"From the Left"The 2001 Guelph Tribune columns"From the Left" opinion columns which appear every second Tuesday in The Guelph Tribune, more frequently during the municipal and federal elections. These columns appeared in 2001.
Table of Contents
Over the weekend, we finally got some weather that looks a bit more seasonal. I am one of those people who worry when the weather is out of synch with the season. On the one hand, it is nice to be out and about in short sleeves and fourteen-degree weather, but not in the middle of December. It should give us all pause to consider what we are doing to our planet. I expect many shopkeepers around town were also getting worried. Most people I know have been having a tough time getting into the spirit of the holiday season. This spirit, as we all know, is one of buying. Ostentatious lighting displays are also a sure sign of the season. I am becoming convinced that many of Clark Griswold's long lost cousins are living in Guelph. It's all a vicious cycle. The more consumer goods we buy, and the more watts we burn on the outside of our homes, the more we hurt the planet and the warmer it gets in December. One of these years, we might learn to tone it down, to practice a little seasonal moderation. But we're not there yet, and we grasp firmly onto the wisdom of Oscar Wilde's aphorism that nothing succeeds like excess. I am as happy as the next person to get right into the season, and I have even been thinking of some things I'd get for some of the more conservative people about town. It's not likely to move from thinking to giving, but it's the thought that counts. At least, that's what parents told their kids back in the good old days when our Sony Play Stations were made of wood. If I could, I'd get Dan Schnurr a t-shirt and matching jacket lapel pin that says "Steelworkers and the NDP - the Perfect Union." Brother Schnurr recently joined the ranks of Canada's unionized workers when members of the University of Guelph Staff Association voted to merge with the United Steelworkers of America. We all anxiously wait for the day when bro. Schnurr is found picketing outside Brenda Elliot's office on behalf of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Solidarity forever, say Dan and I. David Birtwhistle could use a set of china whine goblets. Maybe it is because he didn't get picked for the trip, but he has spent most of the last month or so wailing crocodile tears because a delegation traveled to China to represent the city at a major international competition. The Communities in Bloom competition provided us with a tremendous chance to showcase Guelph's strength to a world audience. Opportunities like this don't knock on our door often, and it was important to react positively. David and his friends thought it all a blooming waste of money. Maybe they think the delegation should have stayed home and spent the money on more sensible things such as offering Wal-Mart a friendly and positive atmosphere in which they can do business. To both sides in the pesticide use debate, I would get a copy of Rachel Carson's wonderful book, Silent Spring. Those opposed have probably read it already, though. This book, written almost forty years ago, showed how chemicals released into the land stay there and leach into the food chain. Not long ago we went through the debate about smoking in public places, and the effect that second hand smoke has on non-smokers. Smokers lost the argument that we should be able to use these legal products whenever and wherever we wanted. Now the lawn care industry is using the same threadbare reasoning to justify its use of chemicals. Sorry, but the dicamba spread on my neighbour's lawn gets up my nose. To all of you out there, I hope you had a good Ramadan, or a truly Happy
Hanukah, a Happy Kwaanza, and/or a very Merry Christmas. Keep it peaceful,
and have a safe New Year. go back to the table of contents
I am reminded a lot, these days, of a rather stale old joke. A man would go out of his house every morning and sprinkle powder at the edges of his property. "Why do you do that?" his neighbour asked him one day. "It keeps the elephants away," replied the homeowner. "But there aren't any elephants in Guelph," said the neighbour. "That proves how effective it is," the man said. All around us, we are seeing extraordinary measures being taken to fight terrorism. A few years from now, when there have been no attacks, we'll be told it is because of the preventative measures taken. We may suspect it is because we weren't going to be attacked in the first place, but how will we know for sure? The trouble is that we may still be paying the price of our fear by then. The Guelph police want a gigantic increase in their budget for next year. Mind you, they want one every year, and every year they put forward the best arguments in favour that they can dream up. This year is no different. A few years ago, they absolutely needed more money for bigger and more high tech weapons. It turned out that they seldom ever use the ones they have now, other than on the firing range. They learned to live without the increased firepower. Now, they are using the attack on New York's World Trade Centre as their ticket to more staff and new gadgets. Our police chief said that because of September 11, Canadian police need to do more extensive surveillance and intelligence operations. You never can tell when someone will wander through town on the way to Windsor with a briefcase full of nuclear weapons. With an extra half a million dollars in their pockets, our police will be able to keep the elephants out of town. Speaking of elephants, Wal-Mart is still determined to break into Guelph and make off with all our money. They want to locate in the north end, in the very place where the city's official plan says they can't. For reasons best known to themselves, they don't want to set up shop in the west end, where zoning by-laws say they can. It doesn't make much sense. Had they not tried to run rough shod over our right to plan the growth and development of the city, Wal-Mart could have had their greeters on the job right now. Dozens of high school students could be working there today, earning some Christmas spending cash. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Guelph citizens could be shopping there as we speak, instead of sitting around grumpily fantasizing about how good people's lives are in faraway places like Barrie or Cambridge. Better still, the ghost of old Sam Walton could have already spirited a ton of our money out of town, along the 401 and down to Bentonville, Arkansas. Wal-Mart is coming back to city council in the middle of December, armed
with a petition with a supposed 9,000 signatures. That leaves well over
90,000 of us who didn't sign the petition. Regardless of whatever strong-arm
tactics the company lawyers use, city councilors should stick to the plan.
The north end location they covet so much is the wrong place to put them.
Locating them in the east, west, south or centre of town isn't any better.
Wal-Mart is not the underdog in this process. It is a greedy, rapacious
multi-national corporation that eats its competitors as readily as its
opponents eat their granola. Any Guelph residents who would prefer to
shop for bargains today than plan responsibly for tomorrow should recognize
this company for what it is. It is not scratching and clawing at our official
plan because it is a benevolent friend of ours, desperate to bring us
a service. It is in the business of putting local shopkeepers out of business. go back to the table of contents
Guelph could have a major impact on the NDP federal convention in Winnipeg next weekend. A full six-person delegation will represent the Guelph-Wellington riding association, backed up by an additional three alternate delegates. There will also be other Guelphites, although it's difficult to determine how many, on the convention floor representing unions affiliated to the Party. This is not much different from other conventions and is not where the influence will come from. The big change this year is in the number of policy resolutions submitted from Guelph that will actually make it to the floor of the convention to be debated and voted on. In the months leading up to a major political assembly such as this, a lot of internal debate on policy issues takes place. For the NDP, this has probably been much more focused in the year that has passed since last November's federal election. The Party felt its relevancy slipping away, and set about a major self-evaluation. Both form and content were put on the examining table. Should it change its name? Should it change its structure? Should it change its policies? Should it become more like the British Labour Party, and present itself as a moderate alternative to the Liberals? Should it become more radical and become a political home for the thousands of young people fighting against increased corporate control of the world? Meetings and discussions took place in Guelph and in most other communities in the country. As a result, about 500 resolutions were submitted to the convention. Guelph sent in 11 of them. There is not enough time in three days to deal with them all, so last week the Party released a list of 90 resolutions to be given priority. The Guelph-Wellington riding association has five of its resolutions in this list. It is quite an accomplishment to have almost half of the submitted resolutions advance to the convention floor. The issues raised by Guelph range from pension reform to the establishment of high-speed rail corridors as an alternative to clogged highways. None are controversial, and I expect them all to be adopted without much difficulty. The grit of the convention will be in issues such as electing the Party leader by membership votes, what has come to be known as "one member, one vote." This is proposed as a form of direct democracy, and its proponents argue that it is better than the delegated, representational democracy used in the past. It isn't. It is a system that is rife with temptations to abuse the process. In the election for leader of the Alliance Party, for example, Tom Long's organizers were encouraged to sign up thousands of people buried in Quebec cemeteries. I like to think such things wouldn't happen in the NDP, but no organization is perfect. These decisions are more safely left in the hands of locally elected delegates who can observe leadership candidates up close in the highly charged atmosphere of a political convention. A system that can produce the likes of Stockwell Day is nothing to be emulated. Besides this, there are many other difficult issues to be wrestled with in Winnipeg, such as the relationship between the Party and the labour movement, and even its relationship with non-partisan social groups. Some union leaders still haven't recovered from the disastrous experiences of ten years ago when the Party's influence started to decline. Everyone at the convention should remember that while the NDP doesn't always win elections with labour support, it could never win one without it. The Guelph delegates have their work cut out for them as they work their
way through these complex issues. By the time they are finished, they
will have helped steer the Party back onto a path towards recapturing
the vitality and relevance it had yesterday and will have again tomorrow.
