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The Citizen, 1991-06-19, Page 5Arthur Black Justice is a joking matter And it came to pass that on one fine morning the Pope and a lawyer arrived at the gates of heaven at the same lime. St. Peter himself turned the gate keys over to an attendant angel and escorted the two new arrivals to their quarters. The Pope was given a spartan cubicle with a narrow col, a plywood desk, a wooden chair and a Bible. The lawyer was led to a sumptuous eight­ room penthouse with a walk-in liquor cabinet, wide-screen satellite TV and a huge master bedroom, complete with waterbed and hot tub. "There must be some mistake" said the lawyer. "Surely the Pope should have this room." "Oh no," said St. Peter. "We have dozens of Popes in heaven, but you’re our very first attorney." Lawyer jokes. I thought they were a passing fad a couple of years ago, but they just keep multiplying. And getting meaner. You heard about the cannibal who goes to the meat market? "How about some nice fresh politician?" the butcher says. "It's on special at $2 a pound." "Nope, it repeats on me" says the cannibal. Then he points at another tray. "What's that The curse of poverty BY RAYMOND CANON The arrival of a full blown recession in Canada, together with constant media coverage of food banks, personal bankruptcies and the like at the same time as we arc constantly being reminded of famine in other countries brings up the question of what we consider poverty to be and, what is more important, what can we do to alleviate it. Tacked on to this is the question whether we should be considering helping other countries al all when one-fifth of our population is al or below the poverty level. If any newspaper wanted to give me three or four pages, 1 might be able to gel a good start on the subject. Putting something like poverty into an article size, the likes of which 1 have been doing, is an extremely difficult task but one that needs to be tried anyway. The sad fact is, when all is said and done, that the causes and cures of poverty arc varied and complex. One major cause is the inability of our distribution system to do its job. It is all very well to ship large quantities of grain to places such as Sudan or Ethiopia but, unless it gels distributed evenly when it gets there, little more than a temporary dent will be made in the poverty trap. Time and lime again our distribution system has let us down. In those two places you find another example of causes. Given the current political situation, an efficient distribution system may not be allowed to work. There is some brand of civil war going on in both countries and it is next to impossible to get the authorities to permit the relief agencies to do their work. Some of my older readers will recall all the pleas which were made to help the Biafrans in Nigeria but the govemm ‘nt in power was not about to allow meres flights to enter the area Those that stuff?" Breaded doctor" says the butcher. "For you, just $3.50." I don't want to spend loo much" says the cannibal. "You got any fresh lawyer?" "Yes" says the butcher, "but it'll run you $12 a pound.” "Twelve dollars! Thai's outrageous! Why do you charge so much?" The butcher mutters "Mister, you ever tried to clean a lawyer?" You know there's been some serious image tarnishing when lawyers play second fiddle to politicians. Of course that's part of the problem — so many lawyers wind up becoming politicos. Brian Mulroney is a former lawyer. So is Michael Wilson and Jean Chretien. John Turner, Pierre Trudeau, Mike Pearson, John Dicfcnbakcr — it's hard to find a prime minister who didn't hone his insincere smile at the front of a courtroom. Okay, Joe Clark was never a lawyer -- but then he wasn't much of a prime minister cither. But it's not just the political connection that makes us love to loathe lawyers. Il's the hogs-al-thc-trough perception too. In Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, Sherman McCoy is a man who goes from being a millionaire King of Wall Street to a penniless murder suspect. At the end of the book, he has one piece of advice to offer the world. "Never" he says, "fall afoul of the justice system." He was referring to the American system did get through had to fly at night and land at a primitively lit airstrip. Most relief operations are little more than band-aid operations. They succeed only at best in alleviating some of the symptoms; they do not provide a cure. What we have to do is to get the affected people out of the so- called poverty trap. Throwing large sums of money in the general direction of the poverty docs not do the trick; Canadians should have realized this by now since this comment is as valid here as it is in places such as Africa. The Sudanese, Ethiopians and the like have to be taught effective farming methods and then allowed to practise them. Il isn't too many years ago that I did a study of Sudan and found it to be one of the bread-baskets of the whole area. Under these circumstances, why should poverty be part of the Sudanese lives? But poverty is a problem and will continue to be until these methods can be implemented. Let's lake another example which is applicable just as much in Canada as it is elsewhere. Poor people are frequently that Course offered to help develop more leaders Leadership in Action (L.I.A.) is a dynamic, hands-on conference for active members or rural organizations. This five-day program is being held from September 11 - 15 al Bark Lake Leadership Centre al Irondale, northeast of Lindsay. "...with more work to do than ever, but fewer volunteers and less money to do it w ith, the ideas and skills I'll be going home with w ill be just what we need...." ... Imagine sitting in a conference room built on rock overlooking a scenic, peaceful lake .... "... meet super people from various producer groups ...." These are just some of the comments of past participants which say that Leadership in Action! has something to offer to many different people. It is open to members of but he could have been talking about our country. Justice is a near-invisible commodity up here as well. Any Canadian citizen luckless enough to wind up in the dock of a Canadian