Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 30, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnipeg Fryk May 2000 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights examine lotteries its Odd How quickly the ruling new democrats lost interest in the scandal at the Manitoba lot teries they discovered a pattern of financial fired the president and three other senior executives and then promptly closed the Dis no Public search will be held to find under lying reasons for the problem and ways of reforming lotteries even if the government is no longer curious about the Manitoba lotteries the Public will the lotteries corporation Sells More than million Worth of Hopes and dreams to customers of its games and turns Over about million in lottery profits each year to the Provin Cial with Money gurgling by at that lottery Man agers might easily feel that they could dip into the flowing Stream without taking Money from the government charges that four lot teries executives did just that in addition to mis informing the pub Lic about the costs of building the Mcphillips Street and Regent Avenue the executives were it May be hard to prove that the executives deserved Beverly the new democrats chairwoman of the lotteries has said that the corporation had no policies or guidelines covering some of the things the executives were fired if they broke no the government May have to pay handsomely for dismissing them and Black ening their in that the dismissals will be the government would then dig a Little deeper into the Stream of lotteries profits to pay for the damage it has done to careers and repute the lotteries operates partly in the High rolling world of gamblers and Casino owners and partly in the Penn pinching world of provincial civil the sharply differing mentalities of those two worlds coexist the government might do better to put lotteries management out to tender so that payments to the government Are assured and the managers can do As they please with their part of gaming the discovery of financial abuse and the four Dis missals provided an occasion for a thorough Reform of lotteries minister Diane wants to turn to other things and Mac chairwoman Suek thinks there have been enough a former member of the lotteries corporation Board asked for a Public As did Liberal Leader Jon the government Short of a Public the government should at least Issue a White paper and invite discussion on lotteries what Are they afraid of More old reruns this is the time of year when television networks Are winding up their ending popular series with blockbuster episodes that draw in millions of the Csc in recent months has led canadians to believe that it would deliver a boffo Climax to the Long running soap opera the calamities of the Canadian broadcasting for the networks new Robert has been warning that cuts to the abcs budget a recurring theme in the drama would mean drastic changes in the networks opera local news would be programming the work Force Cut in a communications Chainsaw friends of Canadian Broad casting launched a National Campaign to Salvage what it could parliamentary committees met and muddled Over what to do even a few Liberal maps urged the government to give the network More the very nature of the nation was at Canada has been awaiting the finale of this Melo but on Rabinovitch made it Clear that this continuing series does not end with a there is just the usual local news will survive As half of a on hour sup per news broadcast shared with National the 10 National will be com Mercia free childrens and youth programming will be expanded by 40 hours a week there will be More arts More More esoteric More thoughtful As one to the unthought Ful stuff that fills the abcs schedule now and More Broad cast time devoted to firs time All of this will be done with fewer of those income generating this hardly sounds like the stuff that ratings Are built Rabinovitch has chosen to counter the abcs plunging audience by offering viewers even More of the stuff they already do not want to nor does it seem like a Way to Cut reducing the time devoted to local news will Cost some jobs the Union estimates and perhaps save some but if that will compensate for fewer commercials and pay for More it will be cheap programming nothing that Rabinovitch promised in the Way of a new Csc has there is no no nothing to attract an audience or give the Csc relevance in the country a few Hundred jobs will be a few Hundred lives disrupted As employees Are Laid off for no obvious purpose other than the appearance of beyond that Rabinovitch has offered canadians a tired old the same show we have watching play out year after dreary great debate Waits John Dafoe watching the four candidates for the Leader ship of the Canadian Alliance party shuffle towards their Date with destiny next month is almost enough to make one yearn for a return of the kind of National convention that chose party leaders during a few decades of the last those conventions did have their All that parading about with banners and placards in Imi tation of the demonstrations that were popular at the time in leadership conventions looks pretty silly in the affairs were expensive for the delegates and the system for choosing those delegates was less than the whole arrangement Lent itself to Deal making and the convention system had some consid Erable it gave delegates and the general Public through television an Opportunity to compare the leadership facets face and when the Campaign involved an array of credible As did the progressive conservative convention of 1967 that chose Robert Stanfield or the Liberal gathering the Fol lowing year that picked Pierre it stirred up a Lively and healthy Public since the leadership conventions were usually combined with debate on and the Public at could compare the leaders and their positions on the even the horse Trad ing had its benefits since it helped smooth Over the divisions created by the leadership that Way of choosing party leaders had a fairly Brief run in it has been replaced by different versions of the with mixed Success and some monumental that is the system adopted by the it fits Well with the new party supposed Devotion to populist principles As is so often the Case when it comes to putting populist principles into it has produced some major some of those problems Are such As How the party will police the phone in vote in parts of the country where there Are not enough paid up party members to permit the establishment polling a deeper problem threatens to undermine the credibility of the entire the fundamental question is whether the ability to sell More party memberships than the other Guys is really the most important criterion for choosing the next prime minister of the founders of populist movements can never have imagined