secon eeey crewwes cecue CUED ap ern aeagae: Page 4, The Herald, Friday, December 8, 1978 TERRACE/KITIMAT daily herald . General Office - 635-6357 Published by Circulation - 635-4357 Sterling Publishers PUBLISHER - Laurie Malicit Lb GEN. MANAGER - Knox Coupland EDITOR - Greg Middleton CIRCULATION. TERRACE - Andy Wightman 635-6357 __KITIMAT- Pat Zelinski 632-2747, KITIMAT OF FICE - 632-2747 ' Published every weekday at 3212 Kaium Sireet. Terrace, B.C. A member of Varified Circulation. Authorized as second class mail. Registration number 1201. Postage pald in cash, return postage guaranteed. NOTE OF COPYRIGHT The Heratd retains full, complete and sole copyright In any advertisement produced and-or any editorial or Photographic content published in the Herald. Reproduction is not permitted without the written permission of the Publisher. LAW TALK by Gordon Hardy . During a territory squabble in Kitimat between two unions in 1971, members of a large international union picketed the rival Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada with placards thatread “PPWC is a Communist Front Organization.” A supreme court judge found that the placards represented a libel against the Canadian union and fined the United Steel Workers of America $2.500. The case illustrates two points. The first is that libel occurs whenever a defamation is put into a permanent form, The permanent form can be a newspaper ar- ticle, a radio transmission, a television broadcast, a sign or placard, or even a postcard if the postman can read it. The second point is that libel suits usually don't earn the victim much compensation. Most libel suits don’t go to court because of low awards and high court costs. An even more dramatic example is the 1975 case which involyed Vancouver Sun journalist, Lisa Hobbs, and. Robert McGaill, Pacific regional director of the In a spat with the CBC over the type of news coverage it was providing on the legislature in Vic- toria, Hobbs wrote, “‘McGall’s assertions are a fraud. Not a misrepresentation or even a delleate evasion. But a lie, a pathetic lie that covers up a pathetic local CBC news situation.” ‘ Just to make it clear, Hobbs added, ‘‘McGaill can no longer palm off his responsibilities, His failures are too numbingly familiar.” _McGall took Hobbs and her employer to court where his lawyer argued that she had “robbed him of his good name’’, The jury found Hobbs guilty of libel but only assessed her one dollar in damages, reminiscent of the famous case in which the British painter James Whistler was awarded one farthing in damages in his suit against the art critic John Ruskin. Hobb's lawyer, Peter Butler, later said, ‘‘The case went on for two weeks, As a plaintiff, you have to be able to afford it—not too many can!” Another example of this is the 1875 Neelds case in which a North Vancouver couple were awarded only $750 damages after a CKNW sports broadcaster said most fellow hockey parents '‘Hate the Neelds’ guts”. But against this modest sum, the judge ordered the Neelds to pay most of the costs of the five-day trial. The biggest court-imposed penalty the Vancouver Sun has paid was $8,000 each to Bir Bennett and his brother in 1973 after the newspaper reprinted remarks made by an MLA that attacked the honesty of the two :: Who were then businessmen. = The case underlines another point—when a libel “occurs, not only the writer or broadcaster is held 2 responsible, but aleo the publisher, printer, distributor ‘and even right down to the newsboy, | « _ In the Bennett case, the newspaper lawyers = to argue it had merely reprinted things said by a = politician but the judge found that it had knowingly - printed things that were “unfair and inaccurate’. : BCTV got itself into $25,000 worth of hot water in : 1972 when it broadcast an interview with a proatitute : who claimed she had paid off unnamed members of : the city drug and morality squads. She later admitted : her charges were false. The judge awarded damages to two drug squad detectives and rapped the television station for ‘‘an = outrageous and irresponsible’: broadcast that had not : verified the facts. = The Vancouver Sun's lawyer, Peter Butler, has this + warning: “Many of these small publishing companies - do not have libel insurance and still print the most outrageous, scurrilous stuff from other two-hit { Organizations. They're still liable.” Butler says an apology and a retraction may reduce - the damages but it will not necessarily get the = Newspaper or printing company off the hook. » A good example of this is the Bennett case. One of : the reasons the judge gave for assessing The Van- z couver Sun $8,000 to each of the Bennett brothers was ‘; that its retraction had not been full or fair and that its apology was not as prominent as the original allegations, ‘ mate ete said, the jfimple concept of fal play = cumbent on the pu er toa ze in i headlines if he has libelled in headlines" “6 ‘| Refusal to apologize even where a clear case of