Editorial The colour of justice The anger and frustration being expressed against police racism in Toronto again points up a growing problem, one not at all confined to that city alone. What has erupted in Toronto, erupts in Montreal, Halifax, Winnipeg — indeed across this country — in response to the growing manifestations of racism by those charged with administering and enforc- ing our system of justice keep occurring. As evidence and testimony clearly show, acts of police racism — brutality, racist slurs, discrimination — are not just allegations but facts, punctuated all too often lately by overt cases of police killings. The police, however, are one part ofa larger problem. As pointedly put to the media by the Toronto Black Women’s Collective and Black Women at York University: “ ... racism (is) endemic to the entire Canadian judicial system and the system of policing. People of colour do not receive due process in Canada.” Consider: While 23 per cent of whites appearing as first offenders under Police racism sparks outcry, page 11 the Criminal Code were discharged, no Black person received a discharge as a first offender. Consider: A treaty Indian woman in Saskatchewan is 131 times more likely to be jailed than a non-Indian woman; a non-status or Metis woman 28 times more likely. ay Consider: A recent conference “Pros and Cons of Blacks in the Crimi- nal Justice System” charged: “The whole justice system (police, judges, courts, prison and parole) remains largely insensitive to the Black expe- rience. Justice has long since been nicknamed Just Us, and Blacks have always understood the power of this group.” Despite Nova Scotia’s large Black population, the conference noted, there is not a single Black judge. Consider: In B.C. and Alberta, Native people, while representing 3-5 per cent of the population, constitute 16 and 17 per cent of prison admissions. In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Native people, representing less than 10 per cent of the population, constitute 46 and 60 per.cent of | prison admissions. A start to turn this appalling situation around is implementation of demands by many people’s organizations calling for independent civilian investigations in full public view; for police accountability, and for the development of a parallel justice system for Native people in Canada. TRIBUNE EDITOR Sean Griffin ASSISTANT EDITOR Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS Angela Kenyon Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C., V5K 1Z5 Phone: (604) 251-1186 Fax: (604) 251-4232 Subscription rate: : Canada: @ $20 one year @ $3 two years ® Foreign $32 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 cS sort of like a magic black box: you put raw materials into one end, and a completely finished product comes out of the other. That metaphor occurred to us when we read an item in the recent Provincial Report, the Socred government’s hyper- : bole sheet on all things right and proper for B.C. A front-page item with an accompanying photo announced that B.C. workers are assembling the first 160 of 200 rail cars, to be on the rails by March. The thing is, the rail cars, each 22 metres long, were not manufactured in B.C., or anywhere else in Canada. Instead, they’re being assembled from pre-fabricated kits shipped from South Korea. That introduces a couple of ironies. The first is that B.C. has been shipping items such as iron ore and unprocessed coal to South Korea and other Pacific Rim coun- tries. In return they send us manufactured products such as automobiles and the aforementioned rail cars, the steel for which likely originated in B.C., processed with B.C. coal. The second irony, which like the first does not trouble the Socreds, is that B.C. was in the rail car manufacturing business some years ago. But Bill Bennett’s Socreds closed the Rail West operation, estab- lished by the New Democratic govern- ment of 1972-75, at Squamish. The plant, now owned by B.C. Rail, is where the South Korean kits are being assembled. Our “black box” is the system of inter- national trade that ensures we'll continue to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water for nations which have their own manufacturing industries — industries that should be established here. * * * Are’ a year ago we ran a feature on fish farms, reporting British Colum- bians’ complaints that the unchecked spread of those enterprises was in effect privatizing miles of B.C.’s coastline. The critics pointed out that the responsibility for this rested with the lax regulations of the provincial Socred government. So we were somewhat bemused to read the other day that provincial Solicitor General Angus Ree has been attempting to impose his own _privatize-the-shoreline program. To wit, the Socred MLA for North Vancouver-Capilano has been accused to blocking access to the public right of way along his beachfront property. in West Vancouver. Ree had complained, according to The Vancouver Sun, that “The residents of the area ...have made it unpleasant for us. They make comments when you’re walking past. They look at - you and point.” West Vancouver municipal council was unimpressed and ordered the MLA to remove two small boats which had been blocking access to the public beach. A report to council stated that Ree’s boats extended onto public land, that his PROT EE & ISSUES garden shed occupies municipal park land, and that one of his fences encroaches on park property. Ree’s next door neigh- bour was charged with clearing a garden path on public land. * * * he December oil spill from a U.S. barge that has wreaked havoc along hundreds of kilometres of B.C. coastline has sparked renewed demands to impose tough new regulations on oil shipments down the west coast and to curtail some of those shipments entirely. And it has renewed the call to re-impose the morato- rium on off-shore oil drilling. So it’s interesting to note that a prece- dent of sorts was set on Dec. 30 south of the border, when the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the federal Interior Department must analyze the cumulative effects of off-shore drilling on migratory marine species before allowing a contro- versial five-year drilling project to pro- ceed. The ruling is only a partial victory, because the panel rejected attempts by the Natural Resources Defence Council to pro- hibit further lease sales and to force the interior secretary to re-design the plan. But the NRDC, which filed the suit also on behalf of other environmental groups and four states, says the ruling sends a “‘strong signal” to the new Bush administration. It affects the entire U.S. west coast, including Alaska. Lawyer James Thorton of the NRDC could have been speaking for Canadian environmentalists when he said of the five- year plan: “It encourages us to drain all our resources now and waste oil and gas. Better we should have a more conservative program and encourage the country to use reasonable and feasible measures to.con- serve energy.” * cS * here does the fight against free trade go from here? The Centre for Social- ist Education aims to provide answers with a forum set for Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m. The panel consists Sue Vohanka, co- chair of the Vancouver Coalition Against “Free” Trade and executive assistant of the Confederation of Canadian Unions; Ed Shaffer, professor emeritus of econom- ics at the University of Alberta and author of several books on the U.S. control of Canada’s oil; and Bill Zander, president of the B.C. Provincial Council of Carpenters. » Continuing its 1989 series of forums, the centre will pose the question, ““What lies behind the scandals and divisions in the Vander Zalm government and Socred caucus?”, on Friday, Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. The speaker is Maurice Rush, B.C. leader of the Communist Party of Canada. Both sessions have a question and answer period. The centre is at 1726 E. Hastings St., Vancouver. 4 Pacific Tribune, January 30, 1989 A MAP APRA LA RODD OAL Dt te De POD Kee