HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2007-03-01, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2007. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Premier Dalton McGuinty has not yet
dropped into every Chinese and Indian
restaurant in the province, but don’t be
surprised if you see him sitting at the next
table.
The Liberal premier is, so ardently, wooing
so-called ethnic voters, and particularly those
with origins in these two countries, his wife
may feel like suing them for alienation of
affection.
McGuinty’s latest step in the pursuit has
been the rare one of promoting a new MPP,
Michael Chan, who immigrated from Hong
Kong, to his cabinet even before he has sat in
the legislature.
Chan had won a by-election in the suburb of
Markham northeast of Toronto only two weeks
earlier and was named revenue minister.
The Chinese are Ontario’s fifth largest
ethnic group after those with origins in the
British Isles, France, Germany and Italy and
concentrated with others of Asian descent
particularly in suburbs in and around Toronto,
where homes are cheaper and many
neighbours have similar backgrounds and
values.
McGuinty was supported by many of them
in the 2003 election, but has lost votes in
downtown areas in by-elections since and
needs the newcomer-laden suburbs to win the
October election.
Some voters of Chinese origin will feel his
appointment of Chan recognizes them and
gives them a voice close to power they want to
keep.
The premier also is just back from a visit to
India and Pakistan, promoting trade but also
showing Ontario voters with origins in those
countries he, and three back-bench Liberals
from immigrant-packed ridings he took with
him, respect their former homelands.
McGuinty has generously kept Indian
immigrant Harinder Takhar in his cabinet,
despite a reprimand the integrity
commissioner gave him for failing to cut all
ties to his former business.
McGuinty also has made fairly large strides
in programs to help newcomers particularly
since he appointed a virtually fulltime
immigration minister, Mike Colle, a hard-
nosed former municipal politician attuned to
newcomers’ problems and winning votes.
The most publicized concern has been that
newcomers with qualifications from other
countries are not being accepted by bodies that
license and regulate professions here and
sometimes protect their own jobs as well as
professional standards and the public.
Colle has piloted through legislation
requiring the bodies to have licensing
procedures that are fair and open and provide
rulings quickly. Earlier governments had shied
from requiring this and it is too early to say if
the legislation will work.
But Colle has been unusually blunt. He said
he has had difficulty with some professional
accreditation bodies, which have “put up a
fight over the supposedly doubtful skills of
immigrants from certain regions.”
He noted also many private sector
employers are reluctant to hire immigrants,
because they fear they will not fit in with their
existing language and culture, and a lot of bias
has to be overcome.
The Liberals have secured an agreement
under which the federal government will
provide an extra $920 million over the next
five years to help newcomers settle, integrate
and obtain language training.
Other new services started or about to get
underway include providing newcomers with
paid internships in the provincial government
and its agencies to help them adjust to working
in their fields here.
Some foreign-trained professionals will be
offered loans toward the costs of seeking
admission to professions. Five centres will be
established to encourage newcomers to settle
outside Toronto, where the advantages include
more jobs.
Counsellors also will call on small and mid-
sized companies reluctant to hire immigrants
because they lack expertise to evaluate their
foreign education and job experience.
Not all premiers have been as welcoming to
newcomers. Progressive Conservative Mike
Harris said Ontario was “getting too many
from other countries coming here for a free
ride,” but still won many of their votes,
because they liked his tax cuts.
McGuinty will need to appeal also to others
to win the election, but he should win some
votes from newcomers with his chase – can
that be the premier coming through the door?
Leaving comfort behind
What do Canadians need? Sandra
Racco, a city councillor in
Vaughan, Ontario knows what we
need.
Another law. A law that makes it obligatory
for each and everyone of us, boy or girl, geezer
or toddler, to wear a helmet while riding a
toboggan.
Four words occur off the top of my head:
Give
me
a
break.
I would dismiss councillor Racco’s
suggestion as the desperate plea of a politician
in search of headlines on a slow news day if it
weren’t for the fact that she’s getting a lot of
support for her idea.
Other politicians are stroking their chins and
climbing aboard what looks like a no-brainer
vote-getting bandwagon. Doctors are being
solicited by reporters to opine on air that, yes,
by gum, toboggans do go fast and occasionally
run into stationary objects like trees and rocks.
Health Canada has even been nudged into
recommending that all children wear helmets
while sledding.
A doctor at the University of Alberta goes
one better. He told an enquiring Sun Media
reporter that head protection is advisable for
“anything faster than walking”.
Really, doctor? Does that include ballroom
dancing? Badminton? Swimming laps at the
community pool? How about sack races at the
Sunday school picnic?
I suppose you could argue that yes, if we
strapped our kids into helmets as soon as they
rolled out of bed in the morning, there would
be a measurable decline in head injuries to
minors, but where are we going with this? And
where will it end?
Why not just duct tape our kids in bubble
wrap and lock them in the attic? Then they’d
be really safe.
I don’t know if it’s fallout from 9/11or mere
media-induced hysteria, but there’s an
unnatural obsession with perceived danger out
there of late. Last week, I overheard a mother
berating her pre-schooler in a mall for making
eye-contact with a passer-by.
