Aa - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 10, 1996 TERRACE STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 . ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, B.C. « V8G 188 TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 « FAX: (604) 638-8432 mo, MODEM: (604) 638-7247 It’s our game IF IT WERE anything else we’d be happy. Happy with the prospect of Canadians earning a healthy living in the United States by playing hockey. Happy over reversing the Americaniza- tion of Canada by giving them a taste of our game. But with the Winnipeg Jets filing a flight plan south and with the chances of the Quebec Nordi~- ques becoming the Sudiques, happiness gives way to something else. Hockey is our game, damn it. Losing the Jets and possibly the Nordiques takes away some- thing that is indelibly Canadian. We’ve let big time business invade our sport to the point that hockey is now an American- dominated corporate event. Any doubts about this are easily washed away by watching the way the FOX network covers hockey, It treats hockey as a combination of American Gladiator and Wrestlemania XX with fancy graphics and over- powering commentary. | Who is to blame? We are, We’ve encouraged the NHL by giving consent to the massive salaries being paid to players. These in tum drive up operating costs to the point that smaller Cana- dian teams can’t compete with the almighty American dollar. We told ourselves we could survive in the American corporate jungle. And maybe that’s our problem as Canadians. We still haven’t figured out our identity as Cana- dians, making it too simple and too easy to be submerged into the American monolith. IT’S SOMEHOW fitting that National Forest Week comes at a time when two wood use stories are prominent in the northwest. Both the Victoria Plywood and Orenda Forest Products situations concern the shipment of northwest wood south. Back in the days when there was lots of timber, there were no problems. Northwest mills had all they needed and a healthy business developed whereby southern forest companies logged and barged wood to their facilities, Those days are now over and the ever- tightening wood supply pits company against company and region against region. The natural reaction is to demand that our wood stay here. But that’s a denial of the way the wood industry works in this province and in this region. Forest companies now process wood fiom their backyard and from hundreds of miles away. Orenda Forest Products, the subject of intense criticism for trying to strike a deal tied to the opening of a closed newsprint mill on Vancouver Island, already ships wood hither and yon. That deal, now dead, would simply have tied its wood to a specific operation. To be sure, politicians will want to avoid deal- ing with the wood flow issue. Drawing boundary lines on maps makes for nasty political prob- lems. Yet forest companies also want to avoid this happening. Their continued efforts to make the best use of the wood at their disposal are at stake. eS PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm - vente OIACULA _ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter GONTAGLLED Cree . IFNOU'RE LOOKING FOR YOUR CLUBS... [PUT THEM IN THE GARAGE, , BEHIND THE MOWER, THE RAKES, THE WEED KILLER AND THE FERTILIZER BAGS..., Ave wre Lock up these monsters VICTORIA — During the early evening of Friday, June 17, 1988, Anna Stephenson at- tended at a local shopping plaza in Brampton, Ontario, with her 11-year-old son Christopher and her nine-year- old daughter Amanda. Christopher stood outside a sewing shop in the mall, hold- ing onto some shopping bags gathered through the evening of shopping, while Ama and Amanda momentarily went into the shop. During these few short minutes, Joseph Fredericks, a tmaultiple sex offender, who was out of prison on mandatory su- pervision, after serving twa- thirds of a sentence for sexual- ly assaulting a little boy in Ot- tawa, approached Christopher with knife in hand, covered by a jacket, and placed his arm around Christopher’s shoulder, holding the knife to the boy's neck. Fredericks told Christopher if he yelled and didn’t co- apera- ted, he would be killed. In these circumstances, Fredericks was able to walk Christopher out of the mall without incident. The rest of that evening and throughout the following day, Christopher was repeatedly and brutally raped, tortured and finally murdered by FROM THE CAPITAL. HUBERT BEYER Fredericks. On Father's Day, Sunday, June 19, 1988, Jim Stephenson had to identify his son’s body in the city morgue, We cannat begin to imagine the pain and the anguish Anna And Jim Stephenson will live with for the rest of their lives. Aad there are all to many Jims and Annas, whose children have been murdered by sexual predators. But notwithstanding the hor- tor of their experience, the murder of their little boy has given the Stephensons a new mission, one that Canadians might want to support. A report, commissioned by the Stephensons, and released last week by the Canadian Po- lice Association and the Na- tional Justice Network, makes an excellent case for a sexual predator Jaw. The report was prepared by Toronto lawyer Timothy Danson, who acted as counsel for the Stephensons at the inquiry into the death of their son. The report defines a sexual predator as ‘‘a person who has a mental abnormality or per- sonality disorder which makes him likely to commit acts of a sexually violent, predatory na- ture, Predators stalk, hunt, ter- rorize and kill children and women just for the thrill of it.’’ A sexual predator law would ensure that sexual predators are kept off the streets and placed in a secure setting until they no longer represent a threat to public safety, Such a law would apply to predators who would otherwise be released following the comple- tion of their criminal prison sentence for a previous of- fence. The report stresses that such alaw could and would provide for comprehensive due process protection to make sure that a fair and impartial hearing takes place before anyone is declared a sexual predator. Similar legislation is already in place in Washington State, which can detain sexual predators by means of its Com- munity Protection Act and the Violent Predator Statute, The Washington State legis- lation defines a ‘‘sexual . violent predator’’ as someone who has previously been con- victed of a sexually violent crime as well as someone who has a mental abnonmality or personality disorder which makes them likely to cormmit crimes of a sexually violent na- ture, The Washington State law has survived constitutional challenges, and the U.S. Bill of Rights doesn’t even have the ~ provision our Charter of Rights does, according to which the tights and freedoms guaranteed therein are nevertheless subject to reasonable limits which can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. And yet, the federal govern- ment refuses to enact sexual predator legislation, : claiming that such a law would be un- constitutional. I find it strange , that the government should be second-guessing the courts, The proper way would be to bring in the Taw first and then . find out if it is constitutionally sound. For all the children and all the women who will surely fall victim to sexual predators, un- less we do something about it, let’s tell Ottawa in a Joud and clear voice that we've had enough. The terrible cycle of abuse LITTLE PITCHERS have big cars as well as inborm surveil- lance cameras and sound tecording devices, I was graphically reminded of that recently, A week ago a vacuum cleaner salesman visited our 4- year-old pranddaughter’s home, delivered his persuasive pith to her mother, demonstrated his nifly vacuum cleaner and its many attach- ments, but left without making a sale, He was there perbaps an hour, And while he demonstrated, our grand- daughter divided her time be- tween watching him, and play- ing wilh her sister in the next room. Yel she memorized the essence of moves and his spiel. While spending Saturday with us, she came across my bicycle pump standing in a comer waiting to be returned to the shed. My bicycle pump has two foot pedals that hinge THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI out on to the floor to stand on while you move tee-handle up and down forcing air through a Striped red hose to a nozzle that snaps over a valve, She began using the pump to blow up imaginary balloons, a. job we've used the pump for. Soon she recognized the pump’s similarity to a vacuum cleaner — a handle, a body, a smooth foot to slide over the floor, and a hose with air rush- ing through. Al first she merely guided her vacuum cleaner around the kitchen seeking dust in corners, pretending to plug the nozzle end of the hose into a make believe wall plug. Then she became a salesper- Son. With her younger sister as prospective customer, she delivered a running patter of the vacuum cleaner’s features, changing attachments, pushing it along the hall linoleum and around the legs of my oak desk and typewriter table, She even performed the customer's role. I heard her say, ‘It’s too expensive. We can’t afford it.’”’ Now, I’ve always known this Kit is observant. Everything that happens around her later recycles in her play. Nonethe- less I was strick by the ac- ciracy and completeness of her enactment... after only one encounter. It set me pondering. If a four- year-old can be so imprinted by a dispassionate sales pitch from a neutral stranger, what . must the affect be on a vul- . nerable youngster of living month after month in a tense, abusive family atmosphere repeatedly terrorized = by » hostile, even violent, adult be-. haviour? Yet dozens of kids from in- fants to teenagers live years in households where threats and . accusations, fists and furniture, are flung back and forth with deadly accuracy. If one run-through is suffi- cient for a child’s memory to . reproduce both actions and speech, think how deeply scarred kids must be by daily demeaning, destructive mes- sages such as “T wish you'd never been bom’. It’s little wonder abusive be- haviour perpetuates, ) 3 190 IS A lor || aie it 4 30? DID You a BOUGHT COMMUNITY: Cris Leykauf ¢ - OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher, Terry Miller FoR A P an, & [ YeAN? est. ARE GET A FAIR? ZPAmRS!!} hs \ DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur TYPESETTER: Susie Ande ton . ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Tracey Tomas CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Karen Brunette MEMBER OF 8.C, PRESS COUNCIL Serving the Terrace and Thomivil area. Published on Wednasday of each weak by Cariboo Prass (1969} Ltd. at 4647 Lazelle Ave, Terraca, British Columbia. Stoves, photographs, illustrations, dasigns and typestyies In the Tarrace Slandard are the properly o! the copyright holders, including Cariboo Press (1969) Lid., its illustration tepra services and advertising agencies. ; Reproduction in whole o in part, without written permission, is specifically prohibited, Authorized as second-class mail panding the Post Office Department, for paymant of posiage in cash, Special thanks to all our contributore and correspondents for their time and talents ARE You KIDDING? { .\ Vy AT THOSE PRICES +». ( CONSULTANT LIKE YO le I WASA COMPUTER | WoULD BE. £ 900/// A | il Ml ye