British Columbia The strategic low-level flights over Lab- rador and British Columbia have the sole aim of preparing to fight and win a nuclear war against the Soviet Union, a rally out- side Canada Harbour Place in Vancouver was told Nov. 28. But instead of being the willing accom- plice of Washington and other warlike western powers, Canada should get with the peace process unfolding in the world today, speakers said at the demonstration organized by the Alliance Against Low Level Flights. In Kamloops, about 20 people demon- strated outside the Canadian Forces recruiting office in an effort launched by Operation Ploughshares, and events took place simultaneously in Ottawa, Toronto and other major centres. In Vancouver, Point Grey NDP MLA Flights draw national protest Tom Perry praised the courage of the Innu who are going to jail in their fight to stop low-level flights by NATO powers in Lab- rador, and called it “insane” to continue such tests in light of Soviet peace initiatives and the need to fund social projects in Canada. “We reject this absolutely. It’s immoral, insane, and it must be made to be political suicide for the government.” North Vancouver resident Fred Knel- man, author of Reagan, God and the Bomb, said is was “shameful” that Can- ada was following the U.S. lead in world affairs and not acting as a force for peace. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has lec- tured Soviet leaders on human rights in their country. But “‘what have we consist- ently done since we’ve been a country is commit cultural genocide against our own peoples. We have no right to lecture. We are the ultimate hypocrites,” Knelman declared. Retired Canadian naval commander Roger Sweeny, a member of Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, said: “There is no military justification for these flights except to prepare for deep strike into the heart of the ‘evil empire.” Both the consulate and the office of Associate Defence Minister Mary Collins are located in Canada Place. The government is bidding on establish- ing an expanded base that would increase flights, blamed for destroying the Innu way of life, to 40,000 per year. In October, Canadian and U.S. jets began the first of a series of low-level flights over British Columbia. Picket line victim faces lengthy hospital stay a By KIM GOLDBERG NANAIMO — Nightmares plague Brad Holmes in his hospital bed as he relives the scene where he was struck down by a truck while walking a picket line at the Nanoose military base. “I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Holmes says in a bedside interview. “I hope I don’t go through much more of that.” The 34-year-old Nanaimo man was rushed to Nanaimo Regional General Hos- pital Nov. 15 with fractured vertebrae in his back and neck after being knocked down and dragged seven metres by a four-wheel- drive truck that was trying to enter the Can- adian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges (CFMETR) at Nanoose Bay. The Nanoose base, which is the site of anti-submarine warfare research carried out by U.S. and Canadian forces, was behind a picket line put up by the Public Service Alliance of Canada the previous day. “T thought I was going to die,’ Holmes says, recalling the event. “All I can remember is hearing the motor racing after he knocked me down. He was accelerating while I was underneath his vehicle. That’s what really scared me.” Holmes, a deckhand aboard a fueller and water boat at CFMETR, is temporarily an unwilling captive of daytime TV as he lies confined to his hospital bed more than two weeks after his injury. A long gash across his scalp, which took 46 stitches to close, is clearly visible. Aprroximately 2,200 PSAC members who crew on coast guard boats and other federal vessels launched strike action last month on both coasts demanding better wages and wage parity between the coasts. The workers have been without a contract for two years. The union is asking for a minimum 18 per cent wage increase over three years, retroactive to December, 1987, and for east coast wages to be brought up to west coast wages which now average $1 per hour higher. Holmes was the picket line captain at Nanoose the day he was hit. Roy Michaelis, the U.S. civilian employee at Nanoose who was driving the vehicle that struck Holmes, later said the incident was “purely an accident” and that he didn’t know Holmes was in front of him at the time. Homes says that’s impossible. “He stopped, looked at me, drove ahead and knocked me down. How could he not know I was there?” See Ae SAGA NS et See Ne Ne cee: a eat eel nee anion Le me down.” In a show of support for Holmes, more than 200 PSAC workers were bused up to the Nanoose picket line from Victoria before dawn Nov. 21 and remained until noon. The pickets prevented virtually all vehi- cles from entering the base that day, but approximately 38 employees were taken in by helicopter and boat. The four busloads of pickets showed up at the gates on the same day a Japanese delegation was scheduled to visit Nanoose to observe a series of torpedo tests fora U.S. torpedo that Japan is considering buying. Base Commander Dan McVicar said the base proceeded as planned with 12 sche- duled torpedo firings for the Japanese offi- cials who were flown in from the U.S. Navy’s anti-submarine warfare centre in Keyport, Washington. The following day, Nov. 26, a B.C. Supreme Court injunction limited PSAC to six pickets per site. “I’m glad to see the brothers are uniting,” Holmes said when he heard about the 200 Victoria pickets at Nanoose. “We're all working to get this thing settled. