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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1983-04-27, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, April 27, 1983 imes - Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 dvocate Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications Limited LORNE EEDY Publisher JIM BECKETT Advertising Manager BILL BATTEN Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager ROSS HAUGII Assistant Editor DICK JONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, bntarlo Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada $21.00 Per year; U.S.A. $56.00 - C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' Courts need consistency Upholding the principle that every man should have his day in court (women too, of course) quite often leads to a cat and mouse game with those involved and creates some unusual situations -as last week's court sitting in Exeter indicates. Two charges were dismissed by the court because the arresting officer was not present to give evidence, while another accused who requested the same con- sideration for the same reason was denied on the basis he was a resident of the immediate area and therefore could more readily attend at another time. The aforementioned are not unusual situations at court hearings: The amount of wasted time on the part of policemen, witnesses, accused persons, and to a much lesser extent, lawyers, is often ridiculous. They are all components in the system, but getting them all together at the same time is frequently difficult. Naturally, there are emergencies that arise that prevent one of those components from attending at the prescribed time and place. That is understandable and excusable. However, there are many more times when one of those components can not attend due to cir- cumstances known well beforehand, and yet there is no communication of that fact to the other people in- volved and they show up in a total waste of their time. Another aspect that is difficult to understand is the frequency in which courts allow adjournments through • the non-appearance of lawyers, while they appear to 41PC BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1980 A BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1981 be much more rigid in their stance towards policemen and private citizens appearing as accused persons or witnesses for either side. Lawyers, it seems, are deemed to have more valuable time than the other people involved, and while their hourly. rates reflect that, it does not necessarily follow that others are less important in the scheme of things. The courts should not give favor to the value of the time of anyone at the expense of another, but obviously should demand that those involved avail themselves of the opportunity to communicate planned absences with court officials so others involved can be cor- respondingly notified. If charges are dismissed because policemen are unavailable, then lawyers should expect their clients to proceed without them if they can't attend. In the dismissals last week, the court's decision is questionable in citing a distance factor, given the factthe localaccused works out of town and therefore has very few miles less to travel than the accused who had his charges dismissed. It may have also been worth considering the fact one of the two is a full-time wage earner ina position of responsibility and the other may not be and therefore the court appearance would be less generous in that regard for one than the other. The main point is that all should be treated equal- ly before the law and by those in charge of administer- ing the law. Now you know Canadians expecting some full-scale tax cuts in last week's budget were denied because, as Prime Minister Trudeau explained later, he feared they would merely spend the money indiscriminately on imported goods. There may be some basis for that opinion, especially in his concern for the money spent by Cana- dians travelling abroad. Trudeau's own practices in that regard are hard - Spend it, Many people niay find it difficult to trust the national economy to a man so far out of touch with modern times that he doesn't realize today's photographers have such new-fangled gadgets as telephoto lenses on their cameras. However, Finance Minister Marc Lalonde took a stab at righting the deplorable economic conditions this week, and the fiasco surrounding that embar- rassing photo session prior to his budget delivery gives further evidence that the government has lost control �f spending in this country. Lalonde had a rather simple solution to correcting what had been charged as a budget leak by the opposition benches. He. merely changed the figures which had been picked up by the camera and flash- ed across the TV screens. The page that had been photographed had shown his planned deficit at $31.2 billion and his special recovery expen- diture at $4.6 billion. His mathematics left a great deal to be desired, however, when he altered the figures. He added $200 million to the spending side and only $100 million to the deficit. Most grade one pupils would have sug- gested that if he was adding $200 million in spending, he should have correspon- dingly added $200 million to the deficit, given the fact that no other figures in the lengthy hudget document 