Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 8, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba 0 Winnipeg free january Winnipeg free press Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights published seven Days a week at 300 Cartton 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 editorials unequal assessment assessments for different properties in Manitoba should be arrived at in the same if one family House is taxed on its 1985 value while the neighbouring family House is taxed on its 1989 it is very Likely that one of them will pay too much and the other will pay too Bill 79 now before the legislature requires assessors to assess property at value in relation to the reference for the calculation of 1990 realty the Bill the reference year is general reassess ments Are required in 1993 and every three years after after says the the reference year is the second year preceding the year for which an assessment is the opposition liberals and new democrats delayed passage of the Bill because of concern about the implications of these echoing realty tax specialist Michael they fear that the Bills terms will prevent some property owners from winning before the Board of of assessments that ought to be the Bills Rural development minister Jack believes their concerns Are the meaning of the Bills terms is the Choice of 1965 As the reference year for and 1992 taxes ensures that some values will be seriously out of Penner should decide More precisely what he wants to accomplish and provide correspondingly precise wording for the it should not be open to a Householder to go before the Board of revision and require his property to be taxed on its value in a different year while the rest of the accepting the work of the City Are being taxed on 1985 a Law operated on that principle virtually obliges every taxpayer to hire a lawyer and go before the Board of revision to demand use of the data most favourable to that that would be a Law written for not for tax pay not for fairness and not for Mercury and the opposition parties Echo his that the Bill will narrow the possibilities for a Well written Law ought to reduce the Appeal those who make their living out of assessment appeals May feel but heavy volume of appeals is the Mark of a poorly made not a Well crafted there is a degree of arbitrariness in All tax the use of a reference year is arbitrary but it is necessary to ensure that All taxpayers Are taxed on a uniform Penner needs to exactly what he is using the reference year the Choice of a reference year five years ago takes arbitrariness beyond what is he should not be ashamed to reduce he should aim to do an insult to ignore sales of an racist Lapel pin from Calgary Are booming now that the professional stampers out of discrimination Are on the Manitoba Justice minis ter Jim Mccrae has a Chance to make it a really hot collectors item by prohibiting Sale of the pin in the manufacturers and distributors of the foolish and ignorant pin May soon be thrust into the pantheon of martyrs to the pin in itself is a trivial it expresses the feeling that the White Middle class is an endangered species and a underprivileged group in Cana Dian facetious remarks along that line Are often made by people who Are tired of hearing about affirmative action for racial anyone who can count knows that White skinned people still make up the overwhelming majority of the Canadian immigration has changed the look of some Canad an cities and there Are people who resent the the Lapel pin made and marketed by a Calgary firm shows a worried looking White male in a business suit surrounded by a Hal naked Black Man carrying a a turbaned sikh and a chinese figure in a coolie the legend reads who is the minority in Canada aside from the old cartoon Type the Clear and false suggestion that nonwhite people Are threatening and oppressing White people is insulting to nonwhite people in the pin should not be it does not advocate violence or it does offend the official doctrines on multiculturalism and ethnic it is meant the people who like the pin Are the ones who like their mounties in boy scout never in turbans and who feel that their views Are not reflected in Canadas immigration and multiculturalism the publicly funded ethnic and anti Dis Crim nation bodies Are up in arms against the the Liberal Justice critic in the legislature wants the government to ban the Mccrae is considering disagreeing with the official doctrines is not a crime in nor is it a crime to be rude and nor is it a crime to be ignorant and people who disagree with the narrow and fearful views expressed by the Lapel pin should meet those views Headon by refuting forbidding their expression accomplishes a problem of rights in Canada aels Devilish client reports of slave labor being used on atomic Energy of Canadas nuclear Power project in Romania deserve close investigation by the Federal the hungarian human rights federation has claimed that thousands of workers were forced to work on the site under brutal a charge that has been echoed by various romanians who say they were among the Canadian official in charge of the project in Romania denies and he is supported by romanian officials involved in the it May be that it All depends on How we define slave according to conditions in Romania Are not the same As they Are they assign you a Job and you have no Choice about according to John who has been in charge of the construction of the a billion project since the miserable conditions in which the thousands who were assigned to the Job Over the years worked Are not much we Are than those endured by most if we can accept that slave labor is not slave labor when it is the lot of an entire rather than just part of the work canadians May feel reassured about the integrity of their government and Crown