Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 12, 1989, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 Winnipeg free october 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 f Wood publisher John Dafoe editorial pigs editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy red pop controller Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Winnipeg Choice of cities Winnipeg can grow by improving the existing it can also grow by building a ring of new City beyond the Edge of the old spreading the City out toward the horizon turns a handsome profit for the owners of the surrounding land but it puts the City taxpayers deeper and deeper in the it leaves Winnipeg with a derelict built and then in the Centre of the new the City Council made its Choice in when it adopted its master development entitled plan that master plan which is still on the aimed to do a bit of both improve the existing City by filling in gaps and allow the City to spread in a staged and orderly Way to provide the needed space for new the Council made its Choice after Long and careful economic publication of a draft Public hearings and negotiation with the provincial govern the master plan Drew a the Urban limit beyond which services would not be provided and subdivisions would not be within the Urban limit it established a mix of commercial and residential areas so that future generations of Winni Eggers would have places to places to shop and places to plenty of landowners want changes to the some beyond the Urban limit line want the right to even if the Council and its taxpayers would incur High costs to build the necessary fire Parks and other municipal equip some whose land is reserved for Industry see a Chance to turn a quicker profit in the Jame Assiniboia school division convinced itself that it could find children to fill its empty schools if development were allowed West of the North of Saskatchewan pressures from landowners and the school division produced a Stream of requests to the Council to ignore All the the careful Calculi the Public hearings and the tear up plan Winnipeg and let the City the push North of Saskatchewan Avenue was never put to a vote in the the Council did approve sweeping master plan amendments to allow suburban style development in heading Ley and those amendments did not take because they need the approval of Urban affairs minister Gerry Ducharme and he does not inside the Urban limit by the City planning departments latest building lots await the a further hectares of vacant land designated residential in the master plan await subdivision and with no changes to the master Given the rate at which Winni Eggers buy new the existing Supply of residential land will last the City until about no plan is there May be cases where the planners misjudged the order in which land should be the logical Way the Way contemplated in plan Winnipeg is to develop first that land which can be equipped most the Council should stick to that principle and permit master plan amendments Only where a different order of development reduces the net Cost to the City and its the Cost of municipal equipment is mayor Bill Norrie and the Council have proved again and again that the City is being driven into financial difficulty by the Cost of maintaining and rebuilding its roads and its sewers and water they have addressed piteous appeals to the Federal government to open the Federal Treasury and help finance the work which the City cannot afford to if the City cannot afford to maintain and rebuild its existing it certainly should not consider building new buried services simply add to the the Council has chased after Quick profit by developing land in Linden Woods and Whyte those developments produced traffic jams on the James Bridge so that the Council decided to put a new Bridge at Moray then the Council was astonished to discover that the profits from development including the cites share on Cit owned land soon disappeared into servicing the paper profits rolled in and yet the taxes kept those who want a Chance to make a Quick profit from development have every right to ask for master plan amendments and municipal Public works the is elected to defend the taxpayers the councillors should take Good care of the City we have Here and make full use of it before they embark on building a new fighting the Mulroney claw a fight to stay out of Bush administration decision making during the failed panamanian coup de Tat has been justifiably criticized but the Central decision not to intervene with military forces was the right one for a responsible government with global interests to Canada and other allies would have found it hard to support direct military intervention by the United states in the internal affairs of a Sovereign whatever the special circumstances of the relationship Between the two this could Avereen crisis in relations gives a whiff of the kind of potential problems that prime Brian Mulroney and external affairs minister Joe Clark Are courting by their unwise plan to make Canada a member of the Washington based organization of american in the current the Issue has not Arisen directly but there May still be latin american criticism of the modest assistance that the Bush administration gave to the rebels seeking to overthrow panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio troops of the Southern there by treaty to guard the Panama did Block two highways that might have been used by panamanian soldiers Loyal to in the his Loyal troops travelled by another Many influential people in several of them in have complained of a failure of will at the crucial they say that Bush should have ordered Noriega grabbed and brought to the United states to face cocaine trafficking the problem is that this would have required Bush to violate the terms of the Panama canal it would have been the equivalent of invading another it would have been a violation of International it would have meant the use of Force to Settle an essentially political it would have been an example of the kind of behaviour about which latin american states have been complaining for to underline that last at the time of the coup Bush was playing Host to president Carlos Salinas de Gortari of who would have been outraged and embarrassed by such military