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt.” Many of the Victoria pickets know Holmes personally because he was a deck- hand at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt for eight years before he transferred to Nanoose in July. Holmes now spends his days lying on his nd rehabilitation peenaeesetts BRAD HOLMES... ‘alll canremember is hearing the motor racing after he knocked side in his hospital bed reading and watch- ing a small TV. He refuses to watch the daytime soaps, but admits there’s not much else on. Get well cards are taped to the wall at the foot of his bed, and baskets of fresh flowers line the window ledge with greetings from friends, relatives, the B.C. Federation of Labour, various PSAC locals and his Victo- ria ball team. “T played centrefield for the Foster Heap Humps,” Holmes explains. “They want me back for next season, but I don’t think I'll be going back to that for a long time. I don’t think I'll be doing anything for quite a while.” Holmes doesn’t know what his prognosis is but says his doctor has recommended he buy a back brace for $250. Hospital officials say Holmes’ vertebrae sustained “‘stable fractures,” which means the spinal cord wasn’t affected. Parksville RCMP have completed their investigation of the picket line incident that has left Holmes hospitalized for an indefi- nite period of time. The police report will be forwarded to Nanaimo Crown counsel this week. No charges have yet been laid. At last week’s B.C. Federation of Labour convention, president Ken Georgetti charged that Michaelis had “tried to murder a trade unionist exercising his legal right to picket. “That’s not acceptable,” he said. “He should be held accountable for his actions on Canadian soil.” PHOTO — KIM GOLDBERG wy tat Privatized garbage recovery plant hit VANCOUVER — Citizens groups are gearing up to fight city council’s pro- posed Downtown Resource Recovery Plant which will raise pollution and traf- fic in four Vancouver neighbourhoods and will do nothing, they charge, to resolve the Lower Mainland’s mounting garbage crisis. “It is a privatization of garbage collec- tion, with a built-in incentive for com- panies to collect more and more garbage from the downtown area. This is not recycling at source, or a program that encourages a reduction in garbage, or reuse and recycling of garbage,” Ald. Libby Davies ‘told a press conference Nov. 28. Davies and her colleagues in the Committee of Progressive Electors introduced notice of motion at city council’s regular meeting calling for a moratorium on the plant and public hearings in the areas affected: Strath- cona, where it is to be located, Mount Pleasant, Grandview Woodlands and the Downtown Eastside. The motion is scheduled to be debated in council Dec. 12. Lenore Herb of the Citizens Action Network said the plant would use only a small portion of the mainly commercial- originated garbage, while the rest would be trucked to the Burns Bog landfill. Premier pressed on Cache Cr.dump KAMLOOPS — Local residents gave Premier Bill Vander Zalm and Envir- onment Minister John Reynolds an ear- ful about the unpopular Cache Creek landfill Nov. 29, but failed to achieve a commitment that the provincial govern- ment would back their demands for immediate closure of the dump. In a meeting with the Cache Creek Area Residents United, Vander Zalm and Reynolds said they would let the citizens’ group know in two weeks the government’s position on the landfill, run by a private company to dispose of the Greater Vancouver regional district’s garbage. The premier told the Kamloops Daily News and citizens back in September that he was personally opposed to the landfill, opposed by a majority of area residents in two polls. The group presented a six-point “compromise” position that included calls for a moratorium on dumping at the landfill by the end of this year, man- datory province-wide recycling pro- grams, and the closure of the landfill. B.C. Law Union criticizes ruling VANCOUVER — The B.C. Law Union has criticized a recent county court ruling in which a judge suspended sentence against a convicted sex offender on the grounds the three-year-old child involved had been “sexually aggressive.” “The judgement is an extreme exam- ple of that tradition of blaming the vic- tims of sexual abuse for their victim- ization,” spokesperson Janet Patterson said Nov. 27. County Court Judge Peter van der Hoop suspended sentence and imposed an 18-month probation on Delbert Lee- son, 33, saying: “The circumstances are unusual in part because it appears that this three-year-old girl was sexually aggressive.” The Crown is appealing the ruling. Pacific Tribune, December 4, 1989 « 3 I Pe OF OT eT eT Re ane sili ais tabi ad elie de wih