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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1978-06-08, Page 4Page 4 Times-Advocate, June 8, 1978 Drastic increase While this newspaper cheers any effort to balance the budget for recrea­ tion purposes, any move in that direc­ tion must be weighed most carefully if it threatens to jeopardize worthwhile programs. The local swimming instruction is certainly one of the most worthwhile and beneficial programs offered to the children in this area and the changes being made this season are open to question. By reducing the instructional period from three to two weeks, -the youngsters are having their course cut by almost 30 percent, plus facing an in­ crease of 50 cents over last year. That would appear to be a rather drastic reduction, and while it may reduce some of the deficit at the pool, it could also reduce the benefits of the program, or force more youngsters to take a second session in order to pass a particular skill level. The corresponding cost factor that imposes on parents may be more than many will be willing (or able) to pay. A 30 percent change in one year just doesn’t make sense, particularly for a program where the revenue fac­ tor must be considered secondary to the benefits it provides for* the com­ munity as a whole. It’s about time It’s about time. After about six years of public pressure to do so the Ontario Government has introduced legislation to increase the drinking age from 18 to 19 years, thus getting liquor out of the high schools, so-to-speak, Were this all it had done, it would be applauded by the people of this province who have watched statistics regarding the accident rate for young drivers climb steadily ever since the drinking age was lowered to 18 years from 21 years seven years ago. As has been noted on this page many times, the problem isn’t so much the fact that 18-year-olds are drinking, but that many younger people — down to 15 and 16 years, are doing likewise. And before we go on to praise the Ontario government for its liquor legislation in general, we would like to recall the fact that seven years ago there was no great hue and cry to decrease the drinking age. That action was taken by the Tory government to try to rally the support of the youth before an election; so it is only fitting that the same party should correct what can only be considered an error. However, we are even more im­ pressed with the Davis government’s move to clamp down on the drinking driver, regardless of age. The legislation to be introduced in the legislature this fall will, among other things: replace the current three- month licence suspension for drivers convicted of drunk driving three times with a three-year licence suspension and allow police to suspend for 24 hours the licence of a driver who is not im­ paired, but has been drinking. The latter legislation now exists in both Alberta and British Columbia where it is reported to have the desirous effect — namely to get drink­ ing drivers off the road. There has already been criticism from some quarters regarding a further restric­ tion of individual rights. We’re all for individual freedom but anyone who gets behind the wheel with their senses blunted by the use of alcohol has in­ dicated they lack the maturity to han­ dle the responsibility of driving and deserves to be taken off the road until they’ve sobered up. It will be interesting to see what court judges will do with another piece of the proposed legislation. The max­ imum fine for drinking under age, or serving alcoholic beverages to minors has been increased from $2,000 to $10,- 000. It would only take a couple of $5,- 000 to $10,000 fines to alert bar owners across the province that the govern­ ment means business. Listowel Banner “What a tough day I had at school today — the batteries in my calculator went dead and I had to think all afternoon!” BATT’N AROUND......... with the editor An interesting program The readers write Conduct health survey Dear Editor: I am enclosing a copy of a letter which I received from National Health and Welfare which may be of interest to your subscribers. Yours sincerely, R.E. McKinley, M.P. Huron-Middlesex Mr. R.E. McKinley, M.P., House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario. KIA 0A6 Dear Mr. McKinley: The Canada Health Survey, which has been developed by my depart­ ment and Statistics Canada, will begin operations in your constituency on June 12. ' As you may know, the pur­ pose of the Canada Health Survey is to meet demands for better information on the health of Canadians. This in- formation will cover matters such as functional ability, use of health facilities and various per­ sonal characteristics affec­ ting health. The data collected through the survey will be invaluable for plan­ ning and assessing programs in the health field. Approximately 12,000 households across Canada, or 38,000 people, will be ask­ ed to participate in the sur­ vey every year. Participants will be asked to answer questions on their health status, to fill out a question­ naire on aspects of their lifestyle and to undergo cer­ tain physical measurements which will be taken by a registered nurse. The measurements con­ sist of height, weight, skin­ fold and blood pressure. Some participants will also be asked to perform a physical fitness test and to give blood sample. Of course, all the informa­ tion obtained will be held in strictest confidence and will only be used for statistical purposes. Each respondent is free to choose whether or not to participate in the sur­ vey. I hope the information contained in this letter will be useful to you, should any of your constituents have any questions. Yours truly, Monique Begin Minister of National Health and Welfare # # HX Sir: To answer any questions which might arise regarding the summer skating program (as advertised elsewhere in this newspaper) for Brad Loosley’s Summer Skating School in the South Huron Recreation Centre, Exeter, may I make the following points please: 1. The prime reason for this School is to bring summer skating to Exeter and surrounding area during the month of August. 