4 Terrace Review — Wednesday, August 26, 1987

COMMENTARY _

Penalty imposed on the innocent

by Frank Howard

At the time the late U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was in full, brutalizing form accus- ing everyone of subversive ac- tivities the CBC did a spoof-type

radio play called The Investiga-

tor. This play put McCarthy in

heaven, where he manages to. manipulate himself into replac- °

ing St. Peter. - McCarthy then proceeds to review the position of 2 number of historic personalities, such as Socrates and Thomas Jefferson, He has them deported to.a place called ‘‘Down There’’. One of the persons up for review is Karl Marx, Kar! Marx the piano tuner ap- pears, as does Karl Marx the watchmaker and Karl Marx the Pastry chef, But they can’t lo- cate Karl Marx the sociologist and political writer, __ An exasperated McCarthy de- clares, ‘‘There seems. to be

some doubt as to whether we-

have subpoenaed the right Karl Marx. However, we want to be fair. Therefore all persons by the

name of Karl Marx will be de-

ported from Up Here to-Down There,”’

I was reminded about the »

Ge

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” their rights and confiscate their

classic CBC play when I read -

that the provincial government had decided to cut welfare rates in response to a court decision that the government had beer

guilty of violating the Charter of

Rights and Freedoms by paying less to some welfare recipients than it did to others.

' The provincial government is —

acting just as Senator McCarthy did, It is punishing some people because some others exercised their fundamental right to take

“the provincial government to court. What Social Services

Minister Richmond is saying is that the government will practice

continued on page 23. L_

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Hubert Beyer

Victoria Correspondent

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few years, and the politicians of intestinal moral fortitude.

To turn away boatloads of would-be refugees was propriate,’’ Prime Minister Mulroney said ‘after

Canadian society has been developing a nasty streak these past have responded with their usual lack

“totally ap- Immigration

Minister Benoit Bouchard introduced the Deterrents and Detention

Bill in the Commons,

giving the government the power to crack

down on what the rednecks like to call illegal immigrants.

Just when it looked as if we had learned a lesson from the aberra- tion that prompted Canadians ‘in the early 1940s to throw their fellow citizens of Japanese origin into prison camps, deny. them

TERRACE — The Kitsum- kalum Band Council has been successful in temporarily halting the use of Tordon 101 by CNR, Lyle Young, a spokesman for CNR in Prince George, said the ‘company posted the required 30-day advanced notice for the company’s plan to use the herbi- cide to defoliate their right-of- way from Smithers. to Prince Rupert between Aug. 17 and Sept. 17. © — _ He said if an appeal had not been filed, the spraying would have proceeded under the pres- ent Ministry of Environment and Department of Fisheries and Oceans regulations. “Now we cannot do anything until such time as there is a hear- ing, and a date for that hasn’t been set yet,” said Young, For now, he said, ‘‘The company cannot and will not do anything until we hear the results of that hearing.”’ Young added that another CN

herbicide permit to use Atrapell .

and Primatol between Harvey (40 miles west of McBride) and Prince Rupert for the spot Sterilization of vegetation around CN buildings and switches has not been appealed and will proceed on schedule.

property, we’re at it again.

Railway spraying | pped by appeal

Alec Bolton, a representative of the Kitsumkalum Band Coun- cil, explained that the’ Kit- sumkalum people had a position paper against the use of any pesticide or herbicide within their tribal territory.

Bolton said, ““We will oppose any kind of pesticide use, and we’ve been appealing all of them. CNR is just one of them.”’

According to Bolton, Tordon

101 is one part picloram and - four parts 2-4-D. ‘‘There’s been

a Canada-wide: ban on 2-4-D and the U.S. is banning it also,’ he said. ;

‘We're trying to do the same thing here,’’ he explained, ‘but B.C. is still reviewing the use of 2-4-D.”” .

Bolton said that besides filing the appeal the Kitsumkalum Band has also sent letters to CNR headquarters requesting them to cancel the herbicide pro- gram and go back to manual cutting.

“They figure it’s a one-shot

deal,”’ said Bolton. ‘Once they.

spray the herbicide then they think that’s it,

‘But that isn't true. It kills the brush for one year and then it grows up‘again the next year,”’ he said. oe

our history of racial tolerance. oe The only difference between then and now is that in 1942, there was a war on, and many bizarre decisions are made in times of war. Afraid that Canadians of Japanese origin might be tempted to bear greater allegiarice to their former home land than to Canada, the government panicked and moved all Japanese from. the coast to the interior of B.C... -— oo , 7 foes In retrospect, the decision doesn’t stand up to even mild scrutiny, but then, neither do many other things happening in war time, In any case, there was. at least a Teason, if no justification, for: the shabby treatment accorded our fellow citizens of Japanese origin, although that doesn’t-explain why Canada has never made amends to the Japanese families affected by the action. To this day, they have not been compensated for what was-taken from them 45 years ago. The racist overtones in the public’s reaction to the arrival of several boatloads of Tamils and Sikhs, on the other hand, cannot be excused in the same manner, Canada is at peace. The Tamils and Sikhs pose no threat to the country, perceived or real. The public’s reaction has ranged all the way from a mild convic- tion that the arrivals at our shore are not refugees at all, but simply would-be immigrants who have jumped the waiting line, to outright -

_Tacial intolerence,

True, the Sikhs who arrived a few weeks ago, weren't refugees by ©

any stretch of the imagination. The Tamils who: preceded them probably weren’t either. But what difference does it make? They are people who want to.make a better life for themselves, and there are few countries with greater opportunities than Canada to do just that. vs : At the heart of the outcry that has greeted the Sikhs and the Tamils in Canada is not a sense of fairness that would prefer to see potential immigrants wait their turn. At the heart of the clamor is racial discrimination. _ :

Pll give you ten-to-one odds there would be far less of an outcry. if those people had white skin and wore baseball caps instead of tur- - bans. All those good citizens yelling for a tougher immigration policy are really in favor of one thing only — keeping Asians out of Canada.

Funny thing is if Canada’s origirial inhabitants had had the Op-- portunity and inclination to use those yardsticks, Asians would probably have been the only people allowed to settle here, -

The early white settlers weren’t subject to’ any. immigration policies, dreamed up by politicians and bureaucrats. Nor did they sive much of a.damn‘about aspirations of the native Indians. They - came here in much the same manner as the Tamils and the Sikhs did, They wanted a better life for themselves and their families, They simply came and settled. oe a -

Alas, it seems I’m-in the minority. Wherever I go, 1 hear other- wise reasonable and normal people agitate against letting the Sikhs and Tamils stay. Maybe I’m on the wrong track, but I don’t think SO. . an

I know one thing though, if I had been met with such hostility when I immigrated in 1957, I wouldn’t have stuck around very long. The lure of Canada must be strong, indeed, and life.back home pretty dreadful for these people to want to stay, despite all the dirt that’s being thrown in their faces. ct a

To those who tight think my accusations of discrimination are exaggerated, I'd like to say that every ultimate horror you can im- agine begins with a first and often innocuous step.

I was born in a country which took racial discrimination to its ultimate conclusion. It was called the final solution and set a new benchmark in man’s inhumanity to man — at a cost of six tnillion lives. ; ae _— SC oo