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0, Arlene watts = = typeset"
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__ EDITORIAL,

~ Land claims

The. biggest disappointment .of. this

provincial election has been the lack of

discussion about land claims.

- During. her election visit here last
month, Premier Rita Johnston said land
claims weren’t a specific part of her cam-
paign because a process is in place and it
is working. But there’s been no action
from the government for the past five
months despite receiving a report com-
missioned by it, the federal governments
and natives which laid~ out a specific
series of steps for negotiations. —

The premier did say she'll start at
“square: one’, described as entering
negotiations with no pre-conceived no-
tions. Yet there is one pre-conceived no-
tion the Socreds do have. They don’t
- recognize the idea of native title.

In contrast, the NDP says it will
recognize native title. Detractors of this
position call it giving away the store, but
the NDP say land is an inherent part of
native self-government and that you
can’t have one without the other.

And that leads to the major difference
between the two parties. The Socreds
will. want to negotiate sufficient
economic and social benefits and oppor-
tunities for natives within the existing
structure of government, land tenure
and ownership.

{ uu Wa b elie a: foun 1 ‘
ved hee mints on al
1 é

“Almost forgotten i in tomorrow’s elec-
tion are the two referendum votes. One
_asks voters if they want the opportunity
to turf MLAs between elections. The
other wants to know if voters want the
right to have referenda on specific ques-
tions.

The first question deserves to be
forgotten because it is stupid. It’s like
chocolate cake. The easier it is to get a

hold of, the more temptation there will

be.

What a recall provision will do is

The NDP position of native title fits in
with its social justice philosophy. But it
also recognizes that natives, given the
proper resources, must take responsibili-
ty for themselves. A big question here is
how much land might be involved.

On balance there is nothing terribly
wrong with either party’s viewpoint
because native groups will want to
negotiate settlements specific to
themselves.

The majority of B.C. residents, accor-
ding to government polls, don’t oppose
giving natives title to some land. B.C. in-
dustries have also said they only wish to
know who their landlords will be.

One area of agreement between the
Socreds and the NDP concerns who will
pay for settlement costs. The Socreds
have already rejected a federal proposal
for a 70 per cent federal and 30 per cent
provincial cash split. They say B.C.’s
share will actually be higher because land
is vested with the provincial government.
Expect nothing less from the NDP, After
all, self preservation is the guiding in-
stinct of everybody and every organiza-
tion,

This leaves voters having to choose a
party they think will be a tough
negotiator. But it'll also have to be a par-
ty they think can strike a deal agreeable
to all of us who live here.

lest ty ae

NO wes

‘remove the already shaky proposition:
that voters should pay attention during
elections. We get the kind of government
we deserve. If we don’t concentrate the
first time around, why should we be able
to bail out later on.

The second question, that of a referen-
dum on a specific issue is more intrigu-
ing. But it’s doubtful if any issue can be
boiled down to a single question. Better
to have more free votes in the legislature.
That?ll allow interested people to work
over their MLAs to bring them to their
way of thinking.

~ Right writing ©

‘Here we are, worrying about

the life expectancy of Medicare,
‘fretting over closed hospital -
‘beds, upset by queues awaiting
treatment, dreading user fees,
- yet all the time we're at the mer-
cy of doctors’ indecipherable

Through

Bifocals
by Claudette Sandeckl

: handwriting.
How indecipherable is their
writing? Once, a New York a

verbatim shorthand writer.

finally, like grafitti, the writing

—\"seripts. propelled me: 0.

urologist dropped his wallet
somewhere between the 106th
, Street parking lot and the eighth
‘floor operating room of Fiower
Fifth ‘Avenue Hospital. He
listed his wallet's contents for
insurance purposes but later
“was unable to decipher his own
“notes. -He sought help from two
: “records room clerks, both of

“whom had years of experience

decoding doctors’
hieroglyphics. —

- One ‘clerk earned her salary
: typing .diagnostic reports and
‘physician’s penned entries from
‘patient charts: subpoenaed to
- court, The other clerk assigned
‘Dewey decimal-style numbers to

crabbed

“gancer diagnoses for statistical

sand research purposes.

