Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 11, 1997, Winnipeg, Manitoba A16 saturday free october Brian Cole 6977044 editorials Freedom of tirade Liberty of Reiffton Equality of civil rights a better City Hall mayor Susfal Thompson will be Able to retire next year secure in the knowledge she has made a significant contribution to the City of of at least she will be Able to retire secure in that knowledge if City Council and the provincial government do As they clearly should do act promptly to implement recommendations of the organisational review of the City by George cuff and associates of the 166page cuff report concurs in almost every Way with what mayor Thompson has been saying for five years the City is badly organized and waste and inefficiency contribute to unnecessarily High Levels of and City councillors have lost sight of what they Are elected to do provide the Best necessary ser vices rather than wishes and some will say the report is not a vindication of the mayors some times lonely struggle to break up the manage ment club that has run the City for 25 that rather it is the predictable result of a care fully selected hired and they will be the report recommends the elimination of the Board of commissioners and its replacement by a single chief administrative offi and the consolidation of civic which will eliminate about 40 management positions and save million a but it Doest make the recommendation to appease the it spells out in Plain language that the Board is a vestigial Organ that every major City in with the exceptions of Winnipeg and have excised As an Annec extra layer of but it says it is a City management Model made for another time when civic politicians were hobbyists and May ors were trusted confident Between Council and the that changed with the arrival in 1992 of a full time Council with an outsider mayor determined to change the status quo and reduce taxes in line with governments at All Levels and in All the report and cuff councillors were around to learn How the administration who the players who who and who played they saw the budget process was stacked against their getting control of the Bottom they saw that even ordered the orders were ignored and the cuts were not simple and when things went wrong the million assessment for example no one could be held this led to mistrust of the administration and the results was role confusion in which managers were trying to set policy while councillors meddled in taking on administrative functions that were beyond there forsaking planning for Mic roman involving them selves in what the report Calls adminis trivia to the detriment of the proper functioning of the the elimination of the Board of commissioners and the consolidation should go a Long Way toward restoring the proper function of the the other shoe getting politicians out of administration fall once political recommendations Are chief among these Are Calls to strip executive policy committee of the management bodies it has Cre ated in recent years while increasing its Powers to formulate policy and Long term plans in conjunction with City Council As a but More Are measures designed to ensure the mayor has More Power to appointment members of boards and commissions in addition to members of mayor also is to be Given a second vote to break ties in recent have led to the loss of 27 initiative brought before the mayor will also be Able to suspend and recommend the dismissal of the chief administrative a Power that clearly was lacking in the Wake of the assessment cuff also usefully recommends the term of Council should be increased to four years from three and that elections be held in the not the to ensure new councils have time to get their feet before plunging into the budget not All of what cuff recommends May be but in the main he is Correct when he says of the status quo the horse is Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free Pwu 1979 1 Winnipeg tritons get 1990 publisher email try Nicholas editor Brian Cole editorial Page editor directors Harry brawn circulation Sale and marketing Verne human resources Perry Nix Durf technology Glenn Willams finance and administration 91987 pm i boil Fin Al Mai Vopni Cavafu limited just smile and try not to look like an israeli Mossad hit the thanks of immigrants my Favourite thanks giving Story is about the Plymouth the pilgrims had been through a dreadful in the sum Mer of the indians in Massachusetts rescued the europeans by helping them cultivate Corn to survive in their apparently inhospitable that the Pilgrim one William ordered a Harvest festival to give thanks to god for the colons the for that is what they shot wild geese and the Cerebra which lasted three included sea wild plums and Corn bread and water about 90 who brought five Deer with them to the sat Down to eat with the English it is not the first recorded Observance of thanksgiving in that occurred when a group of English settlers near what is now Charles gave thanks for their arrival in North the entirely religious devoid of was required by the groups charter which Laid Down the anniversary of arrival As a Day of thanksgiving to those two stories Are Woven together in the tradition of Nicholas Hirst thanksgiving which we now cel american thanksgiving and Canadian thanksgiving Are now celebrated on different the Plymouth pilgrims never fixed a formal Day for their until Canadas thanksgiving was celebrated on the last monday in in that the government proclaimed the second monday in october to be the hol iday and so it has been i celebrated my first thanks giving in the United states More than 15 years since then i have celebrated it with my sister who lives in the on the american Date and with others on the Canadian in Toron i would Cele brate the Canadian Date with family and the american Date with expatriate the Joe used to hold a special american thanks giving dinner for there is no occasion in