Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 13, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba A10 Winnipeg 2000 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights this Alley looks Blind Ever since prime minister Jean Chretien rededicated his government to social Justice in a speech in Toronto his courtiers and like other have been trying to figure out what he Deputy minis ters have been meeting to come up with a social jus Tice Agenda to write into the next throne the prime minister wants some social Justice and its up to the officials to find this procedure has the look of a Blind the departments can easily come up with ways of spending Money and can package them As social since that is the flavour of the but the Only result this is sure to achieve is the spending of Money by the the prime minister should be a great Deal More specific about the prob lems he wishes his government to solve so that he and the country can judge How Well they Are Chretien yester Day said he had no grand scheme for a new social that his govern ment was merely reviewing its array of social pro Grams in the Way any government might but his earlier pronouncement was taken seriously across the country and in Ottawa the one he issued at a Toronto fundraising dinner As a i deeply believe that government has the responsibility to promote social Justice and As prime minister i am committed to carrying out that in the same he expressed concern for the difficulties of children growing up in poor families and for the plight of aboriginal people on an unfocused quest for social Justice is Likely to produce few Good ministers of Indian affairs throughout this Century have striven for social Justice with the result that Many native peo ple today live in wretched conditions on the mar gins of residential schools were designed to give native children an equal Start with White adoption of native children by White families was later promoted for the same these measures Are now widely rejected by native leaders As forms of child abuse and cultural Geno they did not achieve the degree of social jus Tice that was Chretien spent the five weeks of the election Campaign crisscrossing the country and meeting with the especially the Liberal he should have some specific ideas about the condition of the people and about the list of goals he would like to put in a speech from the his vague talk about social Justice sounded suspiciously like empty a meaningless gesture toward left leaning liberals to reassure them that the prime ministers heart still tilts to the even if his minister of finance governs More toward the the danger in such empty rhetoric is that the prime minister May become the prisoner of his own before the High level search for social jus Tice gets out of Chretien should identify a couple of visible Canadian problems that might be solved by concerted government action and he should focus his governments efforts on solving Baraks Gamble with each new the Prospect for a peace agreement in the Middle East grows israeli prime minister Ehud Baraks decision to Call a prime ministerial election without dissolving the Knesset for a general election darkens the picture even in unlike in most parliamentary Democrat the prime minister is elected by direct popular Baraks popularity is at a Low Opin Ion polls indicate that he is trailing liked party Leader Ariel they also indicate that he would be badly beaten by former liked party Leader Benjamin it is no coincidence that Baraks definition of the election under existing preclude Netanyahu from running for prime minister again unless the Knes set dissolves itself and Calls a general that remains but even if Baraks strategy succeeds in confining the race to one Between himself and it is difficult to see How the election will improve the election was precipitated by the labour governments loss of its majority in the Knesset As Baraks coalition partners deserted him because of his Radical peace proposals to the even if he should win he returns to the same legislature that he left and Israel would seem to be no further the real Winner of this in May be the if Barak returns to palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat will try to hold him to the concessions he has already May prefer Sharon or Netanyahu As prime in the Hope that a hardliner in Power in Israel will further increase International sympathy for his in an International climate that has already seen the Canadian government and the United nations blame Israel for the current out break of violence in the Middle that would seem to be a better bet than the Gamble Barak has t uni City evolves into dead hand thirty years Winnipeg became the first North american City to unify its Many parts into a single municipal government since similar collections of Urban governments have followed most recently in Halifax and Montreal is on the verge of doing the which strikes me As because it seems after 30 years of Winnipeg has demonstrated the limits of Meg cities and should be leading the country once but in the opposite direct Why look at the most obvious in As it is today in there was a feeling that Winnipeg was being Short changed by the 12 towns and municipalities that surrounded Winnipeg was providing All the expensive amenities of a City for the use and plea sure of residents of the Lowmax so the answer was to amalgamate so that suburban dwellers would pay their fair share of the costs of operating the Core thirty years the Core of the City is in More desperate Straits than the Down town is clawing its Way Back to respectability after years of neglect and decline brought on by prohibitive if you look at where the City is actually spending it is not in the but in the most recently that hideous collection of traffic lights and big boxes that is Spring ing up along the expanded Kenaston Boulevard in the to make the new retail zone More it is being argued in addition to the tens of millions already million be spent for an underpass at Kenaston at the in rail main line so that shoppers and users of the new roads need not be delayed by that million for one underpass As opposed to million