Canadians need the stronger New Democratic Party these delegates will
bring home with them. go back to the table of contents
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Franklin Roosevelt said that in his first inaugural speech back in 1933. I wasn't around at the time. Neither were jet aeroplanes or hundred storey buildings. They didn't even have any international terrorists wandering around blowing themselves up. Still, they were worried then about things that were new, things they didn't understand. Not much different from us, 70 years further down the road. We are still anxious, although the source of our anxiety now seems much more threatening, with a greater potential for disastrous results. We should not allow fear to govern our lives, though. I wish that George Bush could see this, and understand what his predecessor meant almost seven decades ago. He doesn't. In fact, he is helping to crank up the fear quotient. On the one hand, he tells Americans to live today as they did on September 10, which means they should be strolling through shopping malls and spending as much as they can on consumer products. On the other hand, his officials keep warning about unspecified threats that could further disrupt their way of life. Last week, the governor of California said that terrorists would try and blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. It doesn't matter if such plans were really made or not. If they don't happen, we will be told that the increased security presence prevented them. This is the kind of disjointed logic that underpins our government's proposed Ant-Terrorism Act. First, they encouraged the growth of insecurity into fear. Now they use this mood to justify one of the most serious threats to civil liberties we have seen in this country. The new law will give the government unprecedented powers to arrest and hold people without charge. The police will not even need a warrant to make an arrest as long as they believe they are preventing a terrorist attack. The definition of terrorism in the Act is very loose, and could ensnare a lot of people engaged in legitimate forms of protest. Any unlawful action that interferes with or disrupts an essential service or facility for political purposes could be interpreted as a "terrorist act." Groups such as the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Liberal members of the Senate are unanimous in calling for fundamental changes to the more onerous parts of the law. They want the definition of terrorism to be clarified, and they want a time limit set on the ability of police to conduct preventive arrests. If you listen to people in the Bush administration, or to Tony Blair, Britain's new voice of America, or to members of our own government, you would be convinced that the bombing of Afghanistan and the war on terrorism are part of a wide-ranging defense of liberty. You don't even have to listen to the politicians. You just had to watch the advertisements during the recently concluded World Series baseball games. Everywhere you look, there are references to the Spirit of America, freedom and democracy. We are being asked to give up freedom in defense of freedom. It doesn't make a lot of sense. The proposed anti-terrorism law is not a rational response to the attack
on the World Trade Centre. In the two months since, the only on-going
terror has been manifested in a fear of anthrax. There have been some
tragic deaths up and down the eastern seaboard, but none in Canada. It
is becoming increasingly probable that this clumsy attempt at biological
warfare is originating within the United States itself. Their wackier
right wing groups, the neo-nazis and white supremacists, have been vocal
supporters of bin Laden through their Internet web sites. A truly effective
campaign against terrorism would target them and their supporters. So
far, there is no evidence that our government, or the Americans and British,
for that matter, are prepared to move in this direction. go back to the table of contents
Those of us who occasionally wander around knocking golf balls from one side of a fairway to the other understand all too well how a water hazard can spoil the fun. Sometimes, if the hazard is big enough, you just can't get over it. The only answer is to pick up your ball and walk past it. It looks as though Ontario's top duffer has just run up against the biggest water hazard he ever saw. He has chosen to pick up his ball and walk away. The folk in the gallery were jubilant when Mike Harris made his decision and announced that he wasn't going to play in the game any more. We have had almost six and a half years of him as premier, and the province is a much different place now than it was when he took over. Our health care and education systems are in chaos. The environment is in peril. The Harris years have been good for the wealthy and the greedy, but haven't been of much benefit to the rest of us. Two huge issues are closing in on the premier, and the "personal reasons" offered up to explain his resignation have more to do with Ipperwash and Walkerton than with spousal reconciliation. Failed cover-ups have far graver political consequences than failed marriages. The public inquiry into the tainted water in Walkerton, which resulted in seven deaths, is going to point directly at decisions made around the provincial cabinet table. Of even greater significance is the tragedy at Ipperwash, where an unarmed native protester was killed by a member of the OPP. It is becoming clear that Harris repeatedly lied about his involvement in the police decision to break the blockade. The ghost of Dudley George will haunt Harris long after he moves back to North Bay. The temptation to celebrate the premier's imminent departure is moderated when we look at the prospects lined up to take his job. Two of the names being bandied about are unlikely to be in the race. One of them, Tom Long, already exposed himself as a political incompetent when he ran for leadership of the Reform Alliance. The other, Ernie Eves, is unlikely to leave the plum position he landed with an international bank. The next leader of Ontario's Tories is likely to emerge from the existing Queen's Park caucus. Elizabeth Witmer and Janet Ecker are expected to run. Witmer was the Harris' first Labour Minister, and enthusiastically went about the dismantling of the Labour Relations Act. Ecker, as Education Minister, has brought our public school system into near tatters and has poisoned relationships with the teachers' unions. These two women are being portrayed as the "moderates" in the leadership race. Neither has much of a chance to win. Three men have also expressed early interest in running for leader. Chris Stockwell, the current Minister of Labour, is widely viewed as a loose cannon in Tory circles. His campaign won't go far. The two to watch out for are Jim Flaherty and Tony Clement. Both are well entrenched in the ReformaTory camp at Queen's Park. Clement, you will remember, was a co-chair at the founding convention of the Reform Alliance. Unless big mistakes are made in the leadership election campaign, one of these two men will emerge victorious. There is no indication that the provincial Tories are in a mood to lighten up their assault on workers and the unemployed. As happy as we are to see Harris leave, we cannot lose sight of the ones who are staying. They helped put the policies of the Common Nonsense Revolution into place. They will be just as happy to continue taking Ontario along the road mapped out by Mike Harris. The only way to bring Ontario out of the mess left by our departing premier will be to defeat the remnants of his government as soon as we get the chance to do so. go back to the table of contents
What causes bank robberies? What causes sexual assault? These are the types of questions that have been investigated at length by criminologists, social workers, psychologists and others for a long time. Many of them have reached the conclusion that social conditions such as poverty, powerlessness, and inequity have a lot to do with it. They are not the causes, though. Many people live in poverty but don't turn to theft as a way out. Some do, but not all. Similarly, many men suffer from powerlessness but do not resort to abusing women to compensate for it. Some do, but not all. The social conditions provide a fertile breeding ground from which those who are inclined to commit the crimes can emerge. The people who study these things and reach the conclusion that identifiable factors contribute to them are not accused of sympathizing with the bank robbers or rapists. They would be among the first to state that while we would do well to eradicate poverty and inequity, the criminals must be stopped and dealt with appropriately. This all seems to make a great deal of sense at the local level, but move it up to the global level and good sense goes out the window. These days, anyone who talks about the social conditions that provide nourishment to terrorists is accused of sympathizing with them. Indeed, if they go so far as to suggest that the American government itself has contributed enormously to widespread poverty and inequality around the world they are said to be blaming the victim. This is absolute nonsense. If the destruction of the World Trade Centre proved anything, it is that violence should never be used to settle political differences. The people of New York did no more to cause the mayhem they suffered than the people of Baghdad did to cause the carpet bombing they suffered a little over ten years ago. Images of Palestinians cheering on September 11 were no more or less distressing than the images of Americans cheering during the desert storm. War is nothing to celebrate. Terrorism has no justification, not when aeroplanes bring death at the hands of hijackers, and not when they deliver bombs on behalf of legitimate governments. There is a lot we can do to make our world a safer place, to make it a less hospitable breeding ground for fanatics, for the criminals who feed on insecurity. In order to do it, we have to be able to point at the things that are wrong, the things that need to be changed. If, in the pointing, our attention is drawn to difficult conclusions, then so be it. Better that than to be so blinded by hyperbole that we rid the world of bin Laden without ever ridding it of terrorism. We have a lot more to gain from this approach than we ever will from the knee jerk reflexes of people like Mike Harris. Immigrants to Canada, whether legal or illegal, were not the problem four weeks ago. The 19 identified hijackers all got through the American immigration fence. They lived in Florida, most of them. They went to flight schools in the US. If anyone's borders were too porous, if anyone's immigration system was too lax, it wasn't ours. It is disgraceful for Harris to now scapegoat immigrants, especially
when he is not picking on illegal immigrants from Northwestern Europe.
