Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 15, 1989, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 Winnipeg free february Winnipeg free press Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights published seven Days a week at 300 Carlton Winnipeg r3c 3c1 by newspapers division of Canadian newspapers company limited Telephone 9439331 a member of the Manitoba press Council Arthur Wood publisher John Dafoe editorial Page editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy Redekop controller Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 i take the Epp Energy minister Jake who May still be the Manitoba Boss for the Mulroney said this week could he not he would be Happy to hear from mayor Bill Norrie about a bus corridor for fort Norrie can be counted on to leap at the Opportunity to promote one of his pet the two men have much to talk they have to review Progress of the Winnipeg Centre for sustainable which prime minister Brian Mulroney announced at the United nations general Assembly and which May have lost its Way somewhere Between new York and they have to find out what has become of the virology building of the Federal govern ments Laboratory Centre for disease the danger in explaining a Winnipeg transit proposal to such a distract Ible minister is that his attention May be diverted too soon from the previous to which the government is publicly the a cd project has to be piloted past the opposition of the department of health and which objects to the site Epp chose near the health sciences the Centre for sustainable development is having a difficult birth because no one yet knows what it will Why it should what services it will provide and who will require those if Epp is going to listen to a transit he should prepare to listen carefully and ask he should listen for the part where Norrie talks about financing transit because Money is All the mayor and Council seek from they Are not looking for critical comment on their plans nor advice on improving a previous Council wrote the Southwest transit corridor plan a decade the present Council is Content to stick by that the Federal government is to consider helping with Winnipeg rapid it will need to know that the right system has been Epp May As the presentation that he is hearing a lot about engineering and Little about he May want to inquire How Many Winni Eggers each morning go to the Canadian National East which is where the fort Garry corridor can take he May want to find out what research Winnipeg has done on the results achieved by transit system improve ments in other Canadian he May want to be shown on a map the main destinations to which Winni Eggers travel each none of which lies on the fort Garry the main help Winnipeg needs now from the Federal government is not financial but the City needs a Chance to profit from the experience of other the fort Garry corridor idea arose simply because Pembina Highway is extremely heavily travelled and there happens to be a parallel land corridor beside the rail the Federal government is not in the Urban transit business the leaders of its transport could quickly introduce Winnipeg councillors and transit planners to people who do operate rapid transit and who have upgraded transit systems As Winnipeg is now preparing to what Winnipeg needs now is a series of symposiums on choosing a transit the Best help Epp can give Winnipeg transit development is help with Organ izing those opportunities for research and restoring a peace process Costa rican president Oscar Arias made reasonable Point when he suggested that this weeks Central Ameri can Summit meeting in Al Salvador could restore credibility to a regional peace process that seems to have run out of some current factors could make movement this would be Welcome after the period of doldrums since regional presidents met to sign a peace plan in Guatemala in the plan was Jamed for Arias because he had done most of the Spade work in the drafting Nineteen months the Arias plan has produced no it remains a worthwhile the Arias plan had significant there were loopholes through which those dealing in bad Faith could was attempting to create a plan that might not one that would satisfy it is still a realistic starting the reason it is still being the presidents of Al Costa Nicaragua and Honduras feel a certain urgency about their peacemaking they Are suffering economic consequences from the unsettled civil wars in Nicara Al Salvador and which have spillover effects in Honduras and Costa a report they were Given by the International com Mission for Central american recovery and develop ment says Central americans have died and up to three million have been displaced in a decade of political the commission says billion will be needed for five years to help the five countries to reach and stay at annual economic growth of it recommends external debt Relief it recommends cutting off outside Aid to regional rebel forces and special Trade concessions by the International to be extended to All regional states comply ing with the peace without regard to other commissions have issued soon forgotten recommendations about Central an interesting Dif Ference is that this commission does not represent the View of one government or it comprises 47 members from 20 countries in North and South funded it was co chaired by the executive director of the inter american Institute of human rights and by the chairman and chief executive officer of the american Stock this could get the recommendations a More serious even though some repeat previous the facts about economic stress in the Region Are one reason Why Nicaragua is in a More amenable Frame of sandinista Leader Daniel Ortega is now running an Economy with a wheelbarrow grave shortages of just about huge external debt and declining hard currency firing of in the state sector is to be achieved largely at the expense of the army and the the padded bureaucracy May be the next target since there will be fewer state programs to administer due to funding after