from three Levels of government that was promised to help fix thou Sands of decaying intercity so the suburbs Are not carrying the Core the opposite has whats the very idea of amalgamating in order to Force everyone to work together has once uniform taxes were established inside a larger Lowmax environments sprang up outside the raising once again demands for further a Region Al government As opposed to a a unified City was supposed to make City wide planning and it takes decades to build there is Little or no control Over sprawl and some parts of the City clearly Are uniformity of services in some parts of the City garbage collected at the in others its collected from Backland some parts of the City have Back some do some parts of the City have others some have Cit Yrun Community Cen some do there Are libraries in every Comer of the but the expense of operating them is leading to service reductions in every part of the excellent service is sacrificed in the name of similar a greater vision and purpose was to but i see no evidence of the City has been talking about a new Arena for 15 years and it is no closer to building it today than it was 15 years in the biggest concern is that the unique characteristics of neighbourhoods will be it is a valid prior to each part of the City had a distinct each was a the names sur Vive but Little what does vital mean what constitutes or fort Garry uni City was to prevent the evolution of exclusive communities that were out of touch with and disconnected with the rest of no offence Whyte Ridge and Lin de Woods Are As close to gated communities As you Are Likely to find the efficiencies in providing services that were supposed to result from one big City finally started to fall into place after the cuff report four what efficiencies were realized were More than 20 Yearsin the by which Winnipeg municipal taxes had become the highest in after 30 years of it seems the Best thing Winnipeg could do to bring Down tax loads or to increase value for Money and increase efficiencies would be to Start reestablishing some Independence in Winnipeg what this City seems to need More than a common government is a series of competing governments that could Spur Winnipeg out of the torpor that has descended on City Hall and which hangs like a dead hand Over the Prairie loses its sentinels my like an ungainly marching the Grain elevators Teeter and lurch As they Parade along a rail line in this Small trial Manitoba town near the Saskatchewan Bor the Grain elevators can be forgiven for their out step performance they according to the last Row of 1920s Standard Grain elevators in Canada still standing their ragtag is about to they have been declared a National historic and the Citi Zens of with the help of Parks Canada and the Are fix ing them up in a Multi the project is important because Grain ele once the sentinels of the Are in at their there were licensed elevators now fewer than 600 Are still in at its annual meeting last the Regina based Saskatchewan wheat Pool announced it is closing another 55 Grain elevators in the bringing to 350 the number it has closed in the last three the recent Clos ing will kill 250 jobs and hit Many Prairie communities the elevator closings Are just one of the problems facing Prairie wheat Farmers say sagging commodity government subsidies lower than those paid their competitors in the United states and european Union and higher costs for transportation and fertilizer Are driving them off the in the Canadian wheat which has a monopoly Over wheat and Barley is under attack from Farmers disillusioned by poor returns and is trying to change to make itself More sensitive to their require As rail transportation snarls and squabbles among the wheat Board and private companies have created a backlog of Grain ships on the West on top of All some of Canadas customers Are expressing concern about our genetically modified whats particularly galling about these prob lems is that Many people from other parts of including some politicians in the last Federal dont seem to give a even though Many Farmers have protested at political meetings and with traffic tie ups on major if the new Federal government is serious about reaching out to Western where it Only got 14 seats one less than in it should extend a helping hand to Prairie farm for a lot of Prairie the demise of the wooden elevators symbolizes the death of their Way of elevators Are to the Prairies what the wind Mill is to the what the Igloo is to the what the pyramids to says Brock silversides in his Prairie fifth House you can recognize a town from Miles away by its says writer the country elevator has been a guide to the the the stranger and the simple drinking in a land where Only the wheat grew As High As a mans the Grain Tower was like a Light in William Hesper built the first Prairie a round in two years the Ogilvie milling company built the first angular ele Vator which was stronger and easier to build in elevators Basi Cally did what their name suggests they elevated Grain to the top part of the building where it was cleaned and from the Grain could easily be loaded with a great swoosh into waiting railway Grain the distance Between the first Prairie elevators was about what a team hauling a Grain Wagon could do in a modern using better can carry More Grain longer As a Many of the old Prairie cathedrals have been replaced by a reduced num Ber of big Concrete and Metal silos called Inland the terminals Are supposed to be More efficient than the old wooden but they May not be if you take total costs into Farmers have to spend More time and fuel Dri ving their Grain to the Prairie roads will require More and theres the Cost to the towns Hurt by elevator even what author Harold Kalman Calls the most Canadian of architectural forms Are Canadian Prairie Farmers Only Hope that Many of them wont disappear along with the ele Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free presses 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 v vol 129 n012 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a the Manitoba press Council Rudy publisher email Nicholas Patrick Flynn editor ;