He hired a proponent of ethnic stereotyping, otherwise known as profiling,
as his consultant, indicating his targets will be from Middle Eastern
and Asian countries. It is disgraceful that Harris would use the tragic
events of four weeks ago to equate immigrants with terrorists, and then
to begin undermining civil liberties. Though not as blatant, Harris's
approach is on the same level as Jerry Falwell, who blamed the destruction
on homosexuals, abortionists and liberals. They are all avoiding the issues
and evading the hard questions. It is an approach that can only make a
bad situation even worse. go back to the table of contents
September 25, 2001 Horrific acts such as the attacks on New York and Washington two weeks ago can bring out the best in people. They can also bring out the worst. We saw some of both in Guelph. We donated blood and money to the American Red Cross, sent messages of condolences, attended vigils, and signed petitions urging politicians to respond to the events in a sane and responsible manner. People like these are a credit to our city. There were a few, unfortunately, who chose to respond to the hate with their own hatred. The individuals who scrawled graffiti on the walls of a Guelph mosque differ from the terrorists only by degree. They are all motivated by the same twisted determination to terrorize and harm innocent people. There is no excuse for this behaviour. There was no justification for the murder of 6000 people in New York City, and hundreds more in Washington. Just as clearly, there is no justification for the attacks on Muslims or Sikhs that have occurred in cities across North America. The way in which we respond to crisis defines, in many ways, the type of society we have become. If the carnage at the World Trade Centre was "an attack on civilization," then surely we ought to respond in a civilized fashion. We cannot defend civilization by abandoning it and descending into the gutter of barbarism. Not as individuals, and not as a nation. In Ottawa last week, the politicians debated the level of support Canada should give to the United States. The Reform Party and their Tory cousins want us to give blindly and unconditionally. Whatever the Americans want, they should get. The New Democrats urged a more reasoned response, that the rule of law must prevail and innocent lives must not be sacrificed in a vengeful lashing out at the criminals behind the hijackings. The Liberals took several positions at once. To his credit, the Prime Minister said, "we must be guided by a commitment to do what works in the long run, not by what makes us feel better in the short run." I was particularly pleased to hear Alexa McDonough say, "we must resolve to see that this can never happen again but if we pursue the path of blind vengeance, the path of the clenched fist, we are guaranteeing that this will happen again. Military strikes, while they may satisfy an understandable desire for vengeance, will solve nothing if thousands more innocent people are victimized in some other part of the world." The NDP is not advocating appeasement or surrender. It is calling on the world community to apprehend those responsible and bring them before an international court of law that will mete out appropriately severe punishment. This is a more difficult task than rushing in and bombing indiscriminately. Osama bin Laden’s group is unlikely to give up without a fight. Still, they are all but isolated in the world. The only government willing to support them is the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which uses the most oppressive measures imaginable to persecute women and to suppress any religious groups that don’t share their fundamentalist theology. A carefully mapped out plan that cuts off bin Laden’s access to international financial markets, arms suppliers and other necessary goods and services will secure his ultimate capture. We need to build the resolve, develop the patience, and take the time to do it properly. Mahatma Gandhi once said that taking an eye for an eye would eventually blind us all. He was right. The history of the world is one of constant warfare, strike and counter-strike, take a hit and then hit back. We have tried vengeance over and over and over, and it has never worked. Now is the time to get off the treadmill, to stop the futile and senseless cycle of violence. If not, if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we will keep getting what we’ve always got. go back to the table of contents
The right could learn a few lessons from the left these days. It would be a bit of "turnabout is fair play" because the left has learned something from them. It is all about this unity business. For the past few years, activists over on the dark side of the Canadian political force have been desperately engaged in attempts to "unite the right." When it all started, there was a single, solitary conservative party in Canada, one that had been around for over a hundred years. The Liberals made sure they couldn't legitimately claim to be the only right wing party, but the Tories were still the darlings of much of corporate Canada. Then, as you will recall, Preston Manning arrived on the scene, didn't much like the state of conservatism, and started the Reform Party. After deeply dividing the right, Manning went onto a campaign to unite them, except that it had to be united under his tent. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with the Tories he was attacking, so we went on for about a decade with two self-defined conservative caucuses in Parliament. After Stockwell Day got his hands on the process, it didn't take long for the "unite the right" champions to split again. Now, as Parliament opens, we have three self-defined conservative caucuses in Ottawa. Give them another couple of years of uniting themselves and we'll have a ton of them lying around the countryside. Activists on the left have been watching this comedy of errors unfold, and have learned not to copy it. Groups on this side of the spectrum have just as much trouble getting along with each other, and working together, as do Stockwell Day and Chuck Strahl. They also have a very real interest in turning this around and finding a vehicle that will carry them all to their common goal. On the left hand side of things, we have an NDP caucus in Parliament, an effective Party structure that is active across the country, and a wide range of similarly minded people who - for the most part - don't belong to any political party. These are trade unionists, environmentalists, people in various faith communities, people fighting against corporate globalization, and people quietly trying to get on with their lives. Many people, engaged in many small struggles, are all going separately in the same general direction, towards very similar destinations. Rather than repeat Manning's big folly, there is a move underway to negotiate some common ground and get them to park their individual cars and get onto a bus together. This bus won't be dominated by any one of the groups that will come together to fill it. Some fairly influential people, from both inside and outside the NDP,
are working on a new political initiative to be brought to the party's
convention in Winnipeg next November. If successful, it will see the NDP
restructure itself into a new kind of political force, one that will truly
unite many groups on the left. It is not a lot different from the process
that saw the old CCF dissolve itself 40 years ago and re-emerge as the
NDP. I think this could be the key to bringing back the effectiveness
of left wing politics in our country. It could also be the case that this
process should occur every few decades in order to keep politics relevant.
The important thing about how this is unfolding is that it is not being
presented as an accomplished fact. The stakeholders on the left are being
given a chance to design the new movement, and to give it both its mind
and its heart. No one went out and started a new party and demanded that
all the left wing groups snap to attention and join in. That is the Stockwell
Day way, and it plainly isn't working. go back to the table of contents
During the past two weeks, we spent a great holiday visiting relatives in Scotland, with a short excursion to see more family in the south of England. We covered a lot of ground from Glasgow to the west highlands, down to London, and back to Glasgow. Although the weather improved during our second week, Scotland has had nothing but rain all summer. Needless to say, it was a stark contrast from the hot, dry weather we left behind us. We were struck by how green everything is, not just in the hills and valleys, but also in people's gardens. The gardens, in fact, are marked by a huge variety of colourful shrubs and flowers. I'm no horticulturalist, and can't identify most of the plants I see, but I remember being quite taken by the size of a tree with leaves very much like the tiny rhododendron bushes we have out front. This tree had huge yellowy-white flowers with a lemony scent. Beautiful. One thing about these British gardens is that lawns do not dominate them. Over here, we tend to have huge spreads of grass, with flowers and shrubs around the edges. Over there, for the most part, there would be small patches of lawn linking large flowerbeds, perennial shrubs and hedges. In homes with smaller front and back yards, you'll see a lot of flagstone patios with shrubs and flowers growing happily in large containers, with no lawn at all. There are exceptions, of course. Some people have messy yards, just like you'd find anywhere. The Queen has an enormous expanse of grass in front of her house in Windsor. It must take her the best part of the day just to mow it, but she is more the exception than the rule. At the risk of falling into a well-worn stereotype, I'd say it is, for the most part, a country of tidy gardens, all slightly different as the homeowners let their creativity and imagination run free. Another thing about these gardens is that the owners don't see the need to smother them with chemicals. I didn't do a wide-ranging study on the cosmetic use of pesticides in British gardens. All I know is that of the people I spoke to, none use them. The Guelph Environmental Network is proposing that the city ban chemicals from our domestic lawns and shrubs. If that is what it takes to get us to change our attitudes about gardening, then it may need to be done. It is good that the subject is now out in the open, giving us a chance to educate ourselves about the effects of pesticides on other living organisms, and about alternative methods of controlling grubs, weeds and other pests we'd sooner not have just outside the back door. We need to remember, as we discuss this, that chemical weed and bug killers are poisonous. If they weren't, they wouldn't do the job we purchase them for. They lie around in the soil long after they've been applied, and get carried off by rain into the ground water. Whenever you turn on the tap to get a cold drink, you are also getting the residue of chemical pesticides. It may only be a small amount each time, but it adds up. Most pesticides have not been adequately tested to determine their effects on people or the environment. They are tested on the fly, as they are used. Think of DDT, which was widely sprayed as a bug killer many years ago. The man who discovered it won a 1948 Nobel Prize. It was banned in 1973 when it was proven to be a health and environmental disaster. The precautionary principle tells us to avoid using these things if there is any doubt about their safety. I would rather see people avoid the cosmetic use of pesticides voluntarily because we do not need them. We could have a much cleaner city, and much nicer gardens, without them. go back to the table of contents