ten years of hounding private the sandinista have announced an end to nationalization and a new Era of Welcome for private ownership and whatever actually transpires in the cur rent reality of inflation makes it in ortegas interest to be flexible about regional Long Home to nicaraguan rebel has an interest in a settlement because there is no sign that the Congress will Ever again provide Large scale Mili tary Aid to the Guatemala and Al Salvador both need to end their pointless civil this weeks Summit cannot end these conflicts at a it can weave together the key Mutual interests that make Central american peace More conceivable than it has been for a very Long hazy thinking in High places Meech Lake for lunch there is one significant fact about the february 27 lunch to which prime minister Brian Mulroney has invited the provincial the 11 first ministers will discuss a topic which nine of them had vowed would be discussed again until the Meech Lake Accord had been ratified across the they will discuss the the discussion May not delve very deeply into constitutional unless the prime minister revives his tactics of and keeps his luncheon guests sitting at the table All night the fact that it will be discussed at demonstrates the degree to which the seamless fabric of the Meech Lake Accord has been since the Accord was the conventional wis Dom in Ottawa and eight of the 10 provincial capitals has been that it had to be into the Constitution before any other constitutional concerns could even be that theory was rendered inoperative by events by the election in new Brunswick which swept Frank Mckennas liberals into by the election in Manitoba which gave Sharon Carstairs liberals a powerful voice and by the reversal of positions by Premier Gary Filmon and nip Leader Gary the Meech Lake far from being written on is something for the first ministers to Chat about Over Manitoban must Hope by the time he gets to the soup Premier Filmon has thought of something to never let it be assumed that peo ple in High places have some special knowledge of affairs or indeed know what they Are reasonable men and women would take it for granted that when momentous Deci Sions Are great minds Are assembled to explore the issues in rational and Sharp what happens in the real world is often Remote from this take the matter of Star supposed to create a defence umbrella against nuclear a program which would Cost trillion and would become the biggest Stum bling Block in disarmament stunning proposal after limited and preliminary Dis president Ronald Reagan came out with the stunning Star wars proposal in called the strategic defence the speech was written by Robert aide to Deputy Secretary of state William Clark who frankly has admitted he knew nothing about foreign policy and George described As a relatively unknown these three alone were the architects of the no one else was consulted not the joint chiefs of staff not George Secretary of state not Caspar Secretary of defence not Paul the top arms control Frances of new yorker writes of this Epi Sode it was to end the threat of nuclear War forever by an Invulnerable missile apparently the president had heard someone men Tion something like this As a distinct possibility now it was something he would thus was a great impossibility launched on the an embarrassed silence fell Over to be succeeded by applause from control hardliners and from those laboratories looking for new Val Werier Here we have the great Star wars based on the flimsiest hidden from the key Fig ures and presented As a Brave new course in world theres been a lot of nonsense written about president Reagan the great communicator who made americans stand whatever that now time Magazine suddenly discovers Reagan to be a Man of Little virtue while extolling his George time describes Bush As a new Breeze and a new a move away from the Reagan eras tacit approval of selfishness As an end to the glorification of the nomination of John Tower As Secretary of defence spells no end to greed nor does it offer any respect to High ethical promised by huge increases before he left the Senate in 1985 Tower was chairman of Senate armed services committee where he carved a reputation As a Man who never came across a weapons system that he didst fostered front loading in the Pentagon pushing huge creases to into place higher military spending in the Long As a result the Pentagon ordered far More weapons than it needs or it can pay for in the past two and a half years Tower admits he earned More than As a consultant to five major military and so Bush now wants him As Secretary of defence for his Many contributions to this in people in High places on occasion behave As if they live on another prime minis Ter Brian Mulroney and his new minister of Bill seem to be unaware that Mikhail Gorbachev has appeared on the they dont seem to have caught on to what is going on in the the two superpowers Are moving to wards a reduction in arms and a new relationship in International cold War rhetoric yet Mulroney and Mcknight have made a Point of reiterating that the White paper of 1987 still represents Canadian de Fence the White couched in the cold War rhetoric of the regards the soviet Union As a threat and Calls for increasing military greater develop ment of the Canadian military Indus and the crazy Purchase of Uncle a powered it largely ignores Canadas traditional role As a peacekeeping the respected Canadian Institute for International peace and Securi a Crown corporation based in has strongly criticized the increased arms outlay envisaged by the White defence makes up about 10 per cent of the Federal but As the Institute Points it is about 25 per cent of no statutory programs that is the discretionary element in the the White paper would see the defence budget increased by 80 per cent in 15 while the rest of the world is starting to reduce military expend says Simon author and defence Ottawa has begun its own private arms the question that has been studiously ignored by Ottawa is this How can a big