Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 27, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba December published and printed six Days a theek at 300 Carlton win Rippee ft3c 3g1 by Gan Adlhart newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 class Tai Al registration number 0286 Winnipeg free press Freedom of Equality of civil flights Liberty of fee Ligieri finished by Christmas Donald Nicol publisher John 5apoe Fedl Tolar Page editor Murfay Burt managing editor forum the most positive thing that can be said about the Manitoba Legislatures debate 6ft the speech from this session is that it was All finished before and that the decks Are cleared for an Early Start of More serious legislature the of had nothing to do with the and resulted Only from the governments Wise Deci Sion to get this years session of the legislature under Way Early in an Effort to end sometime before it is possible that the Early Start was planned before the govern ment took its latest popularity and was still actively thinking about an election in Premier Sterling Lyon May hew to and not to Oil matters of constitutional but he is too Good a politician to Fly itt the face of the figures on his governments debates on the governments opening statement of any legislative session Are ritualistic and the traditional wording of the speech from the throne is and the wide ranging discussions provided by the rules governing debate Are designed More to blow off initial steam than to take the measure of either government or there was a recognition by the government of its present difficult circumstances in the careful avoidance of too much mention of present the speech spoke mostly of the and since neither government nor opposition have yet qualified As the debate was entirely predict it was a time when opposition members were obviously Happy to be in and when government spokesmen just As obviously wished that they were in opposition As in if Many of the contributions of provincial Cabinet members to the debate Are taken out of the debate in which they were they make excellent opposition Many were almost As opposition attacks of a few years ago when the speech makers were sitting on opposite sides of the the entire debate gave the impression that neither Side was quite Happy about the outcome of the 1977 the opposition attacks were partly sour grapes because they had and although not to the degree suspected by government an excess of the govern ment contributions to the debate gave the impression that while the conservatives were Happy enough to have won in they would not be upset until the next vote were they were Able to somehow return to opposition status and attack the administration they had the debate rarely touched the real and pressing problems of it dealt extensively with Manitoba problems in but largely ignored the fact that the largest single Factor in the 1977 election progressive intrusion by government in the Day today affairs of its citizens had been halted in its tracks by the new government and replaced with the opposite the Handoff posture that has characterised the Lyon the opposition to take advantage of Mani Tobas new except to offer the Type of government control solutions that got it booted out itt if the opposition lacked credibility in its the government position of continually harking Back to old and attacking opposition Leader Howard was not the Best tactical use of debate the debate on the speech from the throne dealt adequately with the Manitoban have every right to expect that now the members have got past problems off their the debate when the session reopens will be devoted to problems of the looking for clean water if Winnipeg keeps growing at even its present very slow water Supply engineers the City will have to build itself a second Aqueduct some time around the year if Shoal Lake is As clean then As it is today and if regulatory authorities will allow the City to draw More water from the the new Aqueduct will Cost around million in 1979 but Shoal Lake is attractive resort land and nearby cottage development May Start polluting the Ontario Hydro and Minnesota banners rely on a Supply of water from the Lake of the Woods and might oppose allowing the City to Drain More from Shoal if the City has to draw its additional water from Natalie Lake further Down the Winni Peg River the water will not be As clean because treatment and pumping facilities will be the Price will be the City is living cheaply now off the Heady excesses of when the mayor and Council decided to build the present water Supply was a hot Issue then since the water drawn from Wells and from the Rivers was impure and since Large parts of the City lacked sufficient water for firefight responding to the urgency of the need and anticipating rapid growth in they decided to go All the Way to Shoal Lake to get the Best possible water and to build an Aqueduct big enough to Supply the level of population that the City is Only now when they decided to build the Price was to be by its completion in the Price had risen to it was the White elephant of its comparable to a Power dam built before it was needed or an Airport built too big for its the City fathers had tied up Public funds in water Supply capacity that would not be needed until they built so Well 61 years the Aqueduct is still virtually As Good As the experts say it will still be in excellent condition at the end of the lacking the sense of urgency and the expectation of booming today engineers Are inclined to be More the