The Brandon Sun from Brandon, Manitoba, Canada • Page 4

Son No Man is nn Island, entire of itself- Every Man is a piece of the continent, of tltt main Never. in know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for liter- Donne BRANDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21, 1972 Weeding them out It may have been just an isolated case--the case in which Immigration Minister Bryce Mackasey was made to look the iool by relaying incorrect information which had been handed to him by bureaucrats in his own department. But by the sound of things, Mr. Mackasey wasn't about to play the forgiving father. In striking out against the "reactionaries" in his department and in serving notice that they will be weeded out, he clearly indicated that he felt as if he had been had.

You can't blame him for that. He is supposed to he the man in charge. Yet officials whose responsibility is to carry out government policy have, he says, been overstepping the mark. They have been lending their own interpretations to the law. In essence, it's a bit of the same old power struggle.

The fine line that separates the policy-making people from those whose job is to carry it out is a shifty one. There is always a danger that appointed officials will view all policy decisions as administrative problems. Alternatively, as every civil servant knows, there is the danger that politicians will interpret every organizational detail as a matter for their personal, political ham- hands. Mr. Mackasey, then, has apparently uncovered a bunch whose intention is to regard the minister as a mouthpiece, or puppet thai, moves at their pleasure.

The question is not, of course, whether Mr. Mackasey should attempt to assert his Obviously he should. That's what he's paid to do. Rather the question involves determining just how much power the civil service as a whole, has usurped and how little it has left our elected representatives. Former Communications Minister Eric Kierans, for one, says the bureaucrats are exerting a great-and stultifying--influence on policy making.

He claims, for example, that the government's takeover bill was the outcome of meetings between bureaucrats and businessmen. The common folk (who are never invited to meet the bureaucrats) and the politicians who are sensitive enough to know how they feel, were powerless. Is Mr. Kierans correct? Quite possibly he is. And if it is true that the bureaucratic tail continues to wag the political dog, then all the talk of beefing up the prime minister's office staff to ensure that the politicians and not the civil servants remain in control--as they're supposed to do--has been just that: talk.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION Peter Desbarats in the north The exploitation of the Arctic is here Peter Dctbarati, 1 1 editor Hit Toronto Stir, ii miking trip through tne Yukon ond Northwest to Investigate northern ttoYtloofiunt in the The big guns The next big confrontation between American and Soviet forces, it seems, will take place not in the air, not around the bargaining table and not at sea. It will be at a chess table in Iceland. That's where world chess champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union and the irascible American challenger Bobby Fischer are scheduled to do battle next month. Will it be a good match? That, of course, depends to a certain extent on how much stock you place in chess. But not entirely.

You can also follow the politics of the thing. For as usual the simple contest between two very good competitors is beginning to take on political overtones. The clear implication being--if you keep your mind open to such nonsense--that this, like the Olympics, is an indication of which system is better: communism or democracy. There is no reason why it should be seen in such terms. But as long as the cold goes on, and as long as the bitterness remains, it is inevitable that there will be distorted perceptions to drum individual contests of skill into international proportions.

tttt JBrandon Sun An Independent Newspaper ScrvtnR Westrrn Manitoba Stncc 1M2 exctpt Sunday by The Sun Company. Limited. SO) Roisei Srindon. Manitoba. Member of The Canadian Press, Audit Bureau of Circulation.

The Canadian Daily Newspaper Publishers Association. American Newspaper publishers Association. Inland Press Association, and International Press Institute. Second Clasp Mail Registration Number 0308 LEWIS D. WH1TEHEAD Editor and Publisher CHARLES W.

GORDON Managing Editor GARTH STOUFFER A.isnciate Editor TMf two firrt in a of The first oil discovery in the Canadian Arctic Islands was made here. The date was Feb. 24, 1972, and the exact place was 3,425 feet below the surface of this bleak valley about 100 miles from the pole. It is already ancient history-although the same oil rig is still operating over the same spot. its bit now churning through the sediment of ancient oceans more than 10,000 feet underground.