2. This School is open to any skater who is willing to comply with the rules and regulations of the School. It does not single out winter skating club members. 3. All aspects of figure skating will be taught from beginners up, plus group stroking classes and there will be qualified Professionals on hand to teach and supervise at all times. 4. Canadian Figure Skating Tests will be held at the end of the School, Satur­ day, August 26th, 1978 and a “Pop” Concert will be given, free of charge, on’ August 19th, 1978 to allow the skaters to perform before all interested members of the community and surrounding area. 5. This School is operated privately and is not sub­ sidized by any individuals or groups other than by the skaters fees. It is the hope of this School to offer a summer program on an annual basis for all who wish to skate and to round out the programs already operating in the new South Huron Recreation Centre in Exeter. Thank you. Brad Loosley, School Director. Readers may have noticed an article last week about a new program being undertaken in London, known as the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Pro­ ject. It’s a project designed to break down dangerous emotional barriers in both victims and perpetrators of crimes such as break and entry, theft, mis­ chief, and wilful damage. The program is funded by the secretary of state and is operated by Greg Lawrence and Janet Whittington. The writer had more than a passing interest in the project, because we happened to be involved in the first case handled in London. Several weeks ago, while attending a show in London, the family van mysteriously ran low on gas. A couple of days later, we were notified by the London police that a 17-year-old had been apprehended after he had been seen siphoning the gas from our vehi­ cle. That was the last we heard about the incident until we received a telephone call a couple of weeks ago from a Lon­ don probation officer, indicating that the young offender wanted to come up and apologize for his action and make restitution for the gas. He was accompanied by Miss Whit­ tington, who helped direct the discus­ sion in a face-to-face meeting between the victim and the offender. While the brief encounter was hardly ample time to judge the young man’s character, it did mellow our previous attitude that we had been ripped off by some young punk. Miss Whittington said that her investigation had in­ dicated that he had acted completely out of character and it was a shock to his parents and a couple of teachers whom she had interviewed regarding the youth. The youth’s story was that he had been attending the same theatre, and realizing he didn’t have enough gas to get home, nor enough money to purchase any, decided to help himself to our supply. He apologized for his misdemeanor and handed over a $10 bill in compensa­ tion for the gas. In view of the fact the exact amount of gas stolen was an es­ timate only, we handed him back $2 and told him to stick it away in his wallet to have on hand to buy gas the next time he found himself running short. With that, the interview was conclud­ ed. * * * The article outlining the project in the Free Press indicated that the youth appeared in court a couple of days after our meeting and was given an ab­ solute discharge. The presiding judge mentioned the fact that the gas had been replaced and that apologies had been made. In effect, the project had paid dividends in its initial test. The victim had been compensated and the offender escaped without a criminal record. But perhaps even more important, was the fact the young offender came to realize he didn’t steal from a vehi­ cle, but rather from a person. That per­ son was given the opportunity to advise the young man that his act had created some problems. A similar project has been underway in Kitchener for some time, where it was the brainchild of Mark Yantzi. He notes that victims of crimes such as break and enter get really paranoid. They think the world is full of rapists and murderers who can break into their houses easily. Or they find out a 17-year-old did the job and take it out on every 17-year-old in the area. Yantzi said once a home owner has met the person who broke into his house, he can focus his anger on the in­ dividual and overcome it. He also realizes the kid wasn’t out to murder and pillage, he simply found an unlock­ ed door. In some cases, the victims have offered jobs to the offenders to help pay for damage or loss. It’s a project that has considerable merit, and we suspect that the “punishment” of facing a victim may do more to deter further criminal acts than any monetary punishment the court may levy. At any rate it was an interesting ex­ periment in which to be involved, although we trust our readers will not be subjected to similar deeds just to gain the experience. * * * Thanks to inflation, you’re now worth five and a half times more than you were just a few years ago. Literal­ ly, that is. The calcium, magnesium, iron and other chemicals in your body were worth 98 cents in the early part of this decade. Now they’re worth $5.60 accor­ ding to Harry Monsen, professor of anatomy at Illinois