Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 23, 1991, Winnipeg, Manitoba John Dafoe focus advice from a in vet the Fate of kurd in Turkey has proved of Little interest to Western nations or the by John Best free press correspondent Ottawa before prime minister Brian Mulroney and external affairs min ister Barbara Mcdougall get carried away on their latest Bravener world they might take time for a Little Chat with Erskine Childers is a former High ranking United nations he retired in 1989 As senior adviser to the in director general for development 22 years with the world organization but is still closely involved in in last he with retired in undersecretary Brian a provocative report on How to restructure the slug Gish organization to meet future wryly indulgent attitude Childers is wryly indulgent toward recent suggestions by Mulroney and Mcdougall that the time has come to Stop the use of National Borders As screens behind which governments May trample on Peoples rights with he does not reject them out of but he warns that they Are Likely to find a guarded response in the third these countries Are almost morbidly suspicious of Western initiatives to underwrite principles such As human political lib erty and the reduction of human including suffering that results from civil they Are not opposed to concepts like Protection of human rights across Sovereign Childers stressed in an inter View while in Ottawa but there is a question of Childers admits that he tends to get passionate when talking about Western hypocrisy and double standards As an he is easily Able to sympathize with the wests former colonies in the third his a Leader in the fight for Irish was executed by the British in his father was president of Ireland briefly in i have no sympathy for but Nei ther do i have any sympathy for hypocrisy on the question of human Childers Al his eyes As an example of such he cites the wests virtual silence at the killing of kurd in Western aligned and com pares it with the uproar caused by similar harsh treatment of kurd in the wests favorite villain these there seems to be a difference in the offi Cial Western he goes bitterly there have been few years in the last 30 years when one or another kurdish group in Iraq was not receiving Western funds to revolt against the iraqi gov this had nothing to do with the rights of the mind it was done for real poll then the kurd were dumped when realpolitik shifted a you cannot play hockey with and use double then raise the same principles to justify a crusade for human Childers waxes particularly furious Over what he Calls the abuse of the in system in the War against Iraq this past proce dures Laid Down in the charter for dealing with aggression were ignored right and Centre by the Security goaded on by the it was As Mulroney and others Are Content to one of the uns finest hours my it was right to condemn Iraq invasion of but after the whole thing had less and less to do with the United nations and was in effect the hijacking of the in to serve the interests of the United its and so if Mulroney is serious about breaking Down National impediments to the Protection of individual according to he will table a Resolution at the in calling for the cessation of All Covert interventions in countries internal battered to their Knees after work can begin on a new convention dedicated to respect for human if there is transparency both there will be no Blanket Wall of but the weaker who have been battered to their repeatedly invaded overtly and will want to be sure that one or other Northern Power is not up to its Many and people elsewhere in the tend to look on the unas an organization hopelessly dragged Down by the machinations of a numerically predominant third Childers comments offer a wholly differ and somewhat of which Mulroney and Mcdougall should take careful charter of rights lies at the heart of struggle Over the Constitution by Brian Bohunicky special to the free press when historians of the next Century assess Canadas current constitutional per haps they will be less interested in the drama of particular deadlines and disasters than in the Broad sweep of events be tween 1980 and the Early these Are the years when Canada took its first faltering Steps to constitutional Matu Rity since achieving de Facto Independence from the United kingdom in the Early 20th but the outcome of Patria Tion of the Constitution is still Uncertain As we struggle to meet its Patria Tion marked the Start of a clash be tween two opposing concepts which might be called executive and popular constitutional the notion of rights of individuals and groups being enshrined so that they could be defended and advanced independently of governing elites was already widespread in the Western but it collided headlong with established patterns in executive federalism Canada was firmly ensconced in the tradition of British parliamentary with its concentration of All Power in the hands of the prime minister and our innovation of combining this tradition with federalism brought since the 1960s Espe to a state of affairs the political scientists Call executive what they mean is that Power is really concentrated in the hands of an elite of top officials and politicians who Lead the Federal and provincial they Are Able to squeeze out members of Legislatures and the Public As they do their horse trading behind closed this exclusive grip on Power coloured constitutional politics in the 1980s just As it had All other aspects of political thus executive constitutionalism was the Pat Tern which led the eleven first ministers to treat the Constitution As their own personal property when they launched the Meech Lake Accord in the harsh reality of the Meech Lake pro Cess is that it really was not simply the cynical strategy of Power hungry it was firmly rooted indeed made possible the Canadian tradition of executive con that tradition is As old As can Ada and gained a vital affirmation in when the first ministers adopted the present amending formula As the payoff for the provincial premiers acceptance of the Trudeau governments Long cherished idea of a charter of the amending by its rejection of any element of Public made Meech Lake a disaster waiting to but history made it even More the fathers of confederation also rejected a role for the Public in constitutional matters As in All besides John Mac Donald railed against the idea of popular sovereignty which he feared As the foundation of mob Rule american style the closest the confederation package came to an electorate was in a new Brun Swick election in it produced a resound ing defeat for the supporters of Conedera the Meech Lake Accord inherited a lot of but history in a broader sense produced other the growth of rights consciousness after the second world War has been fostered by several declarations by the United most Western countries now have in their constitutions an explicit declaration of popular or provi Sion for popular involvement in or Charters of rights and judicial re View Are widespread and becoming More these elevations of people Over ments in the constitutional order Are often tainted by being labelled How Ever the pattern is much More and its origins lie not in the but in 18th Century English and French enlightenment Canada joined this worldwide current and enshrined the concept of popular constitutionalism when it adopted the