Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 23, 1996, Winnipeg, Manitoba A12 Winnipeg free press August 1996 editorials Brian Cole 6977044 faint Hope Canada should not rewrite its Laws on account of serial killer Clifford As victims rights groups Are that would Grant him More Power and importance in our Justice system than he the criminal codes so called faint Hope Section should Only be changed if it is shown to be not just because of an unwelcome result in one the unwelcome result in olsons Case is that he is once to claim publicity and inflict fresh distress on the families of the 11 children he Mur dered in British Olson generates much publicity winning a prize in a poetry complaining that his free Dom of speech is unjustly writing mocking letters to his victims Par applying for review of his Ever since he pleaded guilty to the murders and ment for disclosing the he has repeatedly twisted the knife in the families wounds and helped make a Case for a return of capital punish he is at it Canadas criminal code has for the last 20 that murderers who have served 15 years can ask for a jury review of their sentence and the Opportunity to show the parole Board that they should be considered for even when the original sentence forbade the jury is to consider the character of the his conduct while serv if his the nature of the offence for which he was convicted and such other matters As the judge deems relevant in the a two thirds majority of the jury is needed to make a change in the applicants parole having served 15 years of his life has asked for such a olsons repeated harassment of his victims families from within the added to the appalling nature of his multiple offers a jury Over whelming reasons for refusing to change his sen the victims families will naturally be angered to see him strut once again before a talking of but is their anger at Olson a Rea son to change our Laws As they apply to All murder ers the Law provides that a jury will hear the facts and consider whether a parole panel should also hear the in olsons the facts Are heavily against in other juries have for that the facts justified releasing after 23 years a murderer who was sentenced to 25 those who seek repeal of criminal code Section 745 need to show for All the facts should never be reviewed after 15 it is not enough to show that Clifford olsons conduct is Reform fades Reform party Leader Preston mannings bid to recruit tories convening in Winnipeg this week raises a fundamental question Why would anyone abandon a party that is rebuilding for one that is self destructing rather than questioning whether tories can find Comfort in their As he did in his Public letter Manning should Start worrying about whether reformers Are comfortable in there was a time last Winter when it could be argued the reformers were on the but not recent polls indicate canadians Are becoming less enchanted with the Reform a change in Public mood that seemed to occur soon after reformers started musing aloud about picking the Bones of the tory almost As though by divine the tories were granted new life in the form of Reform maps Bob Dave Chat and Jan Manning suspended the first two for making inappropriate remarks about the rights of minorities is Brown left after concluding she had enough of the party since some right Wing reformers have questioned mannings saying he was too harsh on Ringma and like the Young Delegate at the Reform party convention in have concluded the party is simply top far to the right on most the fallout is reflecting in the polling data the tories have picked up a few Points in Public opinion polls and the liberals Are making inroads in reforms Home ground of this is not this is a after that thinks being a moderate Means keeping intolerant thoughts to yourself that fancies itself a party of social conservatives but Doest want to bind any of its members to social conservative policies that believes in Quality health especially for those who can afford it that seeks to unify the country by isolating Why would or any canadians for that be attracted to a party like that Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press esl 1872 Winnipeg Tribune eel 1880 Rudy Redekop publisher email Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Ian Laurie Verne Kalichuk human resources Glenn Williams finance and administration 1996 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of tha Manitoba press Council vol 124 no 243 any questions tiles for a future mosaic an obituary is a hard thing to the desire to be respectful toward the recently deceased tugs against the desire to Tell the Good Story or the vivid detail that would bring the person Back to As it warts and the is a War free sketch of the secular Saint nobody out of sympathy for the bereaved family Mem an Avalanche of platitudes is sometimes delivered in a Rev Erent there another London daily Telegraph has been trying since about 1986 to overtake the times leadership in the obituary Field by assigning full time obituary its to produce colourful accounts of newly deceased persons of inter est to Telegraph one of those free press Alum Nus David twist on has Strung together 97 Telegraph obituaries on canadians and published them As a Canada from afar Dundurn the Book shows obituary writ Terence Moore ing at its merciless the notice on free press editorial writer Shaun Herron concludes a disciplined Man with a Sharp Tongue despite a Funda mental Herron was not without a measure of his who who entry declared that he held several lectureships but found entries in reference books too dreary to the notice on new Brunswick industrialist Irving concludes with a reference to his three sons chips off the old Block Nick named Gassy and Greasy because of the interests respectively assigned to David twist on Davies showed uncommon courage in publishing candid sketches of others