Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 17, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Free january Winnipeg free press Freedom of Trade Equality of civil rights Liberty of religion published six Days a week at 300 Carlton Winnipeg r3c 3c1 by Canadian newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 Winnipeg free press Winnipeg Tribune 1890 Donald Nicol publisher John Dafoe editorial Page editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy Redekop controller a member of the Manitoba press Council editorials greed and incompetence neither reason nor shame nor vociferous Public out cry could dissuade the trustees of the Winnipeg school division from the Folly of a wholly inappropriate increase in their own no one is forcing them to make Mon keys of themselves before their own no one is obliging them to nullify Public credit for their management of the schools and Label themselves As the unscrupulous servants who pocketed the funds entrusted to they Are doing this entirely on their own Initia Tive and despite urgent appeals to the terms of office of these trustees will expire in october when some of them May run for re those who supported the raise in pay were from Ward Margaret Trott from Ward Brian Mario Santos and Vince Bueti and from warded Kowalchuk and Isobel the raise was opposed by the three remaining Linda Palmer and Esther Sims from Ward one and Mary Kardash from Ward the new rates bring Ordinary trustees pay to 000 from vice chairman pay rises to 500 from chairman pay rises to from the Money to pay these amounts will not drop from the it will be extracted from the savings of homeowners and other property owners in the Winnipeg school division along with the other amounts collected quite legitimately for the support of Public the Homeowner who resists paying for Long enough will find that his House has been seized and sold out from under him by the municipality and the tax arrears recovered from the Sale that is the awesome Power that underlies school division spending decisions and which the trustees Are exploiting to fill their own the raise is inappropriate because it is far out of proportion to the increases others Are the most recent Public service settlements have been consistently in the two to three per cent school division Grants from the province will Rise by two per cent if the province can find the trustees of other Winnipeg divisions Are paid below a the trustees found a judge who would freelance them a report endorsing their salary pretentious by pointing to the accomplishment of the previous reigning Champion the pension artists of the Winnipeg City the Public reaction to that line of reasoning should have warned the trustees that it was not but the trustees reasoning took a different after the big thinking six trustees had adopted first Reading of the pay trustee Kowalchuk read a newspaper editorial accusing the trustees of the writer needed to be he and the Best punishment he could think of was to vote for Sec Ond Reading of the pay until he found him self accused of he he had favored paring Back the that is the intellectual calibre for which Winnipeg school division ratepayers will now pay a trustee Kowalchuk and the other trustees Are elected to mediate Between the Public and the school detecting the Public observing the educational needs and reaching a policy which Best accommodates they have proved unable to work out a pay policy which can be justified before the they have made a ludicrously bad Choice in the allocation of scarce education they have compounded greed with these trustees knew the rate of pay when they ran for if they found it the Honor Able course was to establish a new rate of pay which would apply after the next they were advised again and again to adopt that but the Honor Able course was not to their air Canada and the Csc Are not for but Ive got some snazzy Green suits i can let you have for the Job for liberals Quebec poor taxpayers in their glory Canadian liberals used to congratulate themselves on the Way they stuck by their Leader and kept winning elections while the conservatives kept changing leaders and losing they have to come to terms with the fact that they have decisively lost an election and that the by changing leaders often have finally come up with a that thought helps explain the curious atmosphere which surrounded the brisk Exchange of frankness Between the Federal Liberal party and its John at this Many Mem Bers of that caucus clearly blame Turner for their election dislike his parliamentary performance since that defeat and fear that the party will be Defeated again if Turner leads it into the next however widespread those concerns May be within the caucus and the party at liberals would be Wise to put them aside for the next Little the party next electoral test is four years its members will in the Normal course of a Chance to pass judgment on their but the most pressing need for the party is to develop a coherent strategy in opposition for the Short run and a new and imaginative approach to policy in the longer for All its inconsistency in parliament to and for All its sniping at its the caucus seems to have grasped this a series of meetings is being prepared to involve members in policy discussion followed by a major policy since the party cannot be held together at the moment by either a shared taste for Power or a shared loyalty to the perhaps it can unite in a shared search for new that search is important at the rate the world is it is a virtual certainty that the issues in the 1988 or 1989 election will not be the same As those of last Summers ideas May yet save the Liberal once the party has a better idea of where it should it can decide whether its present Leader stands with ignoring the viewers the special task Force established by the Canadian radio television and telecommunications commission to report on the distribution of television signals to under serviced Canadian communities appears to be talking to everyone concerned except the customers who will be asked to pay for whatever changes it recon in Winnipeg the task Force will meet with the Manitoba Telephone the two Winnipeg Cable and other Cable companies located in the Northern and Western part of the the customers who will be asked to accept what the commission decides have not been this behaviour is All too familiar to the government appears deathly afraid to involve the con Sumers of a regulated service in the determination of that and the components of the Industry that have been licensed to deliver the service Are Only too willing to the Federal government and the crts have Al ready in that cities receiving television service equal to or better than Winnipeg and Brandon qualify As being and can be allowed to receive other Canadian and some by the government and its in Pursuit of adequate service has called on the six member task Force on the subject to report Early next what is most Likely to be talked about this weekend is the continuing dispute Between the Manitoba Telephone system and the Cable a dispute that has Given Manitoba the most expensive pay television in the and a service that has less variety than any the regulators and the regulated will also talk about such matters As the Competition that May be provided if other Canadian stations want to have their signals distributed by it would be interesting to discover whether the benefits of Competition for viewers will get As much consideration As the problems Competition May cause for the customers Are Likely to be involved Only when they Are asked to pay the Bills for changes that have been made without the Benefit of their opinions or by Frank Walker special to the free press Montreal the pleasure of living in this which is some Quebe cers will pay this year 10 per cent More in income taxes than their Ontario cheap some might consider the Price these loyalists even smaller differentials have already sent Many Middle and upper income families in search of More understanding they have also prevented others from making this their highest taxed the White paper on Over which Jacques Parizeau and his staff Laboured for More than two years when he was minister of i was intended to do something about our status As the highest taxed province in the even if it were it would do Little to close the All that finance minister Yves Duhaime would say when he made it Public the other Day was that it would hold the Gap at this years there is an offset to the higher income according to the minis a couple earning a year would find it six per cent cheaper to maintain the Ontario Standard if they lived in but it is not Only income tax which sends the Rich scuttling from the More important Are Suc cession duties and the White paper says nothing about though Quebec is the Only province to Levy no wonder the business inter ests were Cool to the whole my preliminary said a spokesman for the Quebec chamber of is big lots of deception and no there is another Side to the White it is also a first class study of what we should do about our makeshift tax and welfare systems and it contains some imaginative ideas for dealing with avarice there is an insidious disease strik ing Down Many of our it is called it would seem at the moment to be afflicting the larger population their councils and school it would appear that one of the first orders of business on taking or shortly is to increase their Sti enhance their Perks and ensure themselves a Rich retirement on the backs of the Long suffering tax the Hope being during the ensuing years to the next elec this gorging at the Public trough will be the outlying municipalities must guard against this malady that is in trustee Mario Santos Felting the Large Urban centres and try to curb it before the whole prov Ince is there must be some machinery put in motion to protect citizens from the predatory political bodies which vote themselves pay and pen Sion benefits without regard to the Economy or ability of the Public to a simple step that May help alleviate this avarice would be that the present office holders would have to make any increase effective Only at the next there is a Small Glimmer of Hope that this malady has not struck All the councillors of Selkirk Are taking a three per cent Cut in their with no raise the previous a commendable action by elected representatives who Are cognizant of the problems faced by a Public beset with Ever rising bed Rook Winnipeg old sins the question of reparations to Jap Anes canadians for wartime actions against their Community May hinge on theological Many of the social evils being corrected by righteous politicians today with generous financial Grants will probably never be paid for by pres ent generation they Are merely added on to the already monstrous they must surely be paid for by future the Bible in its Wisdom merely re lates a truth which cannot be in this the sins of the fathers is certainly shown to be visited upon future William Dunn Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to distorted i wish to express my dismay and frustration with the article business elite taps nip capital fund free january 3 which i consider to be sensationalistic the article describes How several prominent Winnipeg businessmen have participated in the provincial Ven Ture capital program in order to place funds in a local Home Stead computer services of which i am a by virtue of the caption and the tone of the the distorted impression is left with the Reader that there has been misuse of Public nothing could be further from the As required under the terms of the venture capital the prov Ince participated on a 3565 per cent basis with each of the individuals in order to establish venture capital thus the numbered which could have just As easily been called Xyz corporation had one wished to incur the additional Cost of a name each of these venture Capi Tal companies then invested All of its funds into an local Homestead which employs some 30 people in was Only one of several Manitoba firms which participated in the the province should be commended for its foresight and innovative Ness in providing a program unlike so Many Grant or make work actually facilitates private