“What did I tell you, Johnnie! Don’t talk to
strangers! Stranger – danger!”
Not necessarily. A stranger might just be
someone you haven’t met yet. Like, say, the
Dalai Lama.
We’re cocooning our kids. We give them
video games and cell phones and iPods, all of
which insulate them from the real world and
keep them tethered close by.
Does any parent ever say “Run outside and
play” anymore? Probably not. Stranger –
danger.
We’re not doing the kids any favours. It is
possible to hide from life but there’s a price to
pay. For instance – who do you think
suffers more from asthma and
allergies – North American or Third World
children?
It’s our kids. Scientists have found that the
immune systems of North American kids are
‘unsophisticated’. In our sterile homes and
germ-free schools, they don’t get exposed to
enough microscopic ‘intruders’ to be able to
differentiate between real threats such as
germs, and benign foreign particles like dust
particles, pollen and cat hairs.
So when our kids’ squeaky-clean immune
systems detect any ‘suspicious invader’ they
immediately go on red alert, triggering a rush
of often-bogus allergy symptoms.
The noggins on toboggans controversy is
something like that. The worriers point out
that across Canada, seven kids have been
killed on toboggans in the past four years.
What they don’t mention is that that’s seven
fatalities out of several hundred million
toboggan rides other Canadian kids took
without incident.
They also don’t mention that three of those
children were hit by cars driving past the
bottom of the toboggan runs.
No helmet will save anyone from a ton and
a half of rolling metal and rubber.
So what are the odds of sustaining a brain
injury while tobogganing? Andrew Coyne, a
National Post columnist, crunched the
numbers for sledding/tobogganing mishaps in
Canada. He concluded that if you took eight
rides each winter not wearing a helmet the
odds are you could toboggan safely for the
next 125,000 years without mortally cracking
your skull.
Moral of the tale: put a helmet on your
tobogganing kid if it makes you feel better,
but acknowledge that the motivation is
your neurosis, not your child’s perceived
predicament – and let’s leave the govern-
ment out of the act. They’ve got enough to
screw up without getting into toboggan
legislation.
And remember: to keep oneself safe does
not mean to bury oneself.
I didn’t make that up. Seneca said it about
2,000 years ago.
Seneca wouldn’t know a toboggan from a
toga, but he knew something about common
sense.
Arthur
Black
Premier McGuinty chases newcomers
Recluse: A person given to or living in
seclusion or isolation, especially as
religious discipline.
Okay, so according to the Oxford Dictionary
I may not be there yet, but sometimes I feel as
if I’m getting pretty close. You see, it’s not just
that home is where my heart is. Body, mind and
soul have taken up solid residence as well.
I am somewhat surprised at the turn my life
has taken. I enjoyed being social. I felt
confined by the walls that surrounded me. But
more and more in recent years those same
walls have provided a safety net that I run to at
the end of each day, to tuck myself away from
outside anything.
Someone once said to me that it seems to
them I have found solace in my house. I
suppose that’s true. I have created a place that
allows me to escape from things that hurt me or
cause me discomfort.
The one thing that draws me out day after
day is work. Were it not for my job, I often
wonder if I would ever venture out for anything
other than to see my family and gather
necessities.
It is ironic, therefore, that I often think work
is part of the reason that I have a need for
comfort and privacy. At my job, I have
encountered some surprisingly unpleasant
people. They accuse, they use words to hack at
your self-esteem. They can be caustically
unkind over things of such inconsequence that
it borders on bizarre. I will never forget the day
I was accused of deliberately making a mistake
in someone’s name just so they would look like
a fool. Couldn’t help thinking that person
didn’t need my help with that.
Blessedly those like her are not legion. They
are the exception rather than the norm. And it
is the others who keep me coming out of my
home day after day. For every nasty person
who has been in my face or blasted me across
the telephone lines, there are dozens who are
inspiring, generous, forgiving. They restore
faith in humanity. They are the reason that
someone who could probably quite happily
never leave her home, finds a degree of
satisfaction in the job she does.
It has been my pleasure during work hours to
encounter some of the most amazing people.
They are fascinating, intelligent, spiritual,
humorous or talented. They, as so many people
do, humble me.
It has been working on the upcoming farm
issue that has me thinking again about all the
nice folks I have met over the years. So, now I
want to take this opportunity to acknowledge
the people who willingly share their stories and
homes with us so that we may provide
information to our readers on a variety of
subjects from agriculture and home interiors to
more personal topics like grief and illness. It’s
not easy to open one’s life to public scrutiny,
and it’s a special kind of person who realizes
that what they have to tell might be a benefit to
someone else.
I appreciate the folks who work with us co-
operatively, who don’t expect omnipotence,
who manage to not get bent out of shape over
errors and recognize there are nice ways to
make a point.
I also really want to thank the people who
bring a smile to other people’s days, who
remember that kindness is generally a much
more effective way of getting results than
bullying.
It is because I never know when or where I
might have the pleasure of your company that I
readily leave my comfort zone each morning.
Other Views Noggins on toboggans controversy
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
When you teach your son, you teach your
son’s son.
– The Talmud
Final Thought