Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 24, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free april it ii Winnipeg free press Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights published seven Days a week at 300 Carlton Winnipeg r3c 3d 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 David Lee managing editor Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Why we have potholes Hie Winnipeg Spring turned suddenly to something like summer last weekend and the changing season worked its annual Green shoots appeared in the Tulip bicycling families filled the the cracks in residential lanes and sidewalks gaped a Little the potholes Sank a Little the Winnipeg councils Public works advisers warned throughout the 1980s that the City was losing the race against the City routinely rebuilds each year a few residential streets sewer and water the works the enormous expense entailed by modern infrastructure the oldest municipal Are crumbling faster than they Are being any Winnipeg Ger can test the truth of that View by making a personal Survey of the damage done by the latest Winter and most districts developed in the last 20 years have tolerable Road most of the residential roads that Are More than 30 years old Are in wretched condition unless they have been recently arterial built with deeper foundations and heavier Are standing up Back usually consisting of a thin skin of Cement spread on the Prairie Are rapidly crumbling toward municipal engineers warn that the sewer and water lines Are suffering comparable and there is no reason to doubt the yet the Winnipeg like councils of other Canadian is extremely slow to respond to the obvious in its latest capital budget and five year capital spending the Winnipeg administration and Council say they mean to make a serious attack on infrastructure replacement about the in the Early they meant to get around to it very a couple of things got in the Way of the Early 1980s the federation of Canadian municipalities mounted a Campaign to persuade the Federal govern ment to pay cities to rebuild their neglected inf Astruc the Campaign achieved nothing for the obvious reason that the Federal government has other More pressing claims on its the false Hope for Federal subsidy May have delayed municipal action a Council would be unwise to repair now at its own expense a Road that might be repaired later at someone else sex competing projects also used up the Winnipeg councils a Milean Dahal Westward Extension of Bishop Grandin Boulevard has already Cost Winnipeg million for the purpose of bringing traffic from Pembina Highway to Waverley the City Council could not feed White elephants on that scale and also get serious with infrastructure the citizens self guided tour of Winnipeg infrastructure should include a visit to the Junction of Bishop Grandin Boulevard and Pembina Highway to Admire the wondrous ramps and overpasses that Are taking the streets most Winni Eggers live on Are Crum bling to rubble and the sewer and water lines that Supply their houses cannot be trusted to remain in but the Council really does mean to Deal with that in just a few and what splendid overpasses guiltless polluters Mukh environment Canada is patrolling for polluters As if the country were the fictitious town of the 1950s Andy Griffith television in which no one Ever ran afoul of the when the government enacted the Canadian environmental Protection act Cepa two years former environment minister Tom Mcmillan described it As the most progressive in the Western he pledged that it would be backed up by a compliance and enforcement schedule that will demonstrate to canadians this government Means business when its going to take on canadians can now reasonably ask exactly when the government plans to in the first four months of the new the staff of environment Canada nationwide issued 164 warnings against those who were not abiding by they scurried around looking for improper storage of poly chlorinated biphenyl pcs or any breach of the Law relating to unleaded some 87 per cent of All inspections concerned those two some 95 per cent of All enforcement actions launched by investigators concerned pcs or unleaded they abide by government policy to warn violators and launched More than 90 investigations in those cases where warnings went no one was the record of taking on polluters improved Little last in the first eight months of the department issued 217 two thirds of them for illegal storage and disposal of it issued 18 cleanup orders but Laid Only three there Are two problems with before depart ment inspectors can do anything at All to defend the environment and people from regulations must be passed which bring pollutants under the there Are an estimated of those toxic a Mere few dozen can be controlled by regulations under a hit list of 50 other substances deemed by a panel of Canadian advisers to be the most threatening and harmful is in the hands of the Environ ment Canada must review them one by one and consult with the polluters before regulations Are the second and perhaps greater problem with the Law is caused by the fact that environment Canada has far too few enforcement officers to do much of anything about the several toxic substances chlorofluorocarbons already covered by one Lone investigator is in place to take the findings of any of those who patrol the entire province of Ontario and suggest that charges could be in the first eight months of last year he Laid when Mcmillan began to talk about Cepa fully four years ago he described Industrial pollution As the country most serious White Collar the Law he enacted in theory could result in fines and could Send polluters to As it turns the theory is supported with neither the regulations nor the departmental de Facto Pollut ers Are living in a Mayberry like environment in which the town Constable can whistle a Happy Environ ment Canada should put an end to the a striking contrast in nations who Speaks for Manitoba sending professor Wally Fox decent to speak for Manitoba before the parliamentary committee on the Meech Lake Accord had one great it