Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 12, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba Brian Cole 6977044 readers forum saturday free press a f july m i i july Merit should play greater role in u of m pay salary disclosure Sparks debate Katherine president of the University of Manitoba Stu dents believes the Public disclosure of salaries paid to univer sity professors and administrators could Lead to new policies that ensure pay increases Are awarded on the basis of the office of the provincial auditor has recently released its list of All provincial Public servants paid in excess of in accordance with the Public sector compensation disclosure this includes making Public the salaries of administrators and faculty at the University of although there Are passionate arguments against the very premise of Bill which was proclaimed into Law by the Manitoba legislature in november the Central Issue is one of increasing the accountability of Public servants for the Public dollars they in this age of Many conflicting interests competing for Ever decreasing government it is no longer merely the right of the Public to know How their scarce monies Are it is Katharine Kowalchuk their improving accountability within the Public sector is not a new con at the Federal and provincial there have been numerous attempts to do so Over the past few at the u of the Public salary if interpreted will necessarily focus Energy on addressing the spending policies of the University More this will give the findings of president Emoke Szathmary task Force on strategic planning much More practical weight upon its release this the Challenge is not to View the salary figures As answers in them on their they do not mean a whole the salary disclosures at the University should be seen in the con text of determining from this in the Case of professorial the significance of the disclosures is larger than merely noting How much professor a is paid in relation to professor b or the Many academics and administrators that did not make the High salaries Are acceptable if the recipients Are paid what they Are while the Public disclosure of senior Public employee salaries itself May have a certain it is important not to lose sight of the real importance of the Laws implications need to maximize value for the Public Dol viewing salary figures in one notes a vast discrepancy Between senior administrators and professors in relation to their sub or part of this problem stems from a promotion system that rewards seniority As opposed to Musus policy document path to excellence asserted due to Many years of negotiations with the faculty the University collectively bargained itself into the undesirable position of rewarding seniority and not Merit with the incremental salary regardless of the number of years of professorial compensation should have some relationship to this is the larger context where salary debate at the University should per Taining to both faculty and adminis in terms of professorial Reuner there should be a review of research and Community service to determine the universe Tys Best the implications 6f moving towards this Merit based approach Are that the internal review processes currently favoured by depart mental administrators would have to be this May not prove to be such a Large As the current review processes Are seen to be superficial and Are critic 3s stitch to be Many of the skills and attributes that senior academics and administrators bring to the in vef sity of Manitoba could Garner them More lucrative salaries in the private is a spurious argument against Public disclosure of salaries at the univer for those who genuinely pro vide the value for the Public Dollar invested into the Public the University have nothing to for those who Are rewarded for their relative Lack of productivity by excessive enjoy it while it the release of the 1996 compensation packages is a step in the right one which will help make this threat a Portage and main is a column that features the views of free press to Call Gerald letters to the history teaching full time concern t t thy should anyone be sur prised that canucks flunk his w tory for the last decade schools have been bombarded with messages that Job skills were the thing to computer Sci ence and sciences have been supported with increased school with corporate and government and with publicity at the expense of subjects like history old and the situation is not Likely to get the current plan from the Manitoba education department is to require future students to take social studies Only until the end of senior 2 Grade at present in Manitoba there Are Only two school years where Canad an history is the required course for the grades 6 and 11 senior ask whether the teachers assigned to teach these courses in your school have specialist training in Canadian the chances Are that their speciality is language arts in elementary school and Ash anything but his tory in the High anybody can teach were there Are history specialists out there but As your own paper pointed out they have the least Chance of getting its All very Well to run a few Canada Day stories lamenting that Canuck flunk history but unless including care enough throughout the rest of the year to put pressure on education officials to see that Canadian history and Canadian history teachers Are really the Issue will remain a newspaper space filler on july 1 or heritage Day and be forgotten the rest of the Linda Mcdowell Winnipeg noisy kids spoil lunch i am a Young who has finally decided to let my voice be not about an Issue of our or but rather on a subject of common i am a regular Patron at Many food usually family restaurants such As Brani i enjoy my meals the food is the Atmos phere is and i generally have a Good but i have gotten fed up with the most prominent distraction when going to these it to say the very hard to enjoy my lunch when a lady brings her Brood of children to the most parents Are but oth ers simply refuse