Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 29, 1980, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 Wiff Tieg free Winnipeg free press Freedom of Trade Equality of civil rights Liberty of religion published arts printed six Days a week at 300 Carlton Winnipeg r3c by Canadian newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 second class mall registration number 0286 Donald Nicol publisher John Dafoe Edi ional Page editor Murray Burt managing tailor dangerous protectionism the traditional response of governments facing economic difficulties is to openly of to economic and the usual result of that resort m the Long to make the economic difficulties even worse than they might otherwise have Premier Sterling Yort has provided some evidence m the past Little while that the government he Heads might be launched upon that Slippery the in the speech from the announced creation of an Industrial developments group to negotiate the highest possible Levels of Manitoba and other Canadian Content in All major projects to which the Provin Cial government or us agencies Are a Ini is contribution to the throne speech he reiterated his determination to ensure maximum benefits to Manitoba industries and there is nothing wrong with a government ensuring maximum benefits to the people it there is every reason for the government to help and encourage Manitoba suppliers and manufacturers to in on the benefits that will flow from Large new developments if and when they there is a Fine line Between encouragement and protect and protectionism which discriminates against canadians depending on their province of residence is something that ought to be stamped not provincial preference was of invented by the present government of provinces and municipalities Over the Given their local suppliers a guaranteed Edge when it came to bidding for professional organizations have denied jobs to out prov Ince practitioners on the pretext of protecting provincial liquor commissions vigorously practice favorit ism and restraint of Trade with the full backing of the some provinces have Laws restricting land ownership to their own or Laws denying construction jobs to residents of a neighbouring Canadas most militant provincial Premier Peckford of claims the right to bar canadians from other provinces from jobs in newfoundlands Oil some of those restrictions Are based on worthy desires to provide opportunities to the to protect local Patrimony and to encourage regional some represent purely practical arrangements and will always be with taken All the provincial restrictions represent a real threat to the Canadian common Market and one which the Federal government was quite Correct to raise in the last round of constitutional of All has reason to Pray for the preservation of a Canadian common whatever projects actually come into being in there is not much doubt that the major resource programs of the next decade will take place in the neighbouring provinces to the Manitoba great Hope is that industries and suppliers in this province with get their share of business from that if we get into a competitive game of beggarly neighbor with the other we Are Likely to end up the questions about Alert Manitoban have every right to wonder what has happened to the Alert program this the which undeniably infringes on individual rights by giving police the Power to conduct what amounts to random has been restricted As a result of an Ontario court at question is the right of police to set up their Alert Roadside stations and in effect arrest thousands of motorists for the time it takes to determine whether any have been in no it is no different from making random searches of thousands of Homes in search of stolen goods or stopping thousands of individuals on the Street and searching them for there in one fundamental an individual can Only drive a motor vehicle if he is issued a something he does not need to live in his Home or walk the driving is a privilege by its is hedged about with government the reasons for this Are cars driven by people who Are incompetent or drunk can v from a practical the Alert program has been More party groups persuade one of their number to refrain from in order to be Able to provide Safe by Fred Cleverley transportation if the courts decide that the police have exceeded their authority in carrying out the Alert program then there is no option but to Stop Given its effectiveness in keeping the streets safer at Many Manitoban will regard the Alert As a restriction on Liberty they would be Happy to Golly i dont think a vice regal proclamation can move july 1 to sometime later in the year making gasoline with water predictions of gloom Canada has Seldom entered Oil a new year facing so Many predictions of economic the conference the economic Council and most other economic forecasters have predicted slow inflation and High unemployment for now the organization for economic cooperation and which relies heavily on economic data from the governments of member adds its voice to the gloomy the Recd report predicts very weak growth in the Short things May get a Little better by midyear but the recovery will proceed at a growth rate clearly when recovery does come real incomes of canadians May drop in this will not be different from most of the other industrialized growth will be a Little lower than average next year and a Little higher in those predictions Are so common these Days that they May have produced a certain fatalism among if All the worlds leading forecasters have come to the same conclusion about our immediate economic what is the Point of trying to do any better Why not simply relax and Wallow in the misery economic patterns Are no one can change the world situation but the right policies pursued by Canadian individuals and can make the Economy a Little better than it might have been the wrong ones can make it a Little with the discipline of economics in serious disarray at the deciding what Are the right policies is a matter of serious but most forecasters seem to agree on a number of areas in which improvement can be the Recd warns that Canada will not get its predicted