An even older story can be seen 250 miles to the west, on King i i a Island. Journalists were flown there this week to watch Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Jean Chretien open a valve and ignite a roaring demonstration flare that consumed, in 10 minutes, enough gas to heat your home for 10 years. This story goes back to Oct. 25. 1970, when King Christian N-06 blew wild, caught fire and burned out of control for three months, a beacon that could be seen for 150 miles in the Arctic night.

Several thousand miles north of Toronto and Vancouver, almost equidistant from both, this is the operating time perspective. In the south, development of Arctic oil and gas. despite everything that has been said and written about it, still seems to be a visionary prospect. In the Arctic, it shapes the present. At a conference on the Arctic in Ottawa several weeks ago, 1 listened to a graduate student berate older scientists for passively accepting the idea of northern oil and gas pipelines.

The question is not how the pipelines can be constructed safely, she said, but whether the pipelines should be built at all. Canadians who still believe that this is the issue are living in a dream world--or the past. They are somewhere in the early when northern development" was toy painted in primary colors and tossed about by politicians at election time. That this dream persists in the '70s is partly the responsibility of the media. They have continued to describe the north in fantastic terms--a land of unbelievable resources and incredible wealth and prospects that are always fabulous: and this has helped to obscure the Fact that Canadian exploitation of the Arctic is now an accomplished fact.

A great deal of the fantastic future is already history. The key decision was made in the late '60s when the Cana- dian government decided not only to encourage the search for oil and gas in the high Arctic but to participate in it as a 45-per-cent shareholder in one of the most active companies, Panarctic Oil Ltd. of Calgary. Since then, more than $400 million has been spent on oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Enough oil and gas has been found to justify preparatory work on pipelines.

is too weak a term. The discoveries have made it imperative for the federal government to solicit bids this year for a Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, and to commit $500,000,000 for an initial survey this summer of gas pipeline routes along both coasts of Hudson Bay. The inevitability of this development is what one begins to appreciate after only a few days in the Arctic. From this vantage point, Canadians in Hie south are.the ones who appear to be living in a world of visions where all options are open and all things are possible. The real world is up here, at the "isolated" drilling sites where the roughnecks commute every 20 days to their homes in Alberta.

It is obvious here that millions are being spent, that oil and gas are being found, and that it is going to move south by one means or another. 11 is obvious that the oil and gas industry in the Arctic is here to stay. In fact, its future seems more assured than the future of the native people who also seem to realize, some hopefully, some passively, a few angrily, that the north is already dancing to the rhythm of the American drum. The air of unreality that persists in the south has also been encouraged by many public figures on both sides of the issue. Even this week, in informal conversations with a small group of journalists accompanying him ou a tour of the Arctic Islands.

Northern Development Minister Chretien sought to preserve the illusion of manoeuvra- bility. He argued that it is only sensible for Canada to explore the extent of its northern oil and gas reserves at this stage and that the reserves are determined more exactly, the government will be in a position to decide on their exploitation. But it became more and more evident, as we toured the sites, that the decision to explore implied a decision to exploit. Something more than the spirit of scientific inquiry has produced the millions of dollars that are being sunk into these wells. When marketable reserves are discovered, this money is going to be called back.

If Panarctic can cam gross revenues of $250 million a year as predicted, splitting the profits with the government, no administration in Ottawa is likely to seal the wells and sit back to ponder their development. In fact, the government of Canada already has committed this country to this development, and every policy decision deepens that commitment. Only a few weeks ago, in Edmonton, I heard Prime Minister Trudeau commit the government to spending 19,100,000 this year on the continent's first road to the Arctic coast--the Mackenzie Highway. This week, I choked on the dust of that new highway as the bulldozers began In push it south from Inuvik. II.