since he has Laid Down a Rich store of memorable incidents from his own though he worked at the free press Only a couple of years after a stint at the East Anglia daily times in Ipswich and before hiring on at the Tele graph in he is still vividly remembered in this newsroom for his Thrift shop suits and his impatience with col leagues fondly recall the Winnipeg cleric he was supposed to interview who threw him out of the Church to sober up and the two kind Winnipeg pedestrians finding him propped against a downtown building in his dishevelled dropped some coins in the hat beside besides their entertain ment the daily Tele graph obituaries Tell a larger they Tell of the generation Canada is now losing the generation that fought in two world in Spain and in the generation that built the institutions of postwar Cana Brief lives and their incidents Are the single tiles with which the great mosaic of history is Here we have George Ignatieff fleeing from the russian Revo Lution then rising through the ranks of Canadian diplomacy Ernest Manning preaching the gospel and smiting Banks and socialism in Alberta Gillis Pur cell shaping Canadian press into a Model of accurate news report ing Margaret Laurence building the imagined world of Mana Waka in the streets of Canada and the in these turn out to be a Good Deal More interesting than they usually think themselves to the great mosaic of Canadas his tory is relatively tame dominated by bureaucrats of narrow View and Small the individual examined up Are Worth a later generation can try to assemble the grand for it is enough to enjoy the tiles one by Terence Moore is a free press editorial his column appears on business sets National Agenda the corporate sponsorship of the 1996 premiers conference in should Start alarm Bells ringing for particularly Western it makes explicit what is now implicit big business is setting the framework for government and democratic rather than the other Way the issues at stake Are eclipsing whatever taxpayers dollars May be saved if indeed any Are Given that such expenses Are Western canadians have particular cause for concern because one of the sponsors of the pre Miers meet is the newly privatized in in and its counterparts in the deregulated environment now being unleashed by the liberals Canada transportation act Are poised to wreak immense damage to the Western Canadian Cost ing it up to jobs and impairing its annual shipments of billion of primary resource the situation is so ominous for the future of Canada in the Opin Ion of Alex a transport economist and that the lifelong Liberal accepted an invitation to speak to the progressive conservative caucus wednesday in Winnipeg to urge the party to make changing the act a key Plank in its election who consults for Federal and provincial govern ments and the private says that the transport act will do the exact opposite of its rather than create the Environ ment for True it will Spur the formation of Al Power Ful private monopolies Able to abandon communities and Indus dictate terms to shippers and generally pursue eve higher profits at will with virtually no Public accountability or Regula Manitoba has been the first province to experience the destructiveness of unregulated private monopoly Power in trans in who subsidized the premiers ride on an historic train from Edmonton to has announced its intention to kill Northern Manitoba Frances Russell economic its railway to Canadian deregulation policy needs to be redefined to focus on Means not just on methods to achieve effective Competition and not just vague objectives and rhetoric about free Market com Phillips told tory maps and innovative Ness and efficiency Are the not just free Market compete some rules Are not just to protect the Public inter but because there Are significant barriers to new players gaining entry in most transport he in an Phillips said he was struck by the irony of his a Liberal he was the unsuccessful Federal Candi Date in satanic Gulf islands in the 1993 he has been asked by the tories for advice on How to fix their version of transportation deregulation now that it has been implemented by the liberals after they denounced it in that is All he finds humorous in the in rail is taking premiers like Ralph Klein for a we Are seeing the abandon ment and Selling of f of the Cana Dian infrastructure with the potential of gutting the Western Canadian he Western resource exports sup port direct and indirect jobs and account for Over 30 per cent of Canadas Gross Domestic those resource exports rely heavily on rail because it int feasible to try to ship bulk commodities like lumber and pulp and paper in huge quantities by rail cars can Load up to 100 tons of freight while trucks can Only Load to a maximum of about 27 rail rates can be As much As 50 per cent of a products Phillips captive shippers shippers with Access to Only one Railroad can quickly be put at a competitive if not right out of if the Railroad is free to set its own this will Lead to lost Export Trade lower Export Job losses and economic the new act sets impossibly High barriers to obtain Relief from monopolistic ship pers have to prove they will suf Fer substantial commercial harm before any competitive Access remedies will be Relief will Only take the form of commercially fair and reason Able shippers have to be within 30 Miles of a competitive railway to seek the application of established inter switching few if any bulk Western commodity shippers free Market Competition without mechanisms to prevent predatory Antico Peti Tive mergers financed by excessive debt and the amassing of monopolistic Power become self defeating and Phillips told the it limits effective Competition and results in debt Ridden no innovative firms charging higher prices and offer ing poorer Frances Russell covers politics for the free her column appears on wednes Days and ;