_A4-The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Ss TANDARD 7 ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 - PUBLISHER: ROD LINK ADDRESS: 3210 Clinton Street Terrace, B.C. - V8G 5R2 TELEPHONE: (250) 638-7283 - FAX: (250) 638-8432 WEB: www.terracestandard.com “EMAIL: newsroom@terracestandard. com Th harm’s way UF THERE’ 'S one. thing wrong about Canadians it . is that we don’ t remember and we don’t listen. This is particularly the case with what is going: onin Afghanistan. » | . The war our troops. are now involved i in contin- ~ uesa presence.in that country dating back to 2002 - ~ when Canada first took part in the effort to rid that -. country of the Taliban. ~The combat then didn’t.so much roust the Tal. iban for ‘good, but it did push. them back to the outer fringes of Afghanistan, leading toa concert- oe 7 ed “€ffort to rebuild the country. Canada shifted away from a combat role, pro- '_. viding more tha 1,000 troops based in Kabul to increase security. in Afghanistan’ S capital and to support reconstruction: It may have been here we all ignored the situation, content that we were . once again. peacekeepers i in some far off place. ” By late 2004, the Taliban had re-organized, ‘spe-_ ’ cifically in the more rural and. remote areas where ~ reconstruction efforts had yet to take hold. “That’s when the then-federal Liberal govern- ment made'a commitment to provide as many as ~ 2,200 troops for a combat role in the southern part’ of Afghanistan where the Taliban were most, ac-. tive. As early ¢ as the summer of 2005 Chief of De- - fence Staff General Rick Hillier, warned Canadi- ans to expect casualties from the Taliban. “These are detestable ‘murderers and. scumbag gs, V’ll tell’ _» you that right up front. They detest our - freedoms, - they detest our society, they detest our liberties,” ‘Hillier said at that time of the Taliban. a, The point of all of the above is that had we lis- tened and had we remembered, then what is going on right now. should not be new or surprising. Afghanistan of the. Taliban by whatever means necessary. And then support the creation of a new _ Afghanistan. Building a country takes time, mea- sured in years and not months. Some would argue Canada itself is still a work in progress. It also might help if the federal Conservative ‘government would stop calling this a “mission.” It’s not. We are in a war, plain and simple. ke By all means, as federal NDP leader J ack Lay- ton suggests, let’s open up the debate in Parlia- - ment. Let’s clearly establish the ‘Principles of . famervee wee oe DSS mal sar Te oT what’s involved: But let’s not, as Mr. Layton also suggests, seek to negotiate with the Taliban. That’s naive at best and dangerous as well for it sends the absolute wrong message to the rest of the world. . What Mr. Layton needs to do, and this goes for the rest of us as.well, is to reach back and remem- ber what Canada did in the world wars of the last ~ century. To keep the peace, first you have to > make the | peace. 7 PUBLISHER/EDITOR:. Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Brian Lindenbach PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur _ NEWS: Sarah A. Zimmerman COMMUNITY: Dustin Quezada NEWS/SPORTS: Margaret Speirs “FRONT OFFICE: Darlene Keeping, Carolyn Anderson _ CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Alanna Bentham - == ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: "Bert Husband. Todd Holkestad | EE WIN NER a AD ASSISTANT: Sandra Stefanik — NEWS ee COMPETITION PRODUCTION: Susan Credgeur SUBSCRIPTION RATES BY MAIL: $57.94 (+$4.06 GST)=62.00 per year; Seniors $50.98 (+$3.57 GST)=54.55; Qut of Province $65.17 (484.56 GST)=69.73 Outside of Canada (6 months) $156.91(+10.98 GST)=167.89 VEVEER OF ; EL. SAID TOKEN COMMECRETY NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION, CARSDON COMEIITY ERSPAFERS ASSOCIATION 2. PERS CCAR. (we bepresscouncd og atesoecrarion terug te era rel veer We, Phares 7” Weresay F a 2A week 2270 Dire. a Dees. neers. th fats ‘OnErt relic Beer = Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for their time and talents - commented that ‘ / THAT YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPER ~ - OF A PRIME MINIGTER HAS BEEN CAUSING TROUBLE .... DEMANDING SENATE REFORM, CHANGES TO ouR UPPER CHAMBER: END OF APPOINTMENTS... |. eu? what??? Yount WHIPPERSNAPPER Anpeed! WHO DOES THAT TRUDEAU / Tain HE a Pel _ ELECTIONS... Kitimat council ¢ gets a spanking _ ALCAN CEO Dick Evans has ‘it would be a tragic mistake ‘if.a handful of people derailed a proposed . USS1.8 billion overhaul of the firm’s aluminium smelter* in Kitimat.” And that there is a small risk that the » mayor and his handful of sup- ; ‘ porters could’ jeopardize this project. It:would be an abso- _-lute tragedy if that happened for many, many people - for the province, for Kitimat and ~ for Alcan.” . . Most of us in Kitimat agree ' with him. The smelter rebuild. _will mean a revitalized econo- my with all of the benefits to Kitimat and the northwest. This will be a booming area. to rival those in Alberta with new opportunities in all sec- tors, increasing house prices and jobs everywhere. The alternative is to allow — the mayor of Kitimat and his. shrinking group of supporters to continue to misappropriate © our funds and hijack our hopes and aspirations in order to pur- sue their ‘own miserable and impossible agenda from which they have given up:all possibil- ity of extricating themselves. They just do not see that this. is a’once in fifty year opportu- nity to promote Kitimat to the “wider world so that it can at last mature into a healthy com- munity through diversity. a do worry that-— . HOWARD MILLS We in Kitimat will not al- low ourselves to be bamboo- * zled into joining our council’s reckless and dangerous game. Towns such as this have been closed before, and in the interview, Alcan’s Dick Evans alluded to that possibility. What can the mayor and council possibly hope to gain? All of Kemano’s firm pow- er will be used at the smelter. The small and fluctuating daily excess that Alcan can- not use and has to sell, might ° on a good day, light and heat Kitimat. One of the reasons for Alcan being