Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 19, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6 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 Wood publisher John Dafoe editorial Page editor Murray Burt managing editor Rudy Redekop controller Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 no More Rafferty deals environment minister Lucien Bouchard would be very foolish to negotiate a third agreement with the govern ment of Saskatchewan on the Raffert Alameda dam the terms of a particularly odious draft Deal have been outlined in a leaked document made Public by opposition party members in Manitoba and Sas Katche the Federal government cannot give Premier Grant Devine All his government wants and save nor can with any permit the Saskatchewan government to proceed Kellmell with construction m open breach of the intent of the Law that has three times measured the governments deals in court and three times found them if Bouchard believes his chief task As defender of sustainable development should place him at the negotiating table this then he still has not understood the message of the there will be a Correct time for Bouchard to sit Down with a representative of the Saskatchewan government and negotiate the terms of a new Federal licence for the Souris River that time will arrive when a Federal environmental review panel has filed its recommendations to Only then will the intent of the Federal Law so Well tested in the Rafferty Case be upheld and the interests of those outside the conservative umbrella be the latest court judgment in the matter did not immediately halt it say very clearly that the Federal Law had been circumvented in the issuing of consecutive with a threat of quashing the latest the court ordered the Public review which Justice Francis Muldoon described As the Antithesis of secret or unpublicized arrangements in these matters of quintessentially Public now the Only politicians who Are making Public any activity preceding Bouchard decision on How to respond to the court ruling Are the opposition members in the provincial on the face of the Deal they revealed sounds like a but it is very far from being Bouchard might think it is politically Bouchard should think the agreement would allow Saskatchewan to proceed with the Rafferty dam in return for Saskatchewan agreement to abide by whatever the review panel suggests should be done on the Alameda As Justice Muldoon it is very difficult to unscramble the Omelette that has been made of the Federal As observers of construction the Rafferty is already the would go much further than that simple quid pro it would fail to halt construction of the Rafferty and its associated works Channel modifications in the River downstream of the a pipeline to carry water from the Reservoir to the Shand generating an diversion Channel to connect the Rafferty Reservoir with one behind the Boundary and the flooding and relocation of a Park and wildlife it would allow approximately three quarters of the project to be built before the Federal review panel could or the Federal ministers officials could put one Page of a new draft agreement in one fax machine or photocopier anywhere in the it was the Federal governments mistaken belief that it could and should strike a Deal with the Saskatchewan rather than follow the which caused both governments so much Legal Only a very foolish person does not learn from a mistake made it is to be hoped that the Federal minister is not among those who cannot and or will not sniffy lives again common sense on Meech Lake Premier Bill Vander in his address to the people of British Columbia wednesday provided the province with its most Anticlimactic Media circus since sniffy the rat cheated at the like Vander Zalm lived to fight another sniffs Las minute reprieve inspired an almost unanimous outpouring of Relief and approval across the the premiers Success in dodging his destiny provoked a less single minded the loyalists who had rallied behind him when he retired to the wilderness to Ponder his future of so were the provinces new demo who profess to regard Vander Zalm As their most powerful weapon in the next provincial less enthusiastic Are those dissidents who were driven to the fringes of the social credit party by their leaders eccentricities and now Are threatening to invent a new party to defend free Enterprise in the they agree with the new democrats that Vander Zalm will drag social credit Down to that is not necessarily anyone who can keep a whole province waiting for five weeks to hear 20 minutes of self serving political babble has not lost All of his political anyone who can get All the television stations in the province plus Csc new world to give him 20 minutes of free time to deliver the Sermon still knows How to manipulate the think of the audience he would have got if he had promised to drop a Concrete Block on his in a province where like imitates soap no one should write off Bill Vander Zalm or sniffy before his what happened to Leisure what Ever happened to All that Leisure time that we were supposed to be enjoying by the time the 1990s came around not so Long the fut urologists promised us that robots and other technological marvels would by now have made work largely irrelevant for most of we would sit around in brightly coloured jump watching profoundly cultural television programs on 3d screens and spend our time wondering How to fill our none of this has come about the Only people worrying about How they will pass the time these Days Are the on the Bright neither did the predictions of the who said we would All be nuked to cinders by this come True the lesson if there is one is that fut urologists Are almost always at least in important our cities Are As one Bright Light who didst foresee the invention of the automobile predicted in the 19th piled three feet High in horse although it is hardly preferable that the cars we use now spit Poison into the air those cars and other modern machinery in spawned a whole new genre of futurology the