Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 16, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba A g Winnipeg free press w january the next Mexico anybody contemplating a trip to the United states will understand Why finance minister Paul Martin is stomping about vowing that his next budget will be the tax boost ingest that the country has Ever so will anyone who is planning to buy a House or a car or make any other major household Purchase of Martin cannot prove the toughness of his intentions until he brings Down his budget six weeks or More from in the he has to rely on Tough sounding rhetoric to convince world financial markets that the Chretien government really is heading towards fiscal stability and reduced deficits rather than towards the Finan Cial the governments failure to convince those markets completely is leading these Days to a lower Canadian Dol Lar hurts travellers and Consumers of imported to higher interest Hurt car buyers and purchasers of expensive household a Rise in rates of causes equal pain to House sell ers and the manufacturers of cars and con Sumer As it helps sabotage the pro Cess of deficit reduction by raising the interest rates on the Money the government has to Bor Row to pay its the process of convincing investors about t Canadas financial Reli 1 ability was not helped last week when this country newest special trading found itself in a financial Nightmare which forced a drastic devaluation of the it was helped even less when financial journalists in the United states turned their eyes from Mexico to Canada and announced that this country was on the verge of a mexican style bankrupt Canada the Wall Street journal asked in an editorial which went on to suggest that this country has now become an honorary member of the third world in the unmanageable of its debt not Many Are Likely to take that description Wall Street journal editorials tend to be less sober and factual than the newspapers often Brilliant news cover the fundamental threats to Canadas financial High a huge Public debt and the threat of Quebec real and the increased International attention now being focused on those problems will make solving them All the More All the More another terrorist if you listen to the leaders of the parti Cana Das think tanks Are overflowing with terrorists these every time left or pre pares a study of the consequences of Quebec separation and concludes that it will not necessarily bring limitless Bliss to either Quebec or the rest of someone in the pm denounces him As an economic that la Bel presumably is intended to end All the debate May be ended for the but the facts wont go the latest to terrorize the pm is an eminently sober sided Law professor named Patrick who teaches at the eminently respectable Osgoode Hall Law school and who wrote a paper for the eminently cautious Howe Institute on the costs and consequences of Quebec the study is just As sober As the author and the its analysis is careful and Monahan Points to the extreme difficulty that would arise if Quebec sought to negotiate separation from the rest of Canada and the even greater difficulty and uncertainty that would be created if the province decided on a unilateral declaration of on the basis of that careful consideration of the Evi he comes to the conclusion that a Quebec unilateral declaration of Independence would provoke a constr political and economic crisis the likes of which canadians have never that crisis could in parts of the to dislocations greater than experienced in the great Monahan is no apostle of the Jean Chretien line on constitutional his Way of avoiding Quebec Sepa ration would be to Engineer a Large scale devolution of Power from the Federal government to the that solution does not enjoy Universal popularity among Law professors have no lock on predicting the Monahans like those from other people in other Are open to dispute and the scale of the economic disruption May or May not be As great As Monahan the facts that underlie his cannot be ignored or brushed people in in the rest of imagine there is a painless Way to Quebec Independence should be paying editorials editor John 6977044 Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free pros tit 1972 Winnipeg Tribune 1990 Rudy Duncan Mcmonagle executive editor John Dafoe editorial Page editor directors John Bardawil marketing Stephan Majorki operations Perry Glenn Winnipeg free a division of division o Thomson newspapers company limited published Wen a week at Mountain Manitoba r2x pm w77qw a number of Council Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion equally of civil rights o the three ami60s leave Portage Avenue alone i dont need a study to Tell me what will happen if we decide to shut Down four of Portage avenues eight traffic lanes i have been stuck in far too Many traffic jams Cre ated when our utilities have closed a couple of it is obvious that our City particularly those who Are members of the works and operations have never been stuck in such a otherwise they would have Given the proposal to close Down half of the Busi est Street in the province the treat ment it deserved and would have con signed it to the nearest garbage they have decided to pursue the beginning by spending of our Money on yet another study that has about As much Merit As that recent Federal government Grant to a University to come up with a new recipe for Blueberry the study will examine a proposal to effectively close four of Portage ave Nues eight traffic lanes downtown to create a few spaces for parking meters and for the exclusive use of buses and what will happen to the peo ple in the cars that use the Street every hour during Rush periods they will be told to find other ways of get Ting to where they want to in other a conscious Effort will be made to prevent cars from us ing Portage Avenue in the Hope that the people in them will simply give Stop and do their shopping rather than waiting in never ending traffic its not surprising that the proposal is being pushed by Winnipeg having failed to attract customers by other it is As if Winnipeg Tran sit has decided that the Only Way to get anyone on to its buses is to make things nearly impossible for its downtown businessmen Are sup porting the these Are the same people who have lobbied at different times for fewer parking for More parking for 30minute meters and for two hour they support every As Long As it is Fred cute verify being paid for by the taxpayers and not by it Doest take a rocket scientist to determine Why most Winnipeg Resi dents prefer to do their shopping in malls rather than most Winni Eggers