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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-06-01, Page 4Times-Advocate, June 1, 1978 Should leave fciuiiidei* Motorists proceeding along Highway 83 just east of Exeter this week were probably unaware of the tragedy that had taken place Friday morning when one young woman died and two were seriously injured when their car collided with a tree. Small fragments of the wreckage still remained, but were visible only to the most observant. The tangled branches of the tree were probably assumed by most to have been cut down or felled in a wind. In short, there was nothing to depict the terrifying scene which had been witnessed by those who assisted at the scene. It would be impossible to verbally describe the total wreckage, although pictures in this issue may give readers some indication of the violent tragedy. Dr. Charles Wallace, who as a county coroner has attended at many similar scenes, suggested that perhaps we act too quickly in removing the visi­ ble signs of highway carnage. His thought was that there may be some value in leaving the twisted wreckage for other motorists to view, and hopefully in so doing, to consider more seriously their own driving action. There is little doubt that many of the contributing factors in accidents would be reduced if motorists were periodically made shockingly aware of .the results, rather than quickly transferring that debris behind the fences in auto wrecking yards. The crash scenes would certainly be a blight on the roadsides, but that is perhaps not a price tag too great to place on something that could possibly reduce the agony which they depict. Nothing else seems to work, so perhaps it is worth more than just a passing thought. Think small Bureaucrats Bungle! already know what I'll get for Father's Day — the bills from Mother's Day." Look for the good Able people take pains to spare others humiliation, even when it is necessary to criticize their actions. It is foolish to scold. John Wanamaker confessed: “I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence.” The purpose of discipline in business, school or family life is to pre­ vent repetition of an offense. It should be constructive. Impatient tearing down is likely to breed distaste for necessary regulation. Criticism should begin with praise and honest appreciation of what the person does well, and then go on to point out how this other thing can be done better. This mode of criticising will appeal to the worker because it shows an honest desire to be helpful. It recognizes the truth that nobody ever learns anything except by making mis­ takes. The better a person is, the more mistakes he will make, because the more new things he will try. Learning to like people and to get along with them by looking for the good in them is a satisfying way of life. If we complain often about our associates or about the firm for which we work peo­ ple are likely to think the trouble lies with us. T • , , ~Listowel Banner Referees are blamed again Grab the horns Property tax reform, perhaps one of the most explosive subjects to hit government circles in some time, appears to be further away from reali­ ty now than it ever has. It is more than 11 years since the first talk of property tax reform was heard, and even though there is a crying need to overhaul the existing property tax system, it is clear that to make the move would bring screams of protest from many quarters in Ontario. Political dynamite is what property tax reform has become . . . and nobody, absolutely nobody wants to light the fuse. Property tax reform is a complex issue. It is tied to market value assess­ ment and it is related to the provincial grant system. It means a total shakeup in the system as Ontario citizens now know it . . . and the impact across the province would be tremendous. Just as one example, if all residen­ tial properties in Metro Toronto were taxed at 50 per cent of market value in 1976, the tax hike would be 12.5 per cent ... or $92 a year for the average single family home. That, compared to an average decrease elsewhere in Ontario of about $100 would clearly be political suicide. Small business, too, would suffer, especially in Metro Toronto. There is some evidence to suggest that taxes will more than double for many small retail merchants in Metro Toronto if the new tax system is instituted. Provincial politicians feel there is a danger, too, that small business throughout northern Ontario would be especially hard hit. The new taxation proposed for va­ cant land — 100 per cent of market value — is seen as deadly for in­ dividuals, small developers, and association and land-intensive small businesses. It is estimated that resort owners in areas like Muskoka fear they would be forced to close down. Car parks, which fall within the commer­ cial and industrial category, would also suffer adverse effects. Parking lots, in­ cluding shopping plaza lots, would face increases of over 60 per cent. Experts also believe that if proper­ ty tax reform is implemented at the same time as the province is in­ creasing the financial burden on municipalities and school boards, local governments will be hard-pressed for funds and, therefore, forced to raise mill rates or cut services. As a result, tax benefits or additional costs which result from the change to market value assessment would not be evident to the people of Ontario. Taxpayers would not know who to hold accountable for what. In the meantime, right here in Huron County, many inequities exist that could be corrected through proper­ ty tax reform. In the town of Goderich, there are homes valued at $80,000 pay­ ing taxes of $200 or less, while