action while he was in the evidence of what happened during and just after the coup is contradictory but it seems obvious that the plotters were to such a degree that the Bush administration was quite right to suspect a trap and behave the administrations own crisis management style was just As obviously with most decisions being taken by default rather than As a result of clearheaded Capitol Hill expectations of bold administration action might not have been As of if Bush had abstained from his Mulroney style hyperbole about How determined he was to Lay hands on Noriega and to get him out of some panamanian rebels facing Noriegas executioners afterwards May have Felt a kinship with those hungarians in 1956 who took too literally earlier exhortations by president Dwight Eisenhower to throw off their however Many his Bush got the main thing right in Panama last by Leonard Shifrin special to the free press Ottawa seniors want to take the Mulroney government to court Over its pension Clayback at its recent the National pensioners and senior Citi Zens the umbrella organization for seniors groups from across voted unanimously for a court Challenge of the Clayback As outright age discrimination that violates the Canadian charter of unlikely to win i hold my breath waiting for the Case to be because the seniors Are going to find it is unlikely they would their Contention is that the government is discriminating against people Over the age of 65 by taxing a portion of their income age pensions at a higher rate than the incomes of other the Central premise of that argument is that the Clayback is a sur adding 15 percent to the tax rates of seniors with incomes Over until they have repaid their but the Federal court of Appeal has already rejected the notion that a Clayback is a a month in a Case involving the decade old partial Clayback of unemployment insurance it upheld a tribunal decision that a Clayback is part of the process of parents lax i am a former childcare worker who is watching with interest the debates raging in the daycare com i chose to leave the Field due to the poor i sympathize entirely with daycare workers Over their they chose their careers knowing the during my time in the childcare services course at red River it was con stantly drilled into our Heads by the instructors if youre plan Ning on being get out of the Many workers would say that just because this is the it Doest make it maybe it but where exactly should the Money for daycare come from i think the obvious has been largely perhaps because no one wants to admit where the Lack of responsibility parents need to take responsibility for their own children and not expect the govern ment to assume Why should my tax dollars go to support other Peoples children most people use daycare so with two they can have that second bigger House or yearly of course the debates always Cen Ter on the single Parent and i have no Peanut Day problem with government Assis Tance in these having worked in Many i know firsthand the Lack of support and interest parents have towards the places where their children spend up to nine hours a it amazes me that people dont think twice about paying an hour to get their car but Are the first to complain about the Cost of competent care for their the Bottom line is that the responsibility for children should be on parents if they cannot or will not financially assume that Respo Sibili they should put off having a family or plan to provide the physical care until this my sympathies lie Only with the underpaid child care workers and with the govern ment which has been painted As the bad Guy in this fast Herd Winnipeg disappointed 1 am a supervisor at a nonprofit unfunded daycare Centre in Winni i was disappointed to see so Many of my colleagues taking part in Peanut Day at the by using peanuts and politics to Manip ulate innocent Young those involved served Only to trivialize this very serious if we As child care workers Are striving to be recognized As educated profession we must conduct ourselves As while Many child care workers Are not being compensated adequately for their i believe our government is committed to addressing the longstanding problems facing the daycare the Best Way to resolve the Issue at hand is to work with the govern ment and not against by threatening to walk out on the people that suffer the most will be the children and their 1 am committed to providing qual Ity care and education to All of the children in my daycare i would never walk away from my responsibilities leaving the children As the victims of this political Kimberly Hodgson Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to human rights the annual report of the Manitoba human rights commission was recently released to the Public and prompted some Media while the commission is generally pleased when human rights issues Are viewed As there has been a slant to this recent coverage which to a matter of for the free press ran a Story on september 20 which began by stating that the commission plans to be More discriminating about which complaints Are dealt with there was a preparedness to play on the word discriminating which obscured the thesis of this aspect of the in its the commission noted until its like that of others across the has been a reactive responding to As a insufficient consideration has been Given to approaches which May have More of a preventative or systemic Impact on the elimination of discriminate commission has committed it self to the development of a comprehensive strategy within which priority areas of concern can be this will permit an intense educational and compliance program in these areas to achieve greater of in discussing the report with Media i reported on our Progress with respect to this on being asked to give examples of human rights issues which might receive intensive treat ment for a period of i emphasized that such issues have not yet been As two examples i said they May include discrimination against disabled per sons in employment or against native persons in housing and on being questioned As to the second i noted that the commission has discussed the Issue of discrimination against native persons in demonstrating the limitations of a complain driven a in spite of Community recognition of the seriousness