Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 16, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A12 Winnipeg Frh May 2000 editorials Freedom Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights think Lon term since it has Cost million to clean up and repair damage caused by the 1997 had the red River flood Way As it very nearly the Cost would have increased by More than and there appear to be Manito bans who think that spending As much As billion to protect Winnipeg from the next one that could cause billion in is too since it has become Clear that Manitoba had foolishly allowed new construction on the red River flood whats the construction had been allowed even though it failed to meet diking and other Stan Dards created to mini Mize flood which is Why damages were greater three years ago than they need to have and there appear to be Manitoban living on the flood Plain today opposed to a proposal to build a Dike South of Agathe because it May require improvements on the work they have done with Public Money since 1997 to meet Protection since it has become Clear that the Lon term vision that created the flood Way lost focus Over time with the result that Public works and private housing were allowed to encroach on the the result today is that those Public works and Pri vate houses Are in the Way of a plan to expand the flood Way and will need to be moved at great and yet there appear to be homeowners who think they should not be that their encroachment was somehow that they should be allowed to stay where they Are and that the flood Way should be designed to accommodate them rather than the other Way there even appear to be municipal officials who Are sympathetic to those All of these reactions to the two proposals to spare Winnipeg from the next flood a Dike or a bigger ditch Are they How shortsighted views at a time when the View that is needed More than anything is the Long the existing flood Way was built according to a Long one that its critics in the 1950s said was Over the shortsighted View was repeat edly shown to be but even what seemed the Long View Back then turned out to have a shelf life of Only 40 years the flood Way that was to protect Winnipeg forever nearly failed three years ago this the lesson is that flood Protection is a work in it will never Winnipeg and All of Southern Manitoba will Only continue to As they flood works undertaken today will be found to be inadequate just As eventually happened with the the 1997 flood already has shown Why Short term thinking can no longer be tolerated it merely at great the making the flood Way bigger today would greatly improve flood Protection in Winnipeg and increase the recreational potential of Rivers and the flood a Dike would provide even greater Protection but without recreation no matter which project wins final the fact is that neither will be the final Winnipeg and Southern Manitoba will need More pro and More recreation than either project can attention be focussed on those not on the Short term concerns of if will Only cause great consternation great Tomor potheads in politics Stockwell who is now the leading Candi Date for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance if a new poll can be believed recently admitted that in his younger years he smoked More than any other National figure in Canadian Day is portrayed by his opponents and the Media As being the embodiment of righting strict morality and so called family not Long ago in any politician who admit Ted to an intimate acquaintance with marijuana might have done his career some serious yet even Days admission hardly seems to have raised an this should Tell us something about Canadas present marijuana Days situation is after that it has become the fashion to ask politicians about their Young and possibly druggy Days and and Many have admitted to smoking even Alberta Premier Ralph Klein As unlikely a Pothead As one can imagine says that he smoked pot in the Klein and Many other Canadian Law makers Are Lucky that they were never caught by the police in Possession of the marijuana they were had they their careers might have been much in that they might find sympathy for a new generation of canadians to whom the Law now poses a similar whose lives could be ruined for an indiscretion that is regarded far less seriously by society now than it was when and even Federal health minister Allan Rock once Token polls indicate the Public is ahead of politicians in its belief at the the simple Possession of marijuana for personal use should no longer constitute a criminal listening to the continuing confessions of their Many canadians Are wondering Why it continues to be t climbing out of a political Hole John Dafoe As Joe Clark has been learning Over the past couple of it is not Only rats that leave a sinking when the foundering vessel is the progressive conservative party of the defectors can include provincial Politi including Cabinet ministers and at least one Federal members of past and Back room party party Bagman and the wealthy captains of Industry whom they touch for Campaign if the polls Are any a Large number of Ordinary some of those defections were some were All of them were trotted out to considerable Media in some instances As part of an evident Campaign by members of the Canadian Alliance party to undermine Clark in Advance of last weekends progressive conservative policy convention in Quebec for the aim of that Campaign has clearly been not just to undermine Clark but to destroy him politically and the party which he the name of the game is momentum last As in Many weeks the Cana Dian Alliance had it and the progressive conservatives did the conservative defections just added to the Buzz created by the three Way race for the leadership of the at the end of the week that momentum