TheReview Wednesday, March 7, 1990 — A18

Continued from Page A8
affordable housing with affordable
mortgage interest rates or rents and
a proper social network and we do
not need an ivory tower govern-
ment Out of touch with the public.

The ignorance of people’s needs
forms a fundamental flaw in the
entire budget. This Conservative
government continues to belicve
that addressing inflation and the
deficit in Canada will somehow
achieve renewed economic pros-
perity.

Wilson is dead wrong.

Inflation and the deficit are
important cconomic factors,
rightly enough, but they are symp-
toms of a larger problem —
unemployment.

Until the Canadian government
recognizes that the course of
action for economic stability in
Canada is to achieve full employ-
ment (defined at three per cent
unemployed) we will continue this
see-saw, merry-go-round of infla-
tion, deficit, high interest rates,
and high unemployment and con-
linued budgets that don’t address
the problem: the need for decent
employment.

Steve Orcherton
Secretary Treasurer
Victoria Labour Council

New directions
for new times

Editor:

It is one thing to launch and
fast-track a highway project for
Vancouver Island. It is another
thing to develop a transportation
system to serve Vancouver Island.
The difference is dramatic. I chal-
lenge residents to understand the
difference and then act on it.

Pay attention, Transportation
Minister Rita Johnston. The tide
has swung. Public attitudes have
changed. Highway projects no lon-
ger win votes.

To limit transportation planning
to highways with schemes that
entice freeway lovers and attract
more Cars, more drivers (and more
pollution!) is to offer flawed and
highly out-moded solutions that
have no place in the decade of the
90s.

“The environment” has won the
hearts and minds of the people. No
doubt about it. “Re-think”’ is the
new word for the 90s. Added to the

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three Rs of reduce, re-use and
recycle, it means, Rita Johnston,
that it 1s time to take leadership in
your department and not only
develop, but launch a master trans-
portation plan for Vancouver
Island.

Let these ideas be strategic in
your plan.

The search for a plan begins
with a careful gathering of facts
and opinions. This means taking
the time to do land-use and envir-
onmental studies, time to invite
community participation and time
to examine all transportation
modes for the Island.

Abandon and re-think the ideas
of highway upgrading to freeway
Status, ferry terminal expansion
and construction of super ferries
for vehicles.

Design and allocate expendi-
tures tO immediate, suitable meas-
ures that can be implemented now
to remove existing flaws and make
the present highway safe where it
serves the high density population
areas such as the Western Commu-
nities, Saanich Peninsula and Nan-
aimo.

Implement, as soon as possible,
new technology and an improved
level of highway controlling,
patrolling and policing in these
same areas.

The minimum master plan
should integrate, rather than iso-
late, the use of all transportation
modes including ferry, highway,
light rail commuter trains and air
travel as they all affect Vancouver
Island.

It must move us into new priori-
ties, new guidelines to safeguard
environmentally sustainable
growth and very. different expendi--
tures.

In Greater Victoria, it may dic-
tate the fast-tracking of a light rail
commuter system before a “mon-
ster freeway.”

GE. (Ted) Bagshaw
Central Saanich

Unamusing
ditty
Editor:

The inimitable John Crosbie —
infamous for his ability to offend
— has done it again. He told a
Conservative fund-raiser that

Sheila Copps’ bid for the leader-
ship of the federal Liberal party

Ron Kubek, President and Bill Robson, Sales Manager of NRS
Peninsula Properties Ltd. are pleased to announce their top

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reminded him of an old song.
The song goes like this: ““Pass
me the tequila, Sheila, and lie
down and love me again.”
Undoubtedly, Crosbie thought
his words amusing. He is, after all,
peculiarly enamored of the sound
of his own voice. Many who hear
of his remarks will laugh. Others
will dismiss them as perhaps
mildly offensive, but typical of his
down-to-earth sense of humor.

He does have a reputation for
this sort of thing. And, after all,
don’t we see and hear countless
examples of such trivializing por-
trayals of women?

Well, some of us are not laug-
hing.

Negative conceptions of women
abound in our culture. While the
destructive impact of pormography
is at least acknowledged by some
authorities, other degrading and
exploitive images of, and views
about, women go unchallenged.

They are pervasive, they are
accepted, and they are frequently
thought harmless. They are not
harmlcss. They contribute to atti-
tudes which are counter-
productive to women becoming
full and equal partners in our
society.

Such attitudes are used to justify
women’s exclusion from power,
violence against women, sexual
assault, and the whole range of
conditions that women face today.

When a man feels free to make
derogatory or tnvializing remarks
about a woman because of her
gender, he is exercising power over
women:

He is saying to the world that he
concurs with the current patriar-
chal system, and he is helping to
uphold that system. When such
remarks go unchallenged, we are
all complicit in upholding sexist
attitudes.

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GRAY

#3
#1Top Lister

Recently, we have seen several
examples of sexist remarks made
by men in positions of authority.
These remarks have had serious
implications. When a judge states
that rape in the north is different
from rape in the south because
alcohol is frequently involved, the
sub-text is the old and dangerous
idea that women deserve to be
raped.

When a judge defines a three-
year old sexual assault victim as
“sexually aggressive,” he is hold-
ing her responsible for her own
abuse by an adult male. When a
female member of parliament is
called a “fishwifc” in the House
of Commons by a conservative
backbencher, she is being told that
her concerns are irrelevant.

The latter incident took place
recently, when my colleague Dawn
Black, the New Democrat
Women’s critic, raised in the
House of Commons the fact that
the recent budget meant 100 per
cent cuts to several women’s
centres in Canada. Her concems
are legitimate. Such organizations
are working hard to change sexist
attitudes in our society.

At the same time, many of them
are dealing with the very real, and
very painful, results of those atti-
tudes. They provide support for
victims of sexual assault. They
provide refuge for battered women.
They help women overcome nega-
tive self-images and lack of confi-
dence to become full participants
in society.

It 1s within this context that
Crosbie has made his thoughtless
comment. It is painfully obvious
that attempts to point out the
destructive aspects of sexist atti-
tudes have gone over his head.

And the fact that the government
of which he is a member has

relegated women to the back-
ground, and has condemned many
women to lives of violence and
despair, means nothing to him.
One suspects that so long as he
{eels free to dismiss women, and to
trivialize their efforts — that so
long as he is afflicted with what
we might term “The Little Woman
Syndrome” — Crosbie will avoid
facing, and addressing, the sad
realities of life for women today.
MP Lynn Hunter
Saanich/Gulf Islands

4
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