Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 6, 1983, Winnipeg, Manitoba T Winnipeg fee september Winnipeg free press of f Fatte Equality 6f civil rights Liberty of published six Days a week at 306 Garton Winnipeg r3c 3c1 of Canadian newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 Winnipeg free press 182 Winnipeg of Bune 1890 publisher John editorial Page editor Murray Burt managing editor controller editorials Why no Public inquiry of the if Canada Jet which fan out of fuel had been forced to land in North rather than at there is every likelihood that by now a Public inquiry would have provided some specific information about who was responsible for the incident that put so Many lives in in Canada and the United states the decision to hold a Public inquiry into an aircraft incident is left up to the investigating the similarity of the systems seems to end to the Accident if Vestiga tors seem to favor the Public inquiry a spokesman for the Federal aviation authority in which has an Independent Accident investigation says Public inquiries Are almost always ordered whenever an incident creates publicity about the spokesman said investigations Are most often ordered whenever there is loss of life on a Public whenever an incident is triggered by the use of new equipment or procedures and whenever it appears to be in the Public interest to have an open inquiry into an Accident or to the last Public inquiry to be held into an aircraft Accident took place in after an air Canada crash at Toronto claimed 109 the Gimli incident certainly produced More than its share of Public it involved a new the Boeing and preliminary investigations have proven that the fuel problem was caused because of a mix up Between metric and Imperial fuel measurement the involvement of metric conversion brought the whole governments metric policy into the the incident would have qualified for a Public inquiry in the at a Public inquiry and not Only the ministry of transport investigation would learn at first hand the experiences of the maintenance workers who put the fuel into the and would have Learned the difficulties they May have experienced with the instructions they had received on the servicing of the metric Mea sure a Public inquiry would have made available to everyone the material that must have gone into the decision by air Canada to buy aircraft whose fuel tanks were calibrated differently from others in the same it is possible that a Public inquiry might have produced an idea of what if was applied by other departments of government on the National air Carrier to switch to met a Public inquiry would have made available information from the aircraft manufacturer to or dispute the popularity of its metric version of the 76 the manufacturer would have had the Opportunity to defend its safety procedures which Are designed to prevent the very shortage of fuel that Public inquiries Are not As tidy As those conducted by an Accident investigation they have the advantage of allowing the Public to draw whatever conclusions it might from the evidence that is when a team is the Public is left with Only the teams and does not see or hear evidence on which those conclusions Are last year the ministry of transport investigated More than aircraft incidents in number is larger than the previous years even if the Mot had on the Only half the number of incidents each year it did then incidents would have been investigated since the last Public inquiry was the ministry of transport at the caught in a conflict interest position in which it is being forced to investigate accidents and incidents in which As the controlling authority of aviation in this May have had some new now at the second Reading stage in will separate Accident investigation from the responsibilities of the of and will set up a new and Independent investigating one of the objectives of the new legislation is to increase the number of Public inquiries into aircraft accidents and such an increase was recommended in the report prepared by Justice Charles who conducted a wide ranging inquiry into All aspects of the ministry of transport takes the position that the establishment of the Dubin commission was a disincentive to Call separate Public inquiries into individual accidents since the commission was in effect an inquiry into All the commission completed its work some time at the moment the ministry of transport is responsible for investigating accidents and incidents and has the full authority to Call a Public canadians who regularly travel by air deserve answers about their safety that a Public inquiry into the Gimli incident could in a Box on land claims the Pawley government is painting itself into a Corner on treaty Indian land it appears now to have noticed the tight confines of its position and started the search for a Way it should try to avoid writing a new chapter into the history of double dealing Between the indians and White the government appears to accept the principles underly ing Indian bands claims for More it chose inquiry commissioner Leon Mitchell to examine the basis for the he found it solid and the while explicitly taking a position of its has never challenged Mitchells the ministers have allowed the impression to develop that the government will collaborate in transferring to the Indian bands that were shortchanged in the last Century the land that is still owing to the hitch is that the government does not have the land to give to reserves in the agricultural part of the All the useful land around those reserves has been taken up by private cleared and before the Crown can put that land at the disposal of Indian bands for the enlargement of the Crown must first take it away from its present that is the Point at which the satisfaction of Indian land claims suddenly comes Down from the level of grand principles and neat arguments and threatens to become Northern affairs minister Jay Cowan Speaks of further Public there is no great Merit in repeating the exercise conducted by Mitchell with the same groups expressing roughly the same views on general it is useful to look Down the Road to the practical difficulties t that Are Apt to arise in transferring land from its present owners for the expansion of Indian the people who Are then going to feel aggrieved should be drawn into the process now so even if their interests cannot be perfectly they will at least know what is going on and Why and have a Chance to identify their interests and protect general talk about history and Justice and the treaties May be greeted with but these May turn to howls of dismay when it turns out that this farm and that one Are being added to the Indian Reserve and this other one is marked for next that reaction is entirely predictable if the government does not prepare now the Means to forestall that reaction or to Deal with then the talk of satisfying land claims is just so Many empty promises which the government will not be Able to it will have spoken once again with the forked Tongue the indians know so the government should see to it that Contact is established Between Indian bands whose reserves will expand and representatives of the surrounding the make up of a Community and the pattern of land ownership Are not simply a private matter Between the Crown and the affect the economics and the social dynamics of the resistance to Reserve expansion based solely on prejudice against indians should not be catered but it will probably the government would be naive if it based a Reserve expansion policy on the Assumption that there is no ant Indian feeling in Rural the government May have Learned something from its difficulty with the French language amendment to the that amendment was worked out privately Between the government and spokesmen for the people most directly affected and was then presented to the rest of the Manitoba Public As something they must there was sure to be but the process could have been smoother if the government had consulted sooner those who would object the sooner the government finds out where the resistance will be and what it will amount sooner it will be Able to Tell the Indian bands precisely what it can do for the longer it the More it will allow great expectations to develop and the More risk it will run of causing bitter disappointment later is anyone responsible by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa the question of ministerial responsibility is among the More serious issues that have Arisen Between the authors of proposed new Security legislation and critics of some of their the authors of the new Bill Are convinced that they have not breached the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and at of their critics Are just As convinced that they have left it in no Protection a third View has Deve loped among some men who have Long experience at very High Levels within government that it does not matter much which Side is Correct in this particular because the old Doc Trine that there must always be a minister to take responsibility for what is done by government is no Protection at All in the Security they base this rather despairing conclusion on Long observation from the they May Well be right the experience of the late 1960s and Early 1970s certainly does not contradict their con it seems to that if indeed they Are right on a Lon term our method of government has reached a very Creaky stage at which we would All do Well to Start thinking about the unthinkable that the parliamentary system not Only does not work Well any but perhaps cannot work if the doctrine that there must Al ways be a minister to take responsibility for an action by government is no longer then the Basic control within the system has withered away and those who say in the opinion polls that they fear and distrust big govern ment More than big business or big labor Are showing sound the Crux of the question is the Way in which the Possession of Power has shifted from the Crown to and then to the and the that this has brought for parliament As Power was stripped from the Crown and Transfer red to parliament it of found that a Large chamber cannot perform executive Power passed on to the since a Cabi net cannot function Well from an unstable the development of disciplined political parties and the role of the parliaments majority changed majority rules the True function of the parliamentary majority now is not to provide Protection against the abuse of Power but almost the opposite to protect the governments Possession of it is now Only the minority that can fill the protective when it shows the determination of the Clark opposition earlier in this parliament it can be extremely effective Over the that has not been the common pattern generally the majority gets its Way with no great the minority cannot actually Force a minister to take responsibility if it has a mind to do it can apply great pressure to a member of the Cabinet who the opposition can Tor ment him every Day at question Peri deny him delay his projects and make his life a that has been done at times and it is one of the few safeguards incorporated into our system of if is decided that in some areas there need be no responsible or if Legal structures make it easy for him to evade this traditional Burden of seems to me the problem of control Over big government in this system becomes almost we would then be much better off to consider that the parliamentary sys tem has run its and that the common interest would be better served by separating the legislature and Public reassurance in the Case of the Security the responsibility Issue is raised by the provision that would permit the director of the new civilian Security Agency to reject instructions from the govern ment an official would have Power to override the the purpose is legitimate to provide Public reassurance that the new service will not be used for partisan political the same Experiment was tried when the Bank of Canada was and for the same As a Guaran tee against political interference the governor was Independent of the government during his fixed term of of the policy contradictions that Deve loped Between James then and Donald John Diefenbaker finance proved that the arrangement was unworkable when the two men involved were stub born and the legislation was changed so that the in the must Bow to the will of the the existing Protection against improper political interference with the Bank lies in the Gover nors Power to resign and stale his reasons a formidable elite profit As a reaction to Ian Sinclair state As a spokesman for that he wants four and three per cent to come after the Sian drive guidelines i must say the Man is either very naive or is in a dark world of his he does not know or does not want to know that it is his own colleagues who Are making mockery of and capitalizing on the restraint for Phillippe president of total Petroleum gave himself an increase of raising his salary to a Mere Roland president of Texaco received a raising his salary to John president of with a 12percent increase now Ian Sinclair receives Fredrick chairman of Canadian received a increase raising his salary to the list goes although i do not