increase in arms spending be justified in the face of the huge deficit waiting for buses i am writing this letter in a bus shelter situated on University cres in in Here because the Driver of the 75 Lagimodiere bus failed to look and see if anyone was waiting in the this was the last 75 bus available from the University during the it is now in these below Normal tempera Tures i feel bus Drivers should be More careful to glance in at the shelters for people waiting for another student and i ran waving at the but it continued to Roll after pulling up at a Stop in thankful that the Winnipeg student Waits for transit system provides bus Shel ters i dont dare to think of what would happen if there haunt been one to wait in these last 15 i i would just like to Point out the dangers of leaving people to wait at bus stops in severe cold in sure i speak for All transit Lorianne Plewak u of m student silent substitute parents should take heed of the position of the Manitoba association of school superintendents Stu dents have to learn More than How to read words have to under stand Back to basics move free february of course they need to understand sentences but one of the most common reasons students dont understand sentences is that they Are silently substituting words for some of those before their today Reading specialists frown on teachers who ask their pupils to read even at the primary level the result that silent substitutions often go inaccurate silent Reading inevitably Means poor comprehension and mental causing a child to think he is stupid because he cant make sense of what he As Long As the current suppression or Oral Reading in the schools Contin we will go on adding to the statistics on illiteracy and need ing More task forces to Hunt for the Mary Johnson Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give Ihler name and names will be used and letters Are subject to efficiency first in his letter asked for help free february 5 Derek Wilson has raised some important questions stemming from his encounter with an elderly for Wilson questions the current propos Al to spend million on Forks and to raise transit fares by 10 per cent when the elderly Are forced to walk our wintry streets improperly certainly these questions deserve careful consider unfortunately the prevailing wis largely shaped and reinforced by the tells us that Only business people know How to plan and so we continue to elect business people onto City councils and into other Public for the most part business people Are preoccupied with efficiency profitable investment and therefore Short term it is not in the Short to invest time and resources to care for the or for that matter to build an no pol Outing Public transit or fac Tor environmental considerations into Industrial strategies and development just the other Day we were told the City of Winnipeg must continue to pour sewage directly into our Rivers because we cannot afford to do otherwise it is unprofitable1 to Stop the senseless pollution of our Environ ment one can cite Many examples of How economical Deci Sion making is quickly carried to absurd and dangerous what is the solution aside from the obvious one More stringent governmental regulations we must demand that the Public be directly involved in decision Mak ing that deals with the Public Busi we might begin by demanding Public participation in determining How development at win Nipges historic Forks should pro Zeedor whether it is in fact Wise to proceed at Richard Menec Winnipeg support prayer the Manitoba association for rights and which is funded from our tax dollars and our donations to United has filed a statement of claim against the Manitoba government stating that the Law requiring daily Christian prayer in schools illegal and Dis criminal if a referendum was conducted in Manitoba on the question of school the vote would be overwhelmingly in favor of retaining a Christian prayer in an association like Marl which attempts to undermine our Christian heritage is we say to Christian parents All that is needed for evil to conquer is that Good men do write to our minister of education in support of prayer in Champagne scrap Reserve i am sick and weary of Reading in the free press about How Canada needs a revived Reserve Force in the Canadian armed Fred Clev Erley is continually writing articles praising the Reserve Force As the Way in which the armed forces Are going to solve its manpower prob lems of the As a 30year Veteran of the regular Force let me state that the reserves have been the largest mistake that the department of National defence has a big waste of the reserves Are operated like an old boys with the majority of the members Only joining for Quick promotion and being made members of the sergeants and officers some a members of the regular Force who have taken Early retire such As corporals and Cap join the reserves and in a very Short time become and Colo Nels and suddenly Are judged to have a Superior where in fact they could not Hack it in the regular what the department of National defence should do is rebuild the regular Force to the strength it had in the disband the Reserve Force and with the financial savings buy badly needed new Goatcher Winnipeg misconception Doreen Martens article on Domestic Blind free january 16 provoked Many of your readers to write women and free january what i found and even about the Origi Nal article and the ensuing letters was the tendency to paint the Man As the villain in each and every while there have certainly been Many news item about wives and mothers who have been Abu Sive or neglectful woman faces charge in husbands freq january and Mother jailed 30 Days for leaving baby free january 27 these stories never Peem to Pene trate the prevailing there is a popular misconception about Domestic violence which sees it As a form of masculine aggression directed against women and Chil this misconception has Conti buted to mens increasing Legal and social Winnipeg he Doest make House so stick out your Tongue and say a huh ;