at the same time, new homes valued at $45,- 000 are stuck with tax bills approaching $700. It is definitely unfair. There is need for property tax reform and provincial politicians should get off their duffs and find a solution. But the real truth is that to change the system would be an ad­ ministrative nightmare resulting in chaos and bitter resentment from cor­ ner to corner in this province. Who will grab the bull by the horns in those con­ ditions? Goderich Signal-Star If it wasn’t so serious, some of the comments being made in regard to last Wednesday’s altercation on the Fleck picket line would be humorous. The manner in which some of the reports are being exaggerated, unfortunately, could provoke a situation where the results could be disastrous. The writer was one of the onlookers at the site, and while things happened so quickly it would be impossible for ■ anyone to see everything that went on, we just can’t believe our eyesight has failed to the point where it would be possible to have missed some of the in­ cidents which have been alleged. NDP leader Michael Cassidy probably strayed as far from the truth as anyone when he said in the Legislature this week that the police action was an “outrageous and com­ pletely unprovoked assault” and that they “struck women and men to the point of making them unconscious”. Such comments prompt the vision of scores of unconscious bodies of men and women strewn about the tarmac at Huron Park. It is also the type of com­ ment which would incite union sup­ porters to rally around their brothers and sisters and wage an all-out battle with the police, and that of course, is where the danger lies in such out­ rageous distortions of the facts. In reality, only one man was “laid low” by a blow from a night stick. If he was unconscious, it was certainly only for a very short time. Some others may have suffered bruises, but there was nothing akin to the type of picture which Mr. Cassidy paints. * * * This is not to suggest that the writer is attempting to exonerate the police action which took place in the alterca­ tion. They may have over-stepped the mark, but a debate on that point is ob­ viously one of pure conjecture. How much force does it take to move 100 picketers? Certainly, a simple verbal request to have the pickets clear the way for the company vehicles was not going to suf­ fice. Both the pickets and the police knew that! The situation required some physical action on the part of the police, although the extent of that physical action can only be judged on hindsight. * The United quested that the police be removed from the strike scene. That is a reasonable request, and one to which the rank and file members of the OPP would probably be only too happy to accede. However, the UAW no doubt also realize that in view of their picket line action, the police could not in clear conscience depart the scene without an assurance that the UAW would also call off their periodic mass demonstrations. While both the strikers and non­ strikers at Fleck have to be protected from each other, the police also have a very real responsibility to ensure the safety of the hundreds of other people who daily travel to other Huron Park establishments and who, in the past, have been subjected to intimidation and threats by the UAW pickets. It appears reasonable to suggest that the ^umber of police required is in direct relation to the numbers on the picket line, so the UAW can effectively establish the number of police required to handle the situation. Ontario Federation of Labor presi­ dent Cliff Pilkey is also quite correct in his contention that the Ontario tax­ payers should not have to foot the bill for the massive police build-up. However, the police are only there because the UAW are there, so if the costs are to be reduced that too can be an easy chore for the labor leaders by ending the mass picketing. It’s basically a “chicken and egg” situation, but obviously the first step must be taken by the UAW to defuse the matter. The destruction and in­ timidation that was perpetrated by the pickets in the early days of the strike when the police were not on hand gives clenr evidence that the OPP would be jeopardizing the safety of many inno­ cent victims of the strike if they were * * Auto Workers have re­ Sugar and Spice Dispensed by Smiley Got a job for my kid? WATER SAFETY Investigate unknown water before you dive in. Enjoy safe water sports the Red Cross Water Safety way. -’.'T .J - - Amalgamated 1924Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1801 imes -Advocate Sow* Hwwt, ***** MUArwt K * ***** U"*** Mhc» W7J SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A. CLASS ‘A' and ABC Published by J. W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY, PUBLISHER Editor — Bill Batten Assistant Editor — Ross Haugh Advertising Manager — Jim Beckett Composition Manager — Harry DeVries Business Manager — Dick Jongkind Phone 235-1331 (♦CNA SUBSC........ Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386 Paid in Advance Circulation September 30, 1975 5,409 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $11.00 Per Year; USA $22.00 Anybody got a job for my kid? She’s 27 years old, has three degrees, is three times as bright as her old man, can charm the birds right out of the trees when she feels like it, and is an outstan­ ding fund-raiser (from me). She plays the piano extremely well, the guitar rather rustily. She composes music, raucous rock or contemporary classical. She can cook up a storm when she’s at our place, although I’ve never had anything more substantial than a cup of weak tea and a burnt brownie at hers. She has an erratic but brilliant academic career, liberally sprinkled with A’s for essays and glowing tributes from professors. That’s main­ ly because she can write rings around me, and comprehend abstract theses in one-quarter the time I do. She is completely versed in all the modern psychological jargon of child­ raising, but despite that has two happy, healthy children. Despite the fact that she’s an ardent Women’s Libber, she’s still living with a male chauvinist hus­ band and gets along pretty well with a male chauvinist father, or at least what she thinks is one. She can type at a hell of a clip, self- taught. She has worked as a waitress, a bartender, an organist and a helper at a day-care centre. And finally, she’s a consumate actress. You should hear her conning her mother into taking the kids fora week. Now wouldn’t you think that with all these attributes, she could hack some kind of living out of our economic jungle? But, no. Her problem is that she is ready, willing and able to go out and conquer the world, but she’s walking right into Canada’s worst unemploy­ ment situation since the Great Depres­ sion. An added difficulty is that she is specially trained to be one of those pariahs of today’s society — a teacher. Being a newly graduated teacher today is like being an undertaker in some Utopia where nobody ever dies. Every occupation has its day in the sun, I guess. Fifteen years ago, it was the turn of the teacher. If your body was warm and you were still breathing, you were likely to be snatch­ ed off the streets or out of an office, and propped up in front of a classroom. With the post-war baby boom over and out of the schools, and the reluc­ tance of so many young people to have children, for whatever reasons, school enrolment has shrunk drastically, and will go on doing so for several years. The huge educational empires created during the boom years are shrinking, and attrition is fairly savage. Thousands of young teachers are unable to get jobs. Hundreds are losing their jobs because they are redundant. It’s nobody’s fault, particularly, just a matter of execrable management by our leaders. Nothing new in that. They’re the people who study all the charts, examine all the facts, and in­ variably come up with the wrong answers. Day in the sun for the teachers is over. Morale of those already in the profession is low, for various reasons. Morale of those trying to enter it is depressive. I reckon doctors got the next day in the sun. For years, along with the den­ tists, they carried thousands of dollars on their books, of people who could not to withdraw, without a corresponding withdrawal by the UAW. •k -k k Union leaders and some editorial writers claim that the police are not acting in a neutral way in the current situation. That’s basically because all the action is directed in one avenue and their efforts have been solely aimed at getting the non-strikers safely into the plant. K there were no demonstrators, or if the demonstrators didn’t take any un­ lawful action to prevent the bus or cars from getting to the Fleck plant, then obviously the police wouldn’t have to be there or at least could stand at a “neutral distance” merely to oversee the situation. But, when the demonstrators block the path of the vehicles, the police have no recourse other than to move into the picket line to clear the path. k k k The strike at Fleck is now almost three months old, yet appears to be no closer to settlement than it was when it began. The real issues appear to have been lost in the confrontation between police and demonstrators and there is every indication that many of those who arrive for picket duty are not there in the interests of the strikers, but rather to see what trouble will transpire between themselves and the police. There is no indication of any change in that regard, and the threat of a ma­ jor altercation continues to loom, par­ ticularly when the action taken by police is blown out of all proportion. To put last week’s situation into proper prospective, it would be fair to say it was much less violent and resulted in fewer injuries than most of the games in the recently completed Stanley Cup final between Montreal and Boston. And as in that, playoff, the “referees” were the ones who drew most of the blame for the problems and that is ludicrous ! Let’s forget about the snappy introductions and humorous quips this week. The fact is, this column is about something that should make every one of us hot un­ der the collar. Last September, the Ca­ nadian Federation of Inde­ pendent Business proposed an Employment Tax Credit (E.T.C.) to fight unemploy­ ment. The plan was impres­ sively simple: companies that increase their employment covld deduct part of the ex­ tra wage bill from income taxes. Emphasizing simplicity, the Federation proposed that employment be measured ac­ cording to the size of the firm’s Unemployment Insur­ ance Insurable Earnings (U.I.I.E.) package — the por­ tion of the firm’s total wage bill that is subject to U.I.C. deductions. If the firm’s U.I.I.E. total went up (after adjustment for inflation), the firm could deduct part of the increase from its taxes. Since U.I.I.E. earnings are already calculated by the firm, the program would have involved no additional bookkeeping. Well, the government got its hands on the proposal. And, sure enough, the whole business has been fouled up beyond belief — so badly, in fact, that the entire program will likely flop, First off, the government decided that all hiring must be handled through Canada Manpower offices (or union luring halls in the construc­ tion trades) — even though most independent business­ men would rather go out of business than deal with Otta­ wa’s historically inept labour