Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 1, 1994, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press october editorials editor John 6977044 a Force for peace last week in the House of foreign minister Andre Ouellet recapped the history of Canadas role As a peacekeeper for the United nations and outlined the role that this nation is presently playing in that function around the world it was an impressive recitation of the accomplishments of what on the Broad International still a Small Canadas contributions to in peacekeeping in been out of All proportion to its size and not Only did Canada develop the concept of modern peacekeeping and the establishment of the in emergency Force in but it has participated in some Way in Allun peace keeping jobs since there Are More than canadians deployed in in operations around the this Ouellet stood before the United nations to suggest a new Canadian permanent in gency response Force that could move quickly whenever a crisis Aris the idea is has been in since the founding of the United earlier in the week rus Sian president Boris Yeltsin proposed that Russia would establish a kind of International swat team that would be at the disposal of the in and could respond quickly when it was a United nations emergency response should not be composed of troops from just one it must be multinational and flexible enough to respond to the varied crises that can erupt around the and it must be financed by the United Small feat As Many including the russians and the Ameri Are often delinquent in their despite Ouellett proposal appears to fit the it would see the creation of a permanent in Force hat could either react in a military Way or respond to so Cial and political crises in a preemptive role to Avert Vio Lence and bloodshed before they Ouellet coupled his suggestion to a the Way the United nations functions is in urgent need of is True and the world that the in must Monitor is vastly different from the one that existed when it was it is different from the one that prevailed through most of its existence when two super Powers contended in the cold today we have a More More unpredictable world and no one seems quite certain How to Deal with the in looks to the the looks to the the result in Somalia turned out to be a Haiti is increasingly looking like a potential although it May yet turn out bet Ter than in we arrived too for the Canadas proposal this week seems to make it is based in vast Good will and perhaps a Little too much the United nations needs a new sense of once has offered it Mulroney memory the bogus outrage Over the Federal governments de Lay in paying for Quebec referendum on the Charlottetown Accord is typical of what canadians can expect Over the next year or 18 As Long As the parti quebecois and the bloc quebecois Are preparing the ground for the referendum on we can expect lots of Arm waving and desk humping in anyone who is seriously interested in the Issue As some thing More than an excuse to stir up ill feeling will won Der Why it arose at All in the present the Charlottetown after was voted on almost two years the Federal and Quebec governments knew Well before then that Quebec was going to conduct its own that being the Why were the financial details not settled before the vote Ever took place since the Quebec referendum was held in conjunction with the vote in the rest of the there were sound reasons Why Ottawa should make a contribution towards its but when governments agree to spend upwards of they generally make the agreements in a written All we have to go on is Brian Mulroney recollection he had promised his old pal Bob Bourassa that he would foot the it just another of those Little of handed ways in which Mulroney took care of his assuming that the former prime ministers recollection is not an example of false memory another question As he now Mulroney did agree to pay Quebec referendum Why didst he cough up he carried on As prime minister for eight months after the of time to sign a As it turns Canadian taxpayers will foot the Quebec referendum Bill on the basis of Brian Mulroney recollection that he made a Promise to Robert Bourassa but never got around to writing it Down or living up to and Jacques Parizeau will chuckle All the Way to the Winnipeg free press int a nth my it mum my Rudy Redekop publisher Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor John Dafoe editorial Page editor directors John Bardawil marketing de Belhumeur human resources Stephan Majoski operations Perry Nixdorf advertising Glenn Williams finance a cow in my Field of dreams for a nonfat of sports i have spent a lot of time in recent Days watching the Ken Burns documentary on the history of i keep telling myself that i am watching it for the but i am As that baseball is dramatic and inspirational almost the perfect in our american cousins Call it their National sport and Many americans think that the game was invented at Cooperstown in 1839 during the course of a summer in base or games that evolved into the game we know As go Back a Long Jane Austen alludes to it in her novel North anger written at the end of the eighteenth Century and it was not very wonderful that Catherine should prefer base Riding on and running about the country at the age of four to i dont know whether Jane actually played baseball but i have a feeling that she would have made a great an alphabet primer for children published in 1744 for the letter the following poem baseball the Ball once Struckoff away flies the boy to his next destiny Post and then Home with i have no idea who Joy but it certainly sounds like a form of the game we know and love in the current Issue of the Beaver an article by Mark Kearney tells of a Ca Nadian contribution to baseball it seems that a game very similar to mod Ern baseball was played on 4 june 1838 at near a year before the alleged Cooperstown according to an the Beachville game was played on a five sided infield with third and fourth bases or byes 21 Yards apart and a Short run of six Yards from the knockers Stone or Home plate to first a baserunner was out when he was hit with the