Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 29, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 Winnipeg 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 my editorials an aimless shuffle Premier Pawley has chosen a experienced minister in Al Mackling to fill the major which becomes vacant because Mary Beth Dolin has left the he has shuffled nine ministers in All in the game of musical chairs which was set off by the need to fill one important in the the Premier has reduced the size of his Cabinet by As he the seat vacant in anticipation of Dolins the result of All that leaves one major area of government activity inadequately Pawley has passed up the Opportunity to make Urban affairs a primary Cabinet the most surprising change made by the Premier in his Cabinet shuffle was the disposition of this demanding and potentially controversial he has added it to the heavy Load being carried by health minister Larry Desjardins is facing what he himself has described As substantial problems in the funding and management of health care in he now faces an area of additional responsibility which promises to be As with As Many potential As his main in the next few Desjardins will have to implement the agreement he has made with the Manitoba medical association Banning extra Billing in return for a form of binding arbitration assuming the agree ment is ratified by the associations that or something like will be needed because the new Canada health act imposes financial penalties on provinces which permit extra Billing even when As has generally been the Case in the extra Bill ing cannot be shown to have created serious once that problem is sorted Desjardins faces some much More fundamental and much More As he has already major changes in the Way health care is provided and paid for in Manitoba will have to be made if its costs Are not to outstrip the provinces ability to the of Portage of health care dollars is already evident in the operation of Manitoba in the operation of ambulances in the and in the delivery of health care in smaller the shortage will get worse if major reforms Are not planning them and implementing them should be a full time Job for the minister of Manitoban May wonder where Desjardins will find the time to Deal with his additional he enters the Urban affairs portfolio at a time when the relationship Between the province and its Urban centres is strained by conflicts Over development control of capital spending and possible amendment of the City of Winnipeg he must breach a Wall of mistrust that has been built Between the civic and provincial it is possible that the removal of the responsibility for lotteries will ease Desjardins Burden but it should be remembered that he has already fought his major Battles on this Given the relative number of potential problems in the two labor and Urban it is Surpris ing that Pawley has chosen to leave Urban affairs As the secondary he of permit unlimited growth in his it is already extremely Large for a province the size of but a proper recognition of Winnipeg needs would have inspired in the Premier a different set of All but one of the other appointments amounted to the shuffling of the addition of Harry Harapiak to the As minister of Northern gives the newest minister a reasonable workload with which to prove his Hawleys essential task was to find someone to carry the workload that was being carried by he has done that for the he has shuffled ministers rather aimlessly without much Evi Dent regard to the most important areas of All is image image is Ontario tories go right Tim release Medicine one of the reasons that the progressive conservative 1 party of Ontario has become Canadas most successful political machine is that it has been immensely Lucky with its Leslie John and William each in his succeeded in reflecting the values of Rural and Small City offering conservatism with a human face and presenting a Bland and pleasant front for an extraordinarily hardheaded and efficient political but each of those while preserving the party also managed to create the sense of renewal which was essential to its political who was chosen on the weekend to become the new fits into that Mold in More ways than most of the party and some of its would like to As they did in 1961 and the majority of delegates to this years convention rejected a outspoken and energetic candidate from Toronto in favor of a less though More Man from outside the big the difference this time is that there is no evident Way that Miller can give the party an image of Robarts and Davis both achieved Middle age Early in life but both were Young in political terms Robarts Davis 42 when they took Over the party Miller is two years older than the Man he Robarts and Davis both were Able to give a slightly More Liberal colouring to the party when they took Over its each represented a change in style and emphasis from his Pride each was Able to accommodate himself to the political fashion of the on his is More conservative than his if the political fashion of the Day in Canada turns out to be a return to the kind of conservatism exemplified in the United states by Ronald then the Ontario tories May Well have found once the Man of the future to Lead if they have if a return to much More conservative policies is not the wave of the then the spell the conservatives have cast on Ontario for the past 41 years could at last be of if the new Leader follows the style of his his personal political inclinations will guide him less than the judgment of his pollsters about what will sell in Ontario and what will the party uses extensive polling to keep it that crucial Hal step Public opinion which is essential to the retention of political it uses skilled marketing techniques to sell the image which the polls determine is in if he lets the party skilled manipulators of opinion May Well be Able to sell Miller in the next election Campaign without Ever allowing the Public to understand what his policies Are and without Ever having him utter a word on since an Early is in the it should be Clear soon just How malleable the new Leader will be in the hands of the