libel 7 has been pa dlished may result ina heavier penalty, 5 otliner U and former mayor Ed . McKitka discovered in rd » : They were each assessed $7,500 damage after ; having falsely said on severat occasions that hanky- : Panky was going on in some municipal meetings = behind cl doors. > Asuit against CJOR was dr when it broadcast > @ Full apology but Murphy and McKitka refused to : apologize. The judge said their refusal to apologize, : even when they knew what had been broadcast was - false, constituted malice..He awarded especially i large, or exemplary, damages. ; _ Far more information please contact the Vancouver ” People’s Law School for ita booklet, Libel & Slander, : by writing 2110-C West 12th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. or telephone 734-1126. tried by bree eas + GOI aennvoe TquRreny. . f ce CARRE, RST Uw “It was bound to happen — inflation’s finally hit inflation!” _ They have been the route TORONTO (CP) — Two women who both have been through separation and divorce have formed a service which may be a lifesaver to victims of growing numbers of broken marriages. Kate McNeil and Judith Gabor are working under the auspices of the Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto, They have their own entity there and their own board of ad- visers, including lawyers, social workers; teachers, ministers and psychologists. “We will have volunteers knowledgeable in the field accountable to professions," says Ms, McNeil. ‘Our chief objective is to deal with the initial crisis stage of separation, when there are ATIKOKAN, Ont. (CP) — Laura van Arragon and her husband Jack are teaching their seven children at home with results that few schools in the public system can. match. The van Arragon's daughter Judy, 9, reads at university level, according to standardized reading comprehension tests given by her father, a highschool English teacher in this mining town 200 kilometres west of Thunder Bay. For van Arragon and his wife, a former elementary- school principal, teaching their children is a serious task. He says that children's brains absorb a great deal and “the more you stimulate the brain the better it works." “But it must take place at an early age. We start teaching our kids at birth.” Dolls OTTAWA (CP) Evidence supporting a popular notion that earth may have been visited by men from ouler space 3,000 or more years ago has been put on display in the National Museum of Man. It is in the form of several pottery dolls found in Japan and depicting men in elabo- rately-decorated costumes thal look vaguely like space suits. The men seem to wear bugeyed goggles with slits, an unusual way of depicting the human eye in art so ancient. Clay figurines tke them prompted Erich von Daniken to speculate on ex- traterrestrial visitors in his J book Chariots of the Gods, though ihe suggestion has not been accepted by arch- ecologists generally. 80 many problems and often seemingly no one to turn to.” As Ms. Gabor explains, separation and divorce have become so widespread that there are dozens of areas of concern. She says that every reputable professional somehow involved in the divorce situation has lauded the idea, Ms. Gabor was a junior high school teacher who had married very young and left her job to raise a family. “My children were 2 and 3 years of age, and I was busy at home and doing volunteer work,’’ she says. “The separation came very suddenly and I was at a total logs.*? She says that as a teacher she “knew the importance of alerting the teacher at the nursery school my three- year-old was attending.” “That's terribly im- portant, you know, when this happens. The child may suddenly withdraw or become difficult and the teacher doesn't know why.” Her _ pediatrician suggested she call a social agency for an appointment. “A young male answered, and | felt what I needed was a mature woman,”’ she a ed Ms. Gabor found that the counsellor was happily married. "I needed un- derstanding from someone who really knew what one goes through.” STAY AT HOME | School system was rejected Mrs. van Arragon begirs by stimulating the sight, sound and touch senses of her newborn, When a child is about six. months old, she starts associating words with actions. “If Lsneeze, I'll say sneeze to the baby," she says. At least two of the van Arragon, children had damaged brains, the result of a shortage of oxygen at: birth, says their father. “No one will ever know which of the kids was damaged,” he says. “It takes three years of complete devotion to make these kids well. Clinically they mow are completely sound,’’ . He says that when the brain is damaged, routes to it are cut off and new ones must he established by constant and repeated slimulation Eventually these routes are opened and the child is able to function normally. The van Arragons concen- trated on developing their children’s reading at an early age because “reading is so basic,” he says. “TE they can read, they can do 80 many other things on their own," says Mrs. van Arragon. “It makes the deaching of any other subject easier.” Not only do the children ‘ read well, they quickly.’ Judy reads at about 1,000 words a minute. “If we're both reading the same page, she'll finish before I'm half through,” says her mother. “Kids are taught to read so slowly in school," she says, “It’s no wonder they're - bored." read EARLY VISIT support the theory The museum display in- cludes artifacts showing that human habitation of Japan existed 50,000 years ago, including a stone doll which may be 20,000 years old. The exhibit goes on a fivecity U.S. tour next year. The doll, 10 centimetres tall, has a knob for a head on a cylindical body, and looks phallic though ineised eyes can be seen under harsh light. It may have been used 88 8 puppet for a plaything, or in some ceremony, Image and Life includes other rare stone, gold and base metal objects never before permitted outalde apanese museums, The show was arranged by the University of British religious Columbia museum of an- thropology and the University of Michigan centre for Japanese studies, There are brass swords and temple bella which are counted by Japanese authorities as important cultural properties, next to Japanese national treasures whichare never let out of Ja- pan. Relays .of Japanese curators are travelling with the exhibit on its two-year r, Prince Norihito Mikasa, 24, a nephew of Emperor Hirohito now studying English «at Queen's University, Kingston, Ont., was invited to open the show Tuesday. His father is a noted authority on Japanese archeology, and while Prince Norihito’s interest is mainly in Jaw, and skiing, he said he had lived with ar- So she began to work on the ides of a volunteer service. Meanwhile Ms. MeNeij,. who was born reer Ont, had gone te California and married there. “At the time of the separation my kids were 5, 7 and 12,” she says. “I went through incredible years of legal entanglements over custody, other problems." Eventually with the idea of the crisis service, she returned to Toronto where ‘her path croaked that of MBI" Gabor, ~ “We related im- mediately,” says Ms. Mc: Neil. ‘Judy was getting discouraged and I came along to aupport her. “Now we're full steam ahead.” By Ontario law anyone can teach his own offspring. gives a paren he neht oe ives a parent this right ag long as the children are receiving satisfactory in- struction at home. Larry Fontana, director of the Atikokan board of educa- tion, says that Mr. and Mrs. van Arragon are “extremely knowledgable” and he has the “utmost confidence in . them.” Van Arragon says that public education keeps children off the streets and perhaps teaches them some ‘social skills but “the system doesn’t do much to en- courage excellence." ~ He says that schools can _ make only a marginal differ- ence, “It's families that make the difference between dropping out and doing well.” cheological interest all his e. Among the pottery objects on display—domestic bowls, burial and storage urns, and ceremonial figurines, are some of the oldest pottery known in the world, leading experta to believe now that the process of firing clay was known in the Far East long before it reached the Middle East where it was previously thought to have begun. The objects thought to be at least 30,000 and perhaps 50,000 years old are pointed stone cutting tools which seem toresembie flint arrow tips found in many ex- cavations of North American Indian settlements. It is thought that early man migrated from Asia to both North America and Australasia. OTTAWA OFFBEAT BY RICHARD JACKSON OTTAWA - There's no place like government — where the always-generous taxpayer can be counted on tocover the cost —- one thing leads to another. Like Prime Minister Trudeau’s proposal to en- trench the First Ministers Conferences —- now held at least twice a year — into his new constitution. Sounds simple encugh — just a couple of paragraphs setting it out in government gobbie-de-gook, if and when the new constitution is written, that the prime minister and the provincial premiers shall meet on urgent matters of national importance. Aha, but this is govern- ment, and nothing is ever simple. Put it in writing that the firat ministers shall confer, and what do you then have to have? ; A secretariat to look after administrative details of the conference, to work on policy development, and carry. on research inte continuing federal-provinclal relations. And what have you got? A whole new, small but quaranteed-to-grow bureaucracy, another em- pire with ite executive and . Support staff, budget, and a whole new layer of policy level government jobs, There's already a special new department of federal- provincial affairs, with Marc Lalonde as its ‘minister. No matter. And in each of the provinces there ie an office, or, more accurately, a bureau to administer its own interest and involvement in federal-provinclal relations. So what? Formalizing the First Ministers Conferences by entrenchment in the