of this Only on tenth of the com plaints filed with the commission Are by native although i was persuaded it was Clear that these references were illustrative examples it appears that there has been some misunderstanding in this regard As the Media coverage left the impression that decisions have been made and priorities the Manitoba human rights commission has not yet decided to give priority to complaints by native people or by any other the commission has decided that new approaches must be explored if the Agency is to effectively use its re sources to combat these approaches include initiatives to eliminate the backlog of pending investigations while ensuring any complaint of Gravity or consequence is appropriately Ken Filkow chairperson Manitoba human rights commission bad Drivers Winnipeg Drivers often display an appalling Lack of safety and Cour resulting in accidents and Many More unnecessary traffic holdups and a Greva most Drivers knowledge of Safe driving practices and common Cour Tesy is at its Peak when they pass their driving Over we for get what weve Learned if we dont practise and few of us take re fresher the free press would do the Citi Zens of Winnipeg a great service if it would Start a driving tips column or ran a feature on this while rudeness will never be education will eradicate poor driving practices born of Louise Thiessen Winnipeg determining and not a tax on what a Clayback the decision is recover an overpayment for which the recipient want finance minister Michael persists in ignoring the courts claiming that a Clayback of the entirety of pension and family allowance payments leaves universality he continues to repeat exactly what that Rul ing said want the Cheque goes out to every body who is Wilson declared again the other and depending on their income to the tax provisions take of neither the Federal court of a peal nor the tribunal based its decision on the i Clayback provi Sion being located in the unemployment insurance act rather than the income tax if they it could Well be argued that locating the planned pension and family allow Ance claw backs in the income tax act makes them posturing that what the seniors will have to contend if they go ahead with their court blatantly contradicting Wilsons political the government lawyers will respond by citing the i they May also Point out that the income tax act contains some pro visions that discriminate in favor of just say no Michael Wilson should scrap his goods and services tax and go Back to the drawing we do not need to change our tax system so drastic it was to be sold to the Public by first convincing us that the deficit is a problem and must be they also said the manufacturers sales tax was making Canadas exports yet it was the tories who raised the tax from nine per cent to 13 and on half per thus pricing our goods out of the in other they were the architects of the they May be Correct in saying the deficit is a and reducing it a worthy but this is not the Only Way to accomplish this i understand that business owes More than billion in deferred surely some Effort to collect these taxes is Long they also said they would work with the provinces so that there would be Only one sales this they have been unable or unwilling to so we Are now facing another tax on a Wilson says it is a fair tax in that the wealthy Purchase More ser vices than the that May be but the poor spend 100 per cent of their income to survive while the wealthy do therefore it is not i also find it remarkable that Mulroney tried to downplay the heat coming from the hearings by telling it was just private inter est groups they were hearing although everyone was invited to Send in a the committee selected Only those individuals and organizations it wished to the committee is in control of who gets to it must have come As a Surprise that their usual the business were also highly canadians must reject this tax grab once it is there will be no getting rid of it is so easy to raise this tax that it leaves no incentive for fiscal respond just say no to the goods and services Grace 1vey Winnipeg those Over the credit for the for exam saves seniors of Federal and provincial and the pension cred it saves them another but that adds up to Only half r what the Clayback can Cost terrified the reason Why seniors Are Terri fied by the Clayback is Wilsons refusal to fully Index the threshold at which it starts clawing pension payments designed to fall three percent behind inflation each in seven years the thresh old will be the equivalent of and four years later it will equal Wilsons Promise to consider periodic adjustments to the thresh old in the future certainly Hast mollified they Are Well aware that his periodic adjustments of the threshold for reducing child tax credit benefits have lowered it rather than raising because the Clayback is to be phased in Over three the combined effect of the tax rate plus Clayback is that seniors will retain at least a third of their pension this and a sixth next Only in 1991 will it begin to be fully clawed by Canada is Likely to have a new and less obstinate finance min and rather than the is probably seniors Best Chance for restraining the Mulron Eyan claw in their perilous twice a Day or five Days a week from september to elementary to High school students must make the perilous crossing of marys Road at Kenny Street in Boniface in order to get to and from As a student in the Vicinity and a witness to countless close it never fails to amaze me that any of us make it we in moving despite the fact that traffic Sig nals and crossing lights Are in Evi most motorists Are either ignorant of the fact or choose to disregard the existence of these safety 1 have personally bom witness to a number of Acci dents at this intersection and have ranked among those near victims seeking Hasty Retreat on the it would be biased to say that the students Are totally without certainly there is illegal crossing on our part for the most the heavy flow of traffic dictates the use of the crossing i pity those students who Are new to this District and unaware of the the tragedy of an Accident at this crossing would be devastating when witnessed by hundreds of Fel Low will it have to culminate in the death of a child before something is done Fitzpatrick Winnipeg ;