first invited to the area by the government of the day in the 1950s was to _ provide reliable power to the northwest so that communities such as Prince Rupert and Ter- race could dispense with their unreliable city generators. This: and only this is what is” Now that those other communities meant by ‘power sales’. are connected to the grid, the power that was supplied to. them in the past will be used at the new smelter here in Kiti- | mat. ; . House prices are rapidly climbing, as much as 20 per cent in a weekend. Completely contrary to our NDP MLA’s assertion, in anticipation of the coming ‘boom, . families _ are coming to.town and school — - children are once again filling classrooms... nesses. will fill the» malls, Kitimat’s service centre will be revitalized, new roads and . bridges will be built, and a huge construction boom will start. Hopefully a municipal government in Kitimat that will welcome them to the northwest with generous in- centives and open arms. | Thankfully Alcan has de-_ cided not to use the block of © cheap power known as the RESA, for to do so would give the government of the day control over the smelter with the possibility that they could turn off the RESA electric-. ity supply whenever the mood . took them. _ Having been _ seriously burned by the NDP’s unex- pected closure of the Kemano Completion Project project in Soon shops:and small busi- - the past, the company must be keen to keep g government con- “trol of their operation to an ab- ‘solute minimum,'a good thing « | for job security in Kitimat. : . In addition, the cost to BC Hydro of the infrastructure. necessary to supply that power to Kitimat would. have meant» . huge increases in our rates. _,Our council must take down its unauthorized and mislead-. ing RESA signs from around town and stop using municipal - vehicles as its personal bill- board to promote its less than popular campaign. =~ per cent of the municipal yard workforce and who now con- tract out work such as paving and concrete have not a leg to stand on when complain- ing about the eventual size of Alcan’s workforce. You who have let go 43°; Join us in looking toward the coming boom or face the inevitable electoral conse- quences. . Shakespeare had it about right when he said, “There is a time in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound. in shallows. and in miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat, and we must‘take the © current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.’ Howard Mills is a Kitimat physician and businessman. © They should go directly to jail ALMOST DAILY we hear of another trial ending with a murderer, or drunken driver who demolished a car carrying a family, let off with a light sentence, while the victim’s family is . left to mourn their loved one’s "loss forever: Two Lower channel the public's demands to correct these legal injus- tices. Families Against Crime. and Trauma (FACT) aim ‘to change laws that pertain to the rights of criminals, and those of the victims. At trial the criminal is buff- ered by layers of jurispru- | dence while the victim and the’ victim’s family are told to zip their lips and sit down. “It seems that the crimi- nals have more rights than the victims , and this is unaccept- able,”. says Sandra Martins- Toner. Her 16-year-old son, Matthew Martins. was killed at a Surrey Skytrain Station July 2, 2005. FACT also wants judges to be held accountable for . criminals who re-offend after lenient sentencing. Canada’s sentencing laws even house arrest, Mainland © women have organized to THROUGH: BIFOCALS -CLAUDETTE SANDECKI haye as guiding. principles the concepts of protection of the public and deterrence to oth- ers. How is the public protected if convicted repeat child mo- lesters are released to molest again. or if repeat drunken drivers have their driver's li- censes restored? And where is the deterrence in a conditional sentence after a life has been violently taken? “A sentence must be pro- portionate to the gravity of the offence and the degree of re- sponsibility of the offender,” reads Section 718.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada. FACT sees the obvious disproportion in , for instance, a driver street racing at 120 kph ina 50 kph zone’ given.a . two year conditional discharge (house arrest) after running into and killing 51- year-old Irene Thorpe who was walking home from her son’s house. “Conditional sentences were meant for misdemean- ours, not violent crimes.” ed Alliance MP Jay Hill, Au- ~ gust 22, 2005. Driving into a pedestrian and flinging the body 50 me-. ters qualifies as a violent crime in my mind. Equally. T-bon-. ing of an innocent family’s car at an intersection by a speed- ing driver disobeying a red light is also a violent crime. Yet Canadian courts have dealt out pansy sentences in circumstances such as these. as if judges strive to out-le- — nient each other. Too often judges succumb to warped arguments offered. by defence lawyers... Only last week in: Alberta a defence lawyer argued her. client had no idea his driving while drunk might endanger anyone. How could a sane lawyer say that with a straight face? not- — And without | military train- ing. how did the judge wipe the smirk off his mug while he. ‘swallowed her line? FACT is not alone in rec- — ognizing this disproportion between defence of the crimi- nal and justice for the victim. Newspapers and editorials draw attention to these ineq- | Parliament revise no laws to balance justice. They are too: _ busy seeking re-election.. - -uities daily. Yet Members of — With. the organization of , — FACT, citizens who decry Canada’s lop-sided justice sys- tem -- weighted to favour of- fenders -- finally have a focus for their criticisms and anger. Only just begun by Sandra | Martins-Toner and Nina Rivet | (sister of Irene Thorpe), the fledgling organization needs support, financial and other- Wise, to facilitate their cause. They are also seeking re- spondents’ consent to have their names added to FACT’s membership, for use in future public announcements. FACT’s website will soon be up and running. Interest- ed parties are asked to write . to them at familiesagainst- crime @ yahoo.ca.