We should get one thing straight. Karen Farbridge did not cause the stifling heat wave we endured last week. I know there are some people around town who would like to put the blame on her, but she didn't do it. We can prove that simply by looking at the widespread area affected by the soaring temperature. Normally, I would be inclined to blame Mike Harris for it, but even that would be a reach. The heat wave stretched all the way from Saskatchewan to Prince Edward Island, a part of the country that far exceeds our mayor's, or even our premier's, grasp. Even before the mercury began rising in thermometers everywhere, political tempers around Guelph were badly frayed. What with the mall, the stadium, Nustadia, Southside and Lesic, we have not been stuck for something to argue about. The arguments, though, are starting to go around in circles because no new facts are being brought into them. The one fact that matters most is that we can't turn back the clock. We can't tear the stadium down. We can't demolish the west end recreation centre and put a stadium there. We can't even tear down the mall and move the bus station back to Quebec St. with Angie's Pizza right next door. Like it or not, the stadium is where it is, and we might just as well make the best of it. Whether or not people think, as I do, that putting the arena downtown was a good idea doesn't really matter any more. It's there. Get used to it. Our mayor and most of the city councilors are doing their best to make the thing work, and I'd say they're doing quite well, considering what they're up against. A couple of our city councilors, one of whom doesn't even live in our city, are determined to do what they can to block a realistic way out of the problems surrounding the mall and the stadium. They shouldn't be allowed to succeed. Before she was elected mayor, Farbridge had developed a reputation as a skilled problem solver. If she is given the room to move, she can get us through what could otherwise be a Nustadia nightmare. At the next council meeting on August 20, as many Guelph residents as possible should get down to City Hall and demonstrate their confidence in, and support for, the municipal politicians who are putting the interests of citizens ahead of petty partisan bickering. Speaking of the heat wave, it brought to light one of the biggest lapses in Ontario health and safety laws. There is no regulation regarding the maximum temperatures in which people can be required to work. One worker in Barrie died after collapsing when his workplace reached 49 degrees. Responsible employers will provide extra rest and an adequate supply of drinking water. In hot weather, workers can produce two to three gallons of sweat during a shift, and it has to be replaced to prevent dehydration. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States says workers in hot conditions "should drink 5 to 7 ounces of fluids every 15 to 20 minutes." This is especially important during unusually hot weather conditions lasting longer than 2 days. The number of heat illnesses usually increases, "due to several factors, such as progressive body fluid deficit, loss of appetite (and possible salt deficit), buildup of heat in living and work areas, and breakdown of air-conditioning equipment." Heat stress is a very dangerous condition. Workers who are not given relief from it can exercise their right to refuse unsafe work and insist on being allowed to go to a cooler spot in the workplace where they can recover. But it shouldn't have to come to that. In unionized workplaces, it is easy enough to work out the arrangements. It is a bit tougher in a non-union environment. That's why health and safety considerations have become the main motivator for workers to seek out and join a union. go back to the table of contents
I get worried when I find myself agreeing with Rocco Furfaro. He was quoted in last Friday's Tribune, saying the city could operate the downtown stadium "100 per cent better than it's being run now." It probably could. I am a firm believer in community ownership of these sorts of facilities. All things being equal, the city should own the stadium and run it on behalf of the citizens. But all things are not equal. A few years ago, we were all debating what to do with the old Eaton Centre and how to replace the antiquated Memorial Gardens. The issue then was fixed on two things: where to place the arena, either downtown or in the west end; and what role the city should play. The prevailing wisdom was that the arena should be built downtown and that the city should secure a private sector partner to operate it. I lived in the west end at the time, and remember the concerns many people had about the traffic flow problems that would result if the arena were placed there. What the west end needed was a community recreation centre. Good decisions were made, and there is now an excellent facility at Imperial and Paisley, and a very good arena downtown. The city found a partner, and entered into a long-term arrangement with Nustadia to operate the sports complex. Unfortunately, they didn't have a successful first year. They lost a lot of money, and are now unable to make their mortgage payments. The city was faced with two choices. They could foreclose on the mortgage and take over operation of the arena, or they could work out a deal to help Nustadia get on its feet. Again, tough decisions had to be made. Council very sensibly agreed to make the necessary financial arrangements to give Nustadia the time to turn the stadium into a viable operation. The city is putting money out now in the reasonable expectation that we will get it back when the operation starts turning a profit. This may be a bit of a gamble, but it is a good one. The alternative would have been for the city to foreclose and push Nustadia aside. If we took over operation of the arena, we would also have taken over the operating losses that will be inevitable over the first few years. This is a liability that Nustadia agreed to accept when they entered the partnership, and the city is right to hold them to it. So why does Rocco Furfaro want the city to foreclose? It could be that he always advocated for a west end arena, and now wants to ensure that the downtown facility will fail. He wants us to pay so he can say I told you so. Or it could be that he has thrown his lot in with Milan Lesic who already owns most of the downtown core and is determined to add the Guelph Centre to his portfolio. Lesic, in a blatant conflict of interest, helped scuttle the sale of the mall to the Southside group from London. Now he is threatening to take the city to court if council doesn't let him buy it. He could possibly file for a court injunction this week, seeking to prevent the sale to anyone but him. Of all the proposals for redeveloping the Guelph Centre, Lesic's is the least appealing. The Barrel Works had some good ideas, but they expected too much financial commitment from the city. Southside had some bad ideas, but they were willing to back them up with their own money, and they have a proven track record in mall redevelopment. We should sell the mall to either one of these two bidders. We should not give in to Lesic's blackmail and allow him to turn it into a parking lot with discount stores above. If our council holds firm we can, and will, do better. go back to the table of contents
The comedy of errors over on the dark side of the political spectrum continues unabated. With MPs rushing to leave their caucus, members leaving in droves, and fundraising drying up quicker than my flowerbeds during a heat wave, the Reform Alliance Party is in deep trouble. Whenever Stockwell Day tries to exert some leadership and pull it all back together, something else goes wrong. Some members of the Party's executive council want a mass expulsion of dissidents. Some of the remaining caucus members want to subject Day to a vote of non-confidence. The only good news is that very few of the members signed up by Tom Long's organizers during their tour of Quebec cemeteries have torn up their cards. This, we should all remember, is happening to the Party that, a mere eight months ago, was being touted as a government in waiting. Canadians were stampeded into voting Liberal in most parts of the country out of fear that the Reform Alliance might actually win the election if people don't rally around Chretien and his gang. None other than the Liberals themselves set off this false alarm. The lie was shouted loudly enough, and often enough, that voters believed it. There were even some deluded people who thought the Reform Alliance had a chance to win here in Guelph-Wellington. There is no sense crying over spilled milk, or continuously whining that the Liberals won the election by fraud. They did, but the rules of the game allowed them to. The only thing we can do about it is to remember. We can pledge that, as The Who used to sing, we won't be fooled again. Let's hope not, anyway. The point is that our two national daily newspapers, the Post and the Globe, expended a lot of time, energy and ink trying to build the Reform Alliance into something it could never be. They desperately wanted this political party to be the one that Canadians would put into government and enact whatever tax cutting policies the corporations choose to promote. The reality turned out to be that no matter how united the right wing is, Canadians do not want them running the country. This is not just because their national executive, and their parliamentary caucus, are proving themselves to be the political equivalent of the Keystone Cops. Nor is it because their leader has turned into Jim Varney starring in Ernest Goes to Ottawa. It all began to unravel long before this. The Reform Alliance's problems began when they had to start laying out their policy documents. The fiscally conservative economic policy didn't help them because Paul Martin had already begun implementing it. The Liberals turned sufficiently far to the right to steal the Reform Alliance's thunder. All they were left with was a bunch of very unappealing socially conservative policies that no one else wants. Their ship began sinking long before the 13 dissidents abandoned it. The burning question now is: what should the captain do? Should he head for the lifeboats, or should he stay in the wheelhouse and keep steering it towards the reef? We all know the honourable thing is for the captain to go down with the ship, but honour is in short supply among this crew. If he jumps overboard, there is no assistant captain standing by ready to take over the controls. The doom and gloom is complicated by the method in which Day was elected leader. He correctly points out that the membership, not convention delegates, put him into office. He was not elected to serve at the whim of the parliamentary caucus. Here lies the quandary: If Day and his supporters insist on the democratic and constitutional right of the members to choose their leader, they will destroy their Party. If his opponents insist on overturning this democratic principle, they will destroy their Party. It is a doomed enterprise no matter how you look at it. go back to the table of contents
Brenda Elliott must resign. Her pitiful performance at the Walkerton inquiry leaves her no choice. She showed herself to have been completely incompetent to fulfill the duties of her job when she was Environment Minister, and as a result people died and became seriously ill. As if this isn't bad enough, Elliott refused to accept the responsibility that properly attaches to a cabinet minister. She tried to shuffle the blame away from herself and onto her cabinet colleagues, her civil service staff, and even the entire legislature. After all, she would have us believe, it was the full legislature that passed the laws deregulating water testing, so the entire legislature must shoulder the blame. Sorry, Brenda, but this just doesn't wash. A cabinet minister is responsible for everything that happens in her department during her watch. It's part of the game, one of the rules that politicians must learn to live with. If she wants the extra $30,000 a year that goes with a cabinet position, she has to accept the responsibilities it brings. She still shows herself unwilling to do this. The entire spectacle of her testimony was an embarrassment to everyone in Guelph, the people she is supposed to represent. In the national newspapers, she is treated as a laughing stock. Bruce Davidson, main spokesperson for Concerned Walkerton Citizens, was interviewed on CBC Radio's As It Happens last Thursday. He witnessed her performance and described it as that of "a giggly school child." The general consensus in the national media is that our Brenda just doesn't have a clue. She doesn't now, and she didn't during her crucial months in charge of our environment. One of the Toronto Star articles about her testimony says "Elliott testified that no one warned her about the problems created by the Tories' 1996 decision to privatize water-testing services for municipalities." This, again, is patently ridiculous. Rubbish. There were numerous staff memos that sat unread on her desk. On top of these, there was a strong environmental lobby urging her not to proceed. The Canadian Environmental Law Association, one of the most responsible and widely respected groups in the field, told her. In two consecutive columns back in January of 1996, I raised the alarm in these pages. All Elliott had to do was listen. Pay attention. Do her job. But no, she was determined to mouth the government's platitudes, telling us "you can't have a healthy environment without a healthy economy." I said it then, five and a half years ago, and it bears repeating today: "This is a frighteningly incompetent thing for an environment minister to say. There is, in fact, a direct relationship between the 'health' of an economy and the danger to the environment. The environment needs to be protected from a 'healthy' economy. It cannot protect itself. Elliott's job, as the minister, is to ensure that adequate measures are put into place and enforced." Elliott was warned, but she chose to turn a deaf ear to the messengers.
When she turned her back on the environment she was paid to protect, she
set the stage for Walkerton. She and her government set in motion the
forces that would lead inexorably towards the deaths of seven people.
