Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 11, 1989, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press february Page 19 the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and the authors name will be used and letters Are subject to nurses voice concerns this letter is in response to inaccuracies As Well As derogatory com intents in Ray Gibsons change free Jan uary Gibson could have effectively stated his opinion without undermining the teaching profession and minimizing gains made for nurses to both nursing and teaching Are caring professions that demand ded special skills and knowl As Well As the stamina to work in while nurses often face life and death and the nature their work requires them to be on the Job 24 hours a 365 Days of the the teaching profession has its own unique stresses and responsibilities which include pre paring and educating the Young minds of the nurses unionized due to frustration with Low Low occupational exhausting and Lack of control in decisions affecting their working prior to nurses in this province did not have the Opportunity to negotiate their own benefits or working no unionized nurses earned per hour in often worked 10 consecutive shifts and received Only a minimum in soon after becoming Union nurses won a settlement which increased wages and benefits by 35 to 42 per the Basic salary for a registered nurse Rose from to per the current salary scale of a Gen eral duty registered nurse is Start rate to Yea five in addition to improve ments in nurses receive Many benefits not heard of 15 years including responsibility paid sick maternity Long term disability and weekend which Are protected under the collective although great gains have been made by nurses through their nurses still feel they Are not adequately recognized for the work they the Manitoba organization of nurses associations rep resenting will continue to fight on their focus ing on retaining current nurses and attracting future Vera in president Manitoba organization of nurse associations takes Issue i must take Issue with some of the statements made by Ray while i agree that nurses salary Scales do not reflect the Many responsibilities and As Well As the educational require ments of the nursing Gibsons quoted salary for a registered nurse is the aver age yearly income of a registered nurse working full time general duty in a unionized facility in Manitoba is i cannot comment on the income and working conditions of As i am not an expert in that i am reasonably assured by friends in the profession that they often work Long Days and spend Summers up grading their dealing with school aged children in Masse cant be nurses do have to work nights and evening we often find ourselves in very stressful workplace nurses face daily such personal risks As exposure to communicable hazardous sub cancer causing drugs and physical and verbal abuse from a families and members of the sometimes the rewards dont seem however nurses through the Union movement have been Able to achieve collective rights and our Manitoba nurses Union Mona Speaks out on issues affecting not Only ourselves but also our in Unity there is Shiela in Winnipeg right Gibson is nurses should earn nurses Haye been subsidizing the health care system for decades and in the 1970s and 1980s Only have begun to realize that nurses themselves Are to not their leaders or they feel they have to be accountable to everyone and everything and they they have More concern about the budget than Brian Mulroney or Gary nurses salaries in no Way reflect the Respo Sibil commitment and downright hard work that they put Forward each i didst go into nursing to make Money if i wanted to make More Money i could easily have found a weekends and holidays no moire less better less education and expertise government you Are seeing and will continue to see a serious nursing shortage in the next decade because Young women and men striving for Rittore than just personal satisfaction do not see Nurs ing As a rewarding Ca the policy administrators and politicians have relied on the apathy that prevails in one Day the reality is going to catch up to the facts and then nurses will realize the Power they of Only they knew in Winnipeg Gas pricing defended in his article How to Cut High Price of free Jan uary 29 Costas Nicolaou continues his argument against the Cana Dian Petroleum utilizing generalities based on questionable economic analysis and a simplistic View of a rather Complex he quotes Large numbers to represent costs that we As Consumers face and then proceeds to explain How a police would ensure a competitive we Challenge the Basic message presented in Nicolaus article and reinforced by the accompanying the Canadian retail Gaso line marketplace continues to demonstrate its particularly through extreme Price a report entitled 1988 year in review from mines and resources Canada Sheds some from a Neutral perspex on this topic and we strongly urge that such factual which is readily be referenced to enhance the understand ing of our this report states the average Canadian Price for regular unleaded gasoline at self serve declined by cents per or per cent during 1988 Decem Ber 1987 is december Price trends in the 10 major centres across reflected two distinct patterns during the centres in Atlantic Canada and Quebec experienced relatively stable prices with three specific Price