'were changed. The truth of the matter is that the government doesn't have the slightest idea of what the deficit will actually be. Their track record indicates quite con- clusively that they don't worry about a few hundred million one way or the other. They're quite pleased if they can come within a few billion one way or the other. « « * « « A decision to spend $200 million to cover a cabinet minister's plunder is one that should be viewed with outrage by the beleagured taxpayers. It was a flippant ly exemplary. He just returned from a week-long vaca- tion in Jamaica. While he may be correct in his concern that others would do the same, the budget was inconsistent with that concern in that it doubled the amount of goods which may be brought back to this country by vaca- tioning Canadians. That's obviously not a move designed to get more Canadians back on the job. or the government will move and even Lalonde could not contain his broad smile as he explained away the money. It was, after all, a mere drop in the bucket of the government's tradition of spend now, pay later philosophy. it is that very philospohy that put this country in- to economic jeopardy. The hudget deficitwould have been ex- BATT'N AROUND with the editor cusable to a point had it signalled a quick and drastic reduction in the unernploy- inent figures. But even Lalonde doesn't see the current level of 12.6 percent unemployment dropping to any ap- preciable extent. There are, unfortunately, well-founded fears that the excessive deficit of this year, coupled with that of the past fiscal term and those cited for the next two years, will undermine some of the growth potential as the government moves to bor- row the funds and thereby put more pressure on the market place. That could be at the detriment of the private sector as well as in the battle against inflation and keeping interest rates dow. That could serve to defeat the obvious move in the budget to rely heavily on in- centives to the private sector to spur the recovery which is ljust beginning. Lalonde faced a problem similar to a homeowner with a large number of holes in the roof. The alternatives are to invest money in pots to catch the drips or to spend that money on fixing a few of the holes in the hope that eventually all the holes can be filled before the rest of the home is ruined. His budget appears to opt in many in- stances to the former solution. He set out pans to catch the .leaky economic plight of farmers, fishermen, the unemployed, single parents, jobless young people, the housing industry, small business, mining, etc., etc., etc. However, most spokespeople for those groups indicate the assistance may be too small to be of any great benefit, sug- gesting that he may have tried to cover too much at one time, and as a result, spread assistance too thin to he of much benefit for all but a few. Compounding that particular problem is the bureaucratic jungle that springs forth to administer the programs and eats up a sizeable portion of the money which then does not reach its intended destination and purpose. The aid thereby takes on more political overtures than economic ones and the public opinion polls may have had more input that some of the economic advice the Liberals received in preparation of the budget. * There are those who suggest that Lalonde failed to spark consumer con- fidence in his budget to spur Canadians to get off their fat savings accounts, which even despite economic" conditions, hit record proportions last year. That may be, but what those Canadians have to understand is that they have to get the economy rolling through consumer purchases. They can either spend the money to create jobs or they can face the prospect of having their savings eaten up with increased taxation to pay for gover- ment handouts and deficits. One way or the other the money has to be put into the economy. Sooner or later the bills have to be paid, either through consumer purchases or taxation. The choice is rather simple! "We're just making sure our profit glut keeps pace with our gas glut!" Correspondence catch up This is neither an Old Home Week nor a Remembrance Day col- umn. It is -merely a desperate attempt to catch up with my cor- respondence, triggered by a week's holiday, in which I, at first tentatively, then frantically, pawed through the unanswered letters on my desk. Oh, yes, I' have a secretary. But she's not worth a diddle. She's great on emptying ashtrays, sorting my desk until I can't find anything, and telling me I'll never be a writer until I learn to change a typewriter ribbon: She also serves a great cup of tea when I am scriptorially constipated, and fending off phone calls when I sit before the infer- nal machine in a catatonic state. But she simply won't get down to it, and write my column for me. What's the point of having a secretary if you have to do the dirty work yourself? Especially when she's practically a blood relative; your wife? Back to the letters. We'll work froth about now back through a year or two. A letter from Orest Woychuk of Wainwright, Alta., hit me where it hurts. He'd read a column in which i referred to his brother Roman, 'Chuck'I an old P.O.W. buddy. Chuck is' dead; flew into a hill down in Quebec in 1957. We'd planned, in our young romanticism, to go to Yucatan, Mexico, when