demonstrated once again that Manitoba reservations about the Accord Are based not on ant Quebec not on an attempt to blackmail Ottawa and not on any concerns of narrow political this provinces political leaders Are demanding changes in Meech Lake because they Are with Good that Canada will suffer if some obvious flaws in the Accord Are not sending a professor instead of a politician to speak to the committee place the professor in an awkward he had no mandate to respond to questions about what position Manitoba might take in the delicate negotiations which will take place Between now and june 23 in an Effort to save the that meant there were Many questions he could not an one answer he should not have Given was the one in a television interview that appeared to agree that Manitoba might be open to a process of adopting Meech Lake first and amending it that is not Manitoba official if it Ever becomes the official it will be announced by elected political not by the task Force the whatever it by which Meech Lake might be saved will not be settled by the parliamentary it will be worked out in delicate negotiations among Canadas first Premier Gary Filmon May or May not have an idea of How this might be if he he will no doubt unveil it some Day until he his position will be the topic of but by Wilson special to the free press Ottawa when the original Loose Union of 13 newly Independent colonies was threatened with Early enough american politicians rallied to their nations needs to establish the remarkable constitutional convention which met in Philadelphia from May until sep tember during those few months the Dele led by a handful who were exceptional in their political creative produced the Constitution of the United during most of the 200 years since scholars through out the Western world have recognized it As one of history greatest achievements in Constitution Mak when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated As the 16th president of the United states in the Union which had been saved at Philadel phia was actually in the process of breaking seven states had Al ready seceded by inauguration Day and four More joined them very Lincoln had been elected without a popular there was no unanimity in the Northern states on How the Challenge of the confederacy should be bitter divisions despite bitter Divi a decisively Large segment of americans rallied behind lincolns determination to preserve the probably few of them knew when fighting began at fort Sumter How bitter and costly the resulting civil War would a very great developed out of the Crea Tive Genius of the convention and the heavy sacrifices of the four years that followed Confederate Beau regards opening fire on april today it would be or impose to find an american who did not thank god for the decisive Steps that twice preserved the Union and made possible the greatness of his political osmosis when Canada was first seriously threatened by separatism about 20 years a political consensus rap idly emerged that Force would never be used to preserve the Canadian it was not the product of any formal debate it came about through what seemed to be a process of political it was freely expressed by politicians and supported by commentators it virtually the whole Cana Dian among other the Quick formation of that consensus gave carte Blanche to extremists to work As hard and openly As they could for the destruction of tactical it would have been advantageous to at least have left the question in doubt because then there would have been some Brake on the attempts to destroy the Quebec has always been in the despite current Politi Cal because it was one of the negotiators of the agreement that produced the British North America still the main and most important element in the Canadian constr it was the 1982 amendments that a separatist Quebec govern ment disliked and refused to sup that disagreement has since been fanned into profound Dis Satis it would be hard to imagine a More striking unfavourable to than exists Between the Philadelphia convention and the Meech Lake meeting one involved great the other Deal making by 11 undistinguished Politi especially in the Central Region it is easy today to discern resentments that will flare into grave hostilities if Steps actually Are taken to break up the federation which makes Canada a it is not Howe to detect anywhere much will to preserve the Canadian certainly not in any Way that would be it is just As impossible to find that will As it is to see any Leader of lincolns stature among Canadian the Only unusual aspect of pre Mier Buchanan musings on Union Between the Atlantic provinces and the United states was that they were the ideas were common equally commonplace was the complacent failure to recognize that the United states might have reservations about absorbing Canadian with their High costs and potential to disrupt the Ameri can political painful differences two painful differences Between canadians and americans seem to emerge from americans Al ways believed that their country could be great while the people of Canada have never really believed that of their unlike they do not believe deeply enough in their country to have a True will to save it is humiliating that we do not care farfetched i usually read Christopher Dafoe articles in the free press with inter est As he appears to have researched and be Well informed on the subject on which he his hands off Oak therefore surprised while his background information is accurate i lived beside the Marsh in the 1920s and part of the 1930s his expression of Shock at the thought of a ducks unlimited office building being located there is rather far fetched and i also wonder what Survey made him conclude that almost everyone is in agreement that the Nice thing about Oak Ham mock is that it has Only been Deve loped to a certain Dafoe obviously Doest know about the proposed conservation Centre since he Doest mention it in his this Centre will be a Oak Hammock firs class educational facility on the value of it is this Centre which is the Raison Detre for the office the location of the corporate office