Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 13, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba 16 Winnipeg free january 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 e Wood pub she John Dafoe editorial Page editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy Redekop controller Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 How to ruin a railway Canadas via rail Experiment once again proved the obvious neglect and mismanage a Public service Long enough and the people will Stop using the Amtrak Experiment in the United states proves the corollary improve a Public service and manage it carefully and the Public will climb the sharply reduced schedule of Canadian Pas Senger rail service takes effect no More service from Winnipeg through Calgary and the Scenic route to the no More campers special next summer to cottage country around Malachi and Farlane in Northwest no More service through Quebec Eastern no More feeder lines in the Mart half the service of last in the by Amtrak sales Are steadily the National rail passenger Agency reported billion in sales in the 198889 fiscal sales which had covered 69 per cent of costs in the preceding covered 72 per cent of costs in 198889 the largest share achieved in the Agency Congress covers the some reasons Why Amtrak is flourishing and via is dying Are obvious to passengers who use Amtrak offers modern it offers attractive stations and waiting it takes care of its via has struggled along with equipment from the 1950s which shows its Many of the stations where its customers must wait for their overdue trains Are interesting As historic monuments but inconvenient As passenger the station employees and on Board service staff try hard but Many of them have Little training and Little experience of there is Little they can offer their Amtrak has Many of the same problems via its trains often run in most markets it cannot compete head Ohead with airlines for the business traveller or with the private car for travelling its difficulty in competing with the car is greater than Vias because the network of interstate highways in the is far Superior to the Tran Canada much of the country Amtrak serves is As thinly populated As the corresponding parts of the Empire builder train from Chicago to for serves scattered cities and the wide open spaces of North Dakota and Montana much like the country which Vias Calgary the used to despite All these Amtrak is a better rail passenger service people use it and it covers better than two thirds of its Cost out of sales Canada could have a service As Good As Amtrak or but not merely by wishing for a Federal government would have first to accept that the custom ers will go where the service is Good and will not go where the service is it would have to allow via to invest in modern equipment and new it would have to do some serious Market research to find out where the people want to travel and How much they Are willing to it would have to tailor the service to the needs of travellers and not to the convenience of the the deep rooted disease within via and in transport minister Benoit Bouchard office is apparent from their response to the clamor for renewal of the Camp ers users of that train need to ride a train because they have family properties 100 Miles and More from Winnipeg which Are accessible either by train or by air but not when they find out the Cost of weekend return air they will be prepared to pay a cos recovery fare or More to restore the campers an Alert rail Agency would scent a Market there and look for ways to serve that Market via does not think in those nor do Bouchard via offers service through cottage country which is timed to be utterly useless to camper Bouchard spokesman considers if the campers want a train they should establish their own with idiocy like that in Canada will take a Long time to catch up with More not fewer Tow he on a Public reiatioh6 tour or Loktik Start doing 6atike followers of the pronouncements of the pro Canada the Council of canadians and other ant free Trade crusaders might be puzzled by the latest report of statistics Canada on anyone who swallowed the pro Canada networks claim that the free Trade agreement had Cost Canadian jobs directly and three times As Many indirectly might expect Sta scan to be reporting a substantial increase in unemployment during the Trade agreements first year in the yearned statistics paint a quite different employment for the year is actually up by while the unemployment rate has risen marginally in the last three the average rate for the year was lower than it had been in the number of canadians without jobs went Down during the not there is nothing spectacular about those they a Little better than might be expected for an Economy nearing the end of a steady 10year expansion and coping with High interest rates and a rising the Antior Estrade coalition would have canadians believe without the the Economy would have performed much it they have created close to new jobs instead of a Mere to believe one would have to believe a number of including that finance minister Michael Wilson is a fiscal Genius and Bank of Canada governor John Crow is a monetary if Only the free Trade agreement was preventing Canada from creating half a million More jobs last then Wilsons fiscal restraint and crows High interest rates must have had a wonderfully stimulating effect on Canadas econ a More