College of Medicine. “When people were told they were worth only 98 cents they were shocked,” Mr. Monsen said. “They feel better knowing they are now worth $5.60.” Given the fact that estimate is from an American and it is generally con­ ceded that everything is higher in Canada, it could be assumed that Canadians are worth even more. In fact, we’re probably the most valuable people in the world! However, before that starts to go to your head, just remember that beef is worth about 72 cents a pound on the hoof. Makes you realize that cannibals really are a lot smarter than the rest of us when it comes to seeking out a cheap meal. Advocate Established 1 881 Amalgamated 1924 imes - Advocate Time* Established 1873 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 Sugar and Spice Dispensed by Smiley People blaming people Some of the most refreshing thoughts about education I’ve read in many a day are contained in a recent article in the Toronto Star by W. E. Franke, prin­ cipal of a new private senior high school in Hogtown. As he points out, our educational system today consists of people blam­ ing other people for the slipping stan­ dards of education. The universities point the dirty finger at the high schools, the high schools at the elemen­ tary schools, the elementary schools at the parents. Only the poor bewildered parents don’t have anyone to point at. All they know is that their educational tax bill goes up every year and their kids don’t seem to be learnin’ nuthin, Mr. Franke would launch a holy war against the present sludgy system, “a war that must be fought for our in­ tellectual, spiritual, and economic sur­ vival.” He would make French, English, and mathematics compulsory subjects. Grammar would be an integral part of any language course. The compulsory French would not be for the political reasons now attributed to its study but because we cannot be called “educated” without the knowledge of a foreign language. How right he is. I can well remember the days when high schools offered Latin, French, German, Spanish. To­ day, Latin has almost disappeared, French and German are hanging on by their toenails, and it is a very rare school that offers Spanish. And what does that say about our teachers? I’d be greatly surprised if more than 10 percent of the teachers in Canada know more than one language. The man wants a powerful stimula­ tion in the arts from the federal government. He says: “the soul is un­ dernourished in our schools, and the emotions are not addressed.” He’s not far off. For too many years there has been the attitude that only a talented few have an ability for the arts. Any good teacher of drama, music, dance, and fine arts knows this is a lot of hogwash. There can be a spark of artistic fire in the most unlikely lump of a kid. He’d push this further and have every province establish schools for the artistic elite, as they do now for slow learners, The system has swung to the extent that it is now the brightest and best who are neglected, who whither on the vine in frustration and boredom. Mr. Franke would like to see a return from mediocrity, which is now the standard, back to the excellence which it once was. But his article is not all just pie in the sky, an airy-fairy repetition of what most progressive educators have been saying. He has some practical suggestions. One of them is to cut the provincial governing apparatus in half, As he points out, a move of the government, in Ontario at least, “merely shifted its top civil servants into the newly- created positions of directors and superintendents. Their enormous salaries now come out of the pocket of the local home-owners;” That argu­ ment has a hole in it, but he’s on the right track. He claims that “a 75 percent reduc­ tion in administrative jobs would not make the slightest dent in the ‘quality’ of education.!’ And he adds that the wall-to-wall, air-conditioned palaces of these administrators should be rented out to somebody who can afford them. Right on, Franke,baby. He suggests that boards of education are little more than a nuisance, that they have grown into small empires, that “schools should be run by schools, not by a bombastic outside apparatus.” I’ll buy that. There’s so much paperwork involved that teachers will often give up on a good and valid pro­ ject rather than wade through it. He thinks teachers and principals should be carefully examined before they are hired, and should be ruthlessly fired when they don’t do an excellent job. Fair enough. Industry does it. Most teachers and principals give it their best shot, but they might give a little more if they were less secure. Mr. Franke would eliminate faculties of education. He says the un­ iversities should be the judges of those who have mastered their subject. I don’t agree there. Universities are far too impersonal to know a brilliant academic who would make a lousy teacher, from a less-brilliant type who would make a fine one. But he has a good idea for training teachers. After doing away with teachers’ colleges, he would select young teachers from among the best Unemployment has al­ ways been a dirty word. Late­ ly, though, it’s showing signs of becoming something even worse: a boring word. There’s nothing like 12 months’ of daily newspaper headlines to make most of us lose inter­ est in an issue. ' Actually, unemployment has not been treated fairly, We have, without exception, ignored the desirable effects of unemployment. For in­ stance, unemployment has created many new jobs in Ot­ tawa where bureaucrats must tabulate the unemployment rate and publish booklets about government programs which purport to fight the menace. Unemployment