building on the Edge of the Marsh is the catalyst that will cause the conservation Centre to be built and operated As a world class education Al the ducks will still be left in peace and the world will get to know better the value of the habitat that ducks need to Ernest Johnson Winnipeg secret Agenda it appears that almost every Day the Public gets wind of another item on the Forks renewal corporations secret Agenda which rings alarm the latest is the hiring of an and Agency to try to assuage dont worry your Little Heads about big brother knows mayor Bill Norrie insists that con tracts related to the Forks have to remain private and Why this is taxpayers to hire an and Agency at yet another undisclosed fee Only adds insult to if the corporation heard a squeal of Public protest it will hear a scream Patricia Fontaine Winnipeg antisemitism for years Eastern europeans have cowered in fear before their terrified to speak their minds in they spent decades holed up in pathetic drab apart ments waiting for release from their a few months ago it heralding a new age of its disappointing to note that this deliverance has brought an explosion of renewed they simply picked it up and dusted it off and started All Over Herbert Vore Winnipeg letters the Winnipeg free press welcomes letters from writers must give their name and names will to used and letters Are subject to different groups i would like to bring to your Atten Tion an article in the free press on March 17 written by Bill Neville which focused on the Forks renewal the photograph accompanying the was the Forks National historic i am writing to you to explain and emphasize the fact that although we share property in the same Vicinity and have the same first we Are two completely different organi As you Are the Forks re Newal corporation is responsible for the development of some 40 acres of land that was once the car East they Are examining various heritage and residential and it is this process that has received considerable coverage in the news the Forks National historic site is a completely separate organization from the renewal it occupies a ten acre strip of land along the red River directly oppo site Boniface the site is the property of the Federal govern ment and is part of the Canadian Parks service family of National Parks and historic Sites that include such resources As Banff National Riding Mountain National Park and lower fort Garry nation Al historic the mandate of the Canadian Parks service is to preserve for All limes and 10 commemorate the Natu ral and heritage resources that Are nationally significant to All Canad the historic Sites and monuments Board of Canada recommended that Che Forks National historic site receive this status because of the critical role it played in the transformation of the Canadian this Overall site theme has been divided into eight stories that Canadian Parks service staff interpret to our visitors d native use prior to european d Contact at the Forks d the Forks and the competitive fur Trade period n the red River settlement 1821 d transition at the Forks 1850 d Winnipeg a Metropolis in the making d the Forks and immigration 1870 d the Forks and the railway Era the Forks National historic site officially opened on july summer programs were offered to visitors until labor Day and Winter programs started with the Christ Mas special at the Forks and continued until the conclusion of festival do the site will be offer ing similar heritage programming throughout As you can the mandate of the Forks National historic site differs considerably from the renewal Cor i am aware that because we both have the same first name that some confusion is bound to i would appreciate it in the if greater care could be used in selecting photo graphs to ensure that the Public does not become further confused about the nature of the two Gillespie manager Forks National historic site school funding it is by the defenders of the Public school to High Light elitist schools such As Johns marys Academy and others As beneficiaries of the increase in private school while this is some what True it is unfortunate that the perception of private schools is generally institutions like the vast majority of nonpublic schools and the students who attend them Are not schools catering to the the influential or base in trance on they Are directed for the most supported by tax paying parents who feel schools should have a religious while the entire school question is not easy to certainly the shoot Okill defence of the Public schools sole right to tax Revenue is based More on fear than while care should be taken to prevent an educational system that separates the haves and have not All Means justify the Ted Jeninga women Satin on behalf of the Manitoba action committee on the status of i would like to Register our disappointment at the failure of the free press to cover the Satin at the Newfoundland regional office of the Secretary of this Satin has been organized by the Johns women Centre to protest proposed funding cuts to the Secretary of state women it is obviously of great interest to Manitoba women whose interests and needs Are served by advocacy groups and resource centres funded by the women Given the Impact of these pro posed funding we believe that the Satin at Johns cannot be regarded simply As a regional nor should it be considered a Spe Cial interest women com prise 51 per cent of the population in covering an event like the which concerns women the free press would keep Winnipeg Gers informed about current events and issues which shape their the Manitoba action committee on the status of women Hopes that you will follow up on this Story with some coverage of the event and some treatment in depth of the issues the Media play an important role in bringing to Public attention such concerns As the pro posed funding and in providing a forum for examining the rationale provided by the the Impact of such and reaction to the we Hope that you will take this Opportunity to provide such a forum on this Judith Kearns administrative coordinator rubbish of course in still the fairest in the it ;