HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2017-02-16, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2017. PAGE 5.
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Jobs with a
Experts are predicting that in the next
couple of decades 40 per cent of current
jobs will be replaced by robotics or
artificial intelligence. So if you have kids, what
job can they count on as that seek careers? My
suggestion, if the Donald Trump influence
spreads, is to urge them to become lawyers.
The Donald must have grown up with the
Vince Lombardi quotation "Winning isn't
everything: it's the only thing!" piped
subliminally into his nursery. His ultimate put-
down of anyone who dares to disagree with
him is "he's/she's a loser."
Understandably, given this emphasis on
winning, the word "compromise" has been
deleted from his dictionary while
"confrontation" has been printed in large, bold
type. (Is there any other type than bold in
Trump language?).
Many people seem to admire Trump's win -
at -all -costs attitude so if they copy his
viewpoint there's going to be a lot more
confrontation and a lot less compromise in
everyday life. Hence the prosperous future for
lawyers.
There should be a startling increase in the
demand for divorce lawyers, for instance.
Those who have made a marriage work for a
long period of time, know that you have to
compromise. You can't win all the battles —
unless one of the partners is willing to accept
anything dished out to her. If, however, both
partners, inspired by Trump, decide they must
win every argument and have every decision
go their way, there won't be very many
marriages that last longer than a month.
If a marriage does endure long enough to
produce children, the win -at -all -cost parent is
future? Be a lawyer.
Keith
Roulston
From the
cluttered desk
in for an all-out war. Kids are notoriously self-
centred and stubborn about getting their way —
which is why so many people compare Trump
to a spoiled child. There's aways been a tug of
war between the kid who wants what he wants
and parents who knew the kid shouldn't get it.
This battle has been tipping towards the kids
in recent decades as prosperity has taken away
the easiest argument: "we can't afford it".
Meanwhile the two -income family parenting
model that brought about that prosperity has
left parents worn down to the point they give
in rather than fight. If, inspired by Trump, they
begin insisting on winning these battles again,
it's not going to be a pretty sight. Child -
welfare advocates are likely to insist lawyers
be hired to protect the interests of the
"vulnerable" children. Parents in turn will
need their own lawyers.
Neighbourhoods are likely to change if two
Trump -like neighbours move in side by side.
Having someone blow the snow off your
driveway? You'd better make sure none of it
lands on my property or it's "see you in
court"! Don't let the smoke from your
barbecue drift into my yard and pollute my
air! Your kid kicking the soccer ball better not
let it land on my lawn or you'll hear from my
lawyer!
Donald Trump did promise good, middle-
class jobs and if we all just act like him, we'll
get lots of jobs among not just lawyers, but
judges and all the staff it takes to keep the
court system working. I mean he's certainly
set the example himself, keeping several law
firms busy either defending him and his
companies from those who were suing him, or
using the courts as a sledgehammer to
bludgeon people who can't afford to match the
clout of his expensive legal team.
Trump's won so often that it must have been
a shock to him when U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 9th Circuit last week upheld the temporary
injunction against his ban of visitors from
seven Muslim countries. The President's
tweeted reply was, as it has been so often in
the past: "See you in court".
No doubt the Trump presidency will make
work for plenty of appeal court judges and
lawyers arguing cases all the way up to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
But even employing as many lawyers as he
does, Trump can only create so many jobs in
the legal business. To really have an effect, we
all need to be like Trump and decide to
become winners. Those of us who accepted
the wisdom of the Rolling Stones lyrics "You
can't always get what you want, but if you try
sometimes well you might find you get what
you need" will have to replace it with their
more Trump -like anthem "I Can't Get No
Satisfaction".
If we all adopt Trump's winning attitude and
never compromise, we'll not only create more
jobs for lawyers but for police officers,
emergency ward workers, prison guards and,
eventually, soldiers.
Rehashing the same old schtick
Years ago, when I first started writing
opinion columns for The Citizen, I
wrote about the practice of providing
gift baskets for medical professionals as a way
of saying thank you for staying in the
community.
I wasn't for the practice, in case you didn't
read or didn't remember the column, because I
chose to work and live in Huron County after I
had spent time training for a career at a school
away from home. I felt that, if there was
enough here to draw me in, that should be
enough for the medical professionals.
While the practice of giving away those gift
baskets still doesn't sit well with me, what
really bugged me was the fact that the
organization that is responsible for them, the
Wingham and Area Health Professionals
Recruiting Committee, is a primarily taxpayer -
funded group.
This group, which this year wants $33,000
from North Huron, $7,700 from Morris-
Turnberry, $941 from Ashfield-Colborne-
Wawanosh, $7,802 from South Bruce and
$13,076 from Huron -Kinloss to fund its
activities, is responsible for attracting medical
professionals to the area.
Don't get me wrong, it's a noble goal to try
and compete with bigger, better -equipped
hospitals drawing medical professionals away
from small-town medicine. However, I don't
think that welcome baskets and other gifts are
where an organization like that should be
focusing its attention.
That committee has two years' worth of
operating funds saved in a reserve fund which,
for those of you who don't read council
minutes cover to cover like we do here in the
editorial department, means there is
approximately $150,000 sitting and waiting
for a purpose. Most of the money the
committee brings in is tax dollars from its
member municipalities (as shown above). That
means that most of that $150,000 is your tax
dollars (if you are a property owner in one of
Denny
Scott
Ai Denny's Den
those municipalities).