charter of rights even though we simultaneously rejected it in the amending the affirmation of popular constitutionalism has been Felt in several ways Over the last ten most the charter spelled out rights shared by All these rights cannot be guaranteed in All but the charter provides an Avenue for fight ing violations of rights Independent of the governing elite which previously held a monopoly on Power in constitutional As the charter has been seen As an instrument of social recognition for a Range of groups and individuals including visible ethnic groups and supporters of individual As a re sult of their recognition in particular clauses of the these people gained a stake and therefore expect to play a role in constitutional the last decade has been a time of heightened expectations and de mands for a much More participatory style of constitutional politics than had existed in Canada the clash Between popular constitutional ism and the More exclusive executive constitutionalism came to a head when the Meech Lake Accord expired last since the conflict is moving toward a Resolution in the widespread recognition that real Public involvement is a must from now that recognition would be most effectively realized by the additional requirement of a ratifying referendum in the amending for popular constitutionalism however another Challenge of the past de Cade remains the Charters affirmation of popular constitutionalism bridged a Gap Between the Canadian people and the Constitution for the first but this has raised the question of whether enough canadians actually share the values embodied in the when the Constitution remained the property of the intergovernmental the Challenge was not posed As however with a constitutional framework making a stronger connection with citizens and All their the absence of widespread agreement on fundamentals and values is the Divide Between Quebec and the rest of Canada is while the charter has taken Root and become better and supported in English speaking Canada Over the past ten it remains the focus of grievances in the Charters social recognitions Are in political tension with recognition of the distinct and the individual and group rights in the charter Are in tension with the collective rights of that Dis Tinct Many outside Quebec see popular cons Titu Given life in the As the Way but most in Quebec see the charter As a problem which must be has our leap toward constitutional maturity re the fatal weaknesses of a United Canada if we insist the answer is then we must find a basis of common values on which to strengthen our still tender connections Between people and if we fail we must accept that one project has run its course and it is time to Start two but undoubtedly closely linked ones in que Bec and tories and nip Are Bobbie twins of Hydro dams As Yogi Berra would Manitoba by Dros Conaw Apa controversy is Dejavu All Over the conservatives and new democrats Are captive to the same dam building mental Ity despite a 20year blood feud on the timing and sequence of Power the feud int about its about who gets the political environment minister Glen Cummings heavy handed attempt to control and curtail an environmental review of the next big generating station on the Nelson River recalls the imbroglio that triggered the feud in Over the objections of its own resource sex the conservative government of Walter Weir decided on the High level Churchill River Southern Indian Lake was to be made a Gigantic the link coupling the Churchill and Nelson Rivers into one massive Simillion kilowatt Power the lakes level was to Rise 32 wiping out two aboriginal devastating the destroying trapping and affect ing the environment As far away As Churchill and the government refused to make Public any of the estimated million Worth of studies and investigations it had commissioned on the the bulk of which warned of human and ecological discs Harry then As now natural resources fed Public controversy further by admitting that the government had issued an interim flooding licence to Hydro before the legally required Public he re Enns at said lawyers for the aboriginal people would not be allowed to Cross examine Hydro subset he retracted Frances Russell the High level diversion never Weir dissolved the legislature for a june the new democrats helped by their pro environment stand and pledge to put humanity once in the Dps tune the government hired David Cass a former general manager of Saskatchewan Power to review the the de Schreyer administration opted for the Low level Churchill River diversion and the regulation of Lake the incessant quarrel Over whose develop ment sequence was most cos effective and least environmentally damaging raged throughout the battering credibility on both since the tories returned to Power under Sterling Lyon in the watchword has been no development without Virtu ally ignored by both parties in their perpetual squabbles have been the enormous techno logical advances in alternative Energy forms and the bickering descended to Low Howard Hawleys nip administration negotiated a billion Sale to Northern states Power of Minneapolis and then advanced the construction of Limestone by two the tories opposition Leader Gary Filmon and frontbench ers Enns and Clayton manness warned that Manitoban would be saddled with skyrocketing rate hikes As Limestone came into service 24 months before the Money started rolling in from the Export on Enns said Hydro was softening up and conditioning Manitoban for what probably will be the greatest rate Shock in their million for the first two years of the operation of Lime asked Filmon who going to pay the losses Back in the tories have gone the nip one giant step they negotiated a billion Sale to Ontario Hydro and then announced their intention to and Vance Conaw Apa by eight they plan to Complete construction by even though the Utility own projections show Manito bans wont need the Power until said Energy minister Harold Neufeld its business As noted nip Leader Gary doer bitterly not by one year or two but by a Radical amount of everything they was totally in both the firm exports Only use a portion of the Power each new dam brings on Brian lawyer for the environmental coalition fighting says the to Ries Are As committed to the billion dam As the nip was to its billion the position of the two parties has been remarkably similar for he there is a yearlong dam building Momen Tum at work in it is a habit and the politicians Are hooked on Pannell says the supposed economic spin offs touted by the politicians just Arent conservation programs and the development of alternative Energy forms would create far More unlike Short term construction these jobs would be High tech and the entire dam building scenario is fictitious and out to he it is wrong because it completely excludes As part of any Cost analysis the alternatives of conserva efficiency and other Energy there have not been any studies done com paring conservation to construction As a Job Ami Peltz Heads the Public interest Law Centre of Legal Aid Manitoba and represents Consumers before the Public utilities Board on Hydro rate increase he agrees with the same issues Are at stake with Lime Stone and nobody learns from the the blood feud int just becoming tire its also becoming doonesbury its basically a 6pts his Thor Trot him out by Garry Trudeau ijus7 hop Man Ages to Hou on to ;