Christopher Dafoe there is no mention of the Beach Ville game of 1838 in the pcs document which is probably not All that sur nor is there any mention of the Many other Canadian teams that played the sport in the nineteenth Cen a time when the new York knickerbockers were perfecting the game in the there is no mention of the Maple Leaf baseball club of Guelph which played against the Tecumseh club of London in the a drawing from the Canadian illustrated news for july 1877 shows packed grand stands and a Large crowd of Chagrin was expressed in the when the Toronto team won the world up photo americans forgive us for winning the world series series on two recent canadians had stolen their in canadians have been playing baseball As Long As the americans it seems to be our game baseball is the game we All remember from you could play it anywhere and you could modify the rules to suit the if you had no Corner you could play it on the using Smiths Blue 47 Ford As first girls could play and they were usually just As Good As the sometimes various age combi nations were with fathers and children playing As a team or in work your Way i was never very Good at but i loved especially in games that were not organized and controlled by i had an old Glove and a Ball and Bat and when we played in the streets we made up the rules As they were such As a hit in the Vicinity of greens Cocker who counts As a i tended to hate the Rule Ridden House league at the Community there were dads everywhere Tell ing people what to do not thank god and invoking the Rule Book there was always some Keener on the Mound who dreamed of playing for the Yankees and threw the Ball so hard it nearly broke your hand when you had to catch it was All too in one summer when i was about 10 we organized a team at Ponemah Beach to play against teams from Matlock and Why Tewold and through some Fluke there were kids on the team who were worse players than in town games i was a for a few Days that sum Mer i was a thank we played our games in a Park in Whyte Wold that featured a Large grazing cow at Centre people All Over North America have memories of baseball that Are exactly like including the we have All played on that Field of politics covers up Bird Slaughter the trouble with the govern ment shutting its eyes to the Ille Gal destruction of thousands of nests of cormorants and pelicans is that it will open the door to future sex this is aside from even the larger and ethical Issue of the prov Ince condoning illegal acts by its inac Between and Cormorant nests and Pelican nests were destroyed earlier this summer in Breed ing colonies on two Small islands in Lake Winnipegosis it is assumed it was done by commercial fishermen fearful that the fish eating cormorants Are responsible for the decline of Wall Eye a theory disprove by the reluctance of the government to raise a fuss coincides with a position it took three years at the Behest of fishermen the government itself pro posed the control of the Only control is to destroy the the Birds Are difficult to shoot and Poison is ineffective for they Only feed on live George head of the Mani Toba naturalists says that at that time the department of fisheries wanted a tacit agreement from the society not to oppose control of Cormo the mrs refused to do says there is no scientific evidence that cormorants Are the f in a paper prepared for fish futures an organization devoted to con serving and enhancing fish of the University of Manitoba zoology writes that commercial fishermen have been killing nesting cormorants and destroy ing rookeries to some degree for the Issue is highly charged Politi writes Over fish not is the cause of the Low Walleye reducing the Cormorant population will not protect the in he it May do the oppo cormorants feed mainly on sucker and Perch and the elimination of the Birds would allow these species to feed on juvenile the Walleye up to the year went up to one million kilograms per it plummeted to kilo Grams in 1970 and a result of overfishing a 1987 study of fish eaten by cormorants on Lake showed Walleye and Sauger comprised Only per cent by sucker and Perch now said to be an important commercial fish made up 95 per cent of the but Walleye is the most desired Spe Stewart emphasizes that Walleye and cormorants Are not re lated in other Nei ther varies in response to the he notes that cormorants have in creased for Many reasons but the most rapid increase occurred after the Wall Eye population he condemns the simplistic approach the techno in instead of taking into account the whole ecological on the other fishermen believe that cormorants con sume a lot of Walleye says Bob regional director of natural resources at the legislation to protect Cormo rants Doest have the support of peo ple around Lake Winnipegosis the fishermen just see them As compete even if the diet is Small the num Ber of Birds still take a significant amount of so they just dont be Lieve cormorants Are not part of the the Best he says is to in crease production of now be ing done through hatcheries and other fishermen Are part of the management team with the depart ment of natural it is called the Lake Winnipegosis advisory com As for the destruction of nests on Lake Wooley says charges could Only be Laid if there were Eye if the legislation were supported there would be response from tip lines but this is not the Case with the last charge he says was Laid three years ago in the Northern part of the Wooley challenges the claim that Pelican nests were this has been told to me by indisputable the chairman of the Lake Winnipegosis advisory committee is Parker a commercial fishermen and former conservative member of the legislature for Swan when i asked Burrell about the destruction of the he replied Ive heard the rumours but i Haven really seen anything you have to go out to have a look and i As he reports directly to the minister of natural critics say this Channel is a restricted focus on the and Here you have an insight As to Why destruction of the nests was not pursued and was shoved into the Back theres no political gain in examining the wholesale Slaughter of protected ;