How many more are suffering and dying as a result of the increasingly
frequent smog attacks on southern Ontario? How much more environmental
destruction must we endure before we say enough? Before we confront the
inescapable need to redefine economic success and prosperity? Elliott
is a big part of the problem, because she took on an important job for
which she had no competence, but she is not the whole problem. She is
a loyal soldier, following orders, implementing policy. The orders and
the policies are the bigger problem. Had Elliott not been in cabinet,
someone else would have done the same things as she did. But she was there,
so now she must hang her head in shame and resign. go back to the table of contents
By the time this column is printed, the deal to sell the Guelph Centre downtown will probably be dead. If not, it will be on life support, waiting to die all over again a few months from now. It seems the prospective owners could not get the stadium operators to agree on an arrangement for sharing the food concessions. The Southside Group wanted to turn food into their bread and butter. There would be specialty shops throughout the mall, with a large fitness centre standing at the ready, waiting to help us shed the extra poundage brought on by the cookies, cakes and other calories. Downtown Guelph could have set a new standard, bringing food and fitness into a harmonic unity. This could have put Guelph back at a level of national media attention we haven't experienced since John Long ran for the Tory leadership. But no. Nustadia put its foot down, and stuck by its legal right to control all the food action adjacent to the hockey rink. I don't think anyone ever thought the Southside deal was all that great. It was barely good enough, and got the mall out of the city's hair. If and when the deal does go in the dumpster, we should search out some more innovative ideas for the property. The mall as it exists doesn't invite people in. The stores are hidden behind closed doors, set back from the Square. I like the idea of taking the roof off, knocking down the front wall and doors, and turning it into a pedestrian mall, a continuation of Quebec St. With shops on the ground floor and residential units above, it could be made to blend in with our existing downtown streetscape. What are needed are imagination and the determination to make it work. While the City wrestles with the problem of the mall, the province's labour movement is wrestling with the problem of what to do with the Harris government. We have never seen a government in this province that so consistently tramples on the rights of working people. There was some good news last week when the Tories announced they had backed away from one of their bad plans. They wanted to replace the Labour Relations Board, the Workplace Safety & Insurance Appeals Tribunal, the Human Rights Commission and a couple of others with one big mega-tribunal. In the face of huge public opposition, they decided it just wasn't worth the bother to make the change. They seem determined, however, to pass a new law that, among other things, will eliminate the need for Ministry of Labour inspectors to actually enter a workplace where a health and safety related work refusal is taking place. The inspector will be able to conduct the "investigation" over the telephone. This is a dreadful proposition, and is one more example of the contempt this government has for working people. The traditional methods of protest such as lobbying, leafleting and demonstrating
are having no impact. The "Days of Action" that happened around
the province a few years ago were very cathartic, and made the participants
feel good about themselves, but the business community and the politicians
knew they were one-day sporadic events. They survived them as easily as
they survive winter snow days. The labour movement needs to find other
ways to get the attention of the people who wield economic and political
power in this province. It also needs to find an issue around which its
members will support new, non-traditional methods of protest. One thing
that will do it is occupational health and safety. When this is threatened,
as it is by the proposed legislation, our families are threatened. To
stop this bad law, and prevent the government from bringing in others,
we need the imagination to come up with a plan of action and the determination
to make it work. go back to the table of contents
Last week, I received an invitation to celebrate the birth of a new private school in Guelph. Warning bells immediately went off in my mind, since it was only a couple of columns ago that I raised an alarm about public funding of private schools. When I called the contact number for more information, I was assured that it was pure coincidence that this gala celebration was happening so soon after the provincial government announced plans to give tax credits to families with children in private schools. It has apparently been in the planning stages for a while. In fact, the very pleasant woman I spoke with said that she was personally not supportive of the private school tax credits. Coincidental or not, this invitation tells us a lot about the direction Ontario could take if, as expected, the new tax arrangement spawns an expansion of the private school network. The Sophia School, whose birth is to be celebrated at the Bookshelf Bar, is billed as "a Waldorf Education initiative in Guelph." I doubt it will have a very large constituency to draw students from. As far as I can tell, Waldorf education is based on something called "anthroposophy" which grew out of the writings of a man named Rudolph Steiner who lived in Austria in the early 20th century. There may be enough parents in Guelph who are willing to entrust their children to this philosophy of education, and the Sophia School may well survive. Whether there are or aren't, this new private school shows us why public schools are so important. Private schools marginalize our children, sheltering them in what parents believe to be safe harbours from the storms that are battering the public school system. Students at these private schools are only exposed to others who share the same beliefs and values. In a public school, students come into contact with a multitude of cultures, and a wide variety of ideas. Most, if not all, of the private schools in Guelph operate at the elementary school level. Private high schools that grant Ontario school diplomas to graduates must meet the same curriculum guidelines as public schools. At the elementary level, there is not that amount of scrutiny or regulation. There are more private grade schools than high schools because they are a lot easier and cheaper to operate. The public shares the cost of public schools. The people who choose to use them share the cost of private schools. Private schools must make enough money to cover their costs and to earn a little extra for the people or organizations that own them. Public schools are not profit making enterprises, and nor should they be. I am happy to see a part of my taxes used to subsidize them and to keep them accessible to every family, regardless of income. Private schools are profit making. They have to be. If they lose money, they can choose to increase tuitions or they can choose to close down. They should not have the option of bellying up to the public trough for salvation. I don't have a problem with private schools making a profit. Many of
them have been doing this for a long time, providing rich families with
a way to keep themselves away from the unwashed masses. They didn't ask
for my money to keep them afloat, and I didn't offer any. Now, things
are changing. More and more frequently, the small fundamentalist Christian
denominations are starting their own schools, and preying on their parishioners
for support. The Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools spent $175,000
lobbying the government for the tax credits, even though the parents who
use them already get a charitable donation receipt for part of the tuition
fees they spend. These schools help fund the churches' operations. If
they can get their own members to support this, more power to them. Just
don't ask for my help. go back to the table of contents
Way over on the other side of the country, on what used to be Canada's left coast, a branch of the Reform Alliance won an election last week. They were masquerading as Liberals, but are really close cousins of Ralph Klein, Mike Harris and Stockwell Day and not very distant cousins of Paul Martin. This will give much joy to those Alliance supporters who are feeling a little shell shocked as the Ottawa branch of the family falls apart a little more with every passing Day. They are having such miseries lately that I suppose they're entitled to take their small comforts wherever they find them. They are even building this warm fuzzy feeling into proof that a united right can accomplish great things. Allow them this little delusion. The truth is that people these days don't vote for one thing as much as they vote against another. This time, they were anxious to rid themselves of an NDP government they perceived to have lost its way. It doesn't matter if it had or not. The perception became reality and the result, for the NDP, was disastrous. They'll get over it, but by the time they do the country will have felt the effect of yet another band of provincial privateers. What the election really shows is the extent to which democracy fails us under our system of parliamentary elections. The B.C. Liberals received just over 57 per cent of the vote and captured 96 per cent of the Ridings. The NDP was supported by almost 22 per cent of the population but took only four per cent of the seats. The Green Party took over 12 per cent of the vote without winning any. The remaining 8.5 per cent was split between several smaller Parties, with the B.C. Unity Party getting 3.3 per cent and the Marijuana Party getting 3.2 per cent. No fair-minded person could look at these results and conclude that they reflect the democratic will of the people. A legislature representing the people of British Columbia would have 46 Liberals, 17 New Democrats, 10 Greens and 3 members each from the Unity and Marijuana Parties. The "first past the post" system of elections we use all across the country cannot give fair results. It never does. Last week's election makes this more evident than usual. Keep an eye on this new provincial government, though. We'll see how selective it is in keeping its promises. Their campaign literature had fairly prominent statements about democracy, including an impartial "Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform" that will study proportional representation. They also promise to quickly introduce legislation establishing fixed election dates with a four-year term of office. A fixed term prevents a Prime Minister from manipulating the timing of an election in the way Jean Chretien did last year. This is all supposed to start within 90 days of opening the new legislative session. Will they do it, though? Is it possible that a government will reform the system that gave it such a disproportionate amount of power? Support for this improved method of electing government cuts across Party
lines. A couple of weeks ago, Gilles Bisson, an NDP member of the Ontario
legislature, was in Guelph discussing it. He seemed to favour a model
very similar to the one promised in the B.C election platform. The good
thing about proportional representation is that it forces governing parties
to take the interests of minority groups into consideration when framing
legislation. There is a strong motivation to negotiate consensus solutions
rather than to impose the will of the government upon an ungrateful population.
