racist, harmlessly: empty words, . devold- of . damage and useless ds terms of coercion overnment in unsuccessful by the intimidation of its critics. - Even the tolerant people of Ontario are -bilingualism's tient’ 0 divisive; language around the with his. s the most ithets,’ bigot, recentl ave become bilingual French ret Today; perfectly acceptable, even proper, to kick ' uncivilized and destructive of ‘national unity to not bow to every whim and , demand of the French elsewhere. i Joo Clark has established his leadership national attitude. nt It no longer is politically fashionable in the Conservative party definite independent cadres of the Liberal. . Tank and file - to plead English guilt in the : : eracking of Confederation. we Now it is no longer recklessly daring, but even acceptable to question the until- ‘automatic “‘rightness’’ of ism as a just and f i ribution .against. English} | jection, ee _ Through thé mails from Mr, Eric Young in Stratford has come a copy of the new . Tunaway Canadian bestseller. ‘enth Tomorrow.” . . :. sh in Quebec but al of a massive change in - and in.small but | ‘measure of “Bilingual . It was a very exciting occasion, 88 —- Gordon Ritchie of Dauphin, . ; { : , + a - double standard under which _ it's. ' 7! Of which: more later: