Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 27, 2006, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press editorial Board members Are Bob Cox Gerald flood Catherine Mitchell Tom Oleson Dave Obrien cartoonist Dale Cummings comment editor Gerald flood 697-7269 submissions to the View from the West Are Welcome. Contact comment editor Gerald flood 204 697-7269 / View six month View from the West Archive available online at a10 Winnipeg free press thursday july 27, 2006 Bush a Stem cell research veto hits Home to letter writer by Rich Brooks h by or. President i a one of the millions of americans with a disease that could be cured by advances made through embryonic Stem cell research. This disease i have was named for a great baseball player who played for the Yankees Back in the 1930s. His name was Lou Gehrig. Gary Cooper played him in a movie called Pride of the Yan Kees. Being affiliated with the Texas rangers an All it must really Cook your grits to have someone bringing up the Yankees. But its a pretty Good movie. Last week you vetoed a Bill that would have loosened restrictions placed on embryonic Stem cell research. The restrictions limit Federal funding to Stem cell lines or colonies that existed Back when you announced the policy in August 2001. But you already know that. When it was disclosed that there were less than half the cell lines available to researchers than you said you refused to change or admit your error. Then we Learned those cell lines were contaminated with genetic material from mice. You stayed the course. I a pointing out these mistakes because there were escape hatches aboard your ship of state that would have allowed you to exit gracefully. The politics of your position will prob ably make for some interesting or very dry Reading for Grad students. Approval ratings i mean you re struggling at the polls. Your approval ratings Are in the tank. They be hovered Between 30 and 40 per cent for nearly a year. As midterm elections draw near those sliding polls May be the reason so Many republicans deserted you on embryonic Stem cell research. Lets face it when polls show overwhelming support for Stem cell research even political Ani Mals get the message. The purpose of this in to about political parties or polls or Power. You have advis ers and pollsters Able to Tell you the Lay of the political landscape. Nor is this about presidential mistakes although its hard to imagine How some one who surrounds himself with so Many smart people could have made the lulus you made. No or. President this is about Hope. Since being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig a disease 10 years ago i be treated Hope As a precious commodity. In Many ways i a not unlike millions of others with an illness affliction or injury that has no effective treatment or cure. I be always believed that science would find a cure. I breathe through a portable Respirator get around with a Power wheelchair and have to be fed dressed and bathed. I have a 15-year-old son who can to remember seeing his father walk and a 20-year-old son who lifts me into bed. I a unable to Comfort my wife of 27 years and can to Tell her that she Means the world to me. I no longer have a voice and speak and write using a computer. This in to the kind of Hope that can be taken away by a presidential veto. This open letter was published by the Herald Tribune in Sarasota Fla. Dirty Pool i n the Spring of this year i received a let Ter from Vaughan l. Baird pc president of the aquatic Hall of Fame and museum of Canada at the pan am Pool. Or. Baird wrote that he liked my piece on Ben Franklin who invented swim fins and invited me for a tour of the ahem which i had never visited. The ahem was vast filled with interesting Art and Memorabilia olympic posters Pierre Trudeau a swim trunks sculptures by various notable artists ? including danish sculptor Kai Neilsen and Frenchman Jean Ren Gaugin son of the legendary Paul Gaugin. In fact the museums Art collection left me sufficiently impressed to remark Only half jokingly to or. Baird you might have a better collection Here than the Winnipeg Art posters from every summer olympics since they began in 1896 can be seen there As Well As posters from the common wealth and pan am games. That collection alone says or. Baird is very valuable ? the largest of its kind in the its been nearly 40 years since Baird ? a retired constitutional lawyer former Manitoba diving Champion and one time vice president of the Federal progressive conservative party ? co founded the aquatic Hall of Fame and museum. This week however the museum is leaving Winnipeg. For several years the museum has been embroiled in a bureaucratic Battle with the City of Winnipeg a planning property and develop ment department. It All started in 1999, when the museum had raised $1.7 million to build a 10,000 Square foot addition to the pan am Pool for the museums Board room offices and exhibition gallery. Dedicated during the 1999 Xiii pan am games by Hrh Princess Anne the space has been dubbed the Royal gallery. But from the beginning claims a july 20 press release from the museum the depart ment of planning cast covetous eyes on the Royal the City effectively took control of the Royal gallery and appropriated it for year round Lawn Bowling. It was an inside Job says Faith Ceasar the museums curator. Someone in the Lawn bowl ing Community knew someone in the planning department and they took it away from every cent raised to build the Royal gallery was Given on the understanding and condition that the Royal gallery was to be used exclusively by the Hall of Fame the press release claims. Worse earlier this year Council passed a revised facility use agreement that spelled financial disaster for the aquatic museum. Hitherto the Hall of Fame a estimated $4 million collection was owned and self insured by the City. The revised agreement would return ownership of the collection to the itself which would be stuck with an annual insurance Bill of at least $25,000. Moreover the new agreement demands the museum replace their Glass Dis play cases with plexiglas ones at an estimated Cost of $200,000. Mayor Sam Katz voted against any revision of the new agreement having according to the museum prefaced his vote by resigning As the Hall of Fame a honorary chairperson ? thereby ending a tradition begun with Stephen Juba and maintained by each succeeding mayor up until