Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 10, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A Winnipeg free press january few facts lots of ideas education minister Clayton manness is full of an idea about Reform of Manitoba but ideas without information to Back them up Are weak and impotent he is unlikely to have a great Impact on the work of colleges and universities until he creates a policymaking and administrative machinery to gather the relevant facts and draw useful conclusions from at the he is armed Only with a set of ideological he considers that the for which the government pays about three quarters of the operating should serve the conservative party theories about the eco nomic development of Manitoba and should not serve wider but for any program he might propose the academics can easily show How it serves the tory theories in one Way or a re form program with such a thin basis will soon col lapse in the face of data about the economic Impact of pos secondary but close scrutiny of pos secondary pro Grams is in not As a on shot drive for the to reification of education but for constant innovation and like other can be victims of inertia and can Bene fit from outside impetus to encourage careful phasing out of programs for which there is Little demand and introduction of new manness is not in a position to contribute to that patient and difficult work because he has no Independent source of research and advice and no administrative Arm to know which Are the hard questions that the universities should be the inquiry commission on pos secondary education directed by former Premier Duff Roblin urged the government to create a Council on pos secondary education answering to the the Filmon government decided not to do manness As a March into Battle with the universities intellectually naked and in the Best stalinist manness wants a multiyear plan to mesh the work of universities with the efforts of other employment and in vestment agencies to produce a unified economic development the stalinist five year plans were purely bureaucratic exercises and the corresponding Effort of the Filmon government seems Likely to be equally inf but in the meantime manness May produce needless grief simply through inability to find out what the universities and colleges actually do now and what they ought to do he should accept Roblins advice and create the University management Arm that he punishing Alberta after a year of threats and Federal health minister Diane Marleau is going to take decisive if the government of Alberta Doest Stop private health clinics from levying extra fees on patients who want to jump the treatment she will impose the full Force of the Canada health act against them months from the health ministers threat is not Likely to strike fear into the heart of Ralph Albertas populist who believes fervently in the right of the Wel Todo to get treatment for some ailments ahead of everybody else just so Long As they can cough up a facility a lot can happen within nine including the re placement of Marleau As minister of even if she survives in her portfolio and perseveres in her punishment of her Power to cow Premier Klein May be within a few Ottawa Power to punish a provincial government by cutting off its Cash contributions to the provinces healthcare system will have disappeared because Federal Cash transfers to the provinces will have unless the Federal contribution formula is More and More of its share of medi care will be covered by the Transfer of income tax share rather than by Federal Cash some time within the next few Cash payments will disappear entire and with them Ottawa Power to punish the provinces which have not met minimum standards for the Federal government has a Strong Case that Alber tas facility fees do break sections of the Canada health act that prohibit extra if the Alberta practice spreads to other medicare could be threat All provincial governments Are struggling to preserve their health care systems in a time of tight Vari Ous forms of extra Billing will Appeal to More of them if More fundamental solutions Are not found to the problem of financing health Marleau May finally get around to doing something about Albertas More important is to get together with All the provinces to establish the fundamental Reform of medicare promised by the liberals in the last election Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy Redekop publisher Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor John Dafoe editorial Page editor directors John Bardawil marketing Stephan Majorki operations Perry Glenn Williams finance Winnipeg free 9 division of newspapers division of Thomson newspapers company limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council my editorials Freedom of tirade Liberty of Equality of cd vol rights editor John 6977044 give us More places to play who needs the National hockey league when you can just hang around the local rink and find plenty of excitement not Only do the kids entertain their parents and assorted fans with unselfish but they skate themselves into a lather that keeps them More or for the rest of the the seven and eight Jearolds look Forward to those saturday games As a highlight of the outdoor practices in Between Are almost As As Long As the wind chill is under 1800 and the ice is in reasonable but hockey is Only a fraction of what those kids learn when they gather a couple of times a waiting patiently while a Parent laces up the rubbing the fingers while the kids Are Busy learning what offside and icing they Are not loitering around the parking lots of the nearest convenience store or watching mindless television shows that numb the they Are learning about they Are learning to respect coaches who know More than they they even learn to respect each they learn How to win and they learn How to especially for poorer kids in the in Ner the availability of skating swimming baseball Dia soccer pitches and gymnasiums can be the difference Between Low and High a healthy body or a neglected idleness and productive there Are already some very Good recreational programs that Are Mak ing a both