investment in Small under the terms of the pro the province Over receive All its Money Back through dividend the inaccurate impression created by the article is a disservice to Manitoba Small business by discouraging this kind of investment Many firms will face greater difficulty in expanding their operations and therefore creating needed employ ment the article leaves the impression that there is something wrong with the province participating in the venture capital companies established by the business people named in the just whom would you expect to have sufficient capital to place at risk other than reasonably Well established executives As a i find it More palatable to see the province pro Mote and encourage Small business through a vehicle such As the Ven Ture capital program rather than using wage subsidies or the article has done an injustice to the province and a disservice to the Small business the province and the investors should be applauded for their support of Small business rather than subjected to misleading Penny Kelly Vic president consulting services Homestead computer services Winnipeg unfortunately this is not the Way the government has chosen to of the options the govern ment has come Down for the Sec which is an improvement Over option which is Mere tinker but does Little to bring about fundamental it is option 3 which really begins to Reform the but that option Duhaime considers to be too which it May Well be in an election nonetheless most observers have plumped for option not Only does it bring Down the income tax rate by two More percentage Points but it transfers some of the tax Bill from Money earned to Money in other taxpayers would pay their tax in larger not on the income they received but on the income they spent buying consumer the sales tax under this be broadened to include All products except prescription Medicine and professional for a married taxpayer with two the additional sales taxes would add a year to his sales tax a highly visible increase which would be constantly hammered Home to the taxpayer every time he or she made a welfare but option 3 also does something about the poorest segments of so there were households on welfare in Quebec As of septem of had in them people considered Able to supporting these households costs Quebec taxpayers More than the White paper suggests incentives to persuade these people to return to the Job it pro poses cutting the marginal rate of taxation for welfare recipients to 50 per compared with the present 75 and 100 per in other the poor could return to work without finding them selves grossly penalized for their not Clear in his letter metrics inexorable March free december 15 Gervin Greasley appears to be knowledgeable about the desire and intentions of the construction Indus try with regard to metric conver i would ask him a simple question does metric conversion in the construction Industry mean Only that measurements that have hitherto been expressed in feet and inches in be expressed in metric measure or does it also mean that the existing Standard sizes of construction materials Are going to be changed for the existing Stan Dard size of a Sheet of plywood is 8 feet by 4 and one foot equals when metric con version is Complete will a Standard Sheet of plywood still be the same size but merely described As being or or 2 by or or 1 i have yet to see any Clear and definite answer to Ronald Cantlie Winnipeg grass cutting recent news reports suggest that City Council is once again consider ing ways to Force inner City residents to Cut the Boulevard in front of their property owners who fail to keep boulevards in proper Condi Tion would be billed for the cites costs of cutting the before this proposal receives fur ther perhaps someone on Council might explain to rate payers the Legal authority by which the City seeks to Force its residents to efforts by heavy cuts in their welfare apart from this the White paper also proposes a welfare recipients who refused to work would be there is much More to the White paper at its is a bold and imaginative attempt to meet some of our fiscal it would be expensive to the Cost would be some million in a budget of none the option 3 would certainly begin the process of Reform and would make it is some to new some part Public opinion the timing of the White paper makes its implementation most Duhaime is going to take the paper on a circuit of the province to test out Public it would then be brought before a special committee of the National but in the Light of the political situation there is Little likelihood of even these limited procedures being the special convention of the parti quebecois is set for january Premier Rene Levesque already has the numbers to Force through his decision not to make Independence an Issue at the forthcoming general the party has been grievously wounded already by the debate Between those who would maintain the sovereignty Issue and those who would forget for the at any even though Levesque will there will be a Price to be paid for the party is reshaping itself and this painful process does not allow room for a serious look at important matters of the White if it is considered seriously at will be considered by the next this might be but More Likely it will be an administration headed by Robert Bourassa and his they have their own maintain City property without re while it might be highly desirable for homeowners to under take Boulevard it is not at All Clear that the City can fairly penalize them for not doing at least not As Long As the City continues to own the one can Only guess at the final outcome of such municipal presume will we next year discover that Council demands not simply that we mow our but that we also regularly water and fertilize them perhaps we shall be asked to Plant Beds of Flowers in them to prune or replace the in the City might Well extend the principle to the Parks by making mowing and other tasks a citizen homeowners from for no doubt led by their could be assigned responsibility for Assini Boine John Luik Winnipeg in waiting for the Day that they can transplant ;