Corpora what seems More is that decl and its masters in the Canadian government have been so desperate to peddle Candy reactors around the world that they would do business with the Devil himself if he offered to buy a in dealing with former Romani an Leader Nicolae Ceausescu they came very close to doing just other potential clients whom Canada has actively courted have been dictators in Turkey and South remains aels showcase Deal in its Only one and one that it appears to have coveted too the working conditions of Romani ans on the site of this great Canadian undertaking were Well known to decl who claim to have lodged protests about and done nothing if they then Ottawa must have known As Well and also have chosen to do pragmatism is the driving Force of politics and in its morality and decency Are often stretched to the breaking in this they appear to have snapped Long but no one paid much the new Romania will badly need the Power that these reactors will provide when they Are they will help to improve the dismal Standard of living imposed on romanians by the former perhaps even the lives of those slave labourers or assigned workers who suffered to build or that canadians will no longer be Able to take much Pride in by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa the author of the recently published Book be deft que Christian is a frenc Canadian official who spent two years at the Institute for re search on Public policy thinking and writing about his provinces relationship with the rest of the Book is not yet available in English translation but the institutes policy has just published some of its most important observations and Conlu in this Winter of discourage ment Over the future of the country they make not very encouraging fundamental problem he define More clearly and explicitly a fundamental problem that remains to be solved if Quebec is to become More at ease within Canada and if English Ana Diane come to accept the practical results of that provinces distinct a majority of English speakers in this country probably feel that it is enough to know and admit that que Bec is different and very few of and none who know the would argue seriously that it is just like the rest of clearly it is Dufour makes it Clear to any thoughtful Reader Why English appreciation of Quebec distinctive Ness and readiness to admit its exis tence leaves so Many Quebe cers dissatisfied it is essential to them that Canada As a through the formally recognize this distinctiveness because they believe that they must have the Power to ensure that important practical con sequences flow from the of is that some of these consequences Are unpalatable in englis Canada be cause they would emphasize group or Community rights at the expense of individual the differing approach to the Issue of rights individual or communal is at the heart of the Canadian on this the problem for Canada outside Quebec is whether it is Worth compromising dedication to individual rights to secure a More closely knit another Way of putting that would be through this question How much do the rest of us care what happens to the English in Quebec in the Section of his Book which i have Dufour does not make this Point but in fact the country political All sup porters of Meech have made it Clear that they Are quite prepared to sacrifice the English minority in Quebec in the cause of a More closely knit and United each of them has some disagree ment within his own party Over this but the general approach was made Clear when Only two Liberal Back from the entire House of were prepared to support the official languages commission ers rebuke that Quebec should not humiliate its discriminatory Dufour is Frank about the prevailing Quebec approach to the minority in systematically placing the two languages on the same footing is fundamentally Dif Ferent from accepting the English reality to act within the heart of a French seen solely from the viewpoint of individual que becs simple imposition of French predominance is discriminatory Doest it imply that the Franco phone is Superior to the Anglo phone this is clearly an accurate description of the situation in que Bec since passage of Bill 101 by the separatist government if use of your language is legally restricted then you do not possess group rights the question for the rest of As Dufour puts is whether we can accept that in a satisfied Quebec the English regard for individual rights will not prevail but will be replaced by concern for group that the Power of the Quebec majority to take legislative discriminatory if to protect and promote its distinct that is what Meech Lake would provide and if its supporters Here and in Quebec had been As honest As Dufour its chances of acceptance would have been the fatal flaw in the Case made by the supporters of Meech Lake was that they never sought to explain to English Canada precisely Why they regarded these amendments ases Sencial but fell Back on political threats and they doomed Dufous pessimism May go too Meech Lake is the deadlock will be full fledged a political solution will no longer be possible but he also goes on to suggest the endless agony of the Meech Lake Accord could act to illuminate the True problem and its he himself believes that in the Wake of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord it would be a grave error for Quebec to abandon the Pursuit of an intrinsically distinct with an English fear of food with respect to Alice Krueger article on december fear of the article Points out the vast aspects of the Many Dan Gers to our health As a result of ingredients lurking within our food but fails to clarify the real fear of food the fear of having an allergic sometimes even to due to the Lack of or the wrong in Given to a Consumers with allergies Are fed up with wish Washy labels