A6 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 14, 1998

Helmut under attack again ©

Dear Sir:

While we all would prefer that recall was put behind us,
recent allegations into how Helmut Giesbrecht ran his
campaign should be put in perspective. -

1, Phony Letter Writing

We all remember the spirited attack against recall that
was carried out in the letters to the editor section of local -
papers. We now know that many of these letters were writ- |
ten by outsiders and signed by local NDP supporters.

Helmut’s reaction was, ‘What's wrong With that?”’:

Back in my school days this was called plagiarism, and if
a person was caught the penalty would be failure or expul-
sion. Helmut the teacher would have known this. Helmut
the politician has conveniently forgotten.

Here’s what the Vancouver Sun had to say about this

practice:

*‘Cranked-out opinion is not worth the paper it’s written
on, distorting, as it does, democracy and public debate. A
letters-to-the-editor seclion filled with phony letters would
be useless. It could not be trusted as a barometer of any-
thing other than the assiduousness of the form-letter-
writing brigades. That the real person signing the letter
might fully support the views expressed does nothing to
‘mitigate the deception being played,”?

For an MLA to condone

deception is just plain.
wrong ad underscores
why we need recall in BC.
2. Outsiders’ involye-
ment.
' One of the biggest rea-
sons we were told not to
sign the recall petition was
that outside special inter-
est groups were behind the
recall attempt,

Now the truth is starting
to come out. It appears
that there were outsiders
working on the campaign,

.

CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD

‘The -
_Mail Bag

_ however they were working for Helmut. It seems there
was a large covert operation working against recall in
Skeena involving outsiders from as far away as
Ontario, all orchestrated from the Premicr’s office, ~~

Our reaction to this hypocrisy on the -part-of Mr.
Giesbrecht and his supporters can best be summed up
in the slogan from their own campaign “Special inter-
est groups and oulsiders: are coming to Skeena and
using the recall to re-fight the last election. Thar 8.
wrong.’?

3. Non reporting of recall expenses. a

While wriling phony letters to the editor and
hypocritically involving outsiders in his campaign
demonstrates a lack of moral fibre on Helmut’s part,
these are not illegal acts, However nol reporting the ex-
penditures to Elections BC is illegal,

Elections B.C, takes a very dim view of anyone who -'
interferes with the democratic process or who fails to
properly report election or recall expenses.

Helmut has been accused by some of a serious crime,
that of not reporting expenses. If the forensic audit.

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proves the allegations against him, the recall act is
quite clear: Helmut’s seat will be declared vacant.

As for right now, while Helmut still has a legal right
to hold office, he certainly does not have a moral right -
to be there.

If { was in Helmut’s shocs I would resign before I
could be removed in disgrace and before anyone teal-
ized that I would be a sitting duck in the next recall.

Lorne Sexton, Terrare, B.C,

Ie’ t’s Time To Start Thinking About

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smith fudges treaty cost totals

Dear Sir:

The problem with the arti-
cle that Mr. Mel Smith
wrote for newspaper owner
David Black is that- one
scarcely knows what to take
issue with, get angry over or
laugh at first.

First, I suppose, is his ex-
trapolation that if every
Weaty to be negotiated’ in
B.C. was the same, the cast
of all treaties in B.C. would
come to $13 billion.

So without telling us how
he made it up, Mr. Smith
creates this wonderfully
scary figure.. He doesn’t
even have the honesty to
make very sure that people
understand ‘he is talking ‘of

all treaties ‘and not just’ ‘thew

Nisga’a one. ;

Then be does something
even more dishonest, After
bashing the government for

being vague with figures, he
pumps up his — to 35 bil-
lion.

In all his playing with fan-

ciful figures, Smith misses
the whole point — that at
$200 or $300 or $400 mil-
lion, the treaty is one of the
best deals ever to.be handed
to’ the people of this pro-
vince.

By focussing on what we
are paying he ignores what
we have received (or taken),
What is the value of the 92
per cent. of their territory
that the Nisga’a have given
up? What is the value of the
limber taken from their
lands, or the fish or any of

the" rothes Mrgtural {resources

belay

land for “6Ver *
years?

By our own law we did
not buy it, did not lease it or

tent it. We took it. |

The Nisga’a have always
been willing to share. All
they have ever asked is
enough to live on and, after

a century, we have finally ‘commissions is even more
been willing to give them frightening. Can we have an
end to this please? -

back that. .

They have bargained hard
and in good faith. They have
uot golten near what they
asked for but they are will-
ing to take it and use it to

build a healthy, self reliant -

economy.

Has Mr. Smith figured in
the benefit of this as op-
posed to the dollar and hu-
man costs of continuing eu-
forced welfare?
ios think ‘David

on this issue is a very
dangerous precedent,
It stands in stark contrast

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