declines during the by year prices were about cents per litre below december 1987 Price in major centres West of where downward trends were Simi Lar to those in Eastern prices were characterized by extreme prices moved within a five to six cent per litre Range As prices changed week in the Price wars drove prices Down by As much As 13 cents per litre and often lasted As Long As two at the end of december prices in Calgary and Regina were nearly 11 cents per litre below de Cember 1987 Vancouver also experienced several severe Price with declines of up to 12 cents per but these were generally these numbers clearly show just How competitive the Canadian mar Ket place continues to contrary to Nicolaus Contention that Price wars have no effect on a company Bottom recent Lyre leased figures show 1988 earnings for the Canadian Oil products Industry continue at historic Levels that have ranged Between two and six per cent return on investment Over the last several the financial performance of the Canadian Oil products Industry lags behind the balance of the Canadian manufacturing Indus try return of eight to 10 per cent Over the same such a consistently competitive marketplace in Canada ensures that Canadian Consumers Are paying a fair Price for their Falcone Western Complex Shell Canada products limited better idea As a consumer i would like to see a decrease in gasoline ideas in the Articie How to Cut High Price of might Cut the Price of but at a Cost of and an other Agency to oversee the it seems to me a better and cheaper plan could be set up which would bring the Price Down and keep it if All Consumers of gasoline in Manitoba would buy their Gas from our own government Gas we could lower the Price in a couple of when the other Gas companies notice that they have lost Market share they would lower the Price to regain lost at that time we would buy from the cheapest when the Price started to Rise again we would Start going Back to our Cedric Gibson wu9 hoping for peace in Al a woman stands by her Battle scarred Al Salvador solutions in sleepwalking to free january 31 Allen Hazel Wood paints a grim picture of the salvadoran political situation one in which any dream of peace and stability is being lost As leftist guerrillas gain victories Over the salvadoran government he seems to Tell us that the govern with the help of the is struggling to create order from the chaos of the this is simply not his seven years of experience As a military adviser there seem to qualify him As an but anyone can see that As an american adviser in a country run from the he is unable to admit that he and the present salvadoran government Are the real the reality there is quite differ ent from his dogmatic he argues that Only by following policy suggestions can the salvadorans be saved from them such plans include a realistic Antiterrorist on whose details he is presumably he Means staffer penalties for but it is doubtful that the penalties can be any stiffer in Al where people Are afraid to speak their mind lest they be abducted on the suspicion of rebel sympathy As Many thousands of people in he suggests that a nationwide civil defence program be such a Force could save the country he in the civil defence does exist and is quite they have threatened foreign Aid workers with mutilation and death Many and recently attempted to assassinate Aid worker Evan Fox a native of our obviously he is utterly out of touch with the situation How else could he have the audacity to claim that perhaps 70 per cent of the people Are indifferent to the struggle this Niney Earold struggle has claimed the lives of at least one immediate member of most families in Rural Al they cannot be they Are frightened of their govern ments repressive tactics making orphans and refugees out of the american government Hazelwood represents supplies millions of dollars each Day to the salvadoran and is Well aware of what is being done with the and yet he Calls for More american the justification seems to be that a repressive government that protects american business interests is better than a government tha looks after its people the urgency of Hazelwoods article is entirely the and Canada must reconsider the Wisdom of supplying Aid directly to the salvadoran in Stead of to the who Are struggling to there must be an end to Hazel tons nonsense of making out the will of the people to be an insidious communist Dav Bieber Winnipeg painful the considerable space devoted to Allen Hazelwoods recommendations for continued and Ever More sophisticated War in Al Salvador must bring pain to anyone who cares about human indeed with his his tory of seven years As a military adviser in Al Hazelwood is evidently one of the authors of the cruel Lightyear War which has Cost thousands of lives almost including Winnipeg Church worker Evan Fox decent and caused More than one million salvadorans to becoming ref Hazelwood laments that the salvadoran military does not fully understand All the requirements for advancing the cause of the common among the common people Are the thou Sands of refugees who have begun to return to their Homes after More than seven years in refugee Camps in their courage and commitment to living in peace was greeted in one Community visited by an of Amanada representative with military occupy harassment and the response of the refugees were but were stay Manitoban will have the