Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 21, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A6 Winnipeg free july Brian Cole 6977044 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights provincial Equality a number of Canadas political and business leaders have a Good idea of the words they want to see in any future Deal to accommodate Quebec constitutional the real trick will be whether they can agree on what those words actually or perhaps More per Suade canadians they mean what they the business Council on National issues triggered the latest round of constitutional talk by asking Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to Lead a new Effort to resolve the National Unity the one of Canadas most influential lobby has offered to draw up a proposal for Klein to take to the premiers meeting on Reform Leader Preston Manning underscored the importance of the Beni action by announcing last week that he wants to present the pre Miers with his own National Unity but while everyone outside of the separatist parti quebecois govern ment May recognize the need to do what to do is another the Beni envisions a proposal that will Jettison the phrase distinct society and focus on wording that specifically provides for the preservation of the French language and Cul Ture in primarily in and a re Balanc ing of Powers Between Ottawa and the but it also wants the proposal to recognize Equality of the and theres the both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords attempted to reconcile the preservation of French language and culture in Quebec with Equality of both efforts failed among other Manning argued that Quebec was receiving new Equality of by his Defini meant All provinces should have sole jurisdiction Over language and if they did then they could not be in doing Manning ignored two important Quebec already has if not of what they were offered in previous constitutional either through use of the notwithstanding clause or supreme court rulings which uphold the notion that Quebec society has distinctive provinces by their nature Are not Senate for Are apportioned on the basis of not the fact is previous efforts to recognize Quebec distinctive nature did not propose to make provinces less equal to each other than they already they simply recognized that Quebec was Dif that is a word Canadian including Manitoba Gary Are certain to keep in mind when they meet next it is a word Man Ning will have to add to his vocabulary if Canada is to have a Chance at constitutional move it to Montreal the proposed changes to operations of the United nations advanced by Secretary general Kofi Annan recently Are Long if they would constitute the first major restructuring of the organization since its founding More than so years annals plan was generally welcomed As at least a partial solution to the uns but it received a bruising in the United american critics dismissed it As simply maintaining the status quo and attacked it for failing to meet the conditions for Reform the had arbitrarily some Ameri cans have Long regarded the United nations As a subversive enemy of their that is no longer if it Ever and represents an outdated View of the organization that fails to recognize How useful it can be As a positive Force in the the Gulf War against Iraq was even by the United As the beginning of a new Era for the in the new world As president George Bush heralded it in an uncharacteristic moment of enthusiasm but a series of bungled International operations since then have taken the Shine off some of the blame for that ineffectiveness must fall on the United which refuses to pay its dues it owes billion and has hampered in efforts in other Long a staunch sup Porter of both the United nations and the United sharply parts company with Washington on in prime minister Chretien acidly pointed out that Washington had created a Cash crunch at the in that crippled its International initiatives and that the got a handsome return on its invest ment by having in Headquarters in new he would be delighted to have the Headquarters in that is not Likely to Ever but if Washington continues to undermine the United it is something that might be Worth thinking Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 Rudy Redekop publisher email Nicholas editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry Brown circulation sales and marketing Laurie Verne Kalichuk human resources Perry Nixdorf technology Glenn Williams finance and administration 1997 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 the Manitoba press Council vol 125 no 194 Wastedo Shore been done that g localization takes Many a couple of novel ones surfaced last Canadas railways found that thieves have been hopping aboard their freight open ing shipping containers and throwing the merchandise off at level Crossings to be picked up by confederates with this has always happened on a Small but the crime has proliferated most of the people the railways or City police forces arrested recently for this form of theft on wheels turned out to be Balkan methods have arrived on Cana Dian in a dozen police investigators from South and Central America attended meetings at the Canadian police College organized by the Royal Canadian mounted police and the inter american drug abuse control commission to discuss Money laundering by cocaine Canadas political stability and its reliable they were make this country extremely attractive to drug lords anxious to tuck their huge fortunes in a Safe Terence Moore what place could be safer than a Canadian Bank to globalization is nothing in the world jewish Congress disclosed last the Bank of Portugal deposited about four tonnes of Gold it had bought from nazi Germany in its account with the Swiss National the com plex series of transactions was described in a state depart ment document of 1944 dug up by