Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 30, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free november 1981 7 Ottawa hoping t Ottawa is the Crow still too hot to handle or is it time at last to usher in a new railway age at Long the Trudeau government is get Ting ready to make up its on the Cabinet with an announcement Likely by will be billion in allocated to the Western rail system in the 12 and two options to change the rate Structure of the and Start Clearing the Way for a billion rail expansion program that would unc Hoke the Western rail system or to leave the sacred Crow rate alone and pour the lesser Owney now available directly into railway construction a betting Man would be Wise to put his Money on a new rate Deal and on transport minister Jeanluc the cabinets High profile Salesman of a new regime that will make the rail ways financially in Regina on pursuing his Campaign for producer support in a speech to the Saskatchewan wheat Pepin offered an urgent warning about the financial crisis looming now for the As they try to Cope with sharply rising freight he noted in 1981 in has reached the Load Levels that it was just three years ago expecting to handle in despite construction efforts by both he there is cause for real doubt they will be Able to keep ahead of traffic growth in the up was thought Likely to hit mainline congestion by rail improvements what is needed the minister is the equivalent of a third railway to the West along with further productivity improvements elsewhere in the the Bill for the is escalating Pepin warned that with losses of nearly billion Over the next five years from Grain hauling at Crow it would be simply impossible for the railways to raise the billion the statutory Crow first set late last Century and applied then to South Ern limits the railways to a 1213 cents a Bushel charge for hauling Grain Industry spokesmen this week said the actual Cost today is 60 cents a it is expected to Cost about million to haul Grain in the West this with million of this being covered by and roughly million being returned to the railways in government but Liberal and tory politicians alike talk of the new if not full among Western producers that the Crow Gap must and that one Way or another the rail ways must be compensated for the Cost of Grain Grain Industry spokesmen Echo their in the the Radical National Farmers Union remains the most Visi ble and militant the others spoke this week of the new spirit that is beginning to stir on Prairie farms As another generation of farm ers takes their Reliance on grains is and they Are looking for new income even in the wheat growing heart of Saskatchewan Farmers Are drawing some of their income from Cash notably Oil under a different freight rate re Gime these crops could feed into an important processing wheat growers association past president Jim the new farming Genera Tion is starting to recognize that their own children Are Likely to seek jobs in industries that Are supposed to develop in their and they want a healthy rail system in place that will allow that development to Joan Cohen Ottawa editor but no one denies that the attach ment to the Crow rate runs even among Many Farmers ready to accept in a world where production costs Are rising and International wheat prices have been says Saskatchewan conservative Bill the Crow is the one stable element they can count transport department official Colin Churcher compares it with the 9 per cent 25year mortgage he is Lucky enough to hold on his Ottawa Home the one item in his Market Basket whose Cost he can rely Liberal John of Kenora Rainy describes the Crow rate As the covenant Prairie Farmers feel was made with them in the confederation but Mcknight maintains that the Trudeau government has handled the Crow Issue shrinking from pro Viding the leadership needed in the current the governments in he has already damaged the consensus that was building a year it should Long since have had some proposals on the so that the farming Community would have had something Concrete to Dis and the liberals Halfway they candidly admit the Trudeau gov with its near void in Western has been wary of tack Ling gives former Saskatchewan Cabinet minister Otto Lang High Marks for courage for opening up the subject Back in and inviting Farmers to take a Good hard look at the benefits of abandoning As a Pioneer Grain Lang recalls the shockwave across the Prairies after he dropped his Bombshell in an Edmonton but he says Farmers should obtain full compensation for any extra hauling charges until the Tariff they Puy pay on manufactured goods begin to diminish through the new International Trade even the governments trans Jeanluc Pepin and Lloyd Axworthy think their billion May help to solve Crow port proposals Are not on the the government has promised that its starting plan will be put Forward for negotiation with farm groups and the a rough outline of the govern ments possible bargaining approach on Crow rate changes May now be Pepins aides say the minister is ready to propose that Ottawa go into a bargaining session with an offer to cover the present Crow Gap mated to be million this the bargaining would Likely then Centre on How the inflationary annual in creases in 1981 it could work out to approximately million would be such farm organizations As the Manitoba wheat Pool Reading Between the the Saskatchewan wheat Pool have acknowledged that at least some of that extra Cost would be borne by the Palliser Grain have gone they pro pose that Farmers pay compensatory Grain hauling and that the government return the full current amount to the farming circulating it among All Farmers on an acreage Grain shippers would finance future Cost in creases without somewhere in the general approach these groups Are Pepins aides a bargain might be but simple