ecological prominent in this Field is the Green House which will cause the Earth to changing melting the Polar ice Caps and drowning the coastal or so we Are told by our present who now use computers to predict what will Man and again confound a recent study has found that instead of the Greenland ice Cap is growing by nine inches a enough to lower the level of the oceans instead of raising pessimists can still take the authors of the study say that their findings tend to rather than the greenhouse warmer air holds More and so the snowfall in Polar regions in it seems that ecological disaster May still confront unless we make the Effort to Avert what exact form Nemesis will is anybody by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa if just two men who possess great political Brian Mulroney and Robert would pay there is sound common sense in Jean Chretien Meech Lake speech that could be of great value to this if Pride and stubbornness do not Blind them both those Lead ers have Good reason to think seriously about this aspect of the Chretien even As they reject his criticisms of the Accord and his specific proposals for unless they open their minds the Accord will die on june on the basis of performance to the chances do not seem Good that they will be it must be obvious to the most stubborn Man that Chretien is Correct when he says that All the threats in the world Are not Likely to break the they have sign or else one of the main architects of the 1982 constitutional is also Correct when he says i have identified some areas where there could be changes if they wanted to talk about the difficulty is that in two and a half years they have not tried one minute to find a they put the gun there and said you sign or and i dont think it will it in inescapable that the Mulrone Bourassa approach has not both still have to face the full extent of their failure they have not built the degree of popular support that constitutional changes of this importance must the Accord will die on june not because three premiers oppose it in its present but because its sponsors have failed to build support for it in the it is True that Lowell Murray is very late in the to work up provincial interest in a parallel he faces the prob Likely to be that most people who see flaws in the Meech Lake proposals will not be persuaded that it is sensible to incorporate them into the Constitution and then try to offset the damage through some other Murray has an infallible prescription for turning the Constitution of Canada into a dogs false charges it is fortunate that Chretien has spoken out in a Way that re moves past ambiguities from his position and that he it seems certain be a candidate for the Liberal More than any one he is in a position to refute effectively some of the false charges that Are made by Quebe cers who want the Accord for in one of the University students who listened to Chretien speech said afterwards that que Bec want dealt with democratically in that Young Man failed to recognize that the entire thrust for constitutional change in 198182 came from French Canada through the que Beers dominant in the Federal Cabi net those amendments did not come about through any initiative launched by the rest of they were exclusively a Quebec launched and carried out by French Canadas leading representatives on the National i have criticized the tactics Chretien employed in 1982 but they were part of a bitter dispute Between the two main streams of Quebec life the outward looking federalists led by Pierre Trudeau and the in War looking nationalist separatists led by Rene that fratricidal contest pushed English speaking canadians into something very close to the role of bystanders until the dissenting provinces met with considerable Success in the Challenge they took to the supreme court of Chretien might usefully take a moment or when he talks to Well intentioned French Canadian to teach them some accurate history As a replacement for faulty additional value Chretien entry into the con test should have an additional no major figure has consistently spoken out with Force for the Canad an federally or in political expediency has robbed the Canadian Experiment of real advocates for too Long now positive advocacy has been replaced by the deeply offensive Meech Lake threats and blackmail of the do As we say or youll smash up the country this approach will now come under strenuous attack by a French Canadian who is still an important one whom Mulroney and Bourassa will find they must traffic lights recently i was crossing Pembina Highway at Kirkbridge when the Light walk sign turned to dont myself and my two preschool daughters were Halfway through the intersection when two vehicles Al most ran us one of them promptly shouted out of the you have a red when i started out across the intersection the walk sign was Light but by the time we were in the Middle of the Road the Light changed to dont it was at this time the cars almost ran Down my children and i was wondering if it would be plausible to change lights for pedestrians to stay on walk for a Little i think the Best idea would be to have Trico lored walk Green for red for Stop and Amber for Clear the that people with Small children and elderly persons would be Able to judge better if it would be Safe to More time for walk Start crossing the a still safer Way would be to have All traffic Stop when pedestrians Are crossing the i do realize that these ideas would Cost but i wonder if the City could be held accountable if an Acci Dent caused the death of someones child or Wayne Hagen Winnipeg propaganda regarding the article flood of propaganda demonize fallen Leader in the free press am very surprised to find something of this Type in the free especially one originating in the t sort of lets one put the overwhelming propaganda poured out by the in Doest it i am sure that most old and Are aware of what the japanese looked like in our press and comics during the second world they were not so hard to hate when they were shown in such a deformed