court is probably poised on the brink of one of the most miserable and disheartening experiences of his or her life. And what really makes it stick in our craw is knowing that no matter how much we bleed, the lawyers never lose. Personally, that is. They may lose the argument, the client, the whole case, but their fee comes off the lop. Edward "Fast Eddie" Greenspan demanded a million bucks up front to defend accused murder Helmut Buxbaum. Eddie got his million. Helmut got the slammer. Donald Marshall served 11 years for a murder he didn't commit. The lawyers who got him off charged $588,000. Donald Marshall, the wronged parly, received a grand total of $270,000 - before legal fees. Nothing wrong with any of that of course. All perfectly legal. But boy, it bums those of us who don't have our names on a shingle. I see that China has a chronic shortage of lawyers. The Chinese government estimates it needs 500,000 new lawyers to handle court backlogs. External Affairs, are you reading this? I think I sec the beginning of a beautiful Sino- Canadian Free Trade Agreement. way, and will remain as long as they continue to think poor. What I mean by that is that a person in the poverty trap will tend to repeat practices that do nothing to get the person out of the trap; instead that person will reinforce the poverty. To make matters worse, such practices seem to be passed down from generation to generation. In order to move to a more prosperous level, you have to think and practise prosperity. If such people come to depend on handouts, you can be sure that most of them will do anything to make sure that such handouts continue. To bring it closer to home, many of us arc hooked on credit cards and find it all but impossible to get off them. Talk about withdrawal symptoms! Just think what it is like in other countries where people arc much more wedded to welfare. What we have to do is make sure that any welfare program is matched by one that will get the people off welfare. If we do not do that, 50 years from now we will still be shipping grain to the 2041 version of the Sudan and food banks will continue to dot our landscape in southwestern Ontario. rural organizations who are enthusiastic and willing to learn new techniques of leadership. Sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF), Leadership in Action! is in its third year of operation, helping to build strong leadershnp in the rural community. The pnee is nght al SKX), which includes meals, facilities, return bus transportation and lots of resources to lake home. Although there is no age restriction, L I A is recommended for those who are 'young ai heart'! Anyone interested in being part of Leadership in Action! '91 should contact the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food office at 482-3428 or 1-800-265-5170 for more information, or write to: Leadership in Action! Box 1030, Guelph, Ont. N 1 H 6N 1. / THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19,1991. PAGE 5. Letter from the editor Dividing to conquer? By Keith Roulston In the next few months Canadians can expect to be deluged with another round of proposals on constitutional reform in an attempt to try to keep the country from breaking apart. What we have to guard against, however, is reformers who would in effect leave the country split in a dozen pieces in the name of keeping it together. It seems to be accepted wisdom these days on the part of politicians and political commentators, that a new, decentralized Canada is necessary to fulfill the wishes of the various parts of the country. But if they give too much power to provinces or regions, is there really anything of Canada left? And just who is asking for this decentralized power anyway? People in Quebec or western Canada may say they want less power for the federal government but if you get right down to individual programs and who they think should administer them, how many would really want provincial control? In fact, might some go in the other direction? I listened on the radio the other day to a discussion about education and one of the commentators complained that what we really need is a national standard of education. I've met a lot of people over the years who have felt the same thing. But education has always been a provincial responsibility and an area of jurisdiction jealously guarded by the premiers of each province. Just let the feds seem to be sticking a toe into their area and they'll scream like heck. Yet at the same time as we're looking at decentralizing power, we're also kx>king al a more competitive global economy. In an age when information and people's ability to work with that information is becoming increasingly important for world competition, Canada is left with 10 provinces each with their own education systems, each with varying abilities to finance a more modem school system. How can we fight an international battle in the world marketplace if we have to spend precious years trying to gel the provinces to act together on an education strategy for the new age. And what hope have we got, for instance, of gelling the socialist government in Ontario to agree to the same priorities as the Tory government in Alberta. It's all very well to talk about the flexibility of each province being able to set its own agenda but if the international marketplace is setting the rules, the ability of Manitoba or New Brunswick to set up its own education system isn't going to help the country compete. « We need to ask loo, who really wants the decentralization, the people, or the provincial politicians? If the people want the country divided into 10 little kingdoms it might be one thing even if it is self- defeating. But one wonders sometimes if it's really only provincial politicians who want to decentralize and create more power for themselves. Their victory would be hollow, however, if they so weaken Canada that there isn't really a Canada left. Ten ragged little countries masquerading as a country through loose economic lies won't stand much of a chance surviving in the vicious international competition of the 1990's. Canadians have to guard against those who would, in the name of unity, weaken the country irreparably.