Politics

Hello October 7th!! My usual procrastina- tion has pushed me to within hours of my deadline. Not to fear. After filling my brain with a weeks’ worth of newspaper information I am ready to provide my own bent on politics in Canada this week. As usual I need to take care of some housekeeping from last week. Fasten your seat: belts and watch the two fingered typist start pounding away (... on the keyboard that is).

Apologies are...

in order. First off, to all (or perhaps | should say any) NY Mets fans out there. They did make the playoffs after all, which impressed me. Fortunately my spotty legal back- ground and instinctive two fingers covered my bases by adding in September to the fold. So while I was in a sense wrong and the Mets did make the post season, they did fold only to come back to

life in October. Former Nova Scotia... Finance Minster Bernie Boudreau was ap-

pointed to the Senate this week. So what?

118 |

by Jim-Beaux Lieyeah

A couple of things come to mind. First off, last week I talked about the porous state of Nova Scotia’s fi- nances. Well guess who was finance minister there for the now

aE RT ee) there... yet he

FD Rg ETT mae Senators.

departed John Savage?? Boudreau had enough foresight not to get muddy in the recent Nova Scotia elections by not running... chicken (did I type that out loud??). Well that might be one reason but another powerful one is that he lost the Liberal leadership contest to Russell McClellan and I guess he had his doubts about working with his former adversary. The other powerful thing that comes to mind is the position he took within the Senate. Mr.Chretien appointed him as House Leader. This is unusual for a couple of reasons. First off, Why?? Cause Jean needs a Nova Scotian in cabinet and the role

of House Leader usually gets one there. Now giving a voice to Nova Scotians within cabinet is good (con- sidering they elected no Liberals last federal election) but stepping over the present leader Al Graham (who also happens to hail from Nova Scotia) is a little befuddling. It is also unusual because former Manitoba Provincial Liberal leader Sharon Carstairs (who was originally from NS) was thought to be a leading candidate. How did she react?? She has promptly stepped down as deputy leader and I am quite sure she will not be as amicable to the man she has supported in the past. Oh well, we can only hope Boudreau (who has promised to run in the next election as a star candidate) is not selected as a Finance

EOL their fishery pretty well for

Fe] thousand ee

Minister in the 21st century...

Supreme Court Ruling

contd...

I promised that

if the Feds did not

move in quickly there would be violence on the high seas. Guess what, there has been. Things you might say are cooking over at Burnt Cross (or is it Church), New Bruns- wick. Violence has, indeed, broken out. This metamorphisized in several ways. It started with fisherman destroying native fishing equipment. This earned the re- sponse of an attack on a local fish canning plant followed by a KKK style burning of an empty dwelling ona Native reserve. I don’t expect things to get any better although most leaders are trying to calm there charged followers. Herb Dhaliwal has now promised that there will be a regulated fishery or no fishery at all and has asked the parties to agree to a moratorium until this can be settled. Unfor- tunately what these folks don’t see is that the Natives have a legal right to fish there brains out without regard to conservation. Oddly enough I agree. The Natives managed to run there fishery pretty well for a couple of thousand years until the white man got over here. Hell it took the white man less than 400 years to all but wipe it out. But lets be realistic for a second here. Personally, a

couple of hundred Natives out fishing is not gonna wipeout the stocks. But with con- servation being so important I think the reality will be that the government might have to buy out some licenses and tighten the allowable catches on non-Natives. Is this fair?? Of course not. Neither was it for the Natives who happened to inhabit a present day prized piece of real

WELL EME

OLE | Wr me Ue LL

be a regulated ETT J Aa) fishery at all.

estate called Manhattan and who got paid all of the equivalent of 24

modern day dollars for

it. HTFTB...

Only in...

Lotusland. Where is Lotusland?? Present day British Columbia. The scandal

plagued NDP are in

the midst of an ex- tended leadership search (and perhaps rescue might be appro- priate as well). Glen Clark followed the lead of his predecessor Mike Harcourt by stepping down in disgrace. Glen seemed to be giving

away Casino licenses for folks who can help him with his home renovations (obviously I had the wrong job that summer). So now they are looking to fill the vacuum. The outspoken Federal NDPer from Burnaby, Svend Robinson has declined to run al- though he is probably the best known Social- ist on Canada’s left wing. So in comes an interesting pragmatist (err... I mean candi- date) known as one Gordon Wilson. Some might remember Gordo from his days of running the BC Liber- als and returning them to respectability. Times have changed for him though. He was en- gaged in a leadership contest against the then mayor of Vangroovy Gordon Campbell. Seems Wilson took a page out of student financing when he ran up 27 thousand:dollars on his Visa while challenging Mr. Campbell (who’s still leader of the BC Liber- als). Now Wilson managed to find a buddy who picked up this tab and nobody knew any better until his buddy called in his loan (literally). Wilson - thought the loan was a gift. Now don’t blame Gordo for clouded judgement (it happens all the time in the

Continued on page 19