is clear that the big decision already has been made. The imperatives of the continental energy game have been accepted. Lawsuits, injunctions and other tactics employed by' Canadians in the south and north who fundamentally disagree with this decision might be able to alter the pace of this development but it is loo to dream of stopping it. The important decisions that have yet to be made about the people and environment of the Arctic will be made in the context of the development that is now under way. Canadians who still think that llie.se bleak isiands are the world of the future, are cultivating a dangerous illusion.

by Max Lerner The testing of George McGovern NEW YORK--Edward Kennedy and Edmund Muskie had their books published on the same day. Kennedy's was a book on his health-care plan, "In Critical Condition;" Muskie's, a book of recollections and reflections called "Journeys." McGovern, Humphrey and Wallace didn't have any books that day. I took the occasion to talk to both the author-politicians in a leisurely morning interview with Muskie in his New York hotel suite, and early that evening in softie hurried conversation with Kennedy as he moved through the crowded room at a somewhat frenetic cocktail party his publishers laid on for him. The contrast was striking. The Muskie book is thoughtful, genial, quiet, low key.

like the man himself. It expresses a decent, and able man who would make's far better president than he did a campaigner in the abrasive primaries, clearly a man who could hold the centre together in the difficult American society. But I reflected, as I read his that there is one journey he is now very unlikely to make--the journey to the White House. He turned out to be the road not taken by the Democrats, and it may make all the difference. His decision not to release his dele- gales was taken, one supposes, on the long- chance possibility that he might get another shot at it in the convention, but.

also to put McGovern to the test in the coming weeks, instead of ending the contest then and there. Kennedy is a different figure--quicker, more vibrant, with a surer feel for what people respond to. He survived a scarring ordeal in the past two years and his testing continues. If he ever gets to be president, it will be a man tempered in the fiery furnace who comes to the White House. What arc his chances? They are almost as slight as Muskie's now, since McGovern has moved so fast, but four or eight years from now I should count them very good.

If McGovern should be elected, Kennedy would have to wait until 1980 for his chance, but he would still be a youngish man. If, as seems more likely, McGovern should be defeated, and Nixon re-elected, the 1976 campaign might well be between Connally and Kennedy. If he had made a bid this year, instead of deferring to Muskie and then to McGovern, he might well have had the nomination. But a primaries campaign might have been a scabrous experience. Besides, he may have reflected that any Democrat would have a hard time against.

Nixon this time around. I take very seriously, however, his most recent statement, that he "would not exclude the possibility" of laking the vice-presidential spot if McGovern offers it. On balance, it makes sense for him, as it. would for McGovern. ton.

Kennedy wouldn't be risking too much, even if the ticket is defeated. Running in second place would help many people to get over the Chappaquiddick memory, and accustom them again to think of Kennedy in national office. It. would thus be a step toward 1976, or--if the ticket wins--toward the next time. Finally, if the highly improbable should happen, and if McGovern found it hard to get his last 200 delegates quickly, the fact that Kennedy didn't rule out the possibility of the vice-presidency would mean equally that he doesn't rule out Ihe possibility of the presidency.

From McGovern's corner, there are obvious objections to the offer of second place to Kennedy. The mosl obvious is that Kennedy might, however unwillingly, put McGovern in his shadow. Few of us, the other evening, could have any doubts of Kennedy's power of attraction. Throw away all the overworked and overused terms--charisma, mystique, all the rest. But the fact remains that Ihe political magic is still there.

Both his brothers had it, and by their deaths they passed it, on to him. But he has known, after his own disaster, how to rescue and consolidate it. McGovern's problem is that, wherever Kennedy found himself, he would become the centre of the stage. But his problem is equally that Kennedy on the ticket might mean a chance to turn probable defeat into an even chance at victory over Nixon. One added speculative thought for Ihe tribe of convention speculators.

If the anli-McGov- ern forces should, by some miracle, succeed in stopping him, the effort to nominate Humphrey or Muskie in his place would turn the convention scene into a raging replica of 19(58. The one exception would be the nomination of Kennedy. Thus, the next few weeks will spell the testing of George McGovern. in decisions that may make or break his own future and that of the state tickets. HOMEWORK.