the year that reminds me More that i am an there will be no similar Celebration by my parents in my native England on either the american or the Cana Dian the festival both connects and divides my native country and my adopted in As a would take produce to Church for the annual Harvest when i lived in Rural England the Chari table gifts would be Home made jams or in the More Urban places in which i the gifts would More Likely be dry goods from a local in the Rural when we gave we knew what we were giving thanks in the the connection with the land was not nearly so an Industrial nation rarely measures Success or failure by the size and Quality of its for the Plymouth it was that tradition of the Harvest festival that they had brought with them and which they used to celebrate their in there was no borrowed but a new one was being in celebrating i remember both a tradition that i knew has been trans formed into a tradition that was unfamiliar to As i celebrate thanksgiving i remember the Harvest festival of my youth and i celebrate the difference that met me in my new found i wonder How different it will be celebrating this for the first in Winnipeg is much closer to the land than Toronto where i lived i am much More acutely aware of the Harvest Here than i Ever was More acutely aware of the forces of nature that can unleash devastating it is not hyperbolic this year in Winnipeg to give thanks for sur but in there is another Factor that places this thanksgiving apart from thanksgivings i have in Toronto or the United and that is the presence of so Large an Indian i particularly like the ply Mouth Pilgrim Story because it harks Back to a time before the europeans set about decimating the native population a time when the europeans were threat ened and weak and the indians were Strong and helped As we eat our we should pause to think of it is a debt to the past that we can still Nicholas Hirst is editor of the free his column appears on doer needs a new song to sing at Gunsil Gary doer does not look like a Man in the 49yearold opposition Leader looks As polished and confident As the Day he took Over the Helm of the sink ing new democratic party nine years Small although the next provincial election is nearly two years doer and his party have never been in a bet Ter position potentially to seize the who came to office in Are starting to show the Wear and tear of nearly a decade in Premier Gary Filmon is considering his options after winning three his most Likely successors finance minister Eric Stefanson and health minister Darren Praznik have yet to establish themselves As Premier the government itself has taken a nit for the inept handling of its Correct decision to privatize the Manitoba Telephone sys tem and its botched Effort to privatise it continues to draw fire for in health and and suffers from a perception that it could not give a Damn about the people living in Winnipeg or the Jems of exurban the government increasingly appears col heart de for its tight isted approach to flood one could argue All of this is offset by the Pray wises relatively robust economic but then 3 healthy Economy did not Stop britons from replacing tory John major with labours Tony elections Are always about More than eco nomic doers fortunes should be even brighter when one Clasid ers the state of Manitoba lit eral new democrats used Liberal voters to win election in and the grit leadership and yet there is a feeling among some new democrats that the party and its Leader Are not making the headway in pub Lic opinion they that something is missing in the mix of policy and personality that a party and its Leader needs for electoral there have always been rumblings of Dis Content surrounding As there Are around any but the intensity of feeling seems to have grown in the Wake of the Portage la Prairie by election in which the nip failed to make significant Gams on the of goes beyond doers personal style to the heart and soul of the party he the Dps failure to make political headway can be attributed in part to the simple fact it has failed to do what All other left Wing Polit ical parties have done Over the last decade How much of this failure can properly be attributed to doer and How much to the party caucus and executive is an inter Esting the nip Leader does give every indication of wanting to change his party Brand in he makes a Point of saying he is not a Taxon spend new that he believes in interventionist not big govern and that he understands government must respond to the heeds of not but the simple fact is and there is no gentle Way to put this he Hast found a Way to communicate this message to the which still views doer and his party As Little More than the political Wing of the Manitoba federation of quite the nip Hast been Able to find the issues or the vocabulary to speak to people about the things that concern it this is particularly True on the economic for the nip has spent the last decade trying to fight the forces of globalization when in fact Manito bans were More interested in finding out what government could do to help their children make the transition to the new it also is True on the Issue of social when new democrats talk about health for they always talk about spending More rather than the same is True for new democrats often talk about the need to improve our schools and but rarely do they offer up anything More than an explanation of How they would re Priorie existing spending to free up More Money to spend on they dont seem to As the tories that increased spending is not taxpayers want to be shown they Are getting results for their they want to be to measure the Progress that is supposed to result from increased none of this Means a doer is destined to his fourth elec Tion w a he is today what be has always been a talented politician with Good instincts and a winning maybe be just has to let it show a Little wore Bem Cote is the few pests this wlm ;