Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 6, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press january where to spend Winnipeg needs plenty of More modest Capi Tal improvements before it needs a Kenaston Bou Levard railway the million of joint infrastructure funds that the Council and the Provin Cial and Federal governments budgeted for Kenaston Boulevard work should be redirected to solving specific problems and improving the the three partners budgeted million for renewal and repair of deteriorating residential this is a Good Start on the but the Council was planning to do million Worth of such work Over the next five the work is urgent Winnipeg streets repeatedly collapsed last year be cause heavy Runoff had eroded the soil beneath the City is under pres sure from the provincial government and from its downstream neigh Bors to Stop dumping raw sewage into the red and Assiniboine Spring thaws and heavy summer Rains rinse untreated sludge out of the sewers at the outfalls into the the infrastructure program includes million for eliminating bottlenecks in the sewer system so As to reduce the base ment flooding that afflicts some districts in any wet sum it offers no help with the cites need to separate run off water from Wastewater and to intercept and treat sewer system improvements will Benefit Winnipeg and its the Winnipeg transit system has been losing riders be cause the Speed and Comfort of its service have not kept Pace with rising Street improvements that will help the buses move faster and shelters that allow passengers to wait in Comfort will improve conditions for the users and ease the growth of automobile Winnipeg Young athletes have to play team sports at inconvenient times because there Are never enough enough enough enough Fields and courts and gyms and pools for the people lining up to use this will continue to be True whether the professional hockey and football teams stay or the Infra Structure partners would earn Public gratitude by filling some of the larger gaps with new sport and recreation centres if the Council has Good projects ready to pick off the the million for Kenaston Boulevard promised to buy grief for the politicians spending the Money and Little Benefit to the the same funds can accomplish far More tangible Benefit if they Are applied to More modest projects that the City clearly customers Are right navigating the regulatory Waters Down at the crts offices in Hull is easy sailing compared to Riding out a tempest brewed by your own Rogers communications apology and flip Flop yesterday is dra Matic proof that Cable subscribers can change the corporate direction of even the Rogers the Canadian radio television and telecommunications commission was deluged with a Mem Ber of parliament in Ontario received so Many Calls Over the holidays that his answering machine Rogers communications stand the heat generated by thousands of letters and phone Calls from irate Cable the fuss was about a plan to Force customers to give up channels already received if they were unwilling to pay for a new group of specially Chan Nels which began broadcasting on january Rogers marketing known As negative option marketing Means that a failure to inform the company that new services Are unwanted will result in automatic Billing starting in negative option marketing is unpopular with Consumers because the onus is on them to say no to a service or an Assumption will be made that the answer is two Quebec and Nova have passed Laws prohibiting such marketing Here in Winnipeg the two Cable Videon Ca ble to and Shaw Cable Are using the negative option approach but Are not taking most channels away from those subscribers who dont buy the new Winnipeg subscribers Are confused but not at least not to the degree that Rogers customers were before yester Days at the time the crts approved the merger Between Rogers communications and Maclean there was opposition expressed by people who thought too much control was put in the hands of a single corporate the Federal regulator didst think so and allowed the Deal to the new company is now feeling More than a corporate threat from direct to Home satellite competitors breath ing Down its it can begin calculating the costs of its Public relations All those Little people can savor the editorials editor John 6977044 Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 m Winnipeg Tribune esl 1890 Rudy Redekop publisher Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor John Dafoe editorial Page editor directors John Bardawil marketing Stephan Majorki operations Perry Nixdorf advertising Glenn Williams finance 91995 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson newspapers company limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm a member of the Manitoba press Council pcs first Steps approved the Battle Over the future of Quebec is still in the phoney War the provinces pm government has set out its plans for Independence and has composed the ques Tion Quebe cers will be asked when the referendum finally Rolls chairmen More or less objective ones been named for the committees which will be established to take a highly a objective look at the governments there has been a certain amount of manoeuvring about the modalities of the hearings and of the but no stranger wandering through Quebec today would notice much evidence that the province was about to embark on a historic debate about its future relationship with the rest of Canada and the rest of the while we wait for the phoney War to turn into a real one politically speak John Dafoe ing of course there is some intriguing information to hand about where everybody stands on the eve of the the Good news for federalists is that they appear to be starting the race a couple of Steps ahead of the separate the bad news for federalists is that a lot of people in Quebec Are still astonishingly unclear about what they Are getting into if they opt to make Quebec a Sovereign the potentially difficult news for everyone involved is that opinions about sovereignty Are much different among francophone than they Are among the rest of All of this intelligence comes from a poll conducted before Christmas by the som polling firm on behalf of the Mon Treal Gazette and the French language newspaper be of those who were willing to express their 46 per cent said they would vote against the sovereignty proposal and 37 per cent said they would vote for if the undecideds were divided Between the two sides in the same proportion As the the no vote would go up to 55 per cent and the yes vote to 45 per in since undecided voters tend to opt for the status quo when they