the world jewish the it transferred the same amount of Gold in a Bank of Canada account to the who in turn transferred title to the Gold into its Swiss in the Swiss and portuguese swapped another 15 tonnes of looted nazi Gold for Gold held in the fed eral Reserve in the Swiss Bankers May have used the Gold they owned in Canada and the to pay for nazi loot they had bought from the the nazis had seized Gold and other valuables from jewish families when they were dispossessed and driven into concentration Bank of Canada governor Gordon Thiessen is invest what he May find is that Canada and the helped finance the nazi War Effort by recycling Gold the nazis stole from their victims and sold stolen Gold and honestly earned Gold look the feel the same and weigh equally in the Money earned by trafficking Dollar for buys As Many onions or As Many yachts As Money earned by mining Coal or writing newspaper the Bankers have to seem shocked when they learn that thay have been Laun Dering drug Money or recycling nazi but Money and Gold Are morally which of the great fortunes can stand close study of the Way it was accumulated yet the owners of those great fortunes May be morally it is hard to prove that the Canadian Economy now is More globalized than it was in 1942 when the portuguese and the Swiss were peddling nazi plunder around the there is More talk about globalization now because Mutual fund sales men want us to invest our Sav Ings in indonesian Gold mines and employers want us to accept malaysian wage but Canada and the United states have always been trading nations dependent on interest wage rates and weather in other an age of globalization is an age of we Are not Good at recognizing romanian train thieves and South american Money launderers because they come from far Gordon Thiessen will Tell us in due course whether his Graham knew he was recycling nazi globalization is a sales pitch that invites us to play a game that someone else plays no wonder it is full of Terence Moore is a free press editorial his column ordinarily appears on red tape rises in floods Wake Back during the flood of the Century Here in Mani we saw the Best of decisions were made carried out promptly and the work was done efficiently to fight a real threat to the lives and property of Mani the performance was so Good that comments were published to the effect that Bureau Cracy had done what private Enterprise could that was this is now and what we Are seeing is bureaucracy at its Manitoban who have had their property destroyed by the flood Are living in makeshift they Are visiting food Banks and Are Liv ing with weeks of frustration because the same bureaucrats who worked so Well when the flood was at its height have reverted to the Pace where Little can be decided and even less different government Levels Are squabbling Over who should pay dikes that should have been left and improved As a Protection against another flood have been removed at great expense and even the red Cross cannot seem to figure put what to do with close to million it is sitting collected from canadians across the country to help Manitoba flood the red Cross appears to be dithering As much As the bureaucrats Over who is deserving of and in the meantime victims Are left without the Aid of generous canadians from coast to coast who thought they were helping to prevent the very tragedy that is taking the who worked tirelessly alongside the bureaucrats to fight the have reverted to distributing gobbledygook letters that no one can understand to people who have no use for the information the let ters enough of lets look at a Case in As an evacuee and As someone who has something to do with the opera Tion of the condominium in which Fred Cleverley we i can attest to the efficiency of the flood nobody watched the i got a Telephone Call close to Midnight from John Angus in response to a problem we were experiencing with one of the pumps working to empty our underground we were advised of the details of the Dike the City wanted us to build and within Days had the sandbags engineers checked what we had any thing we needed seemed to appear As if by this was not the bureaucracy we had become accustomed to in the Case of nitpicking inspectors and regulation Reading this was a civil service that was not Only civil but a genuine ser vice at the same the City decided that dikes must be then the water started to go and with it Many of the Good ideas that the threat had one of these ideas was wherever dikes that had been constructed should be left in place and converted into permanent structures As Protection against future we had one of those it want very nor very and would have converted nicely into a Grassy Knoll so that the flood of the if it came along would require one less expensive preventive Mea sure to Cope with the we tried to do our we asked a professional landscaper to help he agreed that our Dike could be made permanent quite he had heard the same rumours we had to the effect that the City was prepared to help convert dikes like the one we had so that it would not have to be we agreed that it would be pretty silly for us to add to what the flood had already Cost us if the City was getting ready to embark on such a we were part of the negotiations Between the provincial and Federal paper pushers were aimed at the same to avoid spending the same Money Over again every time the River we never got the Chance to convert our Little immedi ate solutions to particular prob lems had become part of the the City needed a policy that applied to since some dikes were squashing the River Banks on which they every Dike had to be even which was nowhere near the actual River we watched As the tax financed trucks which had delivered the materials for our Dike took them if another flood Well have to build it just like everyone Fred Cleverley is a Winnipeg his column appears on ;