were they we have now seen this propaganda at work with respect to general Noriega and the subsequent invasion of a familiar Caribbean religion has been turned into a a Tani Stic rite through the illusion of now watch for Nicaragua to come under the american propaganda machine How Many months until the nicaraguans Are invaded by troops watch As the Contra War against Nicaragua is upgraded in the next few to a before very an invasion of Nicaragua will have the popular backing of the american people and a Good chunk of the Canadian at the very least the american government will be Able to Engineer an invasion or tactic employing Plau sible and president Bush has the Gall to consider himself a partner in peace with Gorbachev Johnsen Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will be used and letters Are subject to different tune before the recent civic i recall mayor plus one or two of his old patting them selves on the Back and telling us All what a great Job they done in keeping property taxes below the inflation of the elections Are Over and now the mayor is singing a different he thinks those Low tax increases might have been a big mistake and is warning of a Tough year his administration is telling him property taxes will have to increase by 10 or 15 per How things have changed in just a few Short weeks instead of listening to the Bureau the mayor might be better advised to listen to another old com Urban affairs minister Gerry Ducharme has made it Clear the provincial government has no extra Money to give and Norrie had better Start doing some Bel tightening and housecleaning instead of continually holding out his hands for More and More i say amen to in Case the mayor Hast got the message the Well has run Winnipeg ratepayers have nothing left to give Treyve choked Down spiralling school increased Utility increased user fees and never end ing increases in property peo ple in the workforce Are finding it difficult enough but what about the thousands of senior citizens on fixed incomes who Are trying to remain in their Homes Many cities in Canada give them some minimal help but in Winnipeg there being taxed right out the front housecleaning and Bel tightening have never been a priority with the City of when the bureaucrats presented their budget Esti mates last Many councillors conceded they didst know what tax payers Money was spent they didst take time to scrutinize the estimates to see if reductions could be they left All that to the bureaucrats and you dont have to be an Einstein to know they have a vested that some Way to run a no wonder were in nobody minding the store and our Only claim to Fame is our continuing rank As one of Canadas highest taxed so instead of trying to convince new councillors to juggle the books and warning taxpayers were in for a Tough maybe the mayor had better Sharpen his Pencil and Start cutting costs the civic bureaucracy might be a Good place to otherwise the mayor might just find himself facing a tax revolt by a Bunch of senior they represent an eve increasing percentage of the tax base now or has the mayor been too Busy to notice Lovatt Winnipeg poor excuse Mike Noykos column was a very poor excuse to put a picture of cheerleaders on the front Page of the sports Section on december there Are Many excellent sports activities involving so Why not choose a picture from one of them figure the sports Section has very Little coverage of Amateur sports and women in when you dont have a hockey or football Why not use the space to highlight something worthwhile Nola Sylvester Lack of tolerance i have sadly followed the recent debate on the editorial pages of the free press concerning the wearing of turbans As part of an ramp officers a number of these letters have demonstrated a com plete Lack of tolerance or under standing of the sikh and blindness to the fact that Canada is an multicultural so those who object to mounties wearing turbans Point to the Long traditions of the arguing that even minor changes in historical dress would somehow undermine the forces Pride in in since the origins of the Northwest mounted police in the late the mountie dress code has changed Many from alterations in headgear to the modifications Neces sary to accommodate women in the it should be pointed out that ramp traditions lie Well beneath the visible uniform they have much More to do with a spirit of excellence and members of the sikh Community who wish to join the Force under stand these values and Are As Capa ble As any Canadian of upholding it is widely Felt that visible minorities should be encouraged to join our police forces in Effort to diffuse the race relations problems that Are evident in Winnipeg and we must Welcome their Particia not throw up dress it was mentioned in a number of recent letters that male sikhs have a Choice to remove their turbans and join the ramp or to Wear their turbans and follow another profess but this amounts to no Choice at All for baptized sikhs who must Wear a turban in order to freely practise their we effectively exclude any baptized sikh from the ramp or any Force by strictly requiring a certain according to part Section subsection c of the Cana Dian Bill of is discrimination on the basis of religious belief something that canadians must not the ramp should follow the example set by the Canadian armed forces and a number of City police forces across the country the tur ban is worn As part of the in a color that fits the traditional dress in this sikhs Are clearly identified As members of a particular and Are Able to Wear their uniform with let us continue to show ourselves As a tolerant and multicultural nation by encouraging the participation of All including in the As Winni Peg my Rey Pagtakhan so aptly put it in the House of commons re surely it is the Quality of the head under the headdress and not the Quality of the headdress that should be at Issue when choosing people for our National police Terry Duguid councillor Miles Macdonell Ward where do you have that sunny and its permissible to smoke ;