current thinking is about the turn of the the City should build itself a second Aqueduct of sufficient size and Quality to meet the needs for the following 30 to build for a Shorter they would oblige the City to build a third Aqueduct before it has finished paying for the to build for a longer period would Force the taxpayers to pay interest on borrowed Money for Aqueduct capacity they will not immediately the first Aqueduct will have served for 80 the second is planned for Winnipeg has lowered its in the the City can put off the evil Day when that second Aqueduct will be it can expand the Deacon the artificial Lake just East of the to permit More storage of water during off Peak it can replace old cast Iron pipes that Are forever breaking and it can seek provincial and Federal help to prevent cottage development that would pollute Shoal it can eliminate discount rates to heavy users of water so As to discourage it probably cannot persuade people to put bricks in their toilet tanks unless there Are Clear signs of a Californi style shortage of the Price of a new if it becomes will be a Price of the City could coast along indefinitely with its present water Supply system if the population remained at about its present stagnation is less exciting than but it is also a whole lot gallery in search of a National party a classic kidnapping the hostage Issue in Iran come Down to what is it is now is nothing More principled than a simple kidnapping for the iranian authorities have abandoned most of the demands which were after the to justify the seizure of the they Are now ready to free them As soon As the United states coughs up billion in hard Cash and to most in the demand must sound like the ultimate in it May reflect the ultimate Iran rulers today Are Strong in Faith and limitless in Zeal but they Are not schooled in the ways of the they May Well believe that the being the satan of All really could meet the the process of negotiation Over the hostages has been one of slowly injecting some sense of reality into the minds of Iran some painful Progress has been Secretary of state Edmund Muskie has made it Clear that the administration is willing to keep up the the speaker of the iranian majlis insists that the latest demand is the final one and if the fails to the hostages will be put on but Iran has made those kind of threats before without carrying them the realistic minds within the iranian government must understand How costly the impasse has been already the iranian if the government opts for the ultimate indecency of submitting the hostages to a caricature of a Iran isolation in the world will grow even deeper and the Cost to iranians will mount even by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa if the dangerous and a controversies at the forefront of National affairs could be set aside and forgotten this country would still have More than enough serious problems demanding the chronic economic ones Are Well enough known and they could hardly be much More at they May not be the most serious and press ing that the nation not National the gravest of All the problems is How to ensure that the National govern ment can once again be made National in its activities and it is now no More than a very powerful regional government pretending to be this is a function of the decline of the Liberal party from its old National to a regional basis and the inability of the two other parties at the Federal level to fill the the starting Point in facing the prob Lem of providing ourselves with a National government is to acknowledge that we no longer have any National this is a dangerous situation As Long As it Central Canada will inevitably possess Domi Nant Power in Federal affairs simply because More than half the Canadian people live in Ontario and this majority has legitimate inter ests which it will quite properly pursue with vigor at the Best of at this natural Pursuit of Selfin Terest has been compounded by an election Campaign that was expedient and the liberals Recap tured Power by a demagogic exploitation of narrow acceptable government at the Centre always requires a counterweight to the Power of the Central Canadian Majori this is lacking in the Structure of Federal politics at the present time and no attempt is being made by the coterie which holds Power to build it they Are bitterly hostile to anything of the when the counterweight does not exist within the Struc Ture it can Only come from the prov inces and it is this reality that arouses such determined antagonism within the Trudeau they in that the regionalism of Canada should be suppressed by the determined use of political Power at the sense of identity both history and geography have made Canada a not just of but perhaps More important of Strong regions each of which has a highly developed sense of Iden the futility of attempts to remold this through the use of Central Power is at its most the Case of the maritime provinces there is no Polit ical Force in Canada Strong enough to erase a mar timers sense of his regional the lesson to be drawn from these Basic realities is that satisfactory government at the Centre must possess the elements of a preferably within a single party but if not that then through adequate roles for More than one Mackenzie Kings great Suc Cess As a and his greatest contribution to came about through his skill at building a while it the liberals could form satisfactory governments be cause the essential make weight to Central Canadian Power existed within their own King