Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 5, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnie my of Iii Juni 2000 editorials Freedom Oft Yade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights Casino Crapshoot some charges made about the process to select five aboriginal Casino proposals Are but they Are not far chief among these is the charge that the five proposals selected were selected to Reward friends of the nip whatever can be said about the governments woolly headed determination to make gaming the new Buffalo of aboriginal As they Call it in it cannot be said that the selection process was tainted by Premier Gary doer made certain of but it is quickly becoming Clear that in his determination to make the Selec Tion process Independent of interfere it was also made Independent of account ability it would common the two commission ers selected by govern ment Are refusing to discuss their decisions for fear they will be How could it be that a process was devised in which the clarity and transparency that it was supposed to be its hallmark cannot be defended for fear of lawsuits did no one anticipate that when there Are 11 proposals competing for five licences that the losing proponents Likely would want a full and Complete accounting of Why their proposals failed when others succeeded and now that the committee has refused to explain the worst possible condition prevails no one trusts the which Means that it will be left to government to decide whether to enforce or alter the and to decide whether to Force casinos on to communities that clearly dont want or whether to Block a Casino that has the committees stamp of approval because it has failed to win local in other the Independent selection process has created an utterly politicized result and Cabinet will have to Call the but which shots As critics of the process have made there seems Little rhyme or reason to the other than to scatter casinos around major population two of the five casinos have been proposed for communities that Are opposed to their residents of heading Ley clearly do not want a Casino in their but that where one is touted to Brandon apparently does not want a but one has been approved there to be constructed by an aboriginal organization that lacks a a blueprint and experience operating on the other nearby Russell seemed to want a Casino to enhance its growing tourist the proponent there has a solid business but it was the same could be said for the proposed casinos in Emerson and at Buffalo both of which seemed to Promise at least some potential to attract tourist dollars in addition to local on the other two casinos have been recommended for Northern where the Popula Tion is Small and increased tourism so that the casinos will Only suck up local Money with unknown impacts on existing or future Sellers of recreational and other it is Learned that the governments Well intentioned Deci Sion to expand gaming by about one third was taken without determining How much that will reduce its million take from doers Good intentions appear to have turned to he must now do what he should have done in the first abandon the or accept that the Casino Issue is a political Issue of his own Mak and that it is not the that is responsible for the current he should begin by publicly justifying the and then live with the political missing the Point Garth Steek Doest seem to be Able to get he didst get it when he was removed from his Posi Tion As chairman of the property and development committee in february after concerns were raised that he was too much involved in real estate and he didst get it again last week when an audit found that the integrity of the cites real estate and leasing functions were at risk because councillors Are too much a part of the in it came to Light that a Deal Steek negotiated to sell a City property required the City to lease Back one third of the when the requirement was rejected by the Developer dropped the raising the question of Why it was there in the first last the audit indicated Steek May have been involved in questionable tactics to lease and buy other prop erties and that millions were unwisely since reports in the free press have shown that the cites professional property the ones most concerned about seeks also Are open to scathing criticism for income to compound councillors now seem quite Happy to admit that the problems have been Clear to everyone for years but nothing was done about in All Steek sees Only that he has been he does not have an answer to the Lack of ethical guidelines for conducting negotiations nor does he have a plan for As he has not Steek should Stop crowing about his record As a real estate agent for the City and Start focusing on ensuring that the cites actual agents do their Job having clean water is a right in a ministry of the environment report warned that failure to protect Canadas water resources from further contamination would be an unmitigated Dis it was the same year world leaders met at the Earth Summit in Rio de Brazil and pledged to embark on a global plan to pre serve the planets Natur Al Canada came Home and started downsizing the Federal environment until 40 per cent of what was already one of the tiniest was the and later the government largely ignored the need for Strong Environ mental protections and practices and moved in the exact opposite direction downsizing and in doing tacit approval was Given to the provinces to do the and when the province of Ontario downloaded its responsibility for monitoring water to the then closed gov Ern Mentrin labs As a cos saving no one blinked an the unmitigated disaster in has served As a makeup Call for other municipalities to reexamine their water safety con in City officials reassured us that the use of chlorine to kill bacteria makes our water chlorine also has Seri Ous health according to a year old environment Canada chlorine byproducts in drinking water increase the risk of bladder and other another Canadian study last year found that acceptable Levels of Tri Halo methane a chlorine increases the incidence of birth defects and miscarriage by chlorine can also be fatal to Plankton and other beneficial Micro organisms in the food for these and other Many cities Are getting away from treating water with chlo Rine and turning to the same substance that protects