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WHJTBY FREE PRESS. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1986 PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson 4isen w A W*$y ~sw, .omu~s~*.t> fr.m Oms otOsusdWa omW.adlug nom prmmsliilbs TEE Bus~ar PETER ~TIU1%4ATq OTTAWA - A couple of years ago, in a burst of partiotism, my wife and I bought a Canadian built car that seemed to have everything we'd always been looking for. It was a reasonable price and it was compact and lively. It handled more like a car than a Chris Craft and with a five-speed imanual shift it was, and continues to be, very easy on gasoline. In the two years we've had the car, we have not had any major mechanical problems, and if it weren't for the fact that winter is an inescapable feature of life in this country, we'd probably be quite happy with it. But winter does come, at least once a year, and the car is absolutely treacherous on icy surfaces. The first month we had it, in January two years ago, we found ourselves westbound on the 401, travelling between Montreal and Toronto. There was a lot of ice on the road and the car was so unstable, even at 60 kilometres an hour, that we were scared into spending the night at Ganonoque. The sensation had been so sickening that I thought there was a major suspension problem. When I finally got the car into the dealer, however, I was told it was the im- ported, all-weather radials that came with the car as a factory option. The head mechanic admitted that they'd had the same problem with similar tires on other models, and·that it had developed in a previous model year. I was furlous about the fact thatl'd been sold a set of these tires for driving in a Canadian winter long after the car maker knew they spelled trouble, but I let it go. When it's icy, and we have highway driving to do, we leave the car at home and take my old pickup truck instead. But the car has another defect which makes it useless in cold weather even around town. The slide windows, front and rear, fog up and frost over as soon as the temperature gets much lower than zero degress Celsius. If you turn the heater all the way up, put the fan on high, and adjust the control panel vents to deflect air directly at the side windows, it helps, but to stand the oven-like at- mosphere you'd pretty well have to get into a bathing suit. Am I being unreasonable? I bought the car because it was made in Canada. I wanted to do my small bit for the Canadian economy and Canadian auto workers. The fact that the car is treacherous on ice and that you can't see out of it in cold weather is the fault of a company which designs cars for Florida and builds and sells them in Canada, with only minor modifications for our winters. Driving a car like that is an awful price to pay for patriotism, and 1, for one, am through paying it. OTTAWA - I overheard part of a newsroom conversation the other day which went like this: "What happened to the Canadians who were living in Japan during the war? Were there any? Were they arrested?" It wasn't in our newsroom, I'm glad to say, because the fragmant of conversation I have just quoted illustrates how the old apples and oranges argument about the inter-- nment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War continues to discourage reason 40 years later. Everytime the issue is raised, someone reminds me of what befell the Hong Kong regiment, or the atrocities that the Imperial Japanese forces committed against innocent civilians. They remind me of the vulnerability of the West Coast of this continent after Pearl Harbour; about the inherent dangers of having an enemy within. These are facts to remember, of course, but they have little to do with the internment of Japanese Canadians and the seizure of their property. Freed of wartime fears and emotions which gripped decision-makers at the time, the Canadian government has come to realize that the internment was wrong, for at least two reasons. In the first place, the wartime government thought of the internees as Japanese. In fact they were Canadians, most of them citizens, no more Japanese, when you discount race, than the English-Canadians of that time were English. And in the second place, the Japanese Canadians who were treated as potential spies had never been, and never became threats to this country's security. That is simple historical fact. So to assign them the charac- teristics of the Japanese national who fought against us, and to assign guilt to the Japanese Canadians for the atrocities Tokyo ordered is ridiculous. Recognizing the fact, the Mulroney Tories promised to make formal amends. Now, after considerable bickering, the government wants to settle it quickly, for some reason I can't fathom, unless it has to do with the size of the compen- sation package. I suspect the Tories are thinking in terns of something less than 10 million dollars, as a symbolic payment to the whole community. But the National Association of Japanese Canadians has commissioned a study by Price Waterhouse to assess the community's actual losses of more than 40 years ago in terms of 1986. There is little doubt that their losses, when you consider inflation and interest, will eventually prove out in the hundreds of millions. The Mulroney gover- nment's anxiety to settle quickly can only have to do with the fact that what they're proposing will look pretty niggardly when Price Waterhouse reports in ApriL Knell returns next week WITH OUR FEET UP You've seen the scene on television countless times: the carefree person, happy as a bowl of pop- corn, answers the door. And there, ten feet tall and with doom on his face, stands a police officer. Right away, you know it is not good news. Or maybe it's the telephone. And the voice on the other end could be a mortician. "Hello. This is the police department calling. Do you have a child named..." Every parent's heart freezes at the thought. "There has been a slight problem. I wonder if you could come down to the police station?" The headlines of newspapers are filled with grimn details of such encounters. For the sake of this discussion, let us assume the call from the police department falls short of grist for the news colum- ns. Everyone's childhood holds several such episodes. For me, we once "borrowed" the lamp fixtures from inside the village turnip waxing station. We hid them under the loading dock. perhaps to return one day and ... who knows. We were seven at the time. There were three of us in- volved. We were never caught, although knowing that the police were called turned a boy's heart into dry ice for a week. Each reader could supply her/his own similar tale. For those who cannot, I loan the following for the occasion: A new school is being built. Construction proceeds on schedule. The brickwork completed, the contrac- tors turn to flooring. Several neighborhood boys, twelve, thirteen years of age, visit the new school. They climb over a trestle barrier, and tiptoe through the lumber and gravel. They do not anticipate the secu'ity guard. Suddenly someone is shouting at them. They run. Right across a freshly poured terrazzo floor. Over the sand and trestles, and into the park. Over the first hif, they stop to talk to friends. What a scare! They don't realize that the security guard has not bothered to chase them at ail. Instead, he telephoned the police. So as the boys talk to their friends, what bounces over the knoll but a yellow police car, lights bob- bing, radio crackling. Durham Regional Police win again. The officer takes the names of the boys, their ad- dresses, phone numbers and then releases them - with the knowledge that the youth bureau will follow up. This leaves the boys with the problem of telling parents. Most do. The one who does not regrets the oversight the next day when, true to their word, the youth bureau phones. "Hello. This is the police department calling. Do you have a child named..." A parent's heart freezes for a moment. "There has been a slight problem. I wonder if you could come down the police station?" For each of the four boys, there followed a separate appointment at police headquarters - with parents. Each spends five minutes alone in an interview room, examining the graffiti, while the parents are given the police view of the situation. The boy is then given a firm, friendly lecture, followed by a tour of the building - including the holding cells and the padded cell for drunks and druggies. - The cost to the police department? Four to six hours, plus paperwork. The effect? Four young kids who were caught in an innocent caper, and who learned from the experience. No stern, kick-your-butt. it's a cold world out there, yuh gotta learn the hard way stuff. Gentle but firm advice to kids. A helping hand to parents when they can use it. Wesneed a police department to respond as police' did when i was a kid, or as the Durham Regional Police did five years ago in the case I have just related. The police need the latitude to make judgment calls. To follow, sometimes. instincts rather than SEE PG, 10 FU>U