or. its just unbelievable says or. Baird because he a never been to it never seen it. I be invited him for a tour several times but he always says he a too and so this week the aquatic Hall of Fame and museum of Canada and its spectacular col Lection is no longer on display at the pan am Pool. City workers Are packing everything up and moving it to storage where it will Only gather dust ? until that is the collection finds a Home in another City. What could or. Katz and the councillors who voted with him ? Mike Oshaughnessy Bill Clement Peter de Smedt Franco Magnifico Mike Pagtakhan Gord Steeves and Jae Eadie ? have been thinking is it just an ideological opposition to Public ownership of anything out Side of Basic infrastructure or Are they just philistines who have no use for Art history and the honouring of Canadas aquatic culture and its finest athletes regardless of the answer the ahem has occupied the pan am Pool since its opening and the existing arrangement Cost the City very Little and worked very Well. Our mayors indifference Here is an insult to or. Baird who not Only spent half his life volunteering Here but ensured the pan am Pool was built right. I convinced them to put a roof on it says or. Baird. An open air Pool would be been use Ful Only 53 Days a or. Baird and the aquatic Hall of Fame and museum of Canada deserve better than this and so do the aquatic people of Winnipeg. The corridors of the pan am Pool ? Well used for walking and running ? will feel empty without the ahem a exhibits. Winnipeg one great City will have lost some of its greatness. another Harper Promise seems headed to Early grave o Ottawa ? prime minister Frame. They were hoping for at least Emerson a vow not to reopen the Deal. five priorities. Stephen Harper has a Discon seven years of peace and quiet. In Addi the life being shown by the fiscal Ottawa he noted transfers $61 billion the Harper column says its been carting Way of declaring issues Tion the Deal allows Washington to keep imbalance Issue May be More difficult to the provinces and another $2 billion quite a ride Ever since the governments dead then trying to Bury them alive. Roughly $1 billion of the $5.5 billion it for the government to manage. In the to the territories each year. The level of first budget in May with Progress being three issues come to mind softwood collected in taxes on softwood during Jan. 23 Federal election Harper got a lot disparity Between the Federal and made on All of our five priorities ? from lumber refuses to lie Down even though the Trade dispute. Of Ink in Quebec papers when he provincial governments has moderated cleaning up the Federal government to the prime minister says its no longer a Bob Rae the former nip Premier of promised to do something about the Fis in the past five years he added with cutting taxes cracking Down on crime live Issue Hospital Ontario and a contender for the Liberal Cal imbalance a longtime Issue with Only two provinces ? Ontario and Prince supporting families and strengthening wait times guar leadership says liberals should vote Quebec nationalists and separatists. Edward Island ? still struggling to bal our country at Home and around the a tees although against the Deal when it comes before they argue the Federal government has Ance their budgets. far from settled parliament in september. Since the Deal too much Money and the provinces have As Well Ottawa and the provinces that last priority was not mentioned have been involves taxes the vote would be con too Little for what they have to do. The have a 10-year health care Deal that Calls during the election Campaign working dropped from the Side red a Confidence motion. If the gov tax system should be rebalanced to flow for six per cent annual funding increase with the provinces to establish a patient governments top Ern ment lost it and All three opposition More revenues to the provinces. Is. Wait times guarantee was. Five priorities and parties now say they Don to like the Deal harpers Promise that he was going to Ottawa May be Able to ship the the provinces Are Balking at wait the Issue of the that would trigger an election. Take the Issue on certainly helped his provinces and territories More funds he times guarantees because Ottawa is not fiscal imbalance such an election would leave the lib party win seats in the election. Said but its not going to be a lot ? main offering them any More Money to simple has become a reals without a permanent Leader since now the conservatives Are Down by some dollars to Deal with problems in ment them. As Well Canadas top expert dead Issue. Their leadership convention in to until playing the importance of a fiscal Iqbal Post secondary education and Infra on wait times or. Brian Postl head of the Liberal dec. 2 in Montreal. Ance. Before a meeting of finance Structure. The Winnipeg regional health authority opposition has been Quick to try to take but the betting in Ottawa is that the ministers at Niagara on the Lake ont., so there May be some life left in the says the program will fail if it is rushed advantage of harpers land of the living Issue will be settled before september. At the end of june Jim Flaherty the fed Federal imbalance Issue. The same can to into place before the health care system dead by attacking the Deal Ottawa made at present . And Canadian Neotia eral finance minister told Canadian be said for Ottawa a vow to reduce wait is better prepared. With Washington on softwood lumber. Tons Are working on Side agreements or press we re not going to run the gov times for medical procedures. Maclean a and so another conservative Promise Many lumber companies Don to like the Side letters on contentious issues such Ern ment into deficit in order to fund columnist Paul Wells noticed recently seems headed to an Early grave. Deal because it allows either Ottawa or As the Deal breaking clause. These kinds provincial programs. I Hope the that a column written by Harper for the Washington to scrap the arrangement of letters of intent Are quite common in provinces will recognize that its their tiny report Magazine a conservative Tom Ford is managing editor ahead of its seven to nine year time International Trade agreements ? and obligation generally speaking to raise journal dropped wait time guarantees of the issues network would not break Trade minister David their own taxes to pay for their own pro in a listing of the conservatives first ;