got another boost with the publication of a poll which indicated Public support for the Alliance was Well above that for the though still far behind that for the in today highly fluid political atmosphere a few Points up or Down in the polls dont amount to much but the poll added weight to the pub Lic impression that the tories Are on their Way if not Joe Clarks Job on the weekend was to arrest that to demonstrate that All the political action did not belong to his enemies in the it was not an easy As Clark himself he found himself in a deep political Hole and had to climb out of it is not easy to climb out of a Hole when your former Loyal supporters Are stamping on your considering the Odds against the tories can claim some if Success in slowing the alliances delegates were Able to churn up a show of enthusiasm for their party and their they tackled the issues and came up with poli cies to please just about they Man aged to make it through the weekend without any Public defections some for Mer Mulroney stalwarts demonstrated some most in Catlike behaviour by swimming vigorously towards the sinking the momentum is certain to swing Back to the Alliance Over the next six weeks or so As the new party chooses its first in the weeks following that Clark is Likely to get his last Chance to save his own political skin and that of his once the Alliance chooses its new it is Likely to shed some of its members Tom Long supporters if Stockwell Day or Preston Man Ning wins Day and Manning supporters if Long wins and a lot of newly minted Alliance supporters if Manning some of those who shake Loose after the new Leader is chosen will return to the traditional tory Joe Clarks last Chance for some significant Public attention will come if he chooses that time to run for a seat in the House of of course if that Opportunity is squandered by yet More dithering Over whether he will seek a seat or whether he the Opportunity will be frittered and Between now and he fails to come up with a Coher ent platform that reconciles his party contradictory promises of tax spending increases and debt then a lot of Vot ers May just be reminded Why they abandoned the conservatives in the first John Dafoe is a former editorial Page editor of the free his column appears on tues Blu haired Ana Nova has answers the most popular newscaster in the world is utterly professional and possessed of lips so full a viewer could Nap on like she uses Only one name and yokes herself to no she has the Call ipegian outline of a Playboy the fashion sense of Pamela Anderson and the Bland diction of a person born somewhere near the Middle of the United not in one of those colourful states where words Are drawled out like she is As sexy As a sigh on a summer night not that such a thing is Ever a consideration in the rarefied world of television Ana Nova is the future of broadcast news if Csc president Robert Rabinovitch has his she May quickly become an appealing information source for Ana Nova is a British virtual news a Caber talking she was created to Appeal to the masses especially the male programmed to read the news perfectly and launched amidst the sort of fanfare usually associated with redesigned Volkswagen beetles and Ricky Martin abcs axe wielding suggests that regional suppertime news programs May be about to disappear truncated to a couple of Sto Ries about local cats trapped in local fort two per cent of Winnipeg English Tele vision employees will become a insipid colloquialism used in place of the More appropriate tossed in the Gutter without a Sec Ond and so to a Blu haired Beauty Queen with a saucy glint in her the kind of Gal who protest if she had to work overtime to cover a water Wain Shes relatively she it took four months before she could properly recite the rain in Spain Falls mainly on the she can pronounce Abidjan with the ease of a native and never has a fit of giggles with the weather she looks like a hybrid of posh spice and a Julie dresses in tight fitting clothing and will never gain an she claims to be 58 and is happily she is not a member of any there is no unless a Hacker Breaks that she will pull an Avery Haines and Start blurting inappropriate comments about Gay everyone likes to talk about my face and my Ana Nova admits on her web but the really Clever bit of me my favorite the mealtime computer sys Tern that tells me what to what to say and How to say Ana Nova is drawing scads of fan most of it so fawning it could raise advertising rates in a she is not a machine she is real Nice work perfect enthuses Stephanos Gou Vitsos of Ana Nova is a very Clever and very we done approach to on the writes James card Well from Points have absolutely no respect for Media personalities of the current Media but Anano a has the potential to become one of the More successful endeavours on the internet that Ana Nova is not human seems not to trouble her Resolute the same could be suspected of Many television particularly the Young and achingly Lovely women who Are fluffed and dressed to look like Middle age women without the older ones Are More of a Loyal viewers of can could be forgiven for studying the pouty Lynn Russell for signs of As Csc is poised for the next round of for the Bel tightening that will surely see the last few survivors using a taxi for live remotes and White boards for Ana Nova seems a potential Saviour for Rabinovitch and Bis Scis so Shappy docile and proud to be a talking she May be the future of Canadian broadcast Best of All for the if they Ever decide to pull the plug on Shell vanish without Lindor Reynolds is a free press her column appears on Winnipeg free press Winnipeg est 187 Wynn Leo Tribune est 1890 vou38hq1m ooh Winnipeg free a division of Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member mum Caulli Nicholas Patrick Flynn Deputy ;