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The Citizen, 1997-06-25, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25,1997 C itizenTheNorthHuron (♦QNA P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, Ont. NOM 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, Ont. NOG 1H0 Phone 887-9114 FAX 887-9021 E-mail norhuron@hurori.net Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie Gropp Advertising Manager, Jeannette McNeil The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $27.00/year ($25.24 + $1.76 G.S.T.) in Canada; $62.00/year in U.S.A, and $75.00/year in other foreign countries. 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 newscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 E ditorial L_ -_rz ........- The hidden cost of bigness As Huron County councillors discussed the possibility of municipal amalgamation last week, one councillor had a a sobering reminder for council: get the municipal unit too big, he warned, and you’ll lose the thousands of hours that volunteers put into the community each year. For those who have watched ] communities, this is not speculation but fact. There seems to be an inverse proportion of volunteerism to the size of the community. Many more services are provided, free of charge, by volunteers in a little village like, say, Belgrave, than in a large town like Goderich. People in larger communities take it for granted that government should pay for things. One councillor pointed out the danger of the province’s downloading of ambulance service to the municipalities. We currently have volunteer fire departments, he said. If the fire department and the ambulance service are both run by the municipality, how long before the firefighters, who are attending an accident alongside full-time ambulance crews, start to wonder why they're working for little while the ambulance workers are well paid? The irony is that the current provincial government wants people to be more self-sufficient, yet it is also pushing municipalities into an amalgamation they do not want. People only volunteer when there is a sense of ownership. People in small communities give unstintingly of their time to support their ball parks and swimming pools and arenas. If we move for six or seven municipalities in Huron, how do you retain that sense of ownership? To give them credit, many municipal politicians have been trying to come up with those answers before they leap into amalgamation. They seem to be giving the matter more thought than Municipal Affairs Minister Al Leach who is driving the issue. He could be forcing us into a system that will cost more than what we have — and will lose the sense of community as well. — KR Stornaway storm mostly hot air Silly season must be here, given the amount of hot air and newsprint that was wasted over the issue of Preston Manning deciding to move into Stornaway, official residence of the leader of the opposition. Granted, Manning has been so self-righteous that it delighted many people to be able to catch him in a hypocritical act. After all, Manning made a big deal about not accepting the perks of politics, at first rejecting a limousine and saying he’d never move into the official residence. But let’s face it, Stornaway has been there for years. We’ve been paying upkeep on it even while it was empty when Lucien Bouchard, as leader of the official opposition, refused to live in Ottawa as a symbol of his opposition to Canada. How much did Canadian taxpayers pay to help Bouchard stay elsewhere? Manning has said a lot of silly things over the years. Does everybody else have to be silly too just because he finally realizes how stupid he sounded? — KR Photo by Bonnie Gropp Letters to the editor Broken promises Canadians like to pride themselves in their record of caring for the environment but we wouldn't be so smug if we could see ourselves as others see us. Others, this week, have been seeing us as people who break their promises about the environment At the United Nations Earth Summit European countries have blasted Canada and the U.S. for breaking their pledges to meet reductions in the emission of gases like carbon dioxide that are causing the greenhouse effect. While Britain and Germany have paid the price to reduce pollution, say people like Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, Canada and the U.S. have gone on polluting, hurting everybody. Meanwhile Canada and the U.S. have been pleading that the goals in the agreement, signed five years ago, are too “unrealistic”. Strange, isn’t it, that the same politicians and business leaders who said no economic hardship was too much when it comes to reducing the debt we hand on to our children, are totally unworried about the environmental debt we will pass to future generations. Somebody will pay the price for environmental degradation but our governments are saying it won’t be us. — KR THE EDITOR, Ontario tenants on limited incomes may be facing discrimination unless last-minute changes are made to Bill 96 - the Tenant Protection Act - now before the Ontario legislature. The problematic parts of the Bill are sections which would make amendments to the Ontario Human Rights Code. Presently, the Code prohibits landlords from discrimi­ nating, on the basis of the source of the prospective tenant's income. This protects people with low incomes from being refused accommodation because of landlords' prejudices. Section 200 of Bill 96 would allow landlords to use "income information" as a criterion for refusal. Landlords wishing to exclude people with disabilities, single parents, or other disadvantaged groups from their premises, could claim their refusals are based on "income information" which they interpret to mean their premises are not "affordable" by the prospective tenant. Discrimination in housing is already a problem in Ontario. In 1993, a United Nations committee called for improved human rights protection and enforcement after finding evidence of widespread discrimination in housing in Canada against social service recipients. Bill 96 would weaken human rights protection, not improve it. Keith Norton, recently appointed by Premier Harris as the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, is a leading objector to this amendment. He has written to the premier and to Al Leach, Minister of Housing, asking that the amendment be withdrawn. A bulletin from the Toronto­ based Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA) states: "Income discrimination is the most serious barrier facing low-income households in need of housing. The provincial government has withdrawn all financial support for new social housing. Low-income households in need of housing can only rely on the private market. "If landlords whose units are more affordable and desirable are permitted to exclude all low- income tenants, low-income households are either left homeless or are forced to rent the most over­ priced and undesirable apartments on the market." "Professor Michael Omstein of York University has shown that if all landlords were to use the most common "affordability" criterion, requiring that tenants pay no more than 30 per cent of income towards rent, about one-third of Ontario's tenants would be disqualified from the most affordable apartments on the market - resulting in hundreds of thousands of homeless, predominantly women and children." "...The proposed amendment to the Code also refers to credit checks, landlord references and co­ signors. The position CERA and the Human Rights Commission took in the recent board of inquiry hearings was landlords may disqualify applicants on the basis of a bad credit rating without violating the Human Rights Code (though it may not be fair). On the other hand, it is a violation of the rights of young people and newcomers to disqualify them simply because they are unable to provide a reference or credit and it is clearly discriminatory to require everyone on social assistance to provide a co­ signor. Bill 96 would leave young people, refugees and other first­ time renters without any effective protections from discrimination." SWAN (Stop Woman Abuse Now) is concerned with the potential impact of these changes on women attempting to leave abusive spouses. Anything which limits access to affordable housing puts these women and their children at greater risk. Many abused women who are abused must rely initially on public assistance to leave their abusers and establish safe households. Also, one aspect of the abuse many women experience is the control their partners exert over all Continued on page 6