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Times Advocate, 1994-05-11, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, May 11, 1994 Publisher: Jim Beckett News Editor: Adrian Harte Business Manager: Don Smith Composition Manager Deb Lord (ging: Barb Consitt, Theresa Redmond News: Fred Groves, Catherine O'Brien, Ross Haugh entilmaiin Alma Ballantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Robert Nicol, Brenda Hem, Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner, Marg Flynn Transportation: AI Flynn, Al Hodgert Frost Office di Accounting; Norma Jones, Elaine Pinder, Ruthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald cc * 0 O EDITOR • • inion HIM AVVAHU 1993 Publications Mail Registration Number 0380 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: CANADA Within 40 miles (65 km.) addressed to nal letter carrier addresses 830.00 pias 82.10 G.S.T. Outside 40 miles (65 kn.) or any letter carrier address 830.00 plus 830.00 (total 60.00) + 4.20 0.5.T. Outside Canada 899.00 (Includes 888.40 postage) Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Main St., Exeter, Ontade, NOM 156 by 1.W. Eady Publications Ltd. Telephone 1-5192351331 G.S.T. *R105210835 Budgetting with optimism ptimism springs eternal in Ontario. The fact that this provincial budget has not dipped into the wallets of On- tarians is a welcome relief from the bat- tering we have suffered in past years. No doubt, it will be worth a few voter percentage points for the NDP whenev- er they decide to go to the polls. Still, it is a sad day when a provincial budget that tries to do as little as possi- ble is hailed as a triumph of financial success. The fact that last May's $2 bil- libn tax grab is still grabbing at the pay- cheques and cash registers won't be for- gotten by everybody, either. Still, provincial treasurer Floyd Laughren is convinced that a one-year moratorium on the employer health tax will put 12,000 people back to work. That's a lot to expect from a modest $600 -or -less tax break. Also impressive is the claim that On- tario's economy will grow 3.4 percent by budget time next year. It doesn't sound like much, but its better than all the provinces Ontario is trailing in growth right now. A hundred thousand jobs are also go- ing to be created in Ontario over the year. We'd better get on with it, because Canada gained only 1,000 jobs nation- wide in April, and the unemployment rate went back up to 11 percent. Interest rate increases threaten to snuff out the spark of recovery in Canada...or maybe they won't. Economic recovery is a hard target to aim for. The NDP are sure they've got the bullseye in their sights. If everyone else was just as certain, maybe there would be a wholesale explosion in retail sales, real estate, auto sales, manufactur- ing and whatever else would be along for the ride. Most Canadians aren't so positive, however, and are keeping a tight rein on their credit card balances, trying to do their best with stagnant paycheques, and are still afraid they too might join the ranks of the unemployed when their company "restructures". One thing is for certain, if Laughren's predictions for recovery fall short of his budget predictions, any increase in the deficit won't be his fault. It will surely be blamed on federal policy, interest rates, too low a dollar, too high a dollar, or whatever else is outside the prov- ince's jurisdiction. A.D.H. III c Parole not automatic anadians should be encour- aged by news that the chair of the Na- tional Parole Board has been fired by the federal cabinet. Also "under review" is Ghislain Bel- lavance, who sat on a board that pa- roled five convicts who used their free- dom to kill a total of seven people. It is plain, clear and obvious to everyone in this nation that that is not the intention of parole. Obviously, the wrong people were re- leased. It may even be argued their sentences were inadequate to begin with. But the parole board that allowed these evidently dangerous people back on the streets must be held accountable for its actions. Michel Dagenais' termi- nation must serve as a lesson to all pa- role boards in this country - any parolee committing a crime means the board applied the wrong guidelines in setting him free. His firing spells out what most Cana- dians have been demanding for years - an end to the lenient and sympathetic views offered the inmates of our nation's prisons. A prison term is a punishment for committing a crime, and when the punishment isn't fully carried out, the entire justice system is seen as weak and ineffective. When a parolee commits murder, the system is seen as a joke. Not everyone can be expected to look into a prisoner's heart and truly know whether he will make an honest effort to do better. But those who consistently get it wrong need to be removed from their posts, perhaps to be replaced with someone with a more cynical, suspect view of the convicts up for parole. We also can't ignore the pressure placed on parole boards. Overcrowding in prisons sometimes means boards are strong-armed into shortening sentences to make room for incoming convicts. But criminals with a history of violence and being generally dangerous should go to jail with the expectation of filling out their full sentence. Parole should be once more only a privilege, not an auto- matic right. A.D.H. Can this really be Premier Bob Rae hinting he may try to fight the next election on family val- ues? The New Democrat premier was at a dinner to fund an addictions centre and said he want- ed to talk on a personal level. He confided the family is a highly important institution and has more impact on people than all governments, bureaucracies and other man- made organizations. Rae then talked about Ontario being a family of I 1 million and even read a passage from the Bible saying the cornerstones of life are peace, love, faith and family. Next day he was at it again, saying he gets tough questions in the legislature, but not as tough as he gets at home, which was another way of saying he listens to what his family thinks. Rae also revealed a little earlier that all the Targe issues of state are put in perspective and take a back seat when one of his children has a cold. The premier has discovered family, conven- iently, just before an