carried it a step further through the conscious development of powerful regional leaders among his close Angus Ernest Lapointe and Louis St Howe and Jimmy Gardiner were More than Strong Cabinet ministers they were themselves leaders within the narrow hold nothing of this sort exists any the problem of the liberals regional Power base is compounded the Treme narrowness of the hold on Power within the it is astounding that there is not even a powerful Ontario minister within the Little coterie that wields effective Power in Ottawa temporarily that void is filled by attempts to cultivate and Cater to on trios most selfish a tech Nique that brought Victory in the last in this the provincial counterweight is not Premier William Davis faces an Early election which he not Only wants to win but which he Hopes will end the provinces period of minority it is genuinely difficult for him to stand aside from Federal approaches deliberately tailored to Appeal to his own Pierre Trudeau May win his place i history but it will not be As a statesman who came to grips with the deep Politi Cal problems of his fighting the High Cost of Legal dumb jumbo courtroom mysticism in the language of the Law Independent la Sidney a lawyer says it is time Legal documents were in instead of the archaic language so dear to Green recently brought the matter up in the Point ing to the procedure of one of the Legal notices that by Law must be published in the a foreclosure of property takes place when a person does not meet the mortgage now this is part of the nonsense that must be precisely in these words with the names of auction firms and hereinafter under and by the virtue of the Power of Sale contained or implied in a certain memorandum of mortgage which will be produced at the time of Sale and which is registered against the land hereinafter there will be offered for Public auction by a licensed at Grays auction 104 King in the City of in the province of on wednesday the 9th Day of Peceny Ber 1980 at the hour of 10 Oclock in the the following proper it is absurd and who talks in this fashion or uses the abbreviation fora no the year of put lord or or Forenoon it is not language for the readers of a it is meant for lawyers and real estate agents who know the Val Werier in Plain the above Para graph Means the following property will be sold by Public auction at Grays auction 104 King Winni december at 10 Green also maintains that the detailed Legal description which takes up far More space need not be included in the at the time of the papers filed in the land titles office make certain the Legal description and the address Are the Why take up extra news and the Cost of ads for this dumb jumbo known Only to the Legal Trade there is a a hocus pocus in the language of the generally it is comprehensible Only to lawyers and then not to unless they Are conversant with the particular Branch of the the language often is convoluted and full of quaint expressions and terms that Are out of Date and beyond the Ken of Lay it has Way because of the great reverence for tradition and the Tane by the courts of certain meanings Given to phrases and it matters not that this language is at Odds with everyday use or comprehend the traditionalists say that these terms have been enshrined in Law and that it would play havoc with the courts if concise terms were substitute they claim such reforms would remove uncertainty from the no matter that it is incomprehensible to says sir Leslie former chairman of the English Law commis Sion f magnificent As is the history of the common it is open to criticism of being far too exclusively the business of the lawyer has succeeded the priest in his control of the secrets of the and the shelves upon which these secrets have been con have been is inaccessible As the altars guarded by the priests in primitive that is Why there Are mortgage con tracts in common use that have sentences 300 words Long that defy ail Normal rules of grammar and let alone Hope on horizon there is some Hope on the horizon in the efforts of agencies and groups seeking Plain language in Law and Legal the Manitoba Law for has drafted a Model mortgage do Wnent to replace the incomprehensible forms now in the Repart should fee made Public within a the United states Tes taken the Leao in making the language of contracts and forms understandable to and not exclusively to in the pension Reform act stipulated that pension plan descriptions for employees must be written in a manner calculated to be understood by the average plan the 1975 mos Magnusson warranty act says that warranties of common products must be written in simple and readily understandable about 20 states have either debated or passed Laws calling for Plain English in insurance leases and con Sumer the Federal Trade commission has hired a Consul Tant to rewrite Federal regulations into Plain a lot of As in Are Legal it is is it that Laws have to be passed that contracts and Warran ties and pension plans be written in a manner that the Consumers can under stand them Thomas third president of the United who Drew up the great american declaration of inde railed against the intricate and verbose style of framing Law we years lawyer he wrote a Friend at the age of after during a draft Bill to establish Elemen tary schools you can easily Correct this Bill to the taste of my brother lawyers making every word a said1 or said and saying everything Over two or three so that nobody but we of the Craft can unt Wist the diction and find out what it Means i i ;