"Health authorities will ban public smoking across Canada's Eastern Arctic in an effort to curb high rates of illness and smoking among Inuit", reports the Globe and Mail in its article of Friday, August 2, 1996.

"Dr. Bargen (the districts' chief medical officer) said the tobacco problem in the region has reached epidemic proportions [...] the house is burning down", Dr. Bargen is quoted as saying. The article continues by reporting that smoking is to be blamed for 40% of the health care costs, and for a "number of maladies including ear infections and colds among children. [...] Full compliance, expected by Jan 1, 1997, will mean [... that] the ban will extend to all hotels, bars, restaurants, stores and bingo halls, as well as other buildings."

There you have it, guys! The great scapegoat is invoked again! Tobacco is responsible for the whole ball of wax in the North.

As a Canadian, this makes my blood boil with contempt and disgust. Contempt at the lies, disgust at the stupidity.

How do Canadian authorities think to enforce their oppressive measures on the aboriginal people? What gives them the right to interfere with the rights of these people who have chosen to smoke? How do we expect people to go out to smoke at temperatures of -50C? Where is accommodation?

What twisted sense of right and wrong induces the "health" authorities to impose an all-out smoking ban even when the majority of the population wishes to smoke? The truth is that fascist ideology (this time packaged as health crusade) does not include the wishes of people, regardless of majority or minority. It only knows the force of its "law".

According to the Globe and Mail article, this ban apparently went forth without any legislation having been passed by the Northwest Territories legislature. The way the Canadian government has kept the native population is already disgusting enough without this insult to injury.

Please, health authorities, do not insult the intelligence of the Inuits with such low-budget lies! You know damn well why the rate of mortality and infections is high among these people. Leave alone their civil liberties, and lobby Ottawa to do something to help take the aboriginals out of the third world conditions in which they are so often forced to live!

Lack of work, unsanitary conditions (which have nothing to do with smoking, and are much more liable to induce ear infections, for example), alcoholism, drug abuse, glue-sniffing, low self-esteem, second- rate citizenship, these are the REAL reasons for the high rate of disease and mortality among the native population.

Isn't it a coincidence that in the same day the Vancouver Sun reports: "Indians take health concern to the UN"?(Vancouver Sun, Friday, August 2, 1996) Among the issues the Indians complain about, there is no mention of smoking, but there is mention of:

• Diabetes is 4.5 times more likely than in the general population
• Tuberculosis, nine times more likely than in the general population
• Suicides occur 2.5 times more often than among the general population
• Accidents account for 30% of deaths, compared with 7.5% for the general population

"The report presented by [Chief Jonathan] Bull [of the Louis Bull Indian band in Hobbema, Alberta] said most Indians in Canada live in poverty and must endure poor housing and overcrowded surroundings. These factors contribute to injuries, respiratory problems, the spread of infections, and mental and emotional duress." [Vancouver Sun, Aug. 2, 1996]

If there is a need for sanitizing the North, why don't we begin with Ottawa, and the Health Authorities that are providing a "smoking" screen to the real issues?

FORCES Canada wishes the Arctic population to know that it will support any resistance to this attempt to limit their already liberties and dignity. The scientific evidence we have gathered demonstrating the irrelevance of second-hand smoking is at the disposal of the residents of Canada's Eastern Arctic.

We encourage them to resist with any necessary means this abuse, and to keep up the proud tradition of rejecting any imposition from the "invaders". If there is a consolation, may it be that all trends of oppression and stupidity eventually fade away, and sanity will eventually return.

We conclude with a comment reported in the same Globe and Mail article: " ' My first reaction when I read this was: is it a hoax?' said Jonathan Cross, a hotel executive with the Frobisher Inn in Iqaluit. 'This is the kind of thing I would have expected on April 1, not Aug. 1' ".

Gian Turci