Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 16, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A14 Winnipeg free May Brian Cole 6977044 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights Broad and deep Premier Gary Filmon has properly ordered that the Manitoba water commission be reconstituted to investigate whether the fight against the flood of the Century this Spring was properly Premier Filmon now must Tell us How broadly the investigation will be focused and it will not be enough for the commission to simply determine whether residents of Grande Pointe and Agathe were victims of an act of god or a Man made while this obviously is an important Issue in those two both of which were flooded for the first time in it is a narrow Manitoban need to know what can be done to ensure there is no recur rence of the destruction this or the Lith hour such As the construction of z that helped mini Mize the to answer the larger the mandate of the commission must be made As Broad As the red Rivers flood Plain this but it should look at the International dimensions of the fact that most of our flood Waters come from the United and at cooperative Steps our two countries could take to better predict or control that while it is True the International joint commission is the body with authority to work out such Cooper it also is True Manitoba commission cannot do its work in isolation of the International it should look at How Well our flood forecasting was done and How timely those reports were delivered to the it addition to reviewing the operation of the Portage diversion and Shell Mouth it should be determined whether they need improvements the capacity of the flood Way was sorely tested this it should determine if roads and other constructions raised in the red River Basin since 1950 have significantly altered the course of Spring and what should be done to mitigate Adverse it should consider if building codes must be changed to ensure new construction in flood zones meets the new High water Marks set this it should determine whether a program to Retro proof like the one after the 1979 would be it should determine whether existing ring dikes should be and new ones constructed for communities such As the commission should determine whether own ers of Riverbank property should be required to raise and maintain secondary it should study whether existing standards for Sand bag standards that Lead to tall narrow dikes that failed under wind and wave Are Suffi All its work must be done in and the Public must be get the message a recent study performed by researchers at san Jose state University concluded that people today have so Many different ways of sending and receiving messages that they Are feeling a bit you can hardly blame a Survey of workers in the Fortune 1000 Compa Nies in the United states discovered that technological advancements do not replace traditional Means of communications but merely add new layers to the people surveyed receive in More than a dozen different ways an average of 178 different messages a Day in their personal and professional As a result they often Are so overstimulated that they Are incapable of doing anything about any of just going through their mail can take All of their communications boffins May be surprised by but no one else will communication used to be simple and pleasantly primitive in its purpose and then came the Telephone and the Telephone answering machine and the spawn that sprung from them its name is for it is Many with the false Promise of faster and More efficient at this newspaper for if a worker wants to communicate with another he can use the voice Interoffice internal internet regular mail or posit if his coworker is out of the he can try the cellular or Call him through his Home Home answering personal voice mail or Call the Miracle of modern technology makes All of this what it cannot guarantee is that the communication itself will be Worth making in the first in for a really important workers rely on what is now a truly Radical Means of they get up from their stick their Heads around the Corner and ask hey Wanna go for Coffee Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press eat 1372 m Winnipeg Tribune eat 1890 Rudy Redekop publisher email Nicholas editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Ian Laurie advertising Verne Kalichuk human resources Glenn Williams finance and administration 1997 Winnipeg free 9 division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Council vol 125 no 134 Moose Moose Bream prejudice stains Canada chinese people were banned by an act of Parlia ment from entering Canada from 1923 until 1947 because White canadians feared some imagined yellow peril and the Liberal and conservative parties that ruled in those years were Happy to feed their the chinese immigration act of 1923 arose from widespread agitation against the presence of chinese families and individual immigrants in the trades and labour Congress at its August 1921 for called for the exclusion of Oriental tic president Tom Moore explained that this was the Only Way Canada could be kept and developed in the interests of the White the House of commons in May 1922 passed a Resolution saying that immigration of orientals had become a serious menace to living particularly on the Pacific coast and to the future of the country in general and the government should exclude the parliamentary debate on that Resolution and on the Chi Nese immigration act the Fol lowing year saw outpourings of racial insults that Are embarrassing to read in Hansard John the conservative member for Saint opened the debate on the Liberal governments 1923 chinese Terence Moore exclusion Bill by wondering Why the government was going to allow children of English fathers and chinese mothers to enter the after we do not want any More chinese Here than we can do we want half any More than full blooded chinese when he was told that some English officials in the Ori ent married chinese Baxter replied if Whites choose to let Down the racial Standard to that should not they keep their racial progeny in the East instead of bringing them Here Baxter wanted to exclude All persons with one chinese apart from students and and All chinese women of any the purpose of excluding