arithmetic suggests even Ottawa billion transport fund would not last Long if million is to be put up each year to cover the Basic Crow Ottawa May Well have to find still More Money if it wants to swing a these officials concede that the tru Deau Cabinet May yet be confronted with another hard Choice to shake Loose some extra or risk seeing negotiations is for the employment minister Lloyd a custodian of the Western development talks these Days of his wish to find further channels of budget analysis too fast Crow political support for a Crow rate he says he wants the provincial premiers on adding that his own party does not have the political troops to pull in enough Prairie support on its for the the provincial sup port is not Premier Peter for has offered and Sterling Lyon was thought Likely to Back changes in the but Premier Allan Blakeney has demanded that it not be and from Manitoba last week the newly arrived Premier Howard Pawley the vexed Ottawa that he is opposed to any the Federal nip has taken the same nor Are the Western Cabinet Mem Bers fully its Canadian wheat Board Saskatchewan senator Hazen wants Crow to in the Liberal caucus and before Prairie he has been a vocal exponent of the National Farmers Union giving vent to All its classic cynicism about the railways financial meanwhile in an View the other was delighted that the Crow dilemma was finally to go on the Cabinet the billion he constituted a quantum leap in the governments contribution to the Crow that now hard Cash on the theres nothing that concentrates your mind More than getting some Money on the especially Money that and the Tenor of discussion has he farm leaders Are getting Down to the and wanting to discuss the Best Way of using the Axworthy says he sees a but Bonanza coming from the new transportation bankroll a huge Opportunity to launch a new and differ ent Type of Economy in the the Meg project would produce a significant Industrial for Western Canadian with the new tech equipment and supplies it will Axworthy Hopes to see the Western Economy tilt away from the production of raw if a freight rate adjustment making far based product manufacture he Hopes that industrialization will spread to the farming bringing a Lively oilseed processing Industry to the Prairie by Anthony Westell special to the free press Ottawa of the interesting sidelights of the budget has been the Public reaction to the Way in which it was reported on Csc instead of taking viewers into the House of commons and allowing them to hear finance minister Allan Maceachen the Csc kept interrupting with explanations and criticisms by journalists and sex the viewers were not As letters to editors make and Maceachen himself has complained in the Public reaction probably reflects a growing irritation with the pretensions of the we no longer enjoy the reflected glory of watergate and the other great victories of journalists Over their in the United the latest novels and movies portray journalists not As heroes but As fools or we have not gone that far in but the claim that we in the press Are the natural adversaries of government and the real opposition does not get the respectful hearing of a few years big journalism is increasingly viewed with the same scepticism As big gov big business and big la to the extent that criticism of the coverage of the budget cuts journalists Down to it is to the extent it encourages governments to try to bypass the press to carry its message directly to the it May be by longstanding journalists Are admitted to a locked room and shown the under oath of Many hours before it is delivered in the House of the idea is to give the journalists time to prepare careful reports on a complicated Are allowed out of the locked room to file their reports on the budget at about 8 As the finance minister is standing up in the com Mons to begin his before the Days of to and the minister would be finished before the newspapers could get the reports into print and on to the but radio and television can broadcast the Maceachen highlights before the minister has finished his opening even that did not matter much be fore to and radio were allowed to broadcast the proceedings of the com the journalists were broadcasting the Juicy bits of the Bud get before the minister had actually announced but who knew with cameras and microphones in the commons broadcasting the min ister As he it is obvious that the reporters Are ahead of the to make it the reporters not Only give the budget highlights before they have been but they Rush to add comments and old news in the budget speech becomes old news before it has been and the journalists seek to make their live reports More interesting and informative by adding explanation and the same process is applied to major events other than the budget in which Advance news is made available to journalists in a locked the governments idea originally was to encourage More accurate and thoughtful reporting assuming no doubt that better informed reporters would see the Wisdom of the but ministers have been concerned for several years that to and radio report ers seemed to be using the procedure to slip Between them and their for instead of speaking directly to the nation on budget Maceachen had to run the Gauntlet of Csc journalists who had beaten him to the punch with the highlights and were now punctuating his speech with it appears that the government tried to forestall this on budget night by proposing to keep the journalists in the locked room until Maceachen was Well launched on his but the journalists naturally t no Advance next it is the finance minister May simply refuse to Issue the budget in locked room or no locked the theory is that if journalists had to report the speech As it was they would be too Busy to comment or criticize for an hour or convinced that adversarial