do make up their the margin in favor of sovereignty could be even add to that the fact that another poll taken a Little earlier indicated that 55 per cent of Quebe cers dont think a simple majority vote in the referendum is enough to justify a declaration of Sov and the Odds on the Side of federalism look even dig a Little deeper however and things get More complicated As they always do when Quebe cers Are discuss ing their constitutional to begin opinion in the Franco phone Community is the reverse of that among Quebe cers for whom French is not the Mother among 45 per cent favored 37 per cent opposed and 18 per cent were fac Toring in the undecideds proportionally gave the yes Side 54 per among other seven per cent favored sovereignty and 82 per cent were when the undecideds were factored the no vote among non francophone went up to 92 per having the wishes of a majority of francophone frustrated by a on sided bloc of non francophone would not be the Healthiest even if most of them Are not pre pared to answer yes to the pcs promo most Quebe cers have no objections to the Way it has been most people outside Quebec along with a number of journalists and political commentators within Quebec and the Quebec Liberal party have denounced Jacques Parizeau Bill As a travesty of democracy and his pro posed hearings As a on sided Kangaroo court designed to promote the sover eight is Liberal Leader Daniel Johnson refused to participate in the most Quebe cers dont agree with fifty one per cent thought he was wrong to a majority said they would and 55 per cent said they agreed with the proposed most Quebe cers also agreed that the pm government was being realistic when it proposed that a Sovereign que Bec would continue to use the Canadian maintain existing pensions and join the North american free Trade Twenty nine per cent still think a Sovereign Quebec would re main a part of what Quebe cers thought in the weeks before Christmas and what they will think on referendum Day May turn out to be two different part of what they think May Well be influenced by what is done and said by people in the rest of so the people in the rest of Canada have deprived Parizeau of the picture of Anglo feet stomping the Quebec Flag which he so heartily if they continue to de Prive the federalist Lead of de Cember need not melt away with Snow in theres no future for techno pools people Are infinite in their number and actual they Are probably not that in their since we can count although it takes longer each year to do so we would have to say that literally they Are which will please the demographers and their Fel Low travellers who argue that doom is nigh through birth most effective of War and we can control Peoples unreasonable urge to we can say that we Are infinite in our number and certainly infinite in our since All of us Are several different even we have this compulsion to at one time in the Days of for example that obsession was confined to classifying Ani today we classify people by All kinds of different methods if you like the color you Are one kind of per son if you gobble your potato you Are a very different person from the one who eats them daintily one Small bite at a if a person can categorize people after spending his whole career studying How they eat potato must be a special classification for people like and it must be on the lower dont see Why i cant do it i can Espy three generic classifications of people today technophobes and tech for Are people who would rather perform unnatural acts with their computers than with each but there within each distinct there Are two species there Are at least two species of one includes those who fear modern technology in As sensible dinner guests might dread the Prospect of being fed pureed carrots by their hosts and having to play with the mess politely before trying to discreetly hide it under their these Are the kind of people who cringe when cellular phones ring in bars and the second includes those who actively hate modern technology in the Way that they would rudely refuse invitations to dinner from people Likely to serve such things As pureed carrots even mushroom which cant easily be hidden under a these Are the kind of people who would cheerfully shoot the kind of peo ple who ostentatiously answer cellular phones in bars and modern in has added one More to the list of great some of the great lies cannot be reprinted in a family but one of them is the Cheque is in the More a propos to the subject under discussion is i am from the government and i am Here to help the new lie is i represent a com Pany on the cutting Edge of computer technology and i am Here to make your Job easier and save your company Mil Lions of that is a of that is Only told to since they Are always interested in saving millions of dollars and Only they Are actually stupid enough to believe employees know they know that what the com Puter person is actually saying is my company will make millions of no matter How much your company May if i can make you believe the employee also knows that what is actually meant is jobs will be lost and that fewer people will do More under less congenial circumstances for the same this is especially worrying for the techno pools like Here at this new spa they employ computers so Basic that even people simpleminded enough to choose journalism As a Ca reer can use More or on a daily if you have one Finger and know the you can be a Jour my expertise Doest go much beyond it it Doest go any where beyond last my wife was suffering from the Vapours and went out and bought me a Basic Macin Tosh computer for my i can use but Only if i get her to set it up for me so that All i have to do is use the alphabet and one i have to Wake her up to do since i use it late at night or Early in the morn which has put some Strain on our i do not expect to get a birth Day present this year february if you would like to fill in that the most popular Christmas present in our House last year was a computer like device designed to teach preschoolers How to spell and i figure out How to use so my Niney Earold son showed my four year old daughter How it and my wife and her sister fought with the kids All Christmas night Over who would get to play with and they think i am the techno pools will eventually perish Darwin will get them but the technophobes May learn to adapt to the new and it is a new some people even fall in love and get married on the in i met my wife in a bar she was i dont know which method is but i do know that once you say i do All the technology in the world wont help or Hurt it is All up to you in your natural and watch those unreasonable ;