con- stitution obviously calls for jits own. bureaucracy. Needless duplication? Perhaps. But this is government, and empire-bullding, bureaucratic job-creation, and costly parallelism is‘ a built-in part of the process. Call Margaret Trudeau what you will, and she’s been called various things by a variely of people, but few of them more imaginatively colorful than by the London Daily Express. Maggie doesn't make it much in the papers here at home these days, and when she does, she’s something of a space-filling item on the inside pages. But ‘over ‘ome where they must know something we on this side of the pond don't, she's still news, warranting fancy type and photographic treatment on the “splash” pages. All but ignored at home -- notalways making itinto the pers with a photo even when she drops in at 24 Sussex Drive to see the children — she’s still a Big Item in the Hickey column ai the Daily Express. - The Hickey column is big enough in London to rate a banner in running lights, in competition with Bovrii, Coke and Wrigley's, in the neon glitter of Piccadilly Circus, So Hickey ‘‘splashes" Maggie on his page with a glamor photo, like some movie queen, and this new development in her still unfolding saga as a Career Woman: , “Margaret Trudeau, once First Lady of Canada then Rolling Stone-chaser, then Studio 54-hopper, can quickly transform herself back into a beautiful, elegant woman of the world. “This week in Paris, she turned up at a star-spangled party exhibiting all the chic and gloss demanded of her in her new role as a film star. “She has been working on a film ‘L’Ange Cardien,"’ a romantic story directed by the hot director Jacques Fournier. “It ip the most successful Stage of her career so far. “As First Lady = she stumbled; as a rock groupie she was hopeless; as a photographer, she was a cipher. “But the French have taken to her in her new star role with open arms, She is the rage of Paris, the darling of the chic salons.” So there. TORONTO (CP) — It’s only a very few stepe from a front row bench in the Ontario legislature to the back rows but the trip in that direction is not a happy one as a rule, And today there are five Progressive Con- servatives who once held cabinet portfolios and now are back there with the common folk: . Nobody around Queen's Park can remember a ume when there were that many former ministers sitting in the back bencha. Margaret Scrivener, Toronto St. David's, James Taylor, Prince Edward-Lennox, MacBeth, Toronto Humber, Sidney Han- Gane pe err, Bur' South, were all in the cabinet but for one reason or another lost their jobs. Taylor refuses to cry about his move, though he admitted in a recent interview that the clout of. a backbencher is pretty minimal, “Its more moped (or were pasted step (or were pus down), he continues to be active. He doesn't mind talking about his cabinet days, especially the last ones spent in the energy portfolic. He was ap- pointed to the post in February, 1977, and was removed in January, 1978. For mist of that time he was the particular target of Opposition Leader Stuart Smith. Taylor's dealings with Ontario Hydro were often difficult, he recalls, He remembers a conversation with the chairman of Hydro, who was disagreeing with him and finally said he would call the ptemier because it was premier who appoints the chairman, not the minister. He admitted having some concern about the internal operation of Hydro and suggested there be a regular audit done as is done In New “Backbench ministers John - York State, It never happened. He sald he tendered his resignation because he really didn't think the ministry of energy was ting as a ministry that made policy or had the necessary clout to accomplish things. Taylor feels it's too bad al] backbenchers can't have experience in the cabinet so they could learn the lines of commu- nicatlon and how reach the right people. But he is glad to be off the treadmill. “It's good not to have people programming you, Ww himself too seriously. ‘I didn't have time to laugh ata lot of things,” he sald. Ministers often take criticism for decisions involving their ministry that they did not make, he Saye. They are caughtina system A lawyer, Taylor is an outspoken person. He said his habit of speaking frankly and truthfully often caught people thinking he was up to something. He hasn't decided whether he'll run next time around, ‘A lot of people worked hard to help me get elected and I'm not going to let them down if I can help it.” Handieman, who shifted to the back bench from consumer = and commercial relations, also has remained active and outspoken on things he feels strongly about. He recently was asked by some of his Ottawa’ friends to seek the job as chairman Ottawa- Carleton Region. After thinking it over he decided, back bench or not, he'd stay at Queen's Park. MacBeth says he's happy to be where he is. “It's the firat time in I've had some free time,” he said. ‘I'll tell you it’s moze frustrating in cabinet than out of it.’’