Pees St ee ee

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PAGE 4, THE HERALD, Wednesday, December 28, 1977

We may shock you rae

But hang in there

No two people are alike. Perhaps we should
add-Thank God! That goes for editors, too.

Over the next few weeks, all being weil, Herald
readers will be noticing a decided change in
editoiral presentation and policy.

We undoubtedly will shock some. We will
probably anger others and upset a few more.
Certainly, our editorials (if they are read) may
disturb a number of people in Terrace, Thornhill
and Kitimat. We hope, however, the public will
give us a chance-say six months-before they
make up their mind about our new approach.

We notice a local weekly ‘(News Magazine” is
constantly appealing ot its readers to subsidize
its publication by donataions of $5, $10 or
“whatever”, as though it is a charitable
organization... even though we are not aware it is
(or has) given anything away-news-wise or
otherwise. We are not asking our readers to send
us money (try us, and see!)-but we are asking

our readers to read other parts of the Herald in N.

addition to the sports page, comics, Dear Abby
and the horoscopes.

We are not thinking of turning into a ‘‘scandal
Sheet’- although undoubtedly there must be
scandalous situations in Terrace- just as there
are in most communities- and some of the worst
could probably benefit from exposure to a little
pure, fresh air, 7

Weare aware how difficult it always is for any
government- even with the very best intentions
in the world- to be “human” in its approach and
equal in its treatment when it with in-
dividual humans- be it welfare, criminal, justice,
health, education, mental disturbance-or other
facets of life that government agency is con-
cerned with. We shall quite possibly be con-
cerning ourself, through the pages of the Herald
with apparent injustices (if there are injustices)
in these and other areas of the public service. We
are counting on our readers to call such in-
justices to our attention.

Conversely, wehope tobe as quick to praise, to
commend and to discover instances where
agencies of the four levels of government have
performed outstanding service; acted above the
least common denominator; give above and
beyond the minimum of what is ex
them. We look forward to Herald readers and
subscribers to make us aware of the
praiseworthy as well as the deplorable; the good
as well as the bad; the humorous- as well as the
tragic; the divine as well as the base. —

We have heard quite frequently, in the short
time we have been at our desk in the Herald
office, ‘‘I know you won't print this- but...’ If it is
fit to print; if it needs to be said, it is our hope
pring. is iat grant us not only the courage to
print.if- Ou; the widdom ,and.. gence
present-it-well- that he whol ae read, and
that he (she) who is in darkness, may be
enlightened, .

All we ask is that you read what we will be
printing, for the next few months- and not reach
any decision when we print those things that ma:
shock, anger or displease you- at first. "

At Christmas
Generation gap

The generation gap between parents and their
children can be especially evident at Christmas time.

Take Donna-for instance, who lives on our atreet
b Denna issix years old, with an older sister and older

rother.

For Christmas- Donna, by normal reckoning, could
be considered an especially fortunate girl.

What with the zillions of starving, swollen bellied,
hollow-eyed, gaunt and haunted loo kids her age
in Bangla Desh and all those emergaing nations
Africa, plus their counter-parts in the barrios of
Central and South America, Donna’s Christmas by
comparison might be considered almost “Immoral”,

Amoong other presents, on Sunday, the little six-

ear old was showered with an expensive child's

icycle; a wrist-watch with an oversize dial that really
keeps time, a transistor radio- and goodmenss knows
what else. (1 only saw those three presents because
she brought them over to my house across the street
from hers; she said she had lots more like them.)

Yet what was it Donna treaured most of all? I don't
think any adult would be albe to guess! Green
“Slime’’- costing, I'd imagine, perhaps a dollar, that
came in a sort of plastic container and was guaranteed
to give you a creepy revolting feeling an
shudder, whern you put hour hands in it.

Donna played with the “Slime” all Christmas Day.
It was the only thing she had asked Santa for,

Oh yes, she rode the bike, wore the watch and
carried the transistor radio, frém here to there. But
“Slime” was the big gift in her mind; she had talked
about wanting it for days and days before Christmas.

Two little boys, about 4 and 7 Dlayed all Christmas
afternoon at our house before and after Christmas
dinner. They barely touched their turkey and ingored
the Christmas plum-pudding to play with “‘Silly-

y?? .