recovery in 1982 unless the Auto Industry moves smartly towards the production of Small both the Recd and the economic Council Point to the need for substantial improve ments in Canadian the conference Board and others Point to the massive potential of Energy projects in the West As a powerful engine of economic few seem to doubt that Canada has the economic potential to weather the rough years and to embark on a new Cycle of growth and if the potential the question remaining is whether Canadian governments will have the economic Wisdom to exploit it and whether individual canadians will have the imagination and the self discipline to make the most of the answer to that question remains a some flexibility Energy minister Marc Lalonde for the first conceded that his splendid new Energy program might be something less than the proposal in the budget was found to be unduly the minister conceded As he announced that some of the tax measures he had proposed will be put off for a at is an improvement Over the ministers position immediately after the budget when he announced while he would be pleased to discuss Energy policy with Albertas Premier Peter the government knew exactly what it was doing and had no intention of changing now that the minister has conceded that maybe he did not know what he was doing after we can Hope that the Way has been opened to further confessions of error and further modifications of at is devoutly to be hoped because there is a need for some sign of movement to get Ottawa and the producing provinces Back to the table to Settle their differences Over Energy Albertas Peter Lough is no doubt right when he says the servants have to get together first and agree on the numbers before the politicians Start but those talks cannot be Long delayed without serious damage to the at the the situation simply gets British Columbia has heightened the tension with its foolish decision not to pay the new Federal Gas tax and Premier Blakeney of Saskatchewan does not help when he suggests he might do the same the provinces have every right to Challenge the tax in court and they should be getting on with that instead of raising the political they should also be paving the Way for negotiation and if Lalonde can show signs that the facts of life Are penetrating his then his counterparts in the producing provinces should help him along the path to late news radio is a communications medium which makes much of the fact that it has the flexibility and facility to trans Mit local news with a promptitude and celerity unmatched by television or daily shortly after 6 december fire engines were racing to a Blaze in a shopping Centre in the 2500 Block of Portage the View from my Balcony of belching smoke and heavy concentration of firefighting equipment and police suggested that it was a fire of some conditioned to believe that if Arma radio room first with news Geddon were at hand i would hear it first on i turned up the sound on my Vigil Here was rewarded with news of a train crash at some obscure place in but Noth ing on the local to help things i decided to phone Krc and Alert them to the fire the phone Book lists four numbers for the station after open and a 24hour sports 1 dialled after hours and no i tried the news department they had not heard about the they would Check this was after a 40minute interval of sports fre quent reminders of that evenings jets North stars cays 8 news broadcast reported a fire raging in a business Block at 2515 Portage that was the extent of the nothing about the fire on jobs 9 Bear with the station through an hour of local and global sports sports sports jets game announce and again patience is rewarded with a newscast reporting that presi Obote of Uganda has been re turned to nothing about the but persistence finally paid a phone Call to a drugstore at the fire location satisfied my Tyre Winnipeg letters for decades in High school students have watched water being separated into its two Hydro Gen and through the use of until the experiments provided Little More than an interesting pop As a Small Quantity of Hydrogen was at the to by that it was Hydro fuel of the future this the speech from the throne read at the opening of the Manitoba legislature suggested that these High school experiments might soon be harnessed on a massive scale so that a Plant in Manitoba could upgrade heavy Oil from Alberta and produce even More Hydrogen As a pos sible fuel of the unlike other Large projects announced in the the talk of Oil upgrading and Hydrogen production came As something of a Surprise to most the idea is less than a year old at this and the minis Ter responsible for Don readily admits that this is the least developed of announced How a major step toward such a Plant was made a few months when Manitoba got approval in principle from the Alberta government for the the idea has emerged through a curious combination of National and provincial Energy the demand for different forms of and the abundance of potential electric Power Here in at the Canada exports about barrels of heavy Oil a this heavy in tar is unsuitable for processing by most Canadian and commands a Low Price on the the technology for upgrading this Oil primarily through the addition of Hydrogen has been known for some once the heavy Oil increases in value and is then suitable for further refining in existing what is quite new is the idea of transporting relatively Large quantities of heavy Oil several Hundred Miles to bring it together with available elec the Winnipeg free press welcomes Lutters irom writers Musl give their name and the author s name will be used and letters Are subject to born again 1 was a banquet on december 8 at the convention where the main speaker was Charles Colson a watergate now born again he seemed to show no signs of re Morse or repentance for the crimes he had he showed no signs of in i detected a sign of Colson was treated As a hero at this including receiving an honorary citizenship of Winnipeg from mayor he seems to be profiting from his he has written two books t one has been made into a movie and he travels All Over the world As a his Mission and occupation