Chance to meet one of those returned Refu Dina when she visits Winnipeg As part of a National she will speak at Ignatius Church on february 25 at sponsored by the Winnipeg coalition for a just refugee policy and other topics will be the widely condemned Canadian bilateral Aid program to Al Salva the new Canadian refugee policy which threatens to turn legitimate salvadoran refugees away at the and the launching of a National Vigil network to protect refugees threatened with lets Hope that the free press gives equal coverage to this Eye witness account from one woman who has suffered from the destructive military and political intervention advised by Hazel Susan White Manitoba coordinator of Amanada Axworthy Trade switch shows contempt for voters canadians Are going to have to look to the courts rather than to their political institutions to safeguard their Accord ing to a Winnipeg lawyer and longtime human rights Yude senior partner in the Legal firm of Buchwald Asper says the political both Here and in the is becoming the captive of special lobbies and interest groups and unresponsive to the needs and desires of the wider Henteleff is the Only Canadian to be invited to attend an International conference on comparative constitutionalism being held later this month in the former member of the Canadian human rights commission and director of the Canadian human rights foundation will deliver a paper on the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms and its Impact on human rights in in an interview this Henteleff said Canadas political system is being subverted by the new ideology of the Market and growing concentration of economic Power in the hands of a few transnational Corpora there Are economic forces at work that cannot be we have seen the growth of giant corporations and we watched during the recent Federal election How quickly they can mobilize to protect their inter we As citizens have been Given due our political system is being Abro gated and we need a new balancing Mecha in this new the charter imperfect As it admittedly will be the Only Means to continue to safeguard our rights As both and collective Henteleff thesis received some Confirma to Opp from two unrefined events involving the Frances Russell governing conservatives and opposition liberals this the same corporate lobby that mobilized a million advertising Campaign during the final weeks of the election to sell the free Trade is about to reemerge to sell canadians on the necessity to Cut the billion it was called the Alliance for Trade and Job it will present itself As the committee or fiscal response some members Are fearful another full scale advertising Campaign might be seen As without the appearance of a single the committee seems to have the ear of the torn last the deficit was billion the government made billion in Prelec Tion Meg project just part of the fiscal canadians were throughout the the deficit remained at finance minister Michael Wilson said our spending program is right on tory promises we rent they were spending he this the deficit was still prime minister Brian Mulroney blamed the liberals for leaving a Bare cupboard in 1984 and warned Canada is facing difficulties on the fiscal the expectation is of those Meg projects and commitments will not survive the next but the liberals did the tories one better in fostering Public the liberals wrapped themselves in the Canadian Flag from the moment the Trade treaty was initialled in Stop Ping it was the cause of their political they it was a Tough sell for the party in had limited Canadas political and economic Independence through a conscious policy of the sell was made All the More difficult in John the liberals had a Leader with impeccable big business the tories and the new democrats mined the voters the liberals became the nationalists Cham this the party newly reappointed Trade Lloyd destroyed his party he said the liberals commitment to scrap the Deal might be changed prior to the next elec As one Anonymous Liberal my just raising the question was a Clear reversal of the next the Trade critic had his wrists slapped by Deputy Leader Herb announcing party policy was not what Axworthy intended to do nor was he in a position there is speculation in Ottawa that a worthy comments May have been an at tempt to mend fences with the business Community in preparation for his expected run for the Liberal if the former Cabinet minister is playing a very High stakes he has revived All the Public suspicions about his party oppor armed the tories and nip with fresh and devastating ammunition and Bro Ken Trust with the vast majority of voters in Good marked their ballots Liberal to protest the Deal less than three months both incidents show contempt for the electorate and solicitude for private interests Over Public As Henteleff the Canadian political dynamic has and citizens Are going to have to change the Way they approach Legislatures and Canada is no different than Many other countries in that it is facing its own version of the crisis of he will Tell the Thailand the latest Gallup poll shows canadians already recognize the Only about 30 per cent of canadians believe parliament serves their doonesbury by Parry Trudeau i Pont think Muju appreciate it if knew you going through to looking for Waxe to you know was ju5t Muno wiuh6 whom much he Trust up you 15 this hou10u him 7ftk to his i a ;