They were making impressions of their ears, palm
prints and “‘outty’’ casts of small objects; they made
color transfers from colored comics with it. Cost ot
thesilly Putty- about a dollar each,

I don’t know if there is supposed to be a moral in this
or not. Probably there could be it we tried to force it,

Looking back over all the expensive and elaborate
Christmas presents that have come my way, over the
years- the only ones i can realkly remember, witn any
degreee of detail or clarity include a very messy,
gummy “Christmas Card”' put together with flour and
water paste, some used Chiristmas ribbons from the
year before, and bits of scotch tape. ON it was a pic-
ture of a handsome man clipped from a deodorant ad.
ina magazine, a Santa Claus and a manger scene in
which the beby Jesus was prominently featured. And
at the very bottom was pasted, after a fashion, cut
from another greeting card, ‘Happy Fathers Day",
But then, the young lady who sent it to me- my
daughter- was barely five years old. 1Ot was her very
first Christmas with her Father- home from the War,
after five years- and four Christmases abroad.

She couldn’t have given me any gift I would treasure
more. (Just think- it could have been a jar of “Slime’’-
or a lump of “‘silly putty”. ) Those were the GOOD old

ys! .

make you

pected of.

‘Saguenay - French
Welcome English

By FRANCOISE COTE

ALMA, Que. (CP) —
Jacques Gagnon started
from seratch when he
founded the Mouvement
Co-operative des Caisses
d'Ectraide Economiques
17 years ago. Today the
co-operative credit union
organization does
$500million of business
annually.

But, unlike his coun-
terparts in the financial
community who, are
usually fluent in English,

Gagnon speaks only
French.
Gagnon, 651, is at-

tending private English
classes to help him plan
an anticipated expansion
of the credit union or-
ganization to Ontario and
ew Brunswick.

Paul-Emile Dore is the
director-general of
another credit union
chain, the Caisse
d’Etablissement du
SaguenayLac  S&t.-Jean.
Living in the Saguenay
region’s metropolis of
Chicoutimi (pop. 56,000),
Dore is also almost

completely wnilingual in ©

French, despite his Irish
roots

These are not isolated
cases, even among
businessmen, in the
Saguenay region on the
north shore of the St.
Lawrence River.

Of the region's 265,542
residents, 95.2 per cent
are Frenchspea ing,

And unlike many
francophones in the
major cities to the south,
Saguenay residents are
no cularly afraid of
ass! ating to North
America’s English
milieu.

DEMAND ENGLISH TV

So confident are they of
retai their language
and culture that more
than 20,000 persons
signed a petition In favor
of establishing an English
television station in the
area,

A transmission station
which rebroadcasts CBC
grams from Montreal

s been in operation in
the Saguenay fgr,almost
8 ar POR fA.

torian Msgr. Victor
Tremblay says, “It is the
isolation which has made
the population here
francophone and has con-
tributed to _—ithe
development of a spirit of

initiative.”

Adam Lapointe, a
oung economist at
niversity of Qebec at
Chicoutimi,says it is not
necessary here to
downgrade English to
rotect the French
anguage.

“Here, nobody has to
fight for French and, for
us, English is perceived
as being an element of
our culture.”

A businessman who
preferred to remain
anonymous laughed off

the effect of the
rovince’s Charter of the
nch Language.

“Maybe it’s important
that the government
passed Bill 101,” he said.

“But in any case,
nobody obeys the laws of
Quebec.”

ENGLISH NEEDED

His remarks may have
been made with tongue in
cheek, but reflect the
popular sentiment that
the protection of the
French languege is far
from 4 major preoc-
cupation here.

‘Tf it wasn't for the
Americans and the
English, there wouldn't
have been any devel-
opment in this area,”
says Gagnon.

“The great weakness of

French-Canadiang has
been not participating
with them in de-
velopment.”

Nationalism in the
Saguenay takes a dif-
ferent form from that of
Quebec nationalism, and
is really based on a sense
of regional pride.

Roger Philips,
president of a division of
Alcan Ltd., calls himself
a ,caguens nationalist”
who has lived in the
aluminum town of Arvida
since 1946,

He recently told a
group of businessmen in

coutimi that Quebec’s
language law, like an
law, should be respected.
He. didn’t make many
friends among English-

Quebecers with that .

stance.

“Ta a democracy, the
law is the law,’ he said.
“If the law is to be con-
tested, there are the

courts and other juridical
mechanisms to secure
one’s rights. By
boycotting the f2¥
people just open them-
Selves to punitive
measures.”
LANGUAGE NO
PROBLEM

His company, Societe
d'Electrolyse et de
Chimie Alcan Ltee., and
other Alean affiliates
employ some 9,000

ple, % per cent of
em francophone.