If proportional representation is the only good that comes out of last
week's British Columbia election, it will be enough. Maybe, just maybe,
it will take seed out there and begin to spread eastward. I'm not going
to hold my breath waiting for it though. go back to the table of contents
A voucher by any other name is still an attack on our public education system. The provincial conservatives would have you believe that they have not brought in a voucher system for private schools, but they are not telling the whole story. Vouchers give direct grants to families who wish to send their children to private schools. It is a direct subsidy to be put against the cost of tuition fees. It is public money going directly into private schools instead of into the public school system where it belongs. The Harris government's supporters will tell you they haven't done this. What they have done instead is bring in a system of tax credits that really amount to the same thing. Parents who send their children to private schools will be able to claim up to $3500 a year. This amounts to $300 million dollars a year out of the provincial bank account and into private wallets. The number could actually be higher, since the projection is based on current private school enrolment. There is a very real possibility that this will increase when the tax subsidies begin. All this is the end result of Mike Harris' relentless assault on our education system, something that began with his election six long and tiring years ago. The first person he appointed as Minister of Education was a wealthy businessman who dropped out of school in grade 10. John Snobelen is famous for having said, not long after his appointment, that in order to transform the school system he needed to manufacture a crisis. Our schools have been in almost constant crisis and turmoil ever since. On the one hand, the government has been steadily cutting back the funding for public schools. Then they amalgamated school boards, moving their accountability as far as possible away from the communities trustees are supposed to serve. While all this was going on, Harris never missed an opportunity to pick a fight with the teachers. The end result is that our public schools today seem more and more unattractive to parents who simply want to get the best education possible for their children. It is no wonder that the small, private schools are looking like positive alternatives. The final piece of the puzzle was put into place last February with the appointment of Jim Flaherty as Minister of Finance. Flaherty is well known as one of the leaders of the pro-Reform Alliance faction in the provincial cabinet. The Reform Party's program includes support for a voucher system of subsidizing private schools. Can it be a coincidence that in his very first budget, Flaherty brought in tax subsidies for them? Obviously not. This government is determined to hand over as many public services as possible to the private sector. A couple of weeks ago, Harris tipped his hand when he mused out loud to a television interviewer that private health care was not something to be afraid of. They are selling off the Province of Ontario Savings Office. They are threatening to sell the liquor stores and TV Ontario. They are trying to find a way to deregulate the production and distribution of electricity. The only thing stopping them on this front is the disastrous experience California is going through since they did the same thing. That is not stopping Harris, though. It is just slowing him down. Medical care, education, roads, electricity, parks and any number of other essential services are all part of our common ground. They are things we all partake in as we get about the business of building and improving our community. They put civility into civil society. We need them. We need all these things to stay in the public domain, or we will become fragmented. The Harris government is on a course that will lead us toward private control of the common good. He would give up everything, including education, to meet this end. go back to the table of contents
Mike Harris has the worst attendance record of any premier in Ontario's history. In his first six years in power, he has been in the legislature 37 per cent of the time. Those of us who live and work out in the real world know that we would never get away with this lackadaisical approach to our jobs. If we only showed up at work two days per week - 40 per cent of the time - our future prospects would be dim. No employer in either the public or private sectors would accept such a horrendous record. I have known a lot of workers who found themselves on a disciplinary treadmill with a much better attendance record than Harris has developed. So where has he been hiding? His own story, that he is fulfilling the "onerous" responsibilities of a premier, is undermined by repeated sightings on Florida golf courses. Whatever he is doing, it is not what we are paying him for. An important part of his job, one of his onerous responsibilities, is to be in the legislature during Question Period while the opposition parties scrutinize government policy. If he can't be bothered doing that, he should find himself another line of work. Harris did show up long enough to show that he has not lost his appetite for beating up the province's poor. He appears determined to push through his plan to have all welfare recipients undergo regular tests for drug or alcohol abuse. On top of this violation of people's constitutional rights, Harris wants to compound the injustice by making them take literacy and mathematical tests. Anyone who fails the test will be forced into an upgrading program. Those who refuse will be cut off welfare. There are many things wrong with these plans to test welfare recipients. For one thing, there is no evidence to suggest that poor people are more prone to drug use than anyone else. In fact, research by the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto shows significantly lower than average rates of substance abuse among welfare recipients. This shouldn't be too surprising. They need whatever income they get to pay for basic necessities like shelter, food and clothing. The other false stereotype that Harris is feeding on is that welfare recipients are generally uneducated. He would like us to believe that it is their own fault they are poor, and if they could just be persuaded to pick themselves up they wouldn't need government handouts. Never mind that Harris' own record in the legislature shows him to have his nose deeper into the trough than any welfare recipient. And never mind that tax grants recently given to friends of his who are organizing golf tournaments brought them a larger government handout than most welfare recipients see in a lifetime. Beyond all this, Harris is trying to force people into the very programs that his government is strangling through under funding. He can't have his cake and eat it too. If he wants to force people into literacy programs, he has to provide the funding needed to handle the increased workload. He isn't going to do that, though. He hopes he can continue to earn political points by clubbing the disadvantaged. He hopes that while we watch the bullying, we won't notice the many tangible factors that contribute to poverty and unemployment. Things like inadequate child care facilities, substandard social housing developments, the gutting of rent controls, or the fact that the minimum wage has been frozen and, as a result, has fallen far behind inflation. If he truly wants to give poor people a "hand up instead of a hand out" he would fix these problems. But he won't. It would take some work on his part. Unlike most of the welfare recipients I've known, Harris has a pronounced allergy to work. As we've seen, he manages to avoid it as much as possible. go back to the table of contents
It looked for all the world as though Darth Vader and his troops had landed in Quebec City over the weekend. The image was not pleasant, but it wasn't intended to be. The heavily protected police, with their water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets and Plexiglas shields was designed to send a chill through the hearts of anyone who dared oppose the right of multinational corporations to carve up the world as they see fit. Make no mistake about it. What was going down in Quebec was another attempt by government leaders to give corporations the right to conduct their business unrestrained by government regulation. It speaks volumes about the process that they had to do it hidden from public view, behind concrete walls and chain link fences, protected by about 6,000 police officers. In the weeks leading up to the summit meeting, and in the few days following it, two debates have taken place across the country. They have both been useful. One dealt with the right of people to protest, and the methods they should use. The government set the tone for the protests when they built the fence surrounding the summit headquarters. It was intended as a provocation, and it became one. In what can best be seen as the arrogance of those who hold power, the authorities wanted to determine where and how the protests could take place. Needless to say, the protests should take place quietly and out of sight, in much the same way as their trade deals are negotiated. It came as no surprise to me that some of the young protesters chose to challenge the rules of engagement they had no voice in setting. Unfortunately they succeeded mostly in shifting their focus away from the trade agreement and onto the fence. Some spent the weekend in a generally futile attempt to pull the fence down. Thousands of other protesters more or less accepted the rules. The official labour sponsored march on Saturday was huge, peaceful and went largely unnoticed. All things considered, I think the weekend's events were a success in terms of setting the issues of fair and equal trade against those of increasing the power of corporations over individual citizens and democratically elected governments. This is where the other debate, dealing with globalization, enters the picture. Without the protests, the public spotlight would not have shone on things like the investor's rights clause. Attention would not have been paid to the inclusion of labour, environmental and human rights standards in trade agreements. These things are still not included, but they are now on the agenda, and that is a good thing. A "democracy" clause was written in, but without fully defining the term. It is obviously designed to justify the exclusion of Cuba from these trade agreements, but allows the inclusion of governments elected by trickery and deceit. It includes governments such as Argentina or Peru where civil protest is harshly squashed. It includes governments such as the United States where the presidential candidate receiving the highest number of popular votes was denied the opportunity to take office. It is all smoke and mirrors, a public relations exercise intended to make an offensive process more acceptable. Investor's rights are still in there. This sounds harmless enough, but this clause in NAFTA allowed an American company to get away with millions of dollars when it sued Canada for banning a poisonous gasoline additive. Another corporation successfully sued a Mexican city that banned toxic waste dumps. The process of negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Americas is expected to go on for at least four more years. In that time, the protests and debate will continue. We have to keep the issue of fair trade in sight. Fair trade agreements protect the jobs and living standards of the people who live in the countries engaging in the trade. Free trade increases the gap between rich and poor nations. Fair trade will close it. go back to the table of contents
A few heads are being scratched around town these days as people try to figure out where Brenda Elliott sits on the issue of spending tax dollars. A couple of weeks ago, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs put her foot squarely into municipal government affairs. She was upset because city council increased taxes to pay the costs of services dumped on them by her government. Now she has discovered a couple of doctors, a husband and wife team, who are thinking of relocating to the Niagara Falls area. It would be a good use of our money, she thinks, to bribe them into coming to Guelph instead. It would be nice to think she has changed her mind about governments spending the dollars needed to live up to their responsibilities, but I doubt she has. What we are seeing is a reflection of a government adrift, without a coherent plan for the province, other than to drive down taxes. They have no solutions for the problems they are creating. To the tax increase, Elliott responds politically. To the doctor shortage, she responds emotionally. Never does she respond logically. There is a doctor shortage in Guelph. Of that, I am certain. My own family doctor retires at the end of April, and I haven't found a replacement yet. Almost 20,000 other people in the city have no family doctor. Their only recourse is to go to the walk-in clinics, but this is reactive care. When they feel ill, they go to the clinic and sit around waiting. A family doctor provides proactive care, and preventive medicine. You can't make an appointment for a complete physical check up at a clinic, the way you can with your own doctor. The shortage has to be ended, and I'm starting to think it needs to be done some time this month. It won't be, though. The causes are too complex, and too deeply rooted, to allow for a quick Band-Aid fix such as Elliott is suggesting. Up until last year, it looked as though a serious primary care reform initiative would be introduced in Ontario. This would have encouraged the establishment of group practices where families or individuals could register. Instead of making appointments with a single General Practitioner, they would be seen by any one of a team of caregivers made up of doctors, nurse practitioners and registered nurses. Nurse practitioners are qualified to perform several routine medical procedures once restricted to doctors. The team would be paid by the number of patients registered with the team, rather than the number of visits they squeeze into a day. This would have taken a lot of the pressure out of the system. In the last agreement between the government and the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), fee structures were set that discourage doctors from becoming involved in these team practices. Doctors participating in the new team approach did not get the same increases as those who stay with the old fee for service, single doctor practices. Another shocking fact is the number of qualified doctors in Ontario denied a license to practice medicine here. Some are in Guelph. These are people who went through medical school in other countries, even practiced in those countries, and then moved to Canada. Most commonly, they come from Asian and African countries. Restrictive rules set by the medical associations are keeping qualified doctors from treating patients who are unable to find a doctor. There are immigrant doctors driving taxis in Toronto. There are immigrant doctors working as counselors in Guelph. Four years ago, there were 100 family doctor vacancies in 68 Ontario communities. Last year, there were 485 vacancies in 109 communities. Bribery does not solve the shortage; it just shifts it from town to town. Elliott's time would be better spent convincing the Minister of Health to ease up on the restrictions imposed on immigrant doctors and to speed up the implementation of primary care reform. go back to the table of contents
