HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-04-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1995. PAGE 5.
Arthur Black
Not 'on board'
during Turbot Wars
It's probably frivolous and perhaps even
perverse, but I don't think I was exactly 'on
board' with the rest of Canada during the
recent Turbot Wars.
Oh, I watched the ten o'clock news along
with everybody else. I saw our Dudley Do-
Right Canadian Coast Guard play cat and
mouse with the evil Spanish trawlers.
I watched, with 28 million other slack-
mandibled Canucks, as Saint Brian a'St.
John's smote the scurvy Spaniards hip and
thigh, not to mention mano a mano.
But I have to confess, I wasn't paying
close attention. When it came to those
televised press conferences, I found that as
Brian Tobin's manly jaw flapped defiance,
my eye was drawn to the background action.
Brian was yakking, while behind him
there was this constant flickering, like sheet
lightning before a Prairie storm, or the
rumble of heavy artillery on the Western
Front.
They were press photographers' flash
bulbs, of course. As Brian fulminated, the
cameramen were popping photos for the
front pages of Canada's and the world's
dailies. Yet, it wasn't even the realization
that I was watching News In The Making...
It was the fact that Saint Brian a'St. John's
was pretending it wasn't happening. He was
Is the grass
greener?
A featured speaker at a recent international
meeting in London under the sponsorship of
the business school of the University of
Western Ontario, was William Campbell,
chairperson of the giant conglomerate Philip
Morris, best known as a producer of tobacco
products. Mr. Campbell felt inclined to take
Ontario to task for the tough regulations
which it places on the sale of cigarettes and
it was not hard to get the impression that this
was unmatched elsewhere.
In case you have forgotten it, this is the
same company which last year threatened to
rethink its entire future investment program
in Canada if Ottawa carried out its plans to
legislate the packaging of cigarettes into the
industry equivalent of "plain brown
wrappers." .
Nothing much has been heard of that
threat since, but I should point out that it is
not the only one that Philip Morris has made.
It seems that south of the border the
situation is not that much different. Let's
take a look at what is happening there which
is annoying to the tobacco manufacturers.
Earlier this year the city of New York, led
by its new non-smoking mayor, Rudolph
Giulani, put into force about the most
draconian anti-smoking law anywhere on the
continent. From this spring on, smoking will
be banned totally in any restaurant catering
to more than 35 people, a move that will
affect over half of the city's 11,000
restaurants. In addition, outdoor seating
facilities will be totally smoke-free which
means that, when and if the baseball season
ever starts, fans at Yankee Stadium will be
thrown out if they put match or lighter to a
cigarette.
ignoring the flashbulbs. Acting as if the
press wasn't there and he just happened to
drop into your living room (and mine) to
personally explain the latest perfidy of the
Iberian Interlopers.
Which is not to dump on Brian Tobin. He
is after all, being merely "media savvy" as
they say. We are all getting used to having
unexpected cameras poking their telephoto
snouts, uninvited, into our lives.
I know when I go to the corner store to
pick up a loaf of bread, that up in a corner of
the ceiling a camera is whirring away, just in
case I should decide to vault the counter and
empty the till.
And you are aware, that each time you
enter the lobby of your bank, your physical
likeness is being immortalized in
photographic emulsifier, just in case you had
plans to knock over the joint.
In Ontario and Albert right now, Photo
Radar rules the road. That means that at
pretty well any given time, should you
exceed the Ontario or Alberta speed limit,
chances are pretty good a hidden camera is
recording Where, When and By How Many
Kilometres Per Hour.
You can be reasonably certain that once
they see the millions of dollars Alberta and
Ontario rake in, the rest of Canada will
hurriedly hitch a ride on the Photo Radar
Bandwagon.
So what does it mean — that Big Brother
has taken out a Canadian passport?
Heck no. If anything, we're behind the
times.
a
All this cannot be in the least pleasing to
companies like Philip Morris, about which I
will comment shortly, but there are places
which are even tougher than New York. In
the state of Vermont, as well as the cities of
Los Angeles and San Francisco, smoking is
banned in all, not just some restaurants.
Throughout all of the U.S. no less than one-
third of all firms do not permit smoking in
the workplace, up from just two per cent ten
years ago.
When Philip Morris was making the above
mentioned threat to Canada, it was doing the
same thing to New York. When the recently
passed smoking ban was being discussed,
the tobacco company threatened to move its
2,000 head-office employees out of the city
if the ban ever became law. It also threw in
the additional hint that it would consider
changing its not inconsiderate sponsorship of
New York City's arts.
Just to get into practice in the legal field,
Philip Morris has already decided to sue the
American Environmental Protection Agency
for its classification of "second-hand" smoke
as a health hazard, one so bad, according to
the EPA that it caused no less than 3,000
non-smokers to die each year in the U.S.
from lung cancer.
Given the glacial speed with which such
court cases proceed, it may be a considerable
length of time before we receive news of any
outcome.
The objects of Philip Morris's wrath have
ample support from the American public. It
is calculated that no less than 90 per cent of
that country's citizens are irritated by
cigarette smoke, a figure which will not be
reduced by the latest fmdings of the EPA.
Mr. Campbell, in his London speech,
admitted that the industry had not done
enough to generate goodwill or to keep
children from smoking.