When I first wrote about this, back before I
got married, started a family and maybe even
before I was a taxpayer, I wrote about how
frustrating it is that no fields other than
medicine are recognized in such a way.
Actually, I wrote about how I was still waiting
for my welcome basket.
Since then, you might say I've matured. You
would probably be wrong, but you might say
that.
Now, I'm not wondering where my basket of
trinkets purchased with taxpayer dollars is, I'm
wondering why we aren't addressing the
concerns that led to the troubles behind
recruiting health professionals to the area.
Why do we have a recruitment committee
focused on attending conferences and
spending $61,000 annually on a recruiter's
salary and benefits? No really, that's what the
committee pay for a professional recruiter
who, for at least the last year, has no official
tangible results.
Heck, even a professional recruiter brought
on to fill the director of emergency services
was only estimated to cost $21,000 according
to North Huron Chief Administrative Officer
Sharon Chambers.
Back to the issue though: why aren't we
focusing on the underlying problems instead
of spending money, to paraphrase a North
Huron councillor, putting makeup on a pig?
That $150,000 sitting in reserves could be
used to upgrade aspects of the hospital and
new medical campus being built in Wingham
which, in my mind, will do far more to attract
medical professionals than a recruiter ever
could. That kind of money could definitely
help with the approximately $11 million
combined hospital redevelopment project
being fundraised for by the Wingham and
District Hospital Foundation.
Think about it, would you rather do your job
in an outdated office because someone told
you how great a time you would have or would
you rather see an office that's with the times
because the money that's available is being
focused on keeping the facility up-to-date.
If you boil it down, finding a doctor
wouldn't be that much different from finding
someone to fill any other in -demand position.
To borrow a line from a famous film, "if you
build it, they will come."
We don't need gift baskets and over -paid
recruiters (and yeah, I'll go on record as saying
anyone who gets paid $61,500 for nine months
of work and produces nothing is overpaid)
when we could take these tax dollars, these
dollars that are from the people who make a
living in this community, and use them to
create a workplace and community deserving
of doctors, rather than trying to convince
people we have a workplace and community
deserving of doctors.
If my message of focusing on bettering the
community to attract doctors is lost on
councillors making these budget decisions, I
will present an alternative: tie off the purse -
strings until we see some results.
Councillor Trevor Seip, during North
Huron's recent discussion on this issue, hit the
nail on the head — there needs to be an
observable return on investment for the tens of
thousands of dollars given to this committee.
Let the group use that $150,000 for the next
two years and, if they still can't produce the
needed medical professionals for the area,
make the tough decision and demolish and
rebuild the group from the ground up with
better municipal oversight and a focus on
returns. It's what your ratepayers deserve.
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn's Sense
Marking territory
Just a few weeks ago I started a column
with the same sentence I'm about to write:
This is not the first time I have written
about this, nor do I feel it will be the last.
At the time, two weeks ago, I was writing
about the concept of a single -tier government
at the Huron County level, which had once
again reared its ugly (in my opinion) head.
Central Huron Council has voted to abolish
its ward system. Now, I should point out, this
vote is not yet final. The final vote on the
proposal will happen at council's first meeting
next month, set for Monday, March 6.
I have written about this idea before because
it's not new. It's not even new to Central
Huron. It was just a number of years ago that
they went from three wards down to two.
Huron East Council has also discussed this
several times, with a few councillors very keen
to abolish the ward system.
I have been consistent in my criticism of this
proposal. Whether it be Central Huron, Huron
East, Morris-Turnberry or my home of North
Huron, I feel it is a bad idea.
This insistence on stripping communities of
their identities is one I'll never understand.
These communities all have storied and proud
histories and to sweep them all into the same
dust bin is to do the same to that history.
Sure, there will be people and historical
records (such as The Citizen) that will remind
new residents of the good old days, but with
time those stories and identities will disappear.
That's not the worst of it. With residents
voting at -large we will have urban centre
residents running the show. Just like we have
in Ontario, the most populated areas have the
most people, and therefore the most
candidates, the most votes and the most say.
Think of the role Huron County plays in
Ontario. We have a population of about 60,000
compared to the 2.6 million people in
Toronto — Over 6 million if we expand to
include the GTA. Do Huron County residents
feel like major players in Ontario's show? You
would be hard-pressed to fmd a resident who
will answer "yes" to that question.
Residents of rural communities will see their
representation diluted. They will have fewer
candidates and fewer residents to vote for
those candidates and soon they will have fewer
decisions that take their concerns into account.
I agree that the Municipal Act has
complicated things. A loophole in the Act
states that as long as a person is a resident of
the municipality, he could run in any ward he
wants. This could lead to people representing
wards with which they are unfamiliar.
In hosting an all -candidates meeting for the
2014 election, I had to give a cross-border
candidate running in Blyth, directions to
Memorial Hall. Do Blyth residents want
someone who doesn't know where Memorial
Hall is, making decisions that will affect their
future? How connected was that person to the
community he wanted to represent?
In municipalities like Central Huron, Huron
East and North Huron, life is so diverse from
ward to ward. In Central Huron, for example,
there is farmland, rural properties, lakeshore
properties and an urban setting. All of those
need to be governed differently.
Wards are important. Elected representatives
need to know their community and the people
they serve. Lose the wards and you lose that
sense of community and you have people from
"away" governing you at an arm's length
which is something we so despise at the
provincial and federal levels. Don't do it at the
local level. If councillors make these decisions,
they have no one else to blame.