we got out of prison camp. Chuck was reckless and violent. I could have predicted his end. I was reminded of him when I read a dedication to a novel: "To the victim of the Great War; among whom are the survivors. One of his favorite sayings was, "If you sleep fast enough, you can get five or six hours sleep in two hours." Orest says, in understatement, "He was very restless on his return from overseas - there's no need to explain why - you both were there and went thru it all." Chuck had recall as "A handsome and intelligent young man from Perth, Ontario by the name of Bill Smiley." We were both stupid to be working for one dollar a day, twelve hours a day, thirty days a month. And I am not handsome, mere- ly distinguished. You were Sugar and Spice Dispensed By Smiley three wives and his brother says they, "Had a hard time catching up with him," because, "My home is where I hang up myhat for a few moments." Poor girls. Poor Chuck. Another old ghost turn- ed up recently: Don McCuaig, former private in His Majesty's forces; former newspaper editor, the scourge of the upper Ottawa Valley. For some reason, this idiot and I have an affinity that transcends almost everything. We can meet after ten years and thoroughly enjoy each other's company. Silly duffer is it France, living in a village, taking an im- mersion course in the language. I canust hear that Ottawa Valley Irish coming through the French. For example, "terrible". In French it comes out, "Terreeb", with a little guttural on the "r". In Ottawa Valley it comes out, "Turbul". Here's one from Jack Seeley Hay River, N.W.T. Yes, Jack, I'm guilty: i am the guy you worked with on the old iiamonic on the upper Great Lakes in 1937-38-39. But i am no longer the fellow you the handsome one, with your lean face, blond hair. Remember Peachy 'diving off the hurricane deck. Remember Capt. Bill Taylor flouncing around like a French gigolo, woo- ing the lady passengers in an aura of sweat and booze? He wound up as a bar -tender, after the S.S. Noronic burned. And another from Bob Love, somewhere in Alta. (envelope lost), a long and friendly and warm letter of reminiscences and shared experiences. And another from Mrs. Jay Webster of Lake Francis. Man., which tells a lot about the state of Canadian publishing, book -selling, and Win- nipeg as a cultural centre. "Would enjoy reading the books you mention, Boys, Bombs and Brussels Sprouts by Doug Harvey, and Terror in the Star- board Seat, by Dave McIntosh. After asking on the average of once a month in the Cole Book Stores in Winnipeg. I was told it wasn't on the order form so couldn't be ordered. Somebody must be failing in their job if these books aren't available west of Toronto." Somebody is, lady. Canadian publishers, notoriously timorous, would rather spend money onpublic relations for their name than pushing books with merit, but without a big -name author. Canadian booksellers are generally subsidiaries of American or British chains. Most of them couldn't name ten Canadian writers to save their souls. In line with that, I recently received word, via my principal, that the school board wants.me to write a "rationale" for two fine Canadian books I put on my list: "Lives of Girls and Women", by Alice Munro, and "The Wars",by Timothy Findle. Both of these have been widely acclaimed. Both are works of art. Both were printed and written in Canada by Canadian writers. And I must write a "rationale" for their ac- ceptance. The Board doesn't have to write a "rationale" for question- ing them. So much for sup- porting Canadian writers. More letters. A card from my daughter, almost three years old. "I was thinking of you a lot as your 60th birthday ap- proached. I love you a lot. Always have. Always will. I have just begun to be aware of the things you have taught me: strength, perserverance, tolerance and humour". Thanks a lot, baby. Just went through the old cheques. Sure enough. And eleventy-seven other letters. I'll get at them during the summer holidays, but don't let that stop you. I need nourish- ment. Drop a line and let me know that my secretary is not the only one who reads this column. Moved by a movie Every once in awhile you see a movie on televi- sion or in the theatre which is really wor- thwhile, one that gives you far more in value that the admission price. Such a one is "Ghandi." It's one of the ones that makes you come away thinking and saying, "Boy, that was really worth the time and money. Not just because of the length of it either (about three and a half hours.) I might warn you before you go to see it that there lion for the little man who area few scenes which are was able to inspire Perspectives By Syd Fletcher a bit gory and frightening, millions of people with his yet overall it is a story philosophy of 'turning the which is so powerful that • other cheek' instead of those particular scenes fighting. are lost in your admira- It is interesting to note that this film, a British one, took many of the Academy awards this year, as did Chariots of Fire last year, a film which discussed the pro- blem a Christian athlete had with competing in the Olympics when his event happened to fall on a Sunday. Perhaps we are seeing a good trend when films are being rewarded for depic- ting the nobler side of man instead of his violent nature. I'm all for it.