My sentiment is that this is the
If you really want to see Big Brother in
action, move to England.
King's Lynn might be a nice place to drop
anchor. It's a quaint, medieval port town on
the east cost of England, complete with
Elizabethan architecture, ancient stone
monuments, market squares...
And 60 surveillance cameras that transmit
video images to law officers squinting at 23
video monitors, 24 hours a day.
Sit in the park, walk into the post office,
pick your nose or adjust your gotchies in
King's Lynn and...
Smile, you're on Candid Camera.
And not just in King's Lynn. Nearly a
hundred British towns and cities have gone
"on line" — including Brighton, Liverpool,
Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bournemouth.
It's the video wave of the future. The
natural consequence of all that sophisticated
technology we've been hearing about.
After all, what's more economical — three
cops working eight-hour shifts, or one
camera that needs no donuts and never
blinks?
Scarey, thought. I don't know about you,
but I don't like the idea of being 'on camera'
24 hours a day.
I keep thinking of an observation written
by a chap named Louis Brandeis. "The right
to be alone" he wrote, "is the most
comprehensive of rights, and the right most
valued by men."
Or, as the writer William Faulkner put it,
more succinctly:
"Don't tell the bastards anything".
understatement of the year. The industry has
not done one thing to keep minors from
lighting up and, as for goodwill, it is difficult
to conceive of any that would be truly
effective, given the current sentiment on
both sides of the border.
For many people the only goodwill would
be for Philip Morris to get out of the
cigarette business altogether and concern
itself with its many non-tobacco brands such
as Kraft Foods of Canada, which it already
owns.
I'm not holding my breath!
Klopp says
Bill 40
not an issue
Continued from page 4
at Canadian Agra are not threatened by the
lack of rail service. The CN line was pulled
up several years ago. If rail service was the
key factor in the development, and if it was
Bill 40 which was preventing this, then
presumably the issue could have been solved
long before Bill 40 was even proclaimed.
That it wasn't, demonstrates why Bill 40 was
not and is not an issue.
The Ministry of Transportation is
currently negotiating with CN for a purchase
of part of the Newmarket Subdivision (from
Bradford to Barrie) for the purpose of
securing GO Transit's long term viability in
the area. If successful in securing this track,
it will have the positive supplementary
benefit of securing a connection for a
Collingwood-Barrier short line operator.
Finally, this government recognizes that
investors will make the final determination
as to which lines are economical. For those
lines, we are committed to working with all
parties to establish a short line operation.
Yours truly,
Paul Klopp, MPP.
The
Short
of it
By Bonnie Gropp
Staunching
a bleeding heart
I hate you!
Now there's a verb that commands
attention.
Hate is a strong word used to express a
strong feeling. It is an invective thrown in
frustration, hostility, anger and even passion,
but one that as we mature we tend to hurl
with less frequency.
Children, not completely understanding
the degree of intensity that this one small
word holds, are often a little free with its
usage. They hate mom for not buying them
that favourite toy. They hate dad for not
taking them with him when he goes away.
They hate their siblings, their friends and
their teachers with abandon, not realizing
that it is a feeling that runs deeper,
something that when felt truthfully is evil.
The hatred that children feel is a flame of
dislike ignited by a spark of temper. It is
usually as quick to burn out as it was to
light. True hatred is not so easily
extinguished.
Adults, at least the majority, realize that
while they may harbour dislike for another
human being, hate is pretty extreme. It
crushes relationships, feeds racism and
destroys countries.
I don't like the word. When my children
were young and I heard them use it, I tried to
explain that what they were feeling was
something else, something, while no less
real, was much less malignant. I wanted
them to know early that hate serves no
useful purpose, that few deserve such
vehemence. I wanted them to know that just
because they didn't understand something or
thought something unfair they shouldn't
allow it to poison them.
Yet, this past week I felt hatred and I'm
sorry to admit, it felt good. Like everyone
who heard about the bombing in Oklahoma,
I harboured many, many feelings. At first it
raised concern, sympathy and dismay.
Then as the faces and bodies endlessly
kept appearing on the news and in the papers
all those feelings fermented into a boiling
rage. Suggestions that it was an act of
retribution for the Waco siege did nothing in
my eyes, to vindicate the scum who did it,
neither did it assuage my feelings of hate.
Though time is jading my liberal view,
though I feel punishment should fit the
crime, I am a little wishywashy about the
death penalty. Yet, when Attorney General
Janet Reno promised that it would be sought
for the peipetrators of this heinous crime, I
was surprised to feel something bordering on
elation.
When I heard on the radio that they had
made the first arrest I caught myself smiling,
a smile that gets broader with each
subsequent arrest.
I have no qualms in saying I want these
creeps dead. What does disturb me is that in
committing this vile act of rage and hatred,
they have managed to bring me to their
level. For the first time in my life I am
experiencing a hatred so deep I can't muster
any compassion. I can not in my heart feel
any anguish that they may die. Not when
consideration is given to the numbers they
took, nor for the impact they have had on
society. They not only killed innocent
people they killed our innocence, our
freedom.
The bombing of the Oklahoma City
Federal Building, effectively staunched this
bleeding heart. It has made me believe there
are people worthy of hatred.
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