It's happening already. The canonization of Preston Manning began almost as soon as he announced his impending retirement from active political involvement. The big city newspapers immediately began rewriting his impact on Canada, portraying him as some sort of visionary. This process usually doesn't start until a politician dies, but Manning is in the rare position of being alive enough to read his political obituaries. If there is anything in all the drivel being written that I can agree with, it is that Manning changed the political face of Canada. The truth is that he changed it for the worse. He institutionalized mean spiritedness, and made it possible for people like Mike Harris, Ralph Klein and Stockwell Day to rise out of obscurity into positions of power and influence. Were it not for Preston Manning, we in Guelph would not now be involved in the current bun fight over municipal taxes. We are facing a large municipal tax increase here because Manning made it popular to be against taxation. Not unfair taxation. Not tax evasion. Taxes in general were his enemy. This struck a chord because Canadian working families have always felt that we shoulder a higher proportion of the tax burden than we should. And we do. The idea of tax relief sounded fine, in the abstract. As we are discovering, it doesn't look as good in practice. Taxation is a complicated business, a jigsaw puzzle with many, many pieces. Manning hid a lot of them from us and showed us the half-completed picture, presenting it as complete. He then sold the picture to enough people that his Reform Party grew from the ashes of the old Social Credit Party into the official opposition in Parliament. Mike Harris seized on Manning's ideas and parlayed them into two terms as Ontario's premier. He took complicated problems, ignored the hard bits, and came up with simplistic solutions. They all, Manning and Harris and the rest, knew the major beneficiaries of an anti-tax hysteria would be the large corporations. Some of the largest also own the biggest of the national media, so it wasn't long until all our news sources were telling us that taxes are bad. Bad things must be eliminated. It wasn't long until things like Employment Insurance premiums and Worker Compensation premiums were defined as payroll taxes, and targeted for reduction. All the while, the things our taxes paid for, small things like public education and health care, were gradually being pulled out from under our feet. Workers found it harder and harder to qualify for the EI and compensation benefits they were entitled to. In the face of all this, the tax cuts did not go deep enough. The corporations and their political mouthpieces became like Skid Row derelicts searching for cheap after shave, except their unquenchable thirst was for cheap taxes. To provide them with their next fix, Harris unloaded the cost of things like public housing onto municipalities. He could then cut provincial taxes and leave it to city councils to worry about picking up the bill. Guelph is not alone in dealing with the fallout. Cities across the province are faced with the choice between raising taxes or denying services to their citizens. Most are making the difficult choice to keep the services and increase taxes. Our mayor, Karen Farbridge, had the courage to place the responsibility exactly where it belongs: on the provincial government. She deserves our full support. Yes, it is true that working families pay too much tax. It is not enough to stop there, though. We pay too much because wealthy families and corporations pay too little. Almost thirty years ago, David Lewis fought a very successful election campaign on the issue of corporate welfare bums. He is gone now, but the bums are still filling seats in boardrooms across the country. If we could get them to pay their fair share, our city council wouldn?t be in the bind it is. go back to the table of contents
Our local - or should that be distant - school board trustees have been busy this week patting themselves on the back. They are pleased, as they should be, because 73 per cent of the grade 10 students under their jurisdiction passed a literacy test. The provincial average was 68 percent, and there were only two areas of the province where students did better than ours. We should offer these young men and women our congratulations. We should also congratulate the fine teachers who are educating our sons and daughters. Having said that, there are some very troubling aspects to this whole process. This year's grade 10 students are the first ones to move through the new four-year high school program. They started high school last year before the new curriculum was even released. They, and their teachers, were put into a position where they were constantly trying to anticipate the new learning objectives and playing a lot of catching up. Were it not for the successful intervention of the teachers' union, the test would have been a requirement for the students to receive their diplomas. Looking at the results from the negative point of view, this means that 27 per cent of students in this area would not have been eligible for graduation unless they took a remedial program and passed the test later on. If the education minister has her way, it will be mandatory for grade 10 students next year to pass this test. There is something terribly unfair about giving 15-year old students a two and a half hour math test one day, a two and a half hour reading test the next day, and telling them the results will determine whether or not they can graduate two years later. Surely this is what regular assignment results, mid-term tests and final exams are all about. These give a much more reliable gauge of knowledge retention and allow for variables such as how students are feeling on any particular day. We all have good days and bad days, and don't all function well under stress. The stress levels created by such a single standardized test must be immense. Not all teenagers have the life experience required to handle it well. Their performance for five hours in October shouldn't have such potentially devastating impact on the rest of their lives. "The literacy test is part of our plan to ensure we are providing students with the best education possible and to improve student achievement," education minister Janet Ecker said when she announced the test last October. In fact, testing such as this does not ensure anything. It simply measures success, after the fact. If she sincerely wants to ensure that students get the best education possible, she should stop trying to micro-manage the system and dictating to teachers how they will spend every hour of every working day. She should stop starving the school boards, and make it easier for them to keep neighbourhood schools open. She should reverse the amalgamations and return local control of school boards to the communities they serve. The foundation upon which education is built, and which ensures the success of eventual learning in grade 10 and beyond, is poured in the early years of grade school. How well children do at that level determines how well they will do as they progress into adulthood. Early childhood education works best when done in an environment where the students are comfortable with their teachers and their peers. Their school should be in their neighbourhood, and they should be able to go there with their friends. To bus them away to a large, impersonal school at an early age makes it difficult to build the solid foundation they will need in later grades. If the education minister wants to ensure success in grade 10, she must make it possible for school boards to ensure quality in grade one. go back to the table of contents
Tony Blair stopped in Ottawa last week, on his way to a "get acquainted" visit with the American president. He took the opportunity, while in our country, to insult people who are opposed to the multi-national corporations' headlong rush into multi-national free trade agreements. According to him, we are "misguided" and protests "cannot be allowed to stand in the way" of the free flow of jobs to low wage areas of the world. Blair also defended his county's renewal of bombing raids on Iraq, setting himself up as deputy to the American chief of world police. When he arrived in Washington, he offered conditional support for George Bush's star wars missile plan in return for Bush's support for something resembling a European Army. I am thinking of this just now because the federal New Democratic Party is in the grips of a debate about its future direction. According to Party leader Alexa McDonough, at last weekend's federal council meeting, everything from policy to the name of the Party is on the table. Some influential Party members are of the opinion that the NDP should move in behind Blair and shift either to the centre or the right, depending on perceptions of its current location. The argument has something to do with not knocking success. Blair, after all, is the one who stopped the dark reign of Tory terror under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. According to British newspapers, Blair is riding so high in public opinion polls that he is virtually assured another majority, possibly even of landslide proportions. If a shift away from traditional social democratic positions worked for the Labour Party, it should work for the NDP. This argument is accompanied by much hand wringing about how much the world has changed under globalization and new technologies and the like. On the other side are people who feel the Party should move further left and concentrate on building working alliances with like-minded community groups and activist organizations. Sort of a unite the left movement. Tony Blair's path will not work for the NDP. In Britain, Labour is able to stake out wide territory from the centre across to the left. There is no large Liberal Party to their right, and nothing of any consequence to their left. Blair moved them far into the middle ground, and has taken up positions the left wing of the Liberal Party here could live with. For obvious reasons, this won't work for the NDP. The more it moves to the centre, the more it looks like the Liberals, and Canada doesn't need a second liberal party any more than we needed a second conservative party. The NDP has achieved its greatest successes when it is perceived as a Party with new and good ideas, solutions to the problems faced by the workers, farmers and unemployed people of our country. The trouble is that these days, it is widely regarded as being adrift, lost in a sea of confusion. Despite this perception, social democracy is not dead in Canada. It is not even on life support. If anything, it just needs to charge up its batteries. The debate outlined by McDonough could provide just the boost needed by the vehicle that has brought us most of our valued social programs. The Party will benefit from this debate and redefinition only if the process is open and transparent. It cannot just be NDP members arguing amongst themselves about which road to take. It must include groups and individuals outside the Party who can contribute new ideas. This does not mean trying to dominate them, or force them to come into agreement with traditional NDP policies. The Party leaders can learn a lot from the grass roots groups that are leading the protests against the corporate agenda. At the same time, these groups can also learn a lot from the NDP veterans. It's all about listening, learning and growing together go back to the table of contents
