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The Citizen, 1990-10-10, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1990. Editorial Wasting a resource While society in general may have turned much “greener’ ’ in the last year or so, this time of year too many people still seem to turn a valuable resource into an ecological problem. Every year when the leaves fall in local towns the debate begins about what should be done with them. Many people still cling to the old tried and true method of burning their leaves. In doing so, they not only add to the carbon dioxide threat to the environment in general but they also cause problems for neighbours who have breathing difficulties. Smoke blowing across streets can also be a traffic hazard. And the burning of leaves on the asphalt of streets weakens the streets and eventually adds to our taxes. Some people have moved at least as far as bagging their leaves and putting them out for municipal staff to pick up and cart off to landfill sites. In many cases the leaves will then be burned adding just as much to the pollution problem. But there is a solution that makes good sense that every one of us can undertake ourselves. Composting, whether in a designed composter or compost pile, or just in a pile in some unused corner of the yard can save the expense to the municipality of having to get rid of the leaves. It can save the problem of pollution from the burning of the leaves. And it can have the added benefit of producing a valuable fertilizer that can help in springs to come when added to vegetable or flower gardens. How many people out there burn or discard their leaves in fall, then go out in spring and pay good money for fertilizer? We all talk about how people must depend less on government and become more self reliant. Here’s an opportunity for everyone to put the theory into practice to the benefit of all. Composting is an idea that can help everybody. Senate not all bad One way or another the Canadian Senate has been getting royally dumped on by just about everyone in the past while. Even those who are against the imposition of the Goods and Services Tax by the federal Progressive Conservative Government have found it hard to support the idea that unelected Senators could hold up the legislation passed by an elected House of Commons. What with that, the packing of the house with Tory appointees to help guarantee the passage of the government’s GST legislation, the ground-breaking appointment of additional Senators to give the Conservatives a majority and the circus of last week when Liberals walked out and the Conservatives went on passing legislation just as if they were still there, the calls for reforming of the Senate have grown stronger than ever. The problem, of course, is that with the current state of affairs in Canada after the failure of the Meech Lake amendments, the chances of getting provinces to agree on amending the constitution to allow Senate reform are not very good. B ut the prospect of carrying on with a non-elected Senate need not be too hideous to contemplate if politicians used the Senate the way it should be used. For one thing, why is an elected Senate automatically a good thing. Because it’s responsive to the people? We currently have an elected Parliament where the government is supported by only 15 per cent of the Canadian public, a government that keeps pushing through legislation it feels is necessary even if the people feel is wrong. Our elected Parliament is hardly responsible to the people. As for the idea that only elected people should be making laws in the country how about the Canadian courts? Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, our Supreme Court Judges now have almost as much power to interpret laws as the politicians. Despite the best efforts of the government of David Peterson, the Sunday Shopping law was thrown out twice by the courts. The courts also continue to throw out abortion bills. Nobody has talked about the judges thwarting the will of the elected majority. Nobody is suggesting we should make our judges run for election. Nor is the idea of people gaining office by election a guarantee that we’ll get the best minds to govern our land. Everyone knows by now that it’s image that often determines who gets elected, not wisdom or sound policies. There are a lot of wonderful people out there who just couldn’t get elected because they don’t have the flash and polished speaking skills to win the day in political debate. It may also be hard for women and visible minorities like Native Canadians to win in an election though they deserve to be represented in our government. If the Senate was used to its proper potential it could serve as a aluable tool as an elected body. The problem is that successive governments have abused the upper chamber by appointing burned out political hacks. What we need is some non-partisan way to seek out truly deserving candidates who might otherwise not be able to serve their country in political office. There are so many good men and women out there who could make the Senate truly a chamber of sober second thought that it’s a shame we are wasting an opportunity. Ridges The Shorty ofjt Things haven’t changed for teens BY BONNIE GROPP The question of where sex educa­ tion should be taught has been an area of controversy over the years. However, despite this most parents are not opposed to their children receiving instruction in the schools in addition to the home. Principally, there has never been any question that the primary educators in this subject should be the parents, but what about the children who are afraid to discuss it, or the parents who are ignorant on some areas. You see in this day there are more topics involved in sex educa­ tion than where babies come from. AIDS, sexually transmitted di­ seases (STD's), teenage pregnancy and date rape are only a few of the serious problems that may be encountered by our youth of today. And despite the advancements made in education there are still many bright young people who are unknowledgeable on so many of these topics. I attended a group session the other night dealing with how parents can learn to talk to their kids about sex. During the course of the evening we watched a video and I was amazed to see that so little had really changed. I knew Huron County had missed the age of new morality, at least compared to other stories we heard on the dawning of a sexual age, but the modern, urban teens in this video had the same questions, the same concerns and the same insecurities as we did then. For the boys, having sex is still macho, for girls it’s bad. It’s still a locker room topic, a step up on the ladder of your peers. They are as confused by their emotions as we were. If it weren’t for the hair and the fashions these young people could have been in a 20-year-old production. Something else I found really interesting and a little disturbing, in our discussions that night is that during the elementary years, when the questions are asked out of curiousity or just to see how quickly mom’s cheeks get red, students are taught some sex education every year. Yet, when the questions are crucial, when the need to under­ stand is the greatest, the answers may not be as easy to come by. On the secondary level, students are required to obtain one Phys-Ed. credit during their tenure in high school. Lumped in with this is Health and part of the course will be sex education. However, for teens not athletically inclined or^ just not interested in taking Phyi < Ed. the amount of sex education they receive will be minimal. They may learn about birth control but never hear about STD’s. They may discuss the basics but never deal in the emotional realities. Perhaps it is time to begin to look at the subject of Health education in our schools as a subject that has Continued on page 20 The Citizen The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $19.00/yr. [$40.00 Foreign]. Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisment will be credited. 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