Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 3, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A o Winnipeg free july it i Brian Cole 6977044 editorials by of bpm Lilg of civil nights no further ahead chairman Oilles Letour Neau and his colleagues on the Somalia inquiry vented their anger against High ranking officers of the Canadian forces but they cast Little fresh Light on the strengths and weaknesses of the after four years of efforts to find out what went wrong with the Canadian airborne regiments Somalia the country is not much further the inquiry commissions report complains of widespread moral and intellectual Inadequacy among Canadas military appalling Leader officers More worried about their own advancement than their missions and cowardly buc passing were Rife among the top brass Dur ing the Somalia weak leaders let Down their soldiers and allowed events to run out of control both in Soma Lia and at the com missioners said in their chairman Letourneau said in releasing the report that officers he did not name had lied in testimony to the the commissioners scathing indictment is hard to Square with the facts of the the Canadian forces discharged their Mission in Somalia despite the extreme haste of its the vagueness of its purpose and the Dis order in the killings of two civilian intruders at Canadian Camps led to internal accusations of the Letourneau dismissal of a chief of defence staff a minister of escalating explosions of anger and score settling among officers and retired officers and finally the report released the heart of the matter remains the killings of two civilians in Somalia during an otherwise successful Mission that Ottawa had chosen for the the commissioners anger reflects their difficulty in winning cooperation from the the com missions hearings degenerated into Public slanging matches among the the lawyers representing interested parties and the officers ordered before the inquiry for the inquiry became a crusade to punish the guilty and Correct the commissioners and their staff went to War against the military and the govern and the report is their last Salvo before their ammunition runs contrary to the Letourneau inquiry the publicly visible facts suggest that Canada is defended by Well organized military forces which can usually be relied on to respect the Law and uphold Canadian the killings in Somalia raised fears of some wider problem in the military calling for massive if there is such a the Letourneau inquiry did not find a Lack of principle More and principle seems to have less and less to do with the Public sector compensation disclosure the act requires the names and salaries of Provin Cial workers paid More than be published it was brought in last year by the Filmon which properly argued it was in the Public interest for taxpayers to have Broad Access to information about How their Money is charged that revenge on Public sector unions was driving the the effect of which would be to inspire envy in those earning less than and turn them into Union the first lists of names and salaries now Are being paraded before the Public coincidentally As the Filmon government is clamping Down on Access to government information and it seems Clear Little principled thought was put into the the lists created in the name of Access Are difficult to in most they can Only be obtained by appearing in person at every Crown school Hospital or Agency affected by the in some the lists Are in others they Cost they Are simple lists of names and there is no context to determine Why teacher x is paid More than teacher there is no Central list to compare the pay of an administrator at one Hospital with the pay of an administrator at there is no Way of know ing whether is too much to run the health sciences or too we know there Are 27 people earning More than at the Manitoba liquor control commission and at Manitoba so what All of the information is distorted because we Are Only told who is paid More than creating an image of fat bureaucrats while ignoring the image of struggling Home care Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est w7f Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy publisher email Nicholas Hirst Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Ian Laurie Verne Kalichuk human resources Glenn Williams finance and administration 1w7 Winnipeg free a div Stoi of newspapers division of Thomspn Canada us died published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain mantel pm 6977000 a member of the Manitoba press Vounell vou2sn0177 since the Somalia inquiry were using a safety but its smaller than Gilles Duc Eppes hair a lottery winners lament How sharper than a serpents tooth it is to have a thankless that sentiment from King Lear must have been much on the minds of lottery officials this week when one of their winners turned on George Vujic cashed in a million ticket on the super 7 lot Tery on but he want about to say thank he complained bitterly that the Odds on the lottery were Lousy and it was too Tough to what tipped him i wonder since he does not seem to have been deterred from his gambling by the Well publicized information that the Odds on winning the Jackpot in these lotteries Are Mil per haps it was because it had finally twigged that Over the last 20 years he had spent on lottery tickets and was Only now collecting Good for him on both winning and waking the chances that like a lot of he will continue to buy lottery tickets in the future and in this he will be actively encouraged by govern ments which will Tell him that million May be a lot of but there is still More to be Dujics response to his Good Fortune is More appropriate than it might like the rest of he was a just a luckier dupe Tom Oleson than when he finally real izes that he was Only duped by hell be wide most of the people who win big at one of the innumerable games