now is he is president of prison Fellowship to 1 bring the gospel of Christ to the prisoners and 2 get the prisoners out of he has already succeeded in having 300 prisoners released from jail for extended periods of he j dont care what kind of crime the prisoner has in other he is not concerned that people get robbed his main concern is that the criminal does not he showed no compassion or concern for victims of in he did not even mention that victims he acknowledged that four out of five end up Back in jail because of criminal activity and that rehabilitation does not As former solicitor general for Richard i thought he might speak a Little about fat Ford does not seem to be in his David Epp Winnipeg needy pensioners i awoke one morning to hear our illustrious Leader making a Blanket statement that the old age pensioners dont need any More they just need to learn How to Cut Back on if it not for the old age ers we would not have a Trudeau has said that the old people of our country have More than enough to if they Cut Back on Lux i prime minister Trudeau feels our maps need More Money to live Why is this More important than our old age pensioners they and still the pillars of our Patricia Marian Winnipeg rather than doing the Job the other Way the desirability of upgrading heavy Oil increases As the Supply of lighter Oil the first question is Why Alberta is not interested in upgrading its own the answer is that there is interest in but it is somewhat muted by the Price that its most abundant source of natural can bring on the when natural Gas can be sold for about per thousand cubic it is less attractive to use it As a source of Hydrogen for Oil upgrade the electrolysis of water to produce Hydrogen is practical Only when Mas Sive amounts of electricity Are Avail Manitoba has the potential to produce electricity and Alberta does except through the consumption of which is another finite Fossil pipeline this brings up the second would it not be easier to transport Manitoba electricity to rather than bring Albertas heavy Oil to Manitoba the answer would be except for the fact that the Means to transport the heavy Oil in the trans Canada pipeline is already while the construction necessary to upgrade the Western Power even when it is to carry an extra 500 megawatts year would be quite the solution that is under consideration is to move the Oil to Manitoba and upgrade it studies have not pro Gressed beyond the stage where the required investment is identified Only in the hundreds of millions of Dol but there Are already flow charts that identify substantial benefits from the the barrels of Oil processed each Day would be increased in value by Between and a this would produce an annual figure of Between and million a to accomplish the conversion would consume about 500 megawatts of electricity at a breakeven this would give Manitoba Hydro about million in Revenue each the first studies indicated that Power would have to be supplied a firm no refund the jets appear to be having a losing but the jets front office has lost More than just a on december 10 i went to see the jets versus the upon arriving at the Arena i realized i had for gotten my i went to the Security office and explained the i was told about a new policy and that i could either buy another ticket or go Home to get not wanting to Brave the cold night i asked if i Pur chased another could i then receive a refund yes was the an i went to the ticket and to make sure explained the situation j was provided you bring both the ticket stub and the ticket at Home to the jets head office Tomor i purchased a ticket for and sat in my next Day i went to the jets office to claim a to my Surprise they no the office told me to try for a refund at Winnipeg enter i am still waiting to hear from the jets head office cannot communicate its Why we rent ticket holders notified of this new policy the owners of the jets should do More trading in their front office than on the it is said that the jets organization has class and it All Paul calve Winnipeg subsequent investigation has indicated that the Plant could operate uninterruptible something that is More attractive to Manitoba since it would add to the flexibility of the Power the possibility of an Oil refining Plant May influence the routing of Manitoba Power to Alberta in the pro posed Western Power can be sent West directly from the Nelson River through the Pas to or it can be brought South require ments for an extra 500 megawatts could persuade Hydro that the Southern route is More nucleus of Complex the Plant could become the nucleus of a larger Complex that would use other such As ethane and for production of other Petro leu based the present Al Berta policy discourages the Export of these products in order to concentrate much industrialization in Alberta As Manitoba is Bank ing on help from Alberta companies which will argue that a Winnipeg Plant could place them in a better position to penetrate some Southern one of the problems facing Manitoba Hydro in its Sale of surplus Power is that electricity cannot be it must be sold at the instant it is produced or it most Manitoba electricity is produced by the natural flow of Rivers that cannot be except through limited pending in reservoirs behind Power customers know the and can often Benefit from Manitoba desire to sell Power rather than spill Many Export sales Are being made at prices do not fully compensate Manitoba Hydro for its capital the presence of another massive Power such As the heavy Oil upgrading would help Manitoba Hydro negotiate higher prices for its Export the As it is is viable at today prices for Oil and is expected to increase during the four or five years required to get the process into opera one of the largest plus factors is the use of a renewable form of Energy to enhance the and Price of a finite histories needed we Are compiling a history of our Manitoba and the districts of Val lonely Bay end Asham Point Reykjavik and we would like who was or is a resident of any of these the deadline has been extended to March we will Welcome any and All Metta Johnson Secretary to Jar Call in gab in a House on toe ;