insist on using their despite being told by their bet ters that this is bad for society and the they can use their cars much More cheaply at the malls than they can where the City de mands an hour to Park and where of Street parking ramp rates begin at 70 cents for 30 the majority of who Are in their cars prefer to travel the extra distance to a mall where parking is the majority Are More than frustrated by the complicated Blue loonie program if you read and follow All the Fine shop mainly in the Small and pricey specially stores and Are Able to find the parking lots where the loonies Are honoured can but not eliminate the Cost of downtown Park to get one Blue a Motorist must Purchase merchandise or services in excess of exclusive of tip and that translates into a downtown lunch on which you spend at least Stop downtown for a total of 31 spend on a Purchase and the parking lot attendant will not even smile As she barks that most people Are fed up with the Lack of any Effort on the part of the City or the businessmen to Deal with this major obstacle to comfortable shopping most even those who Are not rocket know that the Way to get More people downtown to shop is not to close traffic lanes but to Deal with parking not our from what they Are it looks As if they think the Way to get More people downtown is to create a four Lane bottleneck stretch ing from main Street at least to Spence if this Doest the bottle neck can always be this at a Cost of million or create a whopping 48 parking each with a machine that de mands exact change and certainly con tributes to the fitness of those who Are forced to race the nearest commission Aire to avoid a it will make things easier for by will their lanes be allocated to skiers in the Winter and will make it easier for pedestrians to Cross Portage i thought that we didst have enough pedestrians not that they were having trouble crossing the didst we at considerable two elevated walkways for those pedestrians the plan Calls for wider it was designed by the same people who built Portage place and emptied the sidewalks in front of our councillors probably recognize a Brick Wall if they ran into that Why there talking about turning Portage Avenue into a Gerry free press a proposal to reduce traffic lanes on Portage Avenue will produce never ending its time to Stop rub Bishing the in by Jonathan Power special to the free press London we live in extraordinary change has never been so economic Opportunity has never been so varied or so political processes have never been so open or so in communication in All its forms from transport to television gives billions of people the Chance to know what was Only until recently the prerogative of the yet the world Over there is a malaise settling on the mind of for some people it is the very insecurity of fast change that troubles for others it is the loss of personal or institutional Power and for some it is the massive and rapid accumulation of for Many it is the fear of being left behind and for an overwhelming despite All the Progress made in extending and bettering the living of it is the fear that mans Devilish capacity for violence and destruction is hellbent on destroying All the benign attributes of in this whirlwind of activity sits the United this year about to Cele brate its 50th the organization established at the end of the most devastating and destructive War in so that War would happen never again it was a vision born out of the ashes of a conflict that had brought Western civilization to its Low est the in was to set humanity on a new course where arbitration and collective action would replace the Crudi ties of the Battlefield and where resources and Energy would be concentrated on economic and social improvement rather than military a it in to build a single Community in which All Peoples and Allna tons could feel a sense of Neighb Orli Ness and togetherness where prob lems were shared and disputes adjudicated to the Benefit of we All know that the last half Century has not been like while the in is about to celebrate its Jubilee we Are despite its often remarkable How limited Are its a com at least compared with the original we still have to learn How to make the in work and define How governance can manage our common in a sentence this is what a new and important report our global about to be attempts to above we argue the re ports distinguished headed by the prime minister of ing Var Carlsson and the former Secre tar general of the Shri Dath a set of Core values that All people of Goodwill can agree values that develop naturally out of a principle that is common to All the great religious that people treat others As they themselves would wish to be they summarize these As a respect for a sense of equity and integrity and a commitment to Mutual respect and with these seven pillars it is possible to construct a House whose roof the overwhelming majority of people would prefer to live under a world where violence is where autocracy is replaced by participation and free where disparities Are kept within reasonable Bounds and fair play gives even the weakest a Good Chance not a world with an atmosphere where tolerance is a Central part of our daily where doors and windows Are open both in the Universal House we build and in the individual mind and where we understand that we have to care for others around us if we Are to expect them to care for within us All there has to be a sense of discipline and integrity that abjured the temptation of the Short Cut and the Quick that upholds the dignity and Worth of Public office without recourse to a financial or we Are aware that for every centripetal tendency there is often a centrifugal that the rate of our mingling seems to often outrun our natural Tol that deep within the human psyche of even the Best educated and most travelled there lurks an urge to draw the blinds on the world outside and to Consort Only with those who appear the most in times of stress and the fast changing world we inhabit is almost by definition stressful this tendency can become even More sharply yet we have no Choice but to rationalize these the world we live in is More integrated than Ever be we have to rub shoulders and thus have no Choice but to make sure that we have the Means to ease the frictions and soften the Impact of one Cul Ture or one lifestyle upon if there was a need in 1945 to devise rules of and institutions that matched to avoid the Scourge of War and then it is even More necessary i think in 1995 we have to Stop rub Bishing the in and embark on the great task of making it work we need the in and the in needs ;