My first secretarial confron-
“tation with incomprehensible
_calligraphy came early in my
: dareer, Part of my jobin Saska-
‘toon ‘City Hospital’s laboratory.
‘was to type the tissue dissection
notes of a pathologist from

“Edinburgh. His longhand.
‘=resembled Bambi’s tracks on ice
— windmills. of short strokes:

j sonnected by long glides.

: His hen scratches and a stic-:

# cession of equally hair-tearin

Learning to write and transcribe
Pitman squiggles was a romp by
comparison,

Poor handwriting is a cinch
to acquire. Haste. Carelessness.

_ Either one will do it, Combine

‘the two and illegibility is
assured. By grade eleven | had
mastered it. Only a compulsory
penmanship class in secretarial
school forced me to shape up.
Good handwriting is’ vital
even in day to day domestic af-
fairs. In our house, my husband
brings home. the groceries. If |
send him shopping with a@
grocery list he can't read, i can
expect Lo eat some mighty ex-
perimental meals while doing
without my favourites.
Who. can say what setbacks

-patients might have suffered

because their doctors’ written

orders were incomprehensible -.

{fo nurses or pharmacists?

Perhaps -handwriting. led to.

healthy limbs being mistakenly
amputated, or children crippled
by cerebral palsy having sound

ankle muscles lengthéned while
their spastic tendons remained
too short.”

Physicians with.
haridwriting are about as plen-
i{ul-as-Skeena: steelhead... But

readable -

is on the wall,

Saskatchewan doctors have
been ordered to improve their
penmanship. It seems when pa-
tient charts go to court,
everyone has trouble reading
handwritten medical notes...in-
cluding the doctors who ‘wrote
them. This makes for much
consternation among lawyers,

‘and ruffled robes among
judges.

Still, poor handwriting
should remain in medicine
where we're used to finding It.

: T€-seribblers became architects,

their ‘duildings might be - as

unsiable as Yugoslav

ceasefires... :
Is THAT

You gRaD?\,

ToyouR -
RESEARCH? }

Tok ATIPS PILTDOWA) ‘DOES

WENT TO

‘WNOEYERMHOVE WAS Ret).
$1 DROPPED OUT WHICH
GIVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY {=
TORK THEBES SOTNTONN)

Kempf will win: — ;
and so will NDP

VICTORIA —The joke was on
the Socreds, and the laughter
could be heard clear across the
province. Wolfman Jack had
done it again.

For more than a year, the ci-
ty slickers at Socred head-

‘ quarters had been trying their
best to get rid of Jack Kempf,
the maverick MLA for what
was the riding of Omineca, but
it wasn’t good enough. Not by- -

From the

Caplial
by Hubert Beyer

~ little ‘gamies-of-internal---—~ see

Ta TonP Shot: ‘Kempiditsmatteyh “polificking, the Patrick® i118

"then every tittie.
Nominated twice before to
carry the Socred banner into
the election campaign in the
new riding of Bulkley Valtey-
Stikine, party headquarters
took one last run at Kempf

and got its nose bloodied more

severely than on the previous
occasions.

When Kempf was charged
recently with breach of trust,
the Socred party board strip-. -
ped him of his membership, —
blocking his way to get the
Socred nomination for the
third time.

But if they thought they had .
Kempf by the shorts, they were
in for a rude awakening, a
very rude one. Rather than
beating a retreat, Kempf
shifted into high gear.

Kempf supporters descended
on Smithers to attend the
nominating-meeting that was
to select a new candidate for
the riding, but instead of mere-

_ ly trying to interrupt the pro-
decures, they managed to
throw their weight behind a
very special candidate —
Kempf’s campaign manager,
Clarian Rodgers.