party in at least one Miller is solidly in the recent tory tradition he was not the favorite candidate of th6 Toronto news opinion makers Back in 1961 lamented or robarts1 conservatism and Lack of capacity in comparison with the dynamic Robert Macauley and dismissed his speech to the convention As conservative and ten years they found Daviss speech Flat and especially in comparison with the dynamic Allan a majority of delegates ignored the supposed experts on both occasions and history has proved that they were history May Well do the same this time but it is difficult to believe that it will give quite solid an endorsement to the Choice of the amiable but stolid Miller As it gave to the selection of Leslie John Robarts and William by Leonard Shifrin special to the free press Otta Wathe people who de signed the Canada health act had a time release remedy in and that is exactly the Way things Are working with the Impact of the legislation being Felt in a series of the passed unanimously by parliament almost a year pro Vides for the Federal government to withhold a part of its contribution to provincial health care costs equal to the amount of any extra Billing by doctors or Hospital user charges in the but no penalties were to be assessed before july agreement the last was that Newfoundland abolished its Hospital fees Scotia reached agree ment with its doctors to ban extra Billing and introduce a system of binding arbitration for fee sched that enabled Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to join As the Only three provinces to avoid penal ties when the Federal contribution reduction provision took effect in each month since the other seven provinces have lost a total of but they have not irrevocably lost which is the other part of the Canada health acts time release the legislation provides that a province which eliminates its extra charges within three years will be paid the full amount of All the penalties that had been assessed against like an unclaimed lottery that offering gets big Ger and More enticing every a few weeks ago the government of which is in tight Finan Cial Straits and facing even tighter Straits next year when a reduction in its equalization entitlement takes reached agreement with its provincial medical association to ban extra Billing and introduce bind ing that agreement is currently being voted on by the provinces and its local opponents have been joined by medical association hardliners from else where in Canada in an Effort to scupper a precedent we believe that a precedent set in Manitoba would very soon become infectious and interest our local a former president of the Ontario medical association told a recent meeting of Winnipeg Doc tors at which he and the past presi Dent of the Canadian medical Asso a exhorted the Manitoban to reject the in this Case there is Good reason to believe in the Domino in the Saskatchewan medical association has already agreed to cushions with the provincial health minister of a ban on extra Billing As part of a new system of fee Settle in the situation has been on hold for the past several months because of the conservative Leader ship the prevailing which enabled the candidates to avoid facing the has been that they would convince their Feder Al tory cousins to change the can Ada health fantasy before that Campaign myth came Ontario health minister Keith Norton was promoting the fantasy that if the province complied with the spirit of the act by Banning some extra Billing Only specialists and not general practitioners do for or per haps permitting it for services provided in doctors offices but not those performed in hospitals then Ottawa would forgo Ontario pen in Ontario Billing by a certain number of Dol its penalty would be reduced by exactly the same number of no More and no anything else would require legislation amending the Canada health and the Mulroney government is not about to do anything that politically according to the prime preserving the acts ground rules for medicare is a sacred Combine a sacred Trust with a time release capsule and what you it is that greatest of rarities in modern Day Ottawa piece of legislation that actually your editorial repeating past mistakes free january 21 comments on an article by columnist John that article discusses a variety of options that Canada has for maintaining its european contribution to although the article clearly indicates that National de Fence Headquarters planners Are co vering the whole spectrum of Possi ble from troop withdrawal to a larger your editorial selects the withdrawal option Only for that is a valid position for you to but without developing your Case in any Way you commit the Cardinal military sin of situating the appreciation and categorically state that All personnel in and he Are drones and Are demonstrating intellectual bankruptcy and Blank institutional personnel finance Spe procure ment and transport people All Are by this same Standard of measurement one must assume that All members of the free press Are guilty of the invasion of finance minister Michael Wilsons private nato forces Europe papers when he was in Winnipeg last sales paper typesetters the whole lot must be seen As having the same moral Stan Dards As your writer and the management who condoned the As for the substance of your Edito it hardly seems to have crossed the writers mind that military plan ners Are expected to consider and present the broadest Range of options to their political the not the makes the final the editorial is unfair to the Mili tary planners in and by its hysterical attack is also unfair to a Large number of dedicated staff at they Are not and they Are not so intellectually bankrupt As to wonder Why a once responsible newspaper would write in such a sophomoric you will not be surprised if the same military personnel at cab Winnipeg can celled their free press subscript since you must consider them too Lazy and ignorant to appreciate your Darlington Winnipeg doing it right each business trip to Friendly Manitoba has its own pleasant sur seven months i Learned upon my arrival in Winnipeg that the Manitoba governments program of Job creation