know what Sinclair current salary or what increase he has i am sure i can safely say that whatever it was he probably made sure it was substantially sufficient to add to his 1979 which was the modest amount of there is no doubt that sin Clairs statements were at least from the businessman Point of As clearly restraints Are for the workers can business claim credit for bring ing the inflation rate Down i would think if restraints Are going to be they should be adhered to by not just the workers of the latest Canadian statistics show that business profits increased by million or per cent Over the previous far in excess of any the major chartered Banks reported a 41percent increase in total profits during the first Quarter of the raise in profits of million was a record in january of this the consumer Price Index reported an increase Over the previous 12 while the average annual negotiated increase was per which Means workers in Canada went Home with a minus one per cent spending i believe Sinclair statement is not made with Canadas interest in i would guess if Sinclair convinced the government to enact furan three business would simply sit Back and blame government for Low wage offers and continue to Mace higher profits to add to the pockets of the elite at the expense of the workers of Carlson National representative Canadian Union of Public employees Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to promiscuity the tone of recent press coverage Given to he aids crisis is an indicator of the degree to which our society has some time ago it was herpes now it is natures reaction Able perversions of Normal the official Public reaction use a condom when you engage in indiscriminate sexual activity with total Strang ers of whichever by All carry on with the dignified and fulfilling lifestyle of your own free it is unfortunate that so Many in society still have psychological problems about accepting your sexual orientation and your right to choose your own life All this asininity is accelerating at an alarming rate to the Point of becom ing an almost deliberately self destruct Tive social this demagogy is obsessed with promoting every imaginable deviance and perversion on the sole basis that some humans feel inclined to it condemns All refer ence to self restraint or discipline As unhealthy and reactionary some of the Early issues in this progressive degeneration May now strike us As archaic repeated divorce and rather than lifelong free unrelated to mar a stigmatized promiscuity As a matter of course in meaningful rela then came teenage sexual encouraged and relieved of responsibility by the now abortion on under the deliberately misleading slogan of procreative respectability for not Only permanent but also transient and Anonymous homosexual As Well As for sex with children As whole some soon we will have activist groups parading the rights of humans to have meaningful sexual relationships with their pet if then we discover another new govern men funded research and medicare will take care of the fact that our not to speak of our is fast disintegrating is curiously not seen in correlation to these social Phenomena by the wild and woolly social Ernest Skublics Winnipeg Strong feelings in reply to the letter by Muharib it Al lacking decorum free a gust i also attended that meet ing on behalf of the having never attended a similar i found it quite interesting and surprisingly relaxed and the conditional variance being re Quested obviously aroused Strong feel Ings if the whole Story is it should be noted that the residents of armstrongs Point area also made some fairly pointed allegations that were not based on the residents of armstrongs Point expressed grave concern that allowing the variance would be the beginning of the end of the armstrongs Point area As a firs class residential neighbor Hood and that undoubtedly the sur rounding slums would inexorably Swallow up the perhaps the amusement referred to in the letter was to be since All that was being requested was a conditional variance to expand a Day care Centre from four children to eight children for a limited period of Margaret fast Winnipeg meaningless i read with interest the article Auto Pac rates among the lowest free August 18 relating to aut Opac rates and a comparison of them to those applicable in other while the comparison Given is of interest to those who like to compare the Cost of living in Winnipeg with the Cost of living in other cities of Canada and a comparable american the comparisons Are meaningless in terms of actual insurance costs for Manitoba the Only Way in which the aut Opac rates quoted can be compared properly would be to determine the rates charged by other insurers providing automobile insurance in the City of insurance rates for automobiles Are determined in each locality by the underwriting experience of the insurers who carry on business in that until such time As Manito bans Are offered an alternative to the provincial government monopoly in the automobile insurance Industry we will never be Able to determine whether the rates being charged by the Manitoba Public insurance corporation in fair and reasonable or if aut Opac is providing a level of service and the rate Structure Compa Rable to or better than that which would be available in Manitoba from other then it need have no anxiety concerning erosion of its to so Long As news Media continue to publish meaningless comparisons such As the one to which i have then Manitoban or a substantial num ber of will continue to believe that they enjoy some special Benefit arising from the participation of the provincial government in the insurance if no such special Benefit to the citizens exists then it is time to make that fact Graeme pc Winnipeg excellent care your article care Home closing shocks owners free August 25 left me with a feeling of my though terminally was a resident of the Golden age Lodge five years she was Happy there and Myra and Archie Martinson took excellent personal care of her and All other she was bathed and had Good there were no com there Are Many Homes which have no one on duty All night and the elderly and sick patients Are left i because the Victoria Hospital sent my Mother to such a personal care not being Happy with no supervision at i found the Golden age Lodge and Myra Martinson an Angel from the previous government was no help 1 realize there is a lot of upgrading to be done in such but Myra and Archie have made a lot of improvements in the past five thank goodness for such concerned people us the Phyllis Roberts How do i know Joe Clark youre not 4 i ;