Next day, Kempf filed
nomination papers as an in-
dependent candidate, bul
Rodgers didn’t show up to File
as the Socred candidate. The '
result: Kempf is in the race;
ihe Socreds aren't. a

How will Kempf do Oct, 117
My guess is he will win, and he
may well be one of the very
few right-wing candidates from

‘the central intereior to ‘beat the
NDP.

The entire Kempf episode |

- shows how much out of touch ~
the Sacreds are with anything

- that goes on north of Hope.
Too occupied with their silly

"FROM THE \ IMPERSONATIONS

COLD FUSIAN wee oy His /'
f ANAGER LL fo

Boys AND
THE MEDIA!

tects Ded 10! oRunigellas and Jess ‘Ketchurns*

on whom the Socreds rely for
advice, have never understood
what makes northern British
Columbia tick,

Kempf’s remark that ‘'that'll
be the day when someone from
the Lower Mainland can come
up here and tell us what to
do,’? was not just political
‘rhetoric. It was a statement of
fact.

> Kempf’s coup was just one
more nail.in the Socred coffin.

They didn't do much better in -

" the rest of the province. While

~ Mike Harcourt has been runn-
ing a picture-book campaign,
the Socreds have been stumbl-
ing from one disaster to
another. bo

First they tried to use the
Ontario budget to scare the
hell out of British Columbia’
voters. It didn't work, British
Columbians were more in-
terested in ethics and honest
government, Unfortunately,
the Socreds are on slippery
grounds when it comes to
ethics.

When the Ontario budget
failed to ignite as an issue,
finance minister. John Jansen
proceeded to make a bit of a
fool of himself trying to prove
that NDP promises would land
us in a $15 billion deficit at the
end of a five-year cycle.

Surround by charts and
figures, Jansen told reporters
that he had taken_,off his
finance minister’s hat and put
on his accountant’s hat. The
doomsday scenario on the _
charts, he said, was the result.
The result of what? His best
guess, he admitted.

‘Asked what specific pro-

"mises he. used. to-exirapolate
' his fanciful. figures, Jansen was
stumped, He didn't really have

any examples, he said. en
to. Meanwhile, Harcourt yaced
along, ihe, campaign trail. easily
jumping the hurdles thrown in
his way by the Socreds. Night-
ly television broadcasts showed
powerful images.

Here was Harcourt in.a boat
chugging past the Expo lands,
talking about the Socreds’ real
estate blunder of the century;
there was Harcourt-talking!
about the public’s demand for
honesty and ethics ‘in govern- *
ment, while the blind-folded
lady of justice looked on in the
background. -

The fire and. excitement
hasn't gone.out.of the Socred
campaign; it was never in il.
From the start, Rita Johnston
avoided crowds. No main- |
steeting, no pressing the flesh —
at shopping centres.

Instead of wading into * -
crowds.to convert the undecid-
ed, she would more often than
not confine her whistle-stops
to visiting campaign head: *
quarters of local candidates or
speaking to friendly: audietices
such as chambers « of com:
merce. ane

Not surprising | then, the
polls reflected the Stcreds’*'
lacklustre ‘performance. ‘Half.
way through the campaign, the
NDP led the Socreds. by 15,
percerilage points ‘overall, On,
Vancouver Island, the spread,
was 28 points, in the Lower
Mainland 22 points,:: -

An NDP win appears at i, -
foregone coriclusion.. The ques-
tion is, how badly the Socreds
will be mauled, All:indications |
are that it will be-a routs: 1%,

And depending ¢ on the extent
of the defeat; we could Wwell’be
witnessing the end of the,  {.

Social Credit party.. Any
regrouping under'a free-
enterprise banner will then be:
left to another party. :

SORRY ! GOTTA A ch
Done an ToMMoRRdw
ANP CARSO KENT week ! |

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