to control their Chil these kids run quite i observed a particular child hollering at the top of his throw ing food and kicking the partition Between the his Mother did nothing about Haven these people Ever heard of Mcdonalds that a place you take give them a Happy meal and let them play on the mat Taiton Winnipeg run from Ball Park plan mayor Susan Thompson has sought out and received accurate information regarding the Lack of sustainability in the proposed baseball Parks business plan those councillors who ignore How to reach us the free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published but not All letters May be edited for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg letters can be sent to our fax number letters May be submitted through the internet at . Letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone facts should be embarrassed and con Sider As the Independent outside auditors As nicely As they could word the projections used to demonstrate viability Are simply smoke and Mir the baseball Only Facil Ity May do 50 Revenue events including this badly mis named multipurpose sports and recreation Centre proposed by Sam Katz will not do 178 events per what events will beheld in the Facil Ity after the league folds Gold eyes leave councillors should be More worried about the demise of the Northern league than the Cal All this talk of due Diligence is More like due dont confuse us with the facts is How Council appears to handling this Check out this years Home Atten dance to published data has the Gold eyes median attendance at Here in Winnipeg after 14 the bigger concern though is the away attendance at rival Ball Parks where the median attendance at five different league cities is Only up to july the mayor properly stated the Gold eyes Are Only a seasonal tenant and that she didst agree that the business plan has the stability to warrant the site the league apparently Doest have the stability Check the not the and then vote with its not a doable so walk run away before its too Starr Winnipeg private funding really Public on City Council voted to allow Only a very Brief Opportunity to one Manitoba place proponents to raise and secure sufficient private Sec Tor financing for the year round reporting very positive results to executive policy combined with a fully private sector funded feasibility proponents were mystified when pc voted on to delay approving a conditional site explanations centred around the Panama games need for 3 baseball Park drop dead Date of 31 and a rep could not pro vide a baseball venue in time for the two week event in so amp was Given one Over Christmas and new years to convince interested Pri vate sector investment to participate Mcdonalds is designed for so take them Reader in the Multi sport and entertainment City Council granted yet another Extension to the Panama Dri Ven baseball now costing tax payers in excess of a reported and seeking even More Public sector funding of the private sector the City never issued a proposal and never offered monies to any proponent who wanted to try to build something at the on City owned the private sector developers always promised this would not Cost taxpayers any then it became a private sector Public sector if it receives any unconscionable increase in government then in effect its a publicly funded with some private sector investment in order to secure the 23 year Revenue control of the with that much Public the project will have to be publicly tendered but no one has seen the working drawings or even a preliminary Cost estimate by a reputable Winnipeg Canada wrong to attend ceremony in response to William buttons letter regarding foreign affairs min ister Lloyd Axworthy attendance at the Swearingin of Beijing appointed Council in Hong saying it was Good for Canada to How can he compare Canadas presence at the Swearingin to the foreign policy of the past let me remind Hutton that policy at the time was influenced Dur ing the cold and the threat of soviet expansion and communism spreading was a concern of not Only the but France the had to Deal with these despots that Hutton had mentioned because they were very anticommunist and were the policeman of their respected Hutton seems to approve of Bei rings move to dissolve the elected Hong Kong Council and to replace it with pro Beijing people whose Only goal is to Benefit the and Britain were right in not attend ing the Swearingin and Canada was Winnipeg relight response misses Point several responses to my letter opposing relight cameras have appeared in these on the sur they appear to be infested with poor logic and weak assumptions and failed to address the Points i they have succumbed to the temp tation to engage in vituperative Dia which is not helpful to any attempt at enlightened i encourage these correspondents to re read my june 10 there is no in that text or by insinuation that those opposed to relight cameras Are habitual relight run or Are in favour of running red let me in Plain that at Issue Here is the fining of a person who May be innocent and not even present at the scene of the Infra the police cannot attest and swear that the Driver and scofflaws run Ning the Light is the one being punished for the the Fine represents an automatic conviction without the Burden of any eyewitness or oth on the part of the neither has any data been presented by Pic or the Winnipeg police in this paper that gives even a Good Indica Tion that these cameras would actually reduce Accident rates in the or Impact Auto insurance if there is no Benefit accruing to society by reduced numbers of Colli How can one argue that this Mea sure would be anything less than a heavy handed tax grab if the proponents of these cameras feel that being punished in the absence of reasonable evidence As to the perpetrators identity is oficial to a free and democratic i encourage them to move to a Juris diction where the Rule of Law is guilty until proven Martin Weirich Winnipeg doonesbury by Garry Trudeau ;