Company executive
Bertrand Bouchrd says
language has not been a

roblem for the company
‘or a long time. Notices,
documents and labor
contracts: are in French

as a matter of course. «—

“But I remember,
about 15 years ago, when
only English was used in
written communications.
After that, there were two
texts but the official one
was in English.”

He says Alcan is in the
vanguard of francization
efforts by large firms
operating in Quebec.

in Bagotville, there is a
Canadian Armed Forces
base where some 85 per
cent of soldiers are

French-speaking,
although most are
bilingual. Although

French is the language of
operations n the

und—English is used
or ground-to-air com-
munications— the base is
considered to be an
English enclave.

or the few unilingual
angio hones on the base,
including some 40
Americans on an ex-

change program, their
faclation fas been
reduced by English
television and radio.

_ 1978 tough year.
for Canada

PARIS (Reuter) — A
difficult new year for the
Canadian economy, with
unemployment likely to
increase, was forecast

today by the Organization
for Economic Co-
operation and De.

velopment (OECD).

In a _ twice-yearly
economic review for its 24
member countries, the
OECD said the Canadian
government's package of
expansionary measures
introduced last October
seems unlikely to im-
prove economic growth
much during 1978,

Describing the outlook
for Canada as ‘‘this
rather pessimistic pic-
ture,’”’ the OECD said
foreign markets are un-
likely to provide much
relief.

Growth of — United
States imports is likely to
slacken appreciably,
particularly for items of
Special interest to

nada,

“Primarily owing to
the weakness of labor
markets, and despite the
boost provided by the
recent tax cut and the in-

dexation of personal
income tax scales, the
owth-of household real
isposable income bet-
ween 1977 and 1978 seems
unlikely to exceed three
per cent,” the review

said. rt

This is well short of the
seven-per-cent mark
achieved on average

during the five years to -

1976, the OECD ‘added.

Over-all output = is
forecast to grow within
the 3.5-to four-percent
range, compared with
Canada’s average
medium-term potential
rate of about 4.75 per
cent.

The OECD said gross
national product (GN-
P)—output of goods and
services—might have to
groway more than five
per "Sent to prevent
unemployment from

sing.

Canada’s unem-
ployment rate might be.
more than 6.5 per cent or
even higher by the latter
part of 1978, despite the
October measures, the
review sald.

Trois-Rivieres Le
Nouvel-liste:The
publisher of Le Devair is
still happily toying with
the idea of becoming a

candidate for the
leadership of the Quebec
Liberal party.

y
At the beginning of
November, Claude Ryan
announced he would not
run in the April lead-
ership convention and
stated that his decision
was ‘firm and

_ irrevocable.” He said in.a .. ae
“Final” decision by mid-"

press release: ‘‘A period
of thought has wed

me to reach a conclusion

about my role in the
community. I have come
to the conclusion that I
would be happier and
more useful to my fellow
citizens if I retained my
current post instead of
accepting ree with a
po A

ollowing a r y
congress in which he
recelyed a standin

ovation, Ryan made it
Imown that “the door is
always closed but never
bolted,”’ letting it be
clearly understood tha
this refusal wasn’t as
“firm and irrevocable"
as he had indicated a few
weeks earlier.

Beware of “firm and
irrevocable” decisions.
«. We admit that a man
can most = certain
change his mind.
However, in the case of
the editor of Le Devoir,
his indecisiveness is hard
to explain.

He declared recently
that new pressures had
forced him to revise his

“Get lost — this is MY corner!”

From the French-language press

final decision. Having
reflected on the issue for
three weeks, Ryan
concluded that he would
be happier and more use-
ful to hia fellow citizens
by remaining in his
current epost. Are we to
deduce that at the time
the pressures weren't
strong enough? That
Ryan believed his
chances of. winning the
nomination weren’t good
enough?

January.

Inthe hopes of avoidin
all ambiguity, he shoul
immediately leave his
post with Le Devoir with
the option of returning if
he decides to definitively
renounce politics. The
prestige newspaper,

recognized for its |

political impartiality,
cannot ome a
plaything for a man in
search of himself. ... It
could damage the paper's

credibility.

There is no doubt that
Ryan would be a prestige
candidate, With a leader
like him, the Quebec
Liberal party could once
again come to life.—
Sylvio Saint-Amant (Dec.