plausible explanation of last years economic performance is that tax increases and High interest rates had the dampening effect that economists expect them to have and if the Economy grew at a stronger rate than might have been expected under the there is not a shred of evidence to support the silly notion that the fat somehow fore stalled an economic saturday at the old Uptown falling for another one the prank that professional hoaxer Alan Abel played on the new York news Media was less amusing and More instructive than some of his past for three decades who has plotted Success Ful hoaxes for fun and for prof snared the Gullible of his Campaign in the late 1950s to put pants on animals a nude horse is a rude horse was his slogan gained considerable since that time he has arranged for clothed people to faint at the feet of Phil Donahue to protest poo Quality he has lured reporters into a room on the pretext of presenting deep the still unknown informant in the water Gate he has gone so far As to con the new York times into printing his the major news and those who take them at their were again the objects of Abels an actress and a hotel suite were All that were needed to persuade reporters that they had inter viewed the Lone Winner of new York states editors were caught with their editions the Story landed on the front pages of the cites daily newspapers and was a Lead item on television news Only the new York news twigged to the hoax when the newspapers who had once taken a course on practical joking from ignored a do not disturb sign in the hotel and recognized the famous the new York times conservatively positioned the Story on a Back Page and cautiously reported that the woman had claimed to be the Winner of the largest single prize in the lottery the gambol was instructive to reporters who were made too Well aware of How Gullible they can be and How vulnerable they Are to a Story that glitters from a single any who had taken the time to crosscheck the Story with state lottery officials could have Learned that the real Winner had not stepped the hoax was instructive to editors who failed to demand that they do just the prank is also instructive to Consumers of rapid fire editors Are not a Gullible they the More vulnerable the More they Are tempted to Rush a flashy Story to print or to the those who want to be cautious in the credence they give instant news can use a simple they can do what the reporters and editors failed to they can look in any report for confirmation of its veracity from a second by Christopher Dafoe special to the free press As one sinks Ever deeper into Middle age or should that be late Middle age the habits of the past keep trying to reassert not Long while waiting for a bus at eight in the i found myself humming a tune we used to dance to at the saturday night dance at the River Heights Community club in 1948 and i have noticed that recently i have been experiencing a curious feeling on saturday after Noons at about one saturday matinee at first i was unable to identify the message that my subconscious was trying to Send me and then quite suddenly the message broke something deep inside me wanted me to hurry Over to the Uptown theatre on Academy Road for the saturday the old Uptown has been a bowl ing Alley for years and i never but years and years the ornate auditorium of the Uptown was my Home from Home on Satur Day just As it was for hundreds of others of my contemporaries and near to be in the Uptown with Snow falling gently on River Heights in the forties and to be close to even Over 40 years i hear the Call As a Winter saturday morning settles into after i cannot imagine what children do on a saturday afternoon in this year of Grace there is no Uptown i suppose the poor kids watch television or satisfy their parents by attending hockey practice or Baton they cannot know what they Are if they knew they would feel deeply when i first started attending the Uptown saturday matinee the Price of admission was 12 my weekly allowance was 15 cents and the extra three cents plus the refund on a Ginger ale bottle made it possible for me to fill my pockets with a selection of cheap Candy from the Uptown food bar a Jelly a Licorie pipe or one of those Wax bottles with Sweet liquid a couple of cents bought a Good Supply of Black a Messy confection with a seed inside that turned your Tongue if you had real Money or if some kindly rela Tive had Given you a Book of movie passes for Christmas you could buy a hot dog or a stubby Lemon Lime to smuggle into the the very occasionally it was Possi ble to save All your Money by sneaking into the theatre without via the Back door you needed an accomplice for this or by creeping past the usher on your hands and would i enjoy today a program of features and Short subjects As presented at the circa 1948 when it comes to films these Days i am fairly hard to but i was generally uncritical when i was like some films better than but just to be in the Uptown with the lights out was pure we enjoyed anything that came on the including the films that we changing seats there were always a lot of car the same i that keep the tots amused on Satur Day mornings on car Toons were not at the top of our but we endured the antics of bugs mighty Popeye and Tom and Jerry while we settled into the changed seats at least three times and got our Coats off and our moccasins they filled in the time and you really did not have to