had resulted in the lowest rate of unemployment in prior to leaving Ontario a month the Toronto Star reported that insurance rates were about to be increased by some 20 per cent due to the increasing costs of car arriving in Winnipeg later on the same i read in the free press that Manitoba aut Opac was about to reduce its car insurance rates by two per obviously is faced with the same Cost increases As we Are in is it just possible that Manitoba program is Mere efficient than ours in Ontario Manitoban and their government sure Are doing things Ron Moran regional councillor letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to reduce Speed protect police self government since the constitutional talks in March of it has become obvious that the Indian self government concept will not Benefit the Indian popu especially the ones at the Bottom of the totem the actions and statements made by Lead ing reserves and particularly clans indicates that it would Lead to simply because the intent is not to better the circumstances of the in Dian people As a but is merely for the purpose of forming Obligar evidence of that fact has been put to everyone and still some Indian churches and government support the from when the White paper policy was rejected by the now defunct Manitoba Indian the counter self gov Ern ment proposal has Dweller in the minds of certain but like the mib they have led other Indian corporations and reservations into disastrous financial fort in its attempt to pave the Way to has been guilty of numerous Blun Ders and has created a bumpy Road with the added support of some bands and the Mother organization the Assembly of first which has said that it believes in How can it maintain that statement when it supports fort which has governed by intimidation and coercion to re place an elected school Board for a selected one is undermining Peoples democratic the Assembly of first which claims to represent All treaty and status is dictatorial As because it cannot and does not represent favouritism is a common practice on most instigated to a certain extent by inadequate funds from Indian but that should not give any Council the right to distribute services to certain visuals Many As in fort have waited years to be granted a House while some have received two or More in the same period of How can any one justify that fort alexanders annual education budget is in excess of where do they Hope to raise those funds under sovereignty with most reserves lacking re sources and it appears that the self government enthusiasts pro pose to be supported by another nations that Means they demand the dismantling of in Dian affairs to give them ultimate control Over management and and it is time that the Indian people rid themselves of the outrageous self government foolishness before it too late and begin to strive for self Reliance which is the True in Dian culture Mel Fontaine Winnipeg bizarre i have been Active in the Winnipeg coordinating committee for disarmament a cd since and offence at the letter by Gord Friesen career ruined free january Friesen accuses the a cd of being a group of inhuman the a cd has and functioned a Middleon therond coordinating committee for organizations and individuals who believe in which is the ultimate Issue for Humankind world peace Wil come about through a Dee Scala Tion of the arms especially the nuclear arms it is everyone duty As residents of this global Community to work for our Mutual sur if Friesen has lost his Job because of his Pursuit of peace and then i would like to know who the Heck he works to make wild statements As he did in his letter and then to not explain them is really Mckee Winnipeg i agree with mayor Bill Norrie that Speed limits should be reduced in school As an adult crossing guard at a Busy intersection on Rob Lin i am Well aware of the or Lack of of our this is a Light controlled intersection but that does not deter speeding traffic and i have seen Many close at least the Speed could be reduced at times Between and 9 at lunch hour and be tween and if that was done the need for adult guards c9uld be in my travels through the United states i have noticed that most cities there have reduced speeds in school zones which Are strictly Jennie Fenstad Winnipeg proper Justice As in the letter by Joan Mcleod Barbaric free january i have always been proud to be a Canadian but my Confidence in our Laws and judicial system will Only decrease if capital punishment is not when i was a i knew what the penalty for murder was and i believed it was one of my uncles was shot and killed in front of his wife and daughter while try ing to deter an armed robbery in the robber escaped and killed four other people before he was he was arrested in the and sentenced to the Gas i would like to Seemore letters to the editor from families who have suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of a Barbaric in her Mcleod the of capital punishment is Barbaric and i suggest to her that the discovery of a molested body of a child is Barbaric and the punishment should fit the statistics prove that there have been More murders commit Ted since capital punishment was abolished than Daniel Baxter Winnipeg the time has come for those in command of our police forces to drop the idea that the uniform protects the Man or that the ramp always get their it is now often the one has Only to look at the record of violent deaths suffered by the ramp and other police departments Over the past year to see that is not if the Federal government can budget millions of dollars to buy new uniforms for our armed forces just to improve their surely they can find funds to outfit police with adequate protective gear and equip if firemen can Don heavy full length protective gear Enro Ute to a fire i see no reason Why our Law enforcement officers cannot have similar equipment available to a Flag raped followed by a mile Long line of fully uni formed police is too High a Price to pay for fashion let us give the wives and children of police officers the Assurance that their husbands and fathers have adequate equipment to protect Herb Kreuger whats happening in Russia ;