creates work for Canada Man­ power personnel. And it cre­ ates work for newspaper re­ porters. If we didn’t have un­ employment, we conceivably could have more people out of work. If you think that’s ridicu­ lous reasoning, you haven’t encountered the most recent proposition from organized labour. More and more un­ ions have studied the employ­ ment problem and reached the same conclusion: they will fight the shortage of jobs by reducing the work week for those individuals fortu­ nate enough to be holding down jobs. So far, so good. In fact, the willingness of workers to spread the discomfort equal­ ly over their ranks would ap­ pear to conform to the high­ est principles of unionism. But all is not as it appears. To wit: tl\e union propo­ sal is not exactly to spread out the available work over more workers. Rather, the union sees every worker, put­ ting in fewer hours for the same gross pay! Or, to put it another way, the employer is expected to pay a whole lot more for workers. That isn’t the best way to cure unemployment. The thinkers who dreamed up this scheme apparently over­ looked the one fundamental rule of economics: when the price of something goes up, the demand for that thing goes down. In other words, if employers are expected to pay their workers higher hourly wages, they will em­ ploy even fewer workers. Putting it all together, then, the union proposal would lead to more unem­ ployment rather than help­ ingout the unfortunates who are still looking for jobs. But, then again, organized labour has shown a specta­ cular lack of understanding of existing economic condi­ tions. All across Canada at this very instant, for example, teachers are conducting strikes or the more insidious “work to rule” campaigns, blithely ignoring the fact that the most pressing issue in education today is how to get rid of the surplus staff. The inside Post Office work­ ers have demanded fringe benefits totalling slightly more than $1 billion on their next contract! And on and on. .. Unemployment is a nasty business. Unfortunately, it appears that certain social groups are exploiting the is­ sue and unemployment’s vic­ tims. It’s time to play fair with unemployment. “Think small" is an editorial message from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business© Mown memory lane J! 55 Years Ago Mr. F. W. Gladman of the firm Gladman and Stanbury has been appointed Deputy Police Magistrate of the City of London and Magistrate of the county of Middlesex. On Friday afternoon of last week, the Liberals held a meeting in the Exeter Opera House. Addresses were given by the candidate D.F. McGregor. Dr. Rogers, of Ingersoll, and Mr. Thomas McMillan. On Monday afternoon the conservatives held a meeting in the Exeter Opera House. Addresses were delivered by the candidate Mr. Trewartha and Hon. George Henry, former Minister of Agriculture. Mr. Stuart Stanbury is attending the Gillwell Camp for Scoutmasters near Ot­ tawa. Stuart was awarded a scholarship of two weeks in this leadership camp. 30 Years Ago The Exeter Citizens Band has been re-organized and Mr. Ted Walper re-engaged as leader. To commemorate the first anniversary of the local sorority, a number of the members motored to Lon­ don for an evening’s enter­ tainment. Mr. Cliff WhiteJhasjpurchas- ed a machine for the manufacture of ice cream. He expects to have his ice cream bar in operation by July 1. The Exeter Rutabaga Company recently purchas­ ed a hangar at the Jarvis airport and is now having it dismantled to move to Ex­ eter. 20 Years Ago A five or six-room addi­ tion to SHDHS will be re­ quired within the next two years it was revealed at the Board meeting Tuesday. Estimates prepared by Prin­ cipal H.L. Sturgis revealed enrolment is likelv to exceed 700 by 1960. In addition to marking the completion of a $30,000 renovation program, the grand opening of Rether’s Restaurant this week celebrates the 12th anniver­ sary of the firm. McGillivray voters by a majority of 83 indicated they approved construction of a central school to replace the dilapidated buildings in the township. 15 Years Ago James A. Paterson, former municipal clerk of Hensall for 33 years and secretary-treasurer of a number of village organizations died Friday in South Huron Hospital. New six-foot power­ groove lights, erected by the PUC on Main St. south were put into operation Tuesday night making that section the “bright spot” of the town. Libet Gravlev, daughter of Erik Gravlev. and a graduate of the special com­ mercial class at SHDHS has found employment with the head office of Kongskilde Ltd. in Denmark. Hensall WI members recently enjoyed a three-day visit to Ottawa where they toured the parliament buildings, Royal Mint, Rideau Canal and other places of national interest. university graduates, put them in a school on nominal pay ii3 ?!ar’ w to half a teaching load. This would be an ex­ cellent training for the aspiring teacher, wouldn’t cost a for­ tune, and would provide jobs. He feels the same about training students for specific in­ dustrial jobs. He thinks industry should train its own people as they do m Europe. Again, I must agree. A first-rate ap­ prenticeship system would give Canada the large pool of skilled workers we don’t have now, one of the factors that keeps us in the role of hewers of wood and drawers of water. He d like to make it a privilege to go to school, not a duty. He doesn t say what he d do with all the thousands who don’t want to go. t JS^!^~-??’t.toe only one crying in the wilderness for an improvement in our sludgy, apathetic, bureaucratic educational system. But he says it trenchantly, and I hope he goes on yelling. J 1