Montreal “Le Devolr:
The spectacular’ events
which -haye unfolded in
the Middle East have
reminded the entire
world that peace—even if
it is the work of
calculations and human
abilties—is also a
spiritual undertaking.

Drought over?

SAN FRANCISCO
(AP) — Three solid
storms have dumped rain

atid snow across thirsty
California since late No-
vember, but the two-year
drought may not be over
yet, a forecaster says.
wet-weather

depression meandering
in the eastern Pacific
funnelled another storm
into the state Monday,
sending snow to the
Sierra _— slopes and
widespread rains to lower
elevations. More of the
same was expected

today.

Despite the storms,
forecaster Ray Williams
of the U.S, National
Weather Service says:
“So far this year
precipitation is normal,

ut we don't know what
the rest of the year really
is going to do."

Hliams said the water
table js still far below
what it should be and that
water rationing is still the
rule in many areas.

ie

Three of the largest
reservoirs in California
are still at critically low
levels, the state Drought
Information Centre in
Sacramento Says.

A fair-weather high-
pressure system had

overed over northern
California for two years,
diverting storms from the
state, But the system has
broken up and there is
little evidence on weather
charts to indicate any
new high-pressure for-
mation in the offing,
Williams says.

California utilities do
not have enough water on
hand to talk about an end
to the drought. But they
have hope.

The East Bay
Municipal Utility District
last weekend reported 150
centimetres (60 inches)
of snow at 1,600 metres
(6,000 feet), while normal
for this time of year at
that elevation is 75
centimetres (30 inches),
Last year at this time,
there was no snow at ail.

The man who took the
initiative, Presiden
Anwar Sadat of Egypt,
did not hesitate to discuss
the spiritual nature of his

est in his speech before

e Israeli parliament:
“After much reflection I
became convinced that it
was my duty before God
and my people to travel to
the ends of the earth (in
search of peace).”’

For his part, Israeli
Frime Minister
Menachem: -B

fathers that we share, to
give us the spiritual
wisdom necessary to
overcome the difficulties.

“In Washington,
President Carter said:
“That the Arabs, the

egin said: °

. Wes il 4 ray tothe Gi y ,
“ot “cue dapheie the € aspects’ of -life., One

Moslems, the Jews and
the Christians all lave the
same God and recognize
It willingly, shows that
there is an open road
which will aid commu-
nication toward the same
ends,”

These men had the con-
science, as Sadat clearly
said, to heed a yolce from
within...

The Scriptures are net
& manual of logic .... Th:
peace spoken ‘of in the

ible is het divided, it is
global. it embraces all
cannot be happy in one
domain and Snappy in
another ....

God is love, but His love
is jealous and in-
transigent. “‘I am _ the
first,” says He, “and I

_am the last.”

Watch out! -

PEKING (Reuter) —
China said today that
Western states will only
hurt themselves by co
opera economically
with the Soviet Union.

Moscow’s military ex-
penditures are made
possible by Western
oans, equipment and
technology, the Hsinhua
news agency said in a
commentary.

“Turning a blind eye to
all this, however, some
people in the West are
still trying to defend such
a policy of helping fuel
the Russian war
machine,” it said.

Some Western
‘politicians believe
economic co-operation
will restrain Moscow and
moderate its policies, a
policy that Russian

avior has proved to be
wishful thinking, it said.

“While lou
preaching ‘detente’ and
co-operation,’ the Soviet
Union has gone all out in
its armament race and
expansionist

manoeuvres, larger in
scale and faster in speed
than ever before,” the
agency said,

It accused the Soviet
Union of aiding mer-
cenaries in Angola and
Zaire, extending its in-
fluence in the Horn of
Africa and threatening
Shipping Janes in the
Indian Ocean and South
Atlantic.

said

The agency

’ Westerners are wrong to

believe that trade with
Moscow will cure eco-
homic problems in their
own countries.
“Economically
speaking, by placing the
hope on ‘trade and co-
operation’ with the Soviet
Union to save itself from
the economic crisis,. the
West will not only be
disappointed, but will
also do harm to itself,"’
Hsinhua said. .
“The Soviet Union is a
formidable rival of the
West in international
markets, rather than a
trading partner.””

TERRACE

daily herald

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PUBLISHER... W.R. (BILL) LOISELLE
EDITOR ... ERNEST SENIOR

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