pay somehow they were All the especially the Tom and Jerry with feet planted on the seat in we settled Down to enjoy a comic Short featuring the Zany Leon Laurel and the three the voice of Pete Smith or our we All loved to hate travel talks while the Sun sinks slowly in the we bid a reluctant goodbye to Beautiful to singalong the bouncing and the newsreel Truman tries to launch Superman Sappy we endured but thought him Sappy and laughed when he stepped into his Telephone space adventures were classed As unconscious most of them had been made in the 1930s when our older Brothers were boys and they like our older to be painfully old a Ming the merciless made us groan everybody liked the As we used to say that there had never been a bad even the ones starring Johnny Mack Brown or hop along Cassidy in which the bad Guy was not by a but by a solid right to the jaw delivered with such Force that his Black hat fell then the lights went up and there were competitions whistle with a Mouth full of Cracker crumbs or walk across the stage holding an egg on a spoon and neat saturday afternoon has never been the same since they turned the up town into a Bowling Alley and All Romance went out of the Little Guy loses out in a lean and mean world pause for a moment and examine what is supposed to be the Model of behaviour to assure Canada a place in the the adopted by corporate assorted members of the Cabinet and the is to be lean and goes the must be spare and Tough and Nasty to survive in this area of free Trade and cutthroat global this philosophy of it leaves no room for compassion or concern for the or pleasantries of any be ready to Knock out your competitor before he does the same to be greedy and its int it forget Good civility and decent rela is this the Price Canada is going to pay for accepting the free Trade pact and a stepped up Era of Competition in a recent special report on Busi Mac leans Magazine quotes James director for the Centre for career management at Price an accounting firm based in on the lean andean business companies View everything today in terms of the Bottom line including observed in the worker is a commodity to be used up and spat put when Hes no longer aside from its Michael professor of philosophy and business ethics at the University of disputes the Conten Tion that the lean and mean policy is Val Werier their Assumption is says they sub scribe to bad economics and rancid an unhappy and disgruntled work Force will not be As productive and would be More receptive to Union activity and Wildcat the idea that a fiercely competitive ideology would Benefit society As a whole was advanced by Adam Smith the scottish it certainly didst hold in the Case of Margaret thatchers even if it worked it would be neither does it work Well in the United the is so fiercely competitive that it disdains Canadas univer Sal medicare system As a socialistic Enterprise and leaves health care largely to the Market the Only Western nation to do but the system fails in the Leanan mean policy in that its health care Bill is much higher than Canadas As a percentage of the Gross National at the same time 37 million americans Are not covered by any insurance those who regard the Market place As the ultimate Model for should be aware that an uncaring system can be counter pro Irving a University of Ottawa criminologist whose advice is sought around the thinks More rather than less Money should be spent on Day care and other special programs for the wallers solution to crime is the elimination of poverty and the development of self esteem for those who live below the poverty Canada spends billion a year for police courts and at a time when Canada and the Are cutting social assistance Waller talks about increasing Leanan mean global business practices Are particularly mean to the poorer to take advantage of cheap multinationals have shifted plants to impoverished in Export processing zones and free Trade according to author Joyce in a article in the Canadian called the new global the multinationals Are exempt from environmental tax employment Stan everything that might hinder them from making the highest profit As an women in bang who assemble ballpoint pens average a if they complain about the pay they Are reminded that there Are a Hundred applicants waiting in line for every in she compan ies provide dormitories with one bed for every three workers in the 24 hour work As one employee vacates the bed to go to an other is coming off the shift to use for such housing a malaysian worker pays an average of per month out of a wage package based on 60 cents an in the atmosphere of unbridled it is the Little Guy who loses out in the now we have heard from Quebec industrialist Jean de grandpre something that was not talked about by the Mulroney government in the last Federal head of the Federal governments advisory Council on adjustment to free suggests workers be retrained because thou Sands could lose their jobs As a result of the free Trade the loss of jobs Doest seem to get much notice in the hype about How we have to get used to the idea of being Nasty and what sort of a world Are we heading for in his new love and George a leading Canad an has a character who is fed up with the establishment and their self serving philosophy of the survival of the this is not a cries the its a get it that what we must survival fittest business philosophy can be particularly harsh on poorer ;