the Earth from dangerous Radia Tion is also a water purifier with no known Tox Ozone has been found to destroy More than per cent of pathogens and neutralize viruses and protozoa in municipal water according to the american water works the worlds second largest Ozone water purification Plant is in while Vancouver recently opted for Ozone calculating that in the Long Ozone would not Only be More ecologically but one of the greatest advantages of Ozone is that it effectively kills a waterborne Pathogen that killed 100 people in Milwaukee in recent testing of win Nipges water found Only Low Levels cry if those Levels Rise adding chlorine will be of Little since dangerously Large amounts of chlorine Are needed to kill the the residents of Milwaukee who survived their bout with cry top iridium successfully lobbied for an Ozone water purification Plant and Many people believe that Winnipeg should do the same in Barry the cites director of water and said that he believes Ozone is the Best method the cites medical Margaret said last Winter that part of the Issue is were Able to identify More walk Erton has clearly shown that identifying risks is just the first step towards taking action to reduce the fact that Winnipeg chlo Rine Levels frequently exceed Canadas accept Able Levels should make it abundantly Clear that getting away from chlorine is the Way to now we have been told that Winni Eggers will not be reminded this year that cry top iridium might appear in the cites drinking City water Engineer Kelly Kjartanson said we dont want to alarm we deserve to know the for we know that were already drinking water with High Levels of chlorine and Lead and we know that the fluoride added to Winnipeg water ostensibly to prevent tooth decay is a Carcinogen that has also been linked to nervous system disorders and Bone the Good news is that Winnipeg is building a new water treatment facility to reduce the health and environmental risks that we now know and not a moment too soon since the feds Are set to reduce the Safe Levels for chlorine As Early As next our rights As citizens include the right to information gathered about our water As much our right to a Supply of clean Penni Mitchell is coordinating editor of Heri Zons her column appears on Mon cruel Csc cuts could be kind while this opinion is not Likely to be shared by those so called friends of the Csc it is pos sible that the corporations Board of directors has just saved Csc local news from the directors decision to Cut the local show to 30 min utes May Force the Csc Back into real something that Mother has always done quite Many of Winnipeg supper hour viewers have tuned out the Csc because it has turned its previously popular news into an hour of substandard entertainment has never been a Strong Point of the Csc at either the local or the National by limiting the supper hour program to 30 the corporation May end up with an evening news that again becomes As popular As it once watching the philosophical mus Ings of Joe from or the strained attempts at Humour by that individual with a guitar whose name escapes is not Good entertainment by any stretch of the image sometimes Art and culture make but not often enough to justify regular segments devoted to examining increasingly obscure details of Winnipeg cultural the same is True for those other regular features and Long discussions that Are included mainly because of the time that must be i was working at Csc news in Winnipeg when the transformation from news to entertainment Back then we had 30 minutes in which to Tell our audience what had happened that we covered weather and sports in that time news was under constant pressure from what was then called Public which also had 30 minutes to entertain its audience with the kind of soft news that the regular news staff did not consider had a place in the real news Public affairs was always try ing to get its stories into the to gain legit that format did not require viewers to watch an hour of substandard entertainment to get the Days Csc ratings reflected the Suc Cess of the format although the audience that tuned in for the news dropped dramatically when the Public affairs portion to fix the Csc brass decided that if 30 minutes of news was a full hour called news would be More the fact that there was barely enough hard news to fill 30 minutes did not bother them one they would drop the hard item by into the longer if people wanted to get All the they would have to watch the whole some of us tried to argue against the pointing out even with a 10minute there were Days in which the last four or even five minutes consisted of or or items that did not really we were told that we did not under stand the nothing is More attractive to Tele vision producers than it is easy to fill time but difficult to fill it with interesting Public affairs was overflowing with producers who had their own ideas about what constituted and were More than will ing to try they and the audience started to there was not the insatiable thirst for news the brass thought there people were smarter than the brass could Tell the difference Between news and questionable entertainment and knew How to use their to produce even 30 minutes of we had full time reporters at the at City Hall and at police we covered our share of fires and Bank but we also covered a lot More than question period when the legislative Assembly was in we told people what had and didst try to Tell them what they should think about what had lets face Twenty six minutes a which is the time left after is ample to report the local weather and the which make a lot of Money out of their manage to give their version of National and inter National events in the same time if the truth be the news departments at the nets would kill for what the Csc already a nation Al newscast in prime the Csc wants another like the networks at the supper the local show will be Cut to provide the if this forces the Csc Back to a real local newscast at the supper it May regain Many of the View ers who prefer news to Sec Andrate Fred Cleverley is a Winnipeg his column appears on Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free presses 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 128 Oxx 2000 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 go i Manitoba Council Rudy email Nicholas Patrick editor ;