in Winnipeg and in Remote areas in a pro Gram called Northern flying Camps was set up by the University of Mani Toba in Young athletes Fly into native reserves and Remote Metis communities to establish recreation pro the results Are impressive a re search study concluded that Camp life increased Levels of Alert enjoyment and interest it also reduced boredom from daily Rou those adolescents who were More involved with the criminal Justice sys tem Felt More sociable and had More positive perceptions of Leisure and ramp crime rates in participating communities when kids Are engaged in healthy physical there is much less Chance they will run afoul of the Law or abuse their team sport Fosters cooperation the routine of practices and games promote responsible the Winnipeg development agree ment was just negotiated among the three Levels of they will spend million Over the next five years on a multitude of projects too Many projects ranging from clean ing up main Street to training pro Grams for the there is plenty of discretionary Money in that loosely defined As strategic which is Politi Cal code for anything that seems like a Good idea at the promoting Good physical fitness has been a Good idea for a Long even during the darkest Days of the Depres the railways made boxcars Avail Able for kids to use As locker rooms be fore skating on to a rink sitting in the Middle of some unused scrub building new Community recreation facilities and developing programs for neighbourhood kids has great while the body is rounding into positive values will mostly be cause role models will be on the scene to show Young people that life is More than a sniff of glue and a continuing Battle Between rival the Winnipeg development agree ment offers governments a terrific Opportunity to help Mould sport and recreation can make All the differ ence to a Young person searching for watching professional athletes can be watching Young peo ple grow through sport is much More than Wendell Phillips Greendell Park girls Battle for the ring exercising the body while enhancing training wont cure unemployment another of Canadas major social policy organizations has turned thumbs Down on human resources minister Lloyd Axworthy proposals to change the nations social safety the Canadian Council on social development says the plan ignores the relationship Between growing unemployment and poverty and the de crease in Well paying social Security review should be guided by our values and social not by deficit reduction it last Axworthy own advisory the National Council of also criticized the Green a saying it attacked the poorest Ca not the concerns of the a cd and the new have been Given greater credibility and urgency by statistics Canadas most recent analysis of income Sta scan reports that average family income declined for the fourth straight year in 1993 and that income distribution in Canada is becoming steadily More echoing the the a cd critique says unemployment is caused by a Lack of not by laziness or Lack of train ing As the government paper global Competition and a changing Economy have left Many canadians unemployed despite their desire to says the a cd written Frances Russell by executive coordinator Susan Carter and policy analyst Chris Clark and published in the november Issue of per a cads no amount of training or incentives will get the majority of these people Back to there Are simply not enough Good jobs for the number of people ready and Able to the governments emphasis must shift from the individual training and reducing disincentives to work to the labor the analysis Many jobs in the so called new Economy pay Low Are Par time or temporary and offer few if any Ben to slow the trend towards a growing number of working poor in the government must address the Issue of wages and How the Green paper virtually ignores the labor markets the a cd is particularly critical of the governments idea for a two tiered unemployment insurance say ing it is perverse Given the revolution in As nonstandard work becomes More prevalent it accounted for 44 per cent of employment growth in the 1980s the number of individuals mov ing from one temporary form of employment to another will the proposed two tiered system designed to curb this pattern by penalizing those who collect benefits More than three times in five years would be at Odds with the direction in which our Economy is a two tiered sys tem would penalize some individuals for taking the Only kind of work Avail the a cd also warns that the switch to student Loans from Federal Cash transfers to provinces will be a considerable Barrier to pos secondary education for Many people from Low and Middle income As it Points out that about billion in earnings shifted from Low and Middle income households to the wealthiest canadians Over the past this Gap Between Low and High in come earners will grow even More rap idly if the government proceeds with its proposed spending before we Cut assistance to those who need it we should look at other areas of government spending and Overall tax Reform must be undertaken to ensure that All options Are adequately Sta scan reports that pretax average family income adjusted for inflation was in a decline of per cent from a year earlier and a drop of per cent from the 1989 Peak of it describes the fou year erosion As the largest and deepest in the last four decades and attributes it to continuing weakness in the labor the number of canadians with in comes below stats cans Low income cutoffs the Point at which a family spends More than 55 per cent of in come on shelter and clothing has risen per cent since it jumped per cent to million just Between 1992 and the number of poor children has soared per cent since the a cd says critics who wish to quickly Cut the deficit by slashing so Cial spending should reflect on the Sta scan poverty at least some of a worthy bureaucrats think the goal of social Reform should be to create even greater a paper prepared by Manitoba Federal human re sources staff states baldly that the Pur pose of the review should be to so downgrade social programs that More people Are forced to take poverty level ;