that their notions of direct democracy would evolve into a High priced Battery of telemarketers peddling party memberships to everyone within reach of a there is no great linkage of policy and Candi Date that is partly because the system does not encourage it and partly because there is not much policy to there is no great debate about policy among the candidates because there is no policy ask Preston Manning what a government he led would do and the answer would probably be As Little As Tom Long and Stockwell Day would say much the All of the Candi dates want to be prime All of them want to Cut that is about the sum total of their from putting More Chil Dren behind Long will talk about nothing but cutting Day will occasionally venture a Little farther Manning has a track record on issues such As parliamentary but not much has been heard about them tonight the leadership candidates hold their first will any of them have anything to say John Dafoe is a former editorial Page editor of the free his column appears on brain Drain not so scary the following editorial appeared in the Beacon Herald of on May if you read some of the National newspapers you May be left with the impression that anyone with an in higher than Wayne Gretzky number has either already left Canada for the United states or is at Home the brain Drain is the Happy term they slap on this exodus of anybody with two wits to rub together and any More Getu Panago than a piece of the phenomenon is used by people in politics and the Media to argue that we have to become More like the places that our Best and brightest Young people Are fleeing to in order to keep them Home and contributing to Canadian Usu ally those advocating this position then go on to argue that we need lower less government involvement in our lives and a More liberalized business according to statistics in the Canada lost roughly University graduates a year to the but we gained graduates from other countries including with Mas ters or doctoral by More than immigrants to Canada were computer Sci natural scientists or Immi Grants now account for on third of new growth in these while immigration of educated Young people to the increased through the it remained below historic in other people have always left Canada to go to the in search of of the canadians who left before doctors and nurses accounted for a Large this is unsettling since much of Canada is arguably under serviced in terms of health but the statistics Canada study noted that by one of every four healthcare professionals that left for the had returned and was now making a salary similar to the one they had enjoyed in the does this mean there is no brain Drain but it does mean that the net effect of brain Drain when brain gain is factored in is far less scary and serious than our friends on the right would have us when asked Why they went to the most people cited Job higher pay and lifestyle As compelling reasons rather than lower ultimately human mobility is a very Good it allows people to develop arid fulfil themselves or at least try it also allows them to vote with their feet when they feel their country of origin does not afford them enough Liber Equality or Many people who come to Canada come at least partially in search of these we owe them As we owe ourselves the Best possible and most efficient government we can losing talented Young people to any where else should give us pause and make us at least wonder whether changes in the Way we run things would have kept them just As the government Pakistan should ask itself the same thing when a Bright Young computer scientist leaves for but we should never change our communal values so much As to try to prevent everyone from because for some the grass will always be Greener some element of the brain Drain is really a greed a siphoning off of those who dont care about Community or their part in it and who just want to make the most and share the our country will be improved by their if we can main Tain a compassionate society managed by an efficient and farsighted we will beat an approach in the Long we Hope that educated and energetic Immi Grants Are coming to Canada to share that Putin puts reforms to work by Rafik Kurbanov Moscow while Many observers expected some sort of political Reform from the new russian Vladimir few expected the sweeping changes he has soon after last weeks approval of Mikhail Kasyanova As prime minister by the lower House of parliament the Putin announced critical changes to the russian political Structure that would significantly reduce the Power of the country regional the Central governments authority was seriously undermined in the final years of the Yeltsin Boris Yeltsin himself often encouraged the russian regions to take As much Power As they could the delegation of authority to local governments from the Ove Central sized Central government May have made but the outcome was the Rise of separatism and the creation of fiefdoms where local leaders have conducted their own often with disregard for Federal this has included the introduction of quasi customs regulations on the regional these developments have been the main reason for the failure of Many major foreign investment projects in companies trying to set up businesses in Russia have found they must negotiate with authorities on Many different often encountering contradictory Laws in the Putin has showed that Moscow is still very much in charge few regional leaders have dared to express doubts about the Wisdom of Putin the fact that the Duma widely sup ports these reforms indicates that russian society As a whole is fed up with the continuing fragmentation of Russia and would not mind the uniformity of Laws that Putin reforms May it seems that the upper House of parliament the federation which consists of the regional Gover will be radically reformed and probably will be closer to the sen with two representatives from each in Russia is going Back to a More traditional with Strong Central Putin representatives in the Meg regions into which Russia was divided Are mostly Security and Mili tary service with few except they Are not political players and will definitely carry out presidential this is not Good news for the regions who have Felt Little control from Moscow in recent this is better news for for eign who May now finalize their deals with Moscow officials without expecting to Deal with another layer of bureaucracy each time they go to the russian Rafik Kurbanov is a senior researcher in the Institute of philosophy at the russian Academy of Sci from Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 128 n0167 2000 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1395 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a number of Manitoba prow Council i Rudy email Nicholas Patrick editor c ;