The hard right-wingers in the Harris government asserted their control last week. The cabinet shuffle was a signal to the people of our province that they should not expect any relief as the government moves into the middle years of its second term. Most of the changes rewarded members who abandoned the federal Conservative Party in favour of the Reformed Alliance Party. Not least among these is our own junior Brenda, the one who flunked out of the provincial cabinet soon after getting into it. She made a complete mess of the environment ministry. Now she is in charge of inter-governmental affairs. If you think it will help, you could say a little prayer for Canadian unity now that both our Brendas are let loose on the land. The senior Brenda was dumped from her position as Ontario caucus chair, and now has more time on her hands. She claims to have single-handedly saved the nation from the NHL, and has been dining out on it ever since. It was the only achievement of importance she could point to during the election campaign, and now she gives it as the reason for being demoted. One of Harris' most disturbing moves was assigning Cam Jackson to be Minister of Citizenship. A Hamilton Spectator article in 1993 reported the Burlington South MPP as saying " ... there's quite a bit of crime associated with new Canadians ... especially in Toronto with the oriental community, the level of crime is disproportionate to the immigration." It is absolutely intolerable that a man with such openly bigoted views should become head of the citizenship ministry. Most people are aware - although the Ontario government obviously still needs reminding - that Asian immigrants are mostly honest people who can be found working in all sorts of jobs, from janitor to professor, from labourer to entrepreneur. They are no more or less inclined towards criminality than are members of any other ethnic group. If Harris really wants us to believe him when he pretends to care about the people of this province, he will end this travesty immediately. He must remove Jackson from the ministry that deals most closely with our multi-cultural communities. Tony Clement, a co-founder of the Alliance, is now Minister of Health, and is expected to move the province closer to the Alberta model of privatized health care. Bob Runciman, a co-chair of the Alliance's Ontario campaign, is the new Minister of Economic Development. Jim Flaherty, another Alliance strongman, is the Finance Minister and Deputy Premier. A Toronto Star report gives an indication of the continuing level of dishonesty we can expect from the government. After the swearing in ceremony, reporters went looking for an interview with the new deputy premier. According to the Star, "his staff said he had gone to a ministry briefing shortly after being sworn in but he was spotted within the hour dining with his family and friends at Biff's, a swank new Toronto bistro." If they can't be depended on to give an honest answer to such a non-controversial question, how can we trust them when the more controversial issues surrounding the province's finances emerge? Many columnists in the big city papers saw this cabinet shuffle as a shift to the right. The premier himself denied this, saying, "the agenda is a corporate agenda ... and I don't see any change or any shift." For once, I agree with Harris. It is not a shift to the right. It is an entrenchment of the right. I also agree with him that he is driving forward a corporate agenda. The changes he has made will speed up the process of deregulation and privatization. Corporations see the regulations put in place to protect citizens and consumers as unnecessary red tape. The Harris government has been steadily eliminating them. Regulations were put in place for good reasons. Removing them will make life easier for corporations, but very much harder for people like us. go back to the table of contents
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Two weeks ago, cheers rose up across the land after Lucien Bouchard handed in his resignation. Then Bernard Landry stepped up to the plate and wiped the collective grin from the Canadian face. A few years ago, Bouchard said Canada doesn't have a proper flag. Now Landry has declared it to be a bit of red rag. Politicians and pundits across English speaking Canada were given a golden opportunity to puff up their chests and play the patriot game. But the politicians are not entirely blameless in this escapade. The history of the relationship between English and French Canada has been one of poking sticks in each other's eyes. The federal Liberals and the provincial separatists take great delight in saying and doing things that seem designed to infuriate the other side. Neither side is capable of bringing the issue of sovereignty to a conclusion, either by making Quebecers feel at home in Canada or by negotiating a mutually acceptable separation agreement. To his credit, Landry at least apologized for his remarks. It took a while, as he tried the usual politician's weaseling out. When that didn't work, he came clean with a clear and unambiguous apology. Stockwell Day can take a lesson from this. He weaseled, and then stonewalled, after being caught in a million dollar boondoggle. But he never apologized for running up a reckless $800,000 legal bill and dumping it into the laps of Alberta citizens. Day got into trouble by sending a letter to a newspaper in which he argued that a lawyer who defends someone accused of a crime is therefore soft on the crime itself. Day thus proved that he is the intellectual equal of Bernard Landry. His conduct in this affair has been outrageous. We should count our blessings that this irresponsible bumpkin did not become Prime Minister last November. It is a sad commentary on the vacuum existing in our political system that men such as Day and Landry can rise up to fill such influential positions. It is no wonder that more and more Canadians are turning away from a system that all too often boils down to a choice of lesser evils. Speaking of choosing from a bad lot, city council sold the Eaton/Guelph Centre last week to Southside Group. None of the available options jumped off the page and excited the imagination, but it's just as well the city didn't reopen the process. Delaying the decision to invite a few more mediocre proposals wouldn't have done us any good. The developers had lots of time to come up with good ideas for the site. It is more a reflection on them than on city council that they couldn't find any. Some of the proposals had attractive elements, but all of them had weaknesses. I liked the idea of building residential units on the upper level, but it was linked to a proposal to relocate the farmers' market onto the lower level. You can't tie the health of a downtown mall to an activity that is largely restricted to Saturday mornings. I am equally unconvinced that it can be tied to a fitness centre. My experience is that most private fitness centres tend to be trendy, over-priced palaces that cater to the young and already fit. The rest of us, the people who need them most, either can't afford the annual fees, don't have time to go, or feel intimidated by the muscle-bound kids pumping iron. Southside had better make their fitness centre affordable and accessible to the pot-bellied crowd. Some downtown merchants, especially those already providing good specialty foods, are understandably nervous about the sale. City council owes them a guarantee that their businesses won't be burned while the St. George Market slays the Eaton Centre dragon. We'll have to keep an eye on the pieces as they fall into place, but one thing is certain. Unlike Bernard Landry and Stockwell Day, our city councilors have nothing to apologize for. go back to the table of contents
Mike Harris said he lost a strong ally when Lucien Bouchard handed in his resignation as Quebec premier. Had he stopped there, he might have been fine. I can understand why and how the two of them could see each other this way. But he didn't. Harris went on to say that Canada was also losing an ally. Harris, of course, was talking in terms of expanding provincial rights, and taking power away from the federal government. To this extent, Harris and Bouchard are not such an unlikely combination. They are both bent on undermining the ability of Ottawa to regulate the quality of services enjoyed by Canadians from one end of the country to another. The biggest difference between them both is that at least Bouchard proceeded from an understanding of, and a respect for, democracy. He worked, not very successfully it turns out, to convince Quebecers to vote for separation. He was opposed to forcing them into another referendum they don't want. Harris, on the other hand, doesn't care a whit for what the people want. He is bound and determined to give us what we don't want. There was no public demand to bring in privately owned universities, to dismantle local school boards, or to destroy the health care system. There was no public demand to reduce the employment standards in this province. Maybe Harris lost an ally when Bouchard resigned, but Canada certainly didn't. Speaking of Harris allies, a few of them in North Bay have done very well from the friendship. A group of prominent Tories received approval to build cottages and a golf course along the edge of Lake Nipissing. Staff at the Ministry of Natural Resources had been adamantly opposed to building cottages and other structures in the area because the shoreline is a sensitive fish spawning ground. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing was also withholding approvals. Small issues like environmental protection can't be allowed to get in the way of a good friendship, though. Especially when over a million dollars are on the table, and millions more are up for grabs. Peter Minogue, an influential member of Harris' North Bay riding association, leads the investment group. After a flurry of phone calls to politicians, the Ministry staff objections were overturned, and the project is proceeding. Both opposition parties are calling for an inquiry, with the NDP appealing to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to halt further work on the development. As Howard Hampton said, these decisions aren't made according to what is good for the environment. They are made on the basis of what is financially good for Conservative party supporters. If the Harris-Bouchard alliance had been successful, there wouldn't be a federal Department of Fisheries standing by to make life difficult for the Harris-Minogue alliance. Meanwhile, Brenda Elliott is suffering from her own dose of foot in mouth disease. She took it upon herself to write a letter to the city treasurer advising him on the fine points of financial mismanagement and government irresponsibility. The problem is that the City is grappling with its budget. The full effects of provincial downloading are hitting home this year, and it looks as though it will all end up in a significant property tax increase, possibly as much as 12 per cent. Elliott is of the opinion that the city should follow the province's lead and cut taxes and services. This is an absurd position for her to take. What exactly does she suggest? Increase user fees for the library? Hike rental prices for minor sports facilities? No matter how many ways you look at it, services have to be provided to citizens, and they have to be paid for. We either do it socially, through taxes, or individually, through user fees. The provincial government got the city into this mess. Elliott has no business lecturing council on ways out of it. go back to the table of contents
I'm not sure if the year just gone was one to remember, or one best forgotten. I began the year by making four predictions. I was accurate with one - Guelph electing a woman mayor. I was wrong on Sunday bus service, predicting it would take longer than it did to work out the details. I'm happy to take a hit on this, because the city's decision makers served us well by implementing it sooner rather than later. The other two predictions were looser, and may still come to pass. The University's crop science people are still up to their husks in genetically modified food. I thought this would catch up to them this year. It may take longer. Public concern about this is growing. I also thought our local tobacconist, Imperial Tobacco, would get tangled up in the federal lawsuit against the tobacco industry. The case is proceeding too slowly to accurately predict when a decision will come down. So I'll give myself one hit, one strike out, and two no-decisions. That's a .500 batting average. A .344 average brought Carlos Delgado $17 million a year for the next four years. I haven't had a raise since I started writing this column more than five years ago. This year, I will restrict myself to predicting that we will have a long, cold, white winter. Apart from Delgado, the big winner this year was Jean Chretien. He proved, once again, that the politics of manipulation could still win. The big loser was Stockwell Day. He proved that no matter how much they try to unite the right, it just doesn't matter. Canadians don't want him, or anyone else with his policies, for Prime Minister. He might just as well pack his bags, go home, and learn that Christianity is not about selfish individualism. It is about people coming together in communities that protect the weak and infirm while allowing the healthy to contribute to the common good. Locally, the big winner of the year was Karen Farbridge. She showed that a community based political movement could build the excitement and enthusiasm to carry it to success. She has always had this approach to building and nurturing organizations, and I expect her to continue doing it from the mayor's office. This will give the city the focus and direction it needs to move forward. As we look forward, there are a few issues I would like to be brought to the front of people's minds. I hope that Guelph will now join the growing list of Canadian municipalities banning the use of herbicides for cosmetic purposes. The harm they do to our health far outweighs any benefits they bring. There is no compelling reason to continue using them on lawns, in school grounds, or in public parks. There are many more environmentally friendly ways to make these green spaces attractive. Another important issue is proportional representation. Now is a good time to talk this through, because we've just had an onslaught of elections. There won't be any more for a few years. This gives us the space to think clearly and rationally about the ways in which our federal and provincial governments are chosen. When we look at the large numbers of people who do not even bother voting, we have to realize that something is wrong. It could well be they realize that no matter who you vote for, the government always gets in. And that government seldom ever reflects a true image of the different interests and concerns within the general population. Rather than condemn the people who choose not to vote, we should develop a democratic structure that they can depend on, that will ensure their votes are meaningful. These are two big issues, and if we can take a good bite out of them this year, we'll have made a good start to the new millennium. Now, finally, we can all agree we are into it. go back to the table of contents
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