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The Citizen, 1991-09-04, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4 1991. Editorials A failure to communicate For a democracy to work, an educated population is a necessity. The job of educating that population goes, in the early years, to the schools but for the biggest part of our lives depends on the media: the newspapers and magazines, radio and television. When those educators don’t do a good job, how can the public know enough to make wise decisions. Take the point of the current postal strike. Ask nine out of 10 Canadians and they'll say the greedy postal workers are to blame. Ask them how much a postal worker makes and they'll say "too much". Ask exactly how much too much is and very few could tell you what a postal worker really makes. Issues of the strike? Probably even fewer people could tell you except that it's all about making those fat cat postal workers even fatter. Job security? Heck, they've got too much security already. There have been plenty of emotion-filed pictures of weary senior citizens lined up waiting for pension cheques at special mail pick-up points but no hard facts about what the workers' demands are versus what the management wants. There are stories about businesses facing bankruptcy because they can't get payments in (and it is a big problem for many businesses including this newspaper) but very little information on the overall game plan behind Canada Post's strategy. There has been little real information on the vast reorganization that has been going on in Canada Post and how it is effecting communities and workers. If Canada Post can be as arrogant as it has been in closing post offices, for instance, mightn't it not be just as unreasonable in its employee relations? The difficulty with the lack of information is that it can lead public opinion, and thereby government action, in a misinformed direction. If the postal union gets all the blame for the strike, it will lead to the government legislating strikers back to work and problems between workers and management will be glossed over and not really solved. Canada Post management knows that it will likely always win because the government must keep the mail flowing and will order an end to the strike maybe even throw a union leader or two in jail. The issue isn't as simple as just whether or not the mail goes through. The next few days, painful as they are to people requiring mail service, may shape the future of the post office. An informed public would be in better shape to ask for the action needed. Maybe, given that information, the public view would still be that workers should be legislated back to their jobs, but maybe they would also feel that there needs to be a major investigation of just where the current management is taking the post office and how it treats its customers and workers. Our major newspapers and television stations, the media with the resources to provide that kind of indepth, investigative reporting have failed in giving us the information we need to make informed choices. Those failures help undermine the very democracy the media is so proud of being a part of. This is prosperity? A study released last week by the Canadian Study for Policy Alternatives last week claims that one in five manufacturing jobs in Canada have been lost since the imposition of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Act. And this is the prosperity that was promised by the government when it sold Free Trade? It's probably unfair to blame all the job losses on Free Trade but 435,000 manufacturing jobs lost is still a huge number. Supporters of Free Trade will say it's the high Canadian dollar or Canadian high interest rates that are to blame with the huge job losses. Any way you cut it, however, the reasons for the job losses come back to federal government policies. Our government seems to have backed itself into a comer like that of the Soviet Union in that there seems to be no policy that doesn't make things worse. To bring in Free Trade without first preparing the country to cope with it was reckless and is costing us dearly. Resource industries like forestry and farming are in deep trouble. Much of Ontario's industrial heartland has closed for good. We have traded high-priced industrial jobs for low-priced, part-time jobs.We have cut government spending on research and development. We have not provided the retraining jobs the government promised to offset the problems caused by Free Trade We've botched it but good. Taking a sneak preview Don't worry, be happy mail won't go through Dear Editor, I don't know whether this letter will get to you in time for this week's newspaper: I guess it depends on whether post office labour decides to take another un­ Labour Day between now and your deadline. Really though, I don't know why everybody's getting so worked up about this thing. I just find it saves me time having the Post Office on strike. I don't have to walk down the lane every morning to get the mail. I know that there won't be anything in the mail even if they were delivering. Il's not like I'm a pension­ er or something. Actually, it may help things for farm­ ers. We know darned well there won't be cheques in the mail so if the strike keeps going, maybe at least it will keep the bills away. Not the junk mail though. The one day we did get mail last week we got a week's worth of flyers...and it was too darned hot to put the stove on to bum them. Seems to me though, everybody's about getting what he wants from this strike. The CUPW folks only have to work about one day a week which is about what they've always worked but they had to go inside the plant before. The only problem for those guys is that now they only get paid for one day, not five in the old days (not counting the overtime they got for not getting the mail sorted in the regular hours). Most us are getting another good excuse to com­ plain, which seems to be the one thing Canadians are world class at these days. Canada Post should be happy because it doesn't have to deliver mail at all. This, I figger, is the ultimate goal of Canada Post managers. They cut back Saturday delivery, then they only had the mail truck come into town once a day. Then they want to close the post offices. The logical thing is that they drop to four days a week, and then two and finally they reach the perfect position of not having to deliver at all. This strike gives them perfect practice to see how it works. I figger the post office fellas have picked up from the railways. The railway guys don't want to be in the railway business so they made the service as poor as they could so nobody would complain when they want­ ed to call the whole thing off (just like the post office). The trains are just too old fashioned for the young pups who run the railway today. They want to do something sexy like building big towers with restaurants on top in Toronto and developing condominiums. It lets you wear a nice suit and go to the best clubs and meet all the other guys who are building condominiums. Maybe that's what's wrong with us farmers- we keep wanting to do what we're doing but have to do something else to keep paying the bills. Maybe if we really wanted to be stockbrokers instead of stock keep­ ers, we might make a go of it. Ah the joys of capital­ ism. Funny thing about all this though: we're sup­ posed to be enjoying the fruits of free enterprise, but we end up being in something of the same mess the Soviets are in. Their railways don't work and we don't have any anymore. I don't know about their mail service but it can't be much worse than ours. Their food rots in the farmers' fields while ours might as well for all people seem to need it. And speaking of the Soviet Union or Russia o» whatever it is, do you mean that after 40 years of train­ ing myself to call it Soviet Union instead of Russia, now I'm going to have to go back to calling it Russia? Sheesh, just like the metric system. Your Correspondent from the 12th line. Letter to the editor policy Letters to the editor must be signed and the name must also be clearly printed and the telephone number and address included. While letters may be printed under a pseudonym, we must be able to verify the identity of the writer. In addition, although the identity of the writer may be withheld in print, it may be revealed to parties directly involved on personal appearance at The Citizen's offices. The Citizen P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1 HO Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021 The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $20.50/year ($19.16 plus $1.34 G.S.T.) for local; $19.16 + $1.66 for each month after March 31/92 ♦ G.S.T. for local letter carrier In Goderich, Hanover, Listowel, etc. and out-of-area (40 miles from Brussels); $60.00/year for U.S.A, and Foreign. Advertising is accepted on the condition that In the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscrlpts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copywrlght. 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