exchange. Then the bureaucrats de­ cided that all eligible workers must have been unemployed for at least eight weeks - and registered with Canada Man­ power for that long. So work­ ers who have just lost their jobs or just started to hunt down their first job can’t re­ ly on E.T.C. support to help them. A good worker freshly unemployed may not be able to get another job for two months because he doesn’t qualify for a government sub­ sidy. Meanwhile, employers (who are supposed to be con­ vinced that E.T.C.s justify extra hiring) face additional restrictions on their freedom of choice in workers. Above all, Ottawa’s fuzzy thinkers require employers to swear that extra workers would not have been hired without the E.T.C. incentive. Employers who lie are sub­ ject to stiff penalties. But, as CFIB President John Bulloch fumed, “No one requires big businesses to swear that they wouldn’t buy extra machine­ ry if it weren’t for capital in­ vestment incentives. Why stack the deck against labour- intensive smaller firms?” By this point — and even before Ottawa demands the right to audit the company’s books at will — the indepen­ dent businessman has had enough of government’s “help”. The E.T.C. applica­ tions land in the wastebasket and few workers get jobs. Sadly, our bureaucrats regard the unemployed as playthings. Is there no salva­ tion from bureaucratic “as­ sistance”? “Think small" is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business© or would not pay their medical bills. Then came health insurance, ana suddenly young doctors were making a fantastic living, because they were paid for everything they did. Now they’ve had their day too. They work incredible hours, often in rotten little offices where they scarcely ever see the light of day. But their expenses have shot up, they pay a whacking in­ come tax. the government is always creating more paperwork, and sudden­ ly it’s become a grind. Who’s having his day in the sun in the sick 70s? I’d say the service people: garage mechanics, TV repairmen, plumbers, electricians. It certainly isn’t nurses or construction workers. So be it. But there must be something awfully wrong with a country when thousands of highly dedicated, highly educated young people simply cannot find employment in what they were trained for.' Maybe my son Hugh had some psy­ chic foresight. He took off for Paraguay, as a Ba-Hai pioneer, three years ago. and is living happily, hand to mouth, without having to go through the humiliating search for a way to put food in his mouth. Max Braithwaite, whose Why Shoot the Teacher has been made into a pop­ ular movie, perhaps should have stuck a “not” into his title. Shoot the poor young devils, and put them out of their misery. Or shoot a bunch of us old codgers with our stale ideas and antiquated teaching methods, and give the jobs to the young ones. Anybody got a job for my kid? 55 Years Ago The first political meeting to be held in Exeter, in connection with the coming provincial election was held in the Opera House on Thursday afternoon last by the U.F.O. Mr. W. D. San­ ders acted as chairman. The principle speaker of the afternoon was Hon. Manning Doherty, Minister of Agriculture and the first speaker was W. G. Medd, the U.F.O. candidate. The members of the Lebanon Forest Lodge, A.F. and A.M. attended divine worship in Caven Presbyterian Church in a body on Sunday evening last Rev. G. M. Chidley, Senior Deacon of theThames Road, occupied the pulpit and preached a most acceptable sermon. Mr. John Stacey of Hensail left on Monday last for Goderich where he has taken a position as junior with the Sterling Bank. Misses Lena and Verna Coates are taking in the Greyhound excursion from Goderich to Detroit. 30 Years Ago Very Worthy Brother W. W. Taman was presented with a 50 year jewel at Lebanon Forest Lodge No. 133 A.F. & A.M. Monday. Zion Lutheran congregation, Dashwood will celebrate the 75th an­ niversary of its organization and the 40th anniversary of the dedication of its pesent church building Sunday. Mr. Cliff White expects to have an Ice Cream Bar in operation early in July. Mr. & Mrs. J. A. Traquair have moved into their new home on John St, Mr. Jos. B. Creech pur­ chased the home of the late G. S. Howard. 20 Years Ago Rev. H. J. Sneil, who has been president of London Conference United Church during the past year, presented the staff of office and chairman’s gavel to Rev. Gordon W. Butt, Windsor. Pride of Huron Rebekah Lodge celebrated its 11th birthday in the form of a friendship night recently. Mass production poultry building on the Alcantuc farm west of Exeter is rapidly taking shape. The structure which will house 10,000 turkey broilers or 20,000 chicken broilers. Rev. Alex Rapson of Main Street United Church has accepted a call to Hyatt Ave. United Church, London. 15 Years Ago Area centres have con­ tributed some $1,500 toward the district cancer cam­ paign, Chairman Lloyd Hern announced this week. Blanshard council Tuesday night approved Usborne’s plans to build an all-township central school. The children are now at­ tending union schools in Kirkton and Woodham. Rev. James Phillip Gandon, incumbent of St. David’s Church, Windsor has been appointed rector of Trivitt Memorial Anglican Church,, Exeter and St. Paul’s Church, Hensail. Jack Coulter, Gravenhurst, has joined the T-A staff as its advertising representative. He was formerly with the Muskoka News. Edith Scott, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Archie Scott, Exeter has accepted a position with the Etobicoke Board of Education. UPYOURBLOCK (and back again. That’s as far as you need to walk to be a bit fitter than you are now). pdRricipatTionl^* Walk a block.Today.