of Chance that our governments set before us Are childishly grate Ful for their Good they have obtained the kind of riches that most of us can Only dream of acquiring by also winning a lot the world is their Oyster the Only problem in aside from the fact they will almost certainly spend the Money More foolishly than we would and there is a certain disconsolate satisfaction in the thought that it might easily add up to their ruin is that the world is not sup posed to be their it is sup posed to be one of the most remarkable accomplishments of the lotteries is the Way in which they facilitate envy of one of the seven deadly As they might be More properly designated these one of seven socially dysfunctional behaviour but unlike most of those behaviour it is not an easy one to commit in its purest it requires a refined that is usually hard to find even but which government run gambling is Able to bring out quite if your Neighbour inherits a Fortune from a Rich aunt and you wish you had a Rich that not really although if you Hope that your aunt will catch an Early Angel to her eternal Reward so that you can sooner enjoy your earthly it probably Doest say much for you As a when you wish your Neighbours aunt had left you the Money instead of so that you would have it All and he would have nothing that which is precisely what we feel when the winning lottery numbers Are announced and we learn that someone else won the prize that was supposed to be we wish that we could have won instead of him if All were right with the it would have been our numbers that were drawn instead of and it would be us up there gush ing gratitude and he who would be sitting at Home finding fault with the lottery there is no government activity that we encounter so often no function that government per forms so Well As it confronts us in convenience Church basements and Beer Parlours contrary to the Promise of the cunning inducements designed to make us there is almost no lasting pleasure to be found in any of Many of the losers Stew in their envy of the some drown in a despair brought on by losing far More than they can even the winning it May bring no it is easy it is tempting to blame the government for it is hardly in for a person to blame himself for anything these we All cling to the concept of diminished everything is somebody else although the government made me do it seems an Odd excuse for human in we Are Coco Spira the government provides the Opportunity and we bring to that Opportunity our own weak our our fond Hopes whatever we like to Call the Odd thing it is Only the never the winning or the losing that really matters in the end that the serpents it really is a funny old and we Are just the people to live in Tom Oleson is a free press editorial his column appears on Elm disease vaccine on the Way i have Good news to report about the preservation of the cites special attractions the thousands of elms that Bower the streets and make Winnipeg a Beautiful the news is that a vaccine is being developed to inoculate elms against the Scourge of dutch Elm disease ded which has wiped out elms in most North american Winnipeg has been the exception because of a program to rid elms of dead or dying limbs which propagate Elm bark beetles that spread the Dis Winnipeg has lost elms to the disease Over the past 20 the vaccine has been devel oped by Martin retired professor of Forest pathology at the University of Toronto after Many years of preliminary tests last year in Ontario show it should be Mike City who has been following and encouraging the is elated at the he anticipates it will be on the Market within two years if funding partners Are found to launch the unlike other ded preventive techniques using chemical Pes hubbes1 vaccine is a wholly biological it adapts natures own defence mechanism to fight off there Are individual elms that have survived because of their effective defence capabilities while Neighbours died the vaccine has been isolated and used by or Hubbes in exper it is Majied an which is a naturally occurring protein proceed by the Ameri can Elm As a defence against killing says or Allen Ujj editors Wall off or compartmentalize the diseased Val Werier in the the process is simple and the benefits of a Nat ural it is environmentally Friend easy to needs no special equipment nor applicators License to says the Elicitor will be available at an affordable rate at the usual retail the method of application is to Drill a Small Hole in the trunk of the Elm and insert the which is about the size of an ear in experiments carried out in four centres last Suc pro Raras to prune dead branches saved Winnipeg Cess rate was More than 90 per to test the Efficacy of the vac another Hole is drilled above where a capsule of ded is insert further tests Are being carried put in 12 centres on the including to confirm the Good results recorded they will also be used to refine treatment its ironic that in the forefront of research to find an antidote to deadly has been handicapped by a Lack of sufficient funding still required to Complete the he is looking for funding partners in the it is to the credit of the coalition to save the the province of Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg that they have contributed about As Well As to help Hubbes in his of Winnipeg has much to gain because it is the exceptional City that has managed to save most of its a lot of conscientious civil yams have been including Richard of the provincial forestry who personally experimented to find the Best method of applying the the Elicitor has been patented in Canada and the Manito because of its will share in the Hubbes Elicitor will protect the Elm Only for a he is continuing research to find a per manent cure and those who know this dedicated scientist have Faith he will become toe great Saviour of the Val weeder is Winnipeg fits column appears on ;