election. But he will have difficulties in a campaign talking about family values. One issue on which the NDP will be vulnera- ble is its rush to turn Ontario into a giant gam- bling den. On top of expanding lotteries it has approved one gambling casino in Windsor and a string of others is on the way. The first will be open until 4 a.m. weekdays and around the clock weekends, so patrons will lack no opportunity to gamble away their hard- earned incomes. Alcohol will loosen the inhibi- tions of any who might think it prudent to save a dollar for another day. The NDP believes casino gambling eventual- ly will bring it hundreds of millions of dollars a year revenue and create thousands of jobs in gambling, hotels and shops. A lot of this may be true, although Ontario's casinos will have to compete with a rapidly growing number in the United States and other provinces. • Hold that thought... By Adrian Harte Guest towels, and other fire hazards My younger sister, Julie, gets married in a few weeks. It's go- ing to be an outdoor affair near Caledonia where she lives. I should also mention Julie is an accountant, which makes her a very practical individual, quickly deciding which things in life are assets and which are liabilities. Watching her plan her wed- ding has been a fascinating ex- perience. Early on, she got her hands on a book on wedding eti- quette. I wouldn't mind reading it myself, but she offered a few of her observations on the proto- cols of matrimonial ceremonies. She said the book explains the duties and responsibilities of each member of the family and wedding party for the big day. The mother of the bride has to arrive in such and such a way, stand in her designated spot, and so forth. The best man has to take care of a great number of things, as does the matron of honour, she told me. The ushers are to basically stand beside the ceremony, after guiding people to their seats. When it came to bridesmaids, I was told all the book had to of- fer was that they "add colour and life to a wedding". "So bridesmaids are just a fire hazard," observed Julie. I had to agree. Bridesmaids seem to just stand around, tak- ing up space in expensive dre,p- es. Naturally, Julie pared down her wedding party to just a best man and matron of honour. She had other good reasons, but the fire hazard one clinched it, she said. In the next few days, Julie will be going through another ritual she hasn't really been looking forward to: the bridal shower. As a single woman with a house of her own for a few years, there isn't much she needs to com- plete her home. once her hus- band moves in. A University of Guelph study, conducted mostly in Bayfield. looked closely at the rituals of bridal showers and stag parties. Not only did it find that shower gifts are just about as expensive as wedding gifts these days, they still symbolize "housewif- ery" even though women's roles have changed. "A bride may he a lawyer, but she is given kitchenware at a shower," says Gail Grant, the sociologist who did the study. Julie, I'm sure, is going to be inducted into the weird world of guest towels at her shower. When you go into her down- stairs bathroom, she has a towel on the rail you can really dry your hands on. Go into my par- ent's downstairs bathroom and there is towel with an embroi- dered seashell motif that match- es the wallpaper border. No self-respecting guest would touch such a display, and would know to look behind the door to find the real towel. _ There are also•Soaps in pre-, cisely the same shades as the wallpaper. Once the little sea- shells have atrophied into some- thing like a mixture of hard rub- ber and chalk, they may be safely thrown away. They are never, ever, to be used as soap - the fragrances they contain are so potent as to probably remove skin. Guest towels and soaps are an essential part of our culture. Completely useless, but essen- tial. Where on the asset/liability scale they fall, I really don't know. I wonder if the ancient Ro- mans, with all.their plumbing and magnificent baths, spent too much time worrying about matching guest towels to mosa- ic floors. Maybe that's why their empire eventually col- lapsed. What if the Soviet Union's collapse was not from a demand for a market economy, but for a lack of guest towels....that, and a surplus of bridesmaids. New found family values But, while many will gamble money they can afford to lose, others undeniably will fritter away hard-earned cash their families need for essentials, food and shelter. The NDP also will be encouraging further the notion that people can get ahead by having a fling at gambling and downgrading virtues such as hard work and thrift, which many would pre- fer instilled in their children. Oddly, the NDP in opposition fought gambling on the ground it would hurt families. The NDP has made it tougher for many fami- lies by introducing wide-open Sunday shop- ping, again on the ground it will help the econ- omy, although there is no evidence it has done so. Fewer now travel to the U.S. to shop, but this is more attributable to the Canadian dollar having fallen sharply in value so that it buys much less. But having stores open on Sundays means employees and small-business owners who have to stay open to compete have lost the tra- ditional pause day on which they can be with their families. Employees who object can be coerced by such tactics as refusing them over- time or promotion. The NDP with its anti -censor tradition shows no urgency to tackle the availability of gratui- tously violent movies in threatres and on vide- os; showing women turtured and mutilated, which promote violence families are afraid of. The NDP has said it is considering allowing people to buy booze on credit, which will ena- ble fathers to spend even money they have not yet earned on drink, not a lot of help to the fam- ily, which the NDP opposed in opposition. Many also will not approve Rae's nim to pro- vide same-sex family benefits. Rae could argue with some justification that he helps families when he provides money to create jobs, guarantees pay owed laid -off work- ers, cracks down on polluters and improves pay equity opportunities for working mothers. But on many traditional family issues Rae is on shaky ground and reminding he loves kids ma) not be a great help to him.