journalists will never give government announcements a fair or Neutral some communications experts have been urging ministers to buy Advertis ing time and to carry their messages directly to the by passing some such ads have already and it is conceivable we May yet see the finance minister hosting his own budget but a simpler and older remedy is the Rule used to be that on emerging from the locked journalists could release the budget speech in two parts when the minister was actually on his feet in the com they could report the first part of his speech reviewing the state of the Economy when the minister reached the Section of the speech Deal ing with policy they could report the every thing is released at 8 returning to the former Rule which slowed Down the news might be a reasonable Compro Mise Between the interests of the min the press most the will volume two Tell us if Manitoba new democrats Are worried because Russ Doem has writ ten a new they can turn to their bibles for in the Book of they will find the following my desire that the almighty would answer and that mine adversary had written a some May con clude that the old testament writer was not about but about Russell some will think that that Doern is unnecessarily harsh on former premiered but the premiers sin was he consistently failed to see in Doern the leadership abilities Doern saw in some will think think that Doern fawns unnecessarily As far As Howard Pawley is but Doern makes it perfectly Clear that he is not attempting to butter up the new Premier for a better Cabinet Edu or Industry and Are among his earlier critics should recognize the Book for what it a teaser in the Market place designed to whet readers appetites for volume the Book in which Doern talks about really interesting incidents in which he played a prominent Doern shows genuine skill As a writer by devoting Only four Para graphs to the controversy Over the height of the Woodsworth the message is to wait for volume when he really lets his hair Down f ram its neatly coiffure and sex Fred Cleverley Plains Why he once told a reporter that its very complicated to measure the height of a his explanation at the time was he said it depends on whether you put the tape measure up the As City Engi neers and As his own Deputy min ister or whether you put it Down one As Doern apparently did in order to come up with a measurement that was everyone who reads the Book will be impressed by doers Many when recalling the Broadway Buffy think that mayor Steve Juba won that but As minister and knows what happened when he tangled with the mayor and As a result got his name in newspapers from London to austra Doern says that he managed to befuddle Juba and that As a Winni Eggers began to question his Jubas judgment and in vol ume two Doern cannot be blamed if he mentions the last where he was elected and Juba the mayor should have known better than to tangle with an expert on Wash just months after besting the in the space of a single changed the locks on the Las washroom four Cost was no object when it came to Buffy Securi Doem quotes a printed description of Steve Juba before a legislative com there he wide wider bad Folksy style in volume two he quote some of the descriptions that have been printed about such As a newspaper headline that read Doern has record for foot i Mouth and which contained a commentary on his ability As a minister he exhibited a similar Lack of knowl Edge and general understanding about his portfolio during the review of his departments spending estimates that was painful to Doern probably retired to bed with a Kink in his neck from constantly turn ing to ask his Deputy minister the answers to per cent of the questions asked by opposition doers modesty in print is Admira he left out two of the More remembered of his accomplishments As minister of Public he modestly declined to take credit for the Publica Tion of Manitoba first bound volume of government Telephone a change from Loose Leaf variety that made it necessary the entire Book at distressingly Short nor did he mention that the Book contained a Page size picture of him self near the making it easy for Nosey visitors to simply by checking to see if it had been ripped the popularity of the minister in any particular heals left out his part in introducing Rug tanking to Manitoba govern ment with printed directions that made it easy to Tell a civil servants rank by counting the potted plants in the he says that a former nip Russ murdered the English but does not Tell us How the doonesbury Hawleyr pressure of High office made it Neces sary for him to Call one press Confer ence to in great a proposal put Forward by one Earl then to Call another conference the next Day to explain that when he said Earl Golden he really meant Al nor does he lean on the pressures of office that caused him to blow his Cool in a vitriolic letter to Winnipeg Tribune columnist Vic Grant which ended with a has anyone told you you look like Al Golden and there was not one word about Why de Schreyer had to become minister of Public works for a few Days during doers tenure to cancel the inclusion of a cocktail bar in the new members private dining room in the and to Cut the costs of the project that had got out of hand when left to the minister who had the reputation of being the biggest spend Thrift of tax Money in the Schreyer Doern is a Man to be reckoned Premier Hawleys thoughts while engaged in Cabinet making must have included some consideration of the possibility that volume two is probably in the books become part of even those that Tell Only part of the there is no Lack of material for volume and the author has a hair trigger when it comes to judging those who do not appreciate with disc sure of Richard latest 1130 in in Ramku Attane Raym cup Movan to 7hb to is getting i Alf let we ;