Reading May or May not contain or May contain traces of must the with allergies or live with such questionable components one cannot rely on the uncertainty of a store who Doest know one Way or the other what the con tents of a product food corporations prostitute their products in sheer Bliss through and impressing the consumer so much to the Point that Doest care about the in that because the commercial on television made it look tasty and enough of the its High time the consumer no longer be and the real truth about our food systems should be brought out into the open otherwise the statistics of deaths due to allergic reactions alone will this is clearly a reason for Many to fear Amy Mccormick Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to shocked fallacy food store can be a the fundamental fallacy of the argument of those who Are deter mined to give Quebec distinct Politi Cal status is vividly exposed in the letter to the editor by John Craig of Winnipeg he states his dictionary informs him a nation is an aggregation of people of common origin and Lan Guage and he there Are two nations abiding with in one English and one the simple and irreducible fact is that by that Canada is not two nations but 50 or there lies the if we give special rights to one minority we must give them to if we do we Are reduced to then the ancient racial hatreds Are therefore we oppose special rights for Quebec not because we Are racist but because we do not wish to make Canada a Breeding ground for Moreau Winnipeg your editorial councillors learn fast free 27 completely misrepresented my voting record on the sewer and water rates i opposed All to residential Consumers to generate a surplus that would be transferred to general i believe a surplus in these utilities should go to renewing these ser i voted for an increase to Industrial users As they get a far lower rate than residential this is in shocked you did not Check your facts before you condemned shame on you dont learn fast Greg Selinger Winnipeg concerned your editorial headed councillors learn fast december 27 mistakenly names Greg Selinger As voting in favor of raising general revenues by increasing water and sewer the two councillors who sup ported this practice were Mckee and Glen not Greg be this error concerns me As All the votes on this Issue were recorded and the information readily Avail Able from the City not to mention the free press reporters who were present at the Greg Selinger remained Admira Bly steadfast throughout in his opposition to this Bidden and we both wanted to put an immediate end to this Given the desperate need for infrastructure renewal of our sewer and water systems and the enormous Finan Cial resources required to meet this we could not support councillor Golden proposal of no increase in water rates As a Selinger seconded my motion to refer the executive policy committees proposal Back for review and recommendation As to appropriate taking into account our Lon term needs for sewer and water infrastructure re As you the City is one of the biggest polluters of our Rivers and a major Factor is our inadequate sewer which results in dumping raw sewage into our the damage done to a lingers reputation by this error is and entirely unde i was disappointed with the postage size correction which appeared on december Bottom left hand Corner of Page had trouble finding even though i was looking for we Are capable of making especially when working under the pressure of deadlines in All such correction should be Given equal prominence if not size and appear on the same Page As the error where it is Likely to find the same in my the correction in this Case was totally having said i want to com mend the editors for taking a progressive and reasonable stand on this taxation Gloria Mendelson councillor Kildonan Park Ward inaccurate i am writing in response to your editorial of december Council lors learn while in total sup port of a journalists Complete free Dom to criticize any decision made by a person in Public i would respectfully suggest that All free Doms carry corresponding response in this and in the interests of Quality investigative i would like to make several the editorial was inaccurate and poorly no mention was made of Mckee emphasis that increases in water and sewer rates were Neces sary to ensure that the City can afford to pay for environmentally responsible capital infrastructure replacement her vote for a later motion aimed at eliminating the Transfer from the water Utility to general Revenue for next year and reviewing transfers from other utilities was not in identifying Greg Selinger As the person who voted for the in crease in the main you picked the wrong it was an other if you choose to make personal attacks on please dont hide behind the skirts of the editorial was full of unchecked innuendo and disinter before questioning the integrity of the people you you have the responsibility in the interests of natural Justice to find out their Side of a matter perhaps the editorial writer should review his role As an oppo nent of change and at City trying to undermine the credibility of those who have worked hard for Reform is one Way of standing in the Way of Christine Mckee councillor River Heights Ward disappointed my remarks refer to two free press articles City poor rely on food Banks 28 and minister says welfare it is a continuous source of disappointment to live in a country which uses unemployment As a Means of stabilizing its business writers report that while has not gone up enough to permit lower interest it is also discouraging to read that Mani Tobas minister of labor feels that food Banks Are necessary because the poor and unemployed May be spending Money on booze like the rest of billiard Smith Winnipeg the gentleman at the next table would like you to ;