women was to ensure decline of the chinese ers had Long relied on chinese labourers for dangerous and difficult tasks that Canadian work ers were unwilling to excluding chinese How was intended to prevent the chinese canadians from Multi Canada had imposed a head tax of on chinese immigrants in raised it to in 1901 and to in 1904 in the Hope of stopping chinese from coming or at least to extort Cash from them if they insisted on the Mulroney governments immigrant investor continued by the liberals under Jean follows similar logic but without writing the racial Barrier into the in a Federal order in Council forbade workers to enter Canada at merchants were still allowed to conservative my for new complained in 1922 that the wily chinese became merchants and continued entering the liberals were again in office in 1947 when the chinese immigration act was Davie conservative member for opposed the repeal he Canada then contained unmarried chinese men and if they All immediately brought wives from China the Strain upon the social fabric of Canada he be the maintained administrative restrictions on migration from China that preserved the racial discrimination of the in deference to the views of Fulton and without pro claiming it in the i am ashamed of the people who built my country when i read of the Racia Listic policies they wrote and enforced in for Mer i am ashamed when i see the intolerant reasoning they used to justify their i am ashamed of Davie later minister of when i read that he tried to preserve chinese exclusion even when the country was ready to abandon it in chinese families have done extremely Well in Canada despite the ignorance and superstition of the country ruling Dauphin mayor inky Winnipeg paediatrician Joseph do and Winnipeg businessman Ken Wong Are leading examples of the Success that chinese canadians have achieved despite the barriers thrown in their John Tom Moore and Davie Fulton Are not far from racism and xenophobia continue to be easy buttons for Lazy or unscrupulous politicians or Union leaders to chinese were the targets of that particular i have no Way of knowing who will be Terence Moore is a free press editorial his column appears on grits feared Bouchard move canadians Are going to the polls in june rather than september or october As part of the Federal liberals plan b strategy to seize the initiative in the Lead up to the next Quebec Ottawa received intelligence earlier this Spring that Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard planned a snap june election himself if the National vote was senior Federal sources had he he would then have held the third sovereignty referendum in the entering its fifth year and still lacking significant representation in que the Federal government would have had to confront the secession threat from a position of the Quebec Premier had valid reasons for a june he has not yet received his own Man he was chosen parti que to Benois Leader following the resignation of former Premier Jacques Parizeau a year and a half fiscal restraint is Start ing to whittle away at his popu perhaps most a fall referendum would allow the Sovereign lists to wring maximum advantage out of Ottawa supreme court reference on the constitutionality of the High court will Start hearing arguments in the Case in sep the secession reference is the Core of Ottawa plan or get soon after the no Side won the october 1995 referendum by a hairs fed eral Justice minister Allan Rock said that Ottawa had a duty to clarify the role of the Constitution and the Rule of Law in que becs potential last the Federal govern ment posed three questions to the High court under the Constitution of Frances Russell can Quebec effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally does International Law give Quebec the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally in this is there a right to self determine Tion under International Law that would give Quebec the right to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada unilaterally in the event of a conflict Between Domestic and International Law on the right of Quebec to effect the secession of Quebec from Canada which would take precedence in Canada the same week that Ottawa unveiled its three Christopher director of Canada projects at the Centre for strategic and International stud ies in told a con Gressional hearing that Canadian officials had indicated the court reference was Only the begin if the Federal liberals win the next they plan to Intro Duce a secession clause into the Constitution which would allow Ottawa to proceed with a nation Al referendum on Quebec sees he there has been talk about amending the Constitution to pro vide a sort of secession Sands if the Federal government takes an initiative like that after a Federal that would raise the Issue again and there might be a National ref future questions that could be was Premier Lucien Bouchard planning a Spring election referred to the supreme court include the appropriate wording of a referendum the circumstances for holding the the size of majority needed and the rights of canadians out Side Quebec in the event of Rock responded by saying no option has been ruled if there is a third the question would have to be the results would have to be thoroughly understood and All canadians should have a role to the minister we cannot avoid the serious difficulties created by the que Bec governments assertion that there is a right to secede from Canada through a unilateral declaration of Independence to leave this Issue unresolved would pose a serious threat to orderly government in Quebec and the rest of the plan b strategy has out raged Sovereign lists and pitted the liberals against their Feder Alist particularly the con whose Jean warns it is an admission of failure and will Aid the separatist the sudden illness of Modera Tor Claire Lamarche halted the French language leaders debate just at the Point where prime minister Jean Chretien was asked How he would respond to a narrow yes during the English Chretien told bloc quebecois Leader Gilles Dueppe that it would depend on the the liberals May not want to talk about plan b in this but they certainly Are thinking about Frances Russell covers politics for the free her column appears on wednes Days and ;