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Times -Advocate, May 6, 1998
Publisher & Editor: Jim Beckett
Business Manager: Don Smith
Production Manager: Deb Lord
&h&cIIsIng; Barb Consltt, Chad Eedy
News; Kate Monk, Craig Bradford,
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Production; Alma Ballantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson
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Transportation: Al Hodgert
Front Ofrice 4 Accounting: Sue Rollings, Carol Wlndsor
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1 i ,
Short term gain for long term pain
n Seaforth, parents, staff and
students are joining forces in a desper-
ate effort to keep smaller rural schools
open.
Layoff notices are going out to hun-
dreds of teachers across the province -
the figures handed down by the prov-
ince do not provide funding for staff at
present levels.
Is anyone surprised this is happening?
People who listened to teachers walk-
ing the picket line last fall certainly are
not - layoffs and school closures were
the reasons teachers left their class-
rooms for two weeks. They knew. And
the provincial government knew. Most
of us knew, too.
The only question in anyone's mind
right now is how layoffs and school
closures are supposed to protect class-
room education. As one former school
principal in Kent County said, "They
don't know their basic math. You don't
get more for less, you get less for less."
Unless there is a substantial drop in en-
rollment in this area, one wonders what
will happen to that government promise
of smaller classroom size. It will be in-
teresting to see how four minus one can
be made to equal five.
One suspects that a good many of
those layoff notices will be rescinded as
older teachers take advantage of early
retirement packages. They ,may be at
the top end of the salary scale, but they
are the teachers who have the experi-
ence to cope with important curriculum
changes and inadequate resources, with
integrating special needs students into
regular classrooms, atlases that were
out of date a decade ago, and new tech-
nology.
When the smoke clears, we will be
left with a streamlined, no-frills public
education system. Whether it will be
more efficient or not depends on how
one defines efficient. It will be cheaper.
There will be fewer administrators,
fewer top -salary teachers, fewer
schools. And the stress will be on pro-
ducing graduates who test at the high
end of the scale in maths, sciences and
English, compared to their counterparts
in other provinces.
Will this "efficiency" be at the expense
of music and arts programs, after-school
sports, and all the other courses.and ac-
tivities that make for a well-rounded ed-
ucation? Business people have said they
aren't necessarily looking at marks
when they hire. What they look for is
someone who is a "team player", learns
quickly,'is honest and can adapt. These
are the qualities best fostered by an all-
round good education. And will this
efficiency be at the expense of special
needs students? There is a certain per-
centage of students who will do well no
matter how good or poor the teacher, no
matter what sort of study material is
used, and no matter what curriculum is ,
used. Then there are the ones who, with
a lot of individual attention from skilled
teachers, will succeed. -
We have seen the gradual eroding of
resources devoted to the latter group.
Will the new, efficient system write
them off completely? This would be a
very expensive - and totally inefficient -
way to revamp education. To paraphrase
a frequently used saying,'it would be
long term pain for short term gain.
We have -little information on how -the
special needs portion of education fund-
ing will be spent. If you care, this is an
excellent time to get involved in the edu-
cation system, by volunteering for the
local school advisory committee, by
writing letters to your local MPP and/or
minister of education, by writing a letter
to the editor of your newspaper. Go to a
meeting of your local board of education
- they are, for the most part, open to the
public. Get involved, speak up, and
don't give up. The future of our entire
society depends on us teaching our chil-
dren well
reprinted from Sougeen Cir ,C;e1•3
No SIR, I GAO" GUARA EEIHAT
"NOT A SINGLE cENT OF YOUR
TAXES WILL. CoME WRNIN A
COUNTRY MILE of 7IIAT DEADBEAT
FoRME,R' SENATbR TUoMPSON'S
BIG FAT PENSION",.,
Speak Out Letters to the Editor
The Times -Advocate continues to welcome letters to the editor as a
forum for open discussion of local issues, concerns, complaints
and kudos. The Times -Advocate reserves the right to edit letters for brevity. Please send your
letters to P.O. Box 850 Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6. Sign your letter with -both name and address.
Anonymtus letters will not be published.
A View from Queen's Park
0 -- Premier Mike Harris has por-
trayed himself as tough but even-handed so it
hurts him when he is caught being extra kind to
his friends.
The Progressive Conservative premier likes
to claim he does not bow to special interest
groups in saving. taxpayers' money. When he
cut welfare payments, he also cut millions of
dollars a year grants to business, although he
has on the whole been more favorable to the
latter.
But Harris has now been discovered being
particularly generous in steering tax money to
some people who ran his election campaign in
1995.
Ontario Hydro, a provincial utility Harris
controls, has been revealed in documents ob-
tained under freedom of information law to
have paid $250,000 to an executive recruitment
firm run by Tom Long, one of his top advisers
on policy and chairman of his election cam-
paign, to find a new president.
Documents similarly obtained show Hydro
also paid $84,000 over the past year to a public
relations (irm run by Leslie Noble, Harris's
By Eric Dowd
Missiles and musings
By Craig Bradford
If you can't stand the heat, get out of politics
• Politicians have it tough. That's
the way it should be.
There may be no higher commu-
nity involvement than serving as an
elected official. Whether itbe. to
the municipal. provincial or federal
arena. politicians get a bum rap t,'r
all they do on behalf of their fellow
citizen and taxpayer.
They make the decisions that
sometimes directly affect our daily
lives. They .set policy that guides
where our hard earned dollars go
after taxes are collected. They rass
laws that govern everything from
dog licencing and hack yard tires to
lite and death issues such as abor-
tion. euthanasia and capital punish-
ment.
Politicians are the ones given the
responsibility to look after their
constituents' needs. war'.
cerns. complaints from n;
trum to another. from pr., '
anti that.
It's a tough sob. ,ranted that
deserves more respect and under-
standing than the public. including
we devious nnedt,t.tyles• give theta
Despite what tax dollar watchdogs
tell you. being a politician isn't a
free ride. In tact. this writer bels
most politicians. especially munici-
pal councillors, ,ire underpaid for
all they must know and stake deci-
sions about, even more so w tth con-
stant federal and pn)v_rnCial d v n-
loadrng The buck truly stops at the
municipal level.
Politicians are right to ;:. n:plain
about being pigeon -hole.: - a, the
'had guys'. when cuts toseri:ices
have to be made to balahce :he
books. They're doing the best they
can. -
But please. • politicians. dolt't
blame media outlets like the T -A
for making you look bad r or for
giving you "negative publicity for
simply reporting the facts. By 'tell-
ing our readers what you say during.
public meetings. we. • Tike your-
selves. are serving. the public by
rag their eyes and
ears -while they are
too busy with oth,
th _ to attend ..
• •v ; rat hour ISr
1l; are protecting
the public trust be
telling our readers
what goes on at
your meetings.
We report the —had and the
-,good' things that trtrt.pire F.0
every time we report on what peo-
ple mat interpret as had or foolish
decision, we al.o indulge your
u homes vv hen- ou want free pub-
licity on tet protects. take those.
grip and grin cheque presentations
he -
and pass - along your displeasure
with upper tier -government dect-
si res that make your lobs harder to
J.}.
;i -,,-se - who. ;eek pikhC Office
sh, uid expect tore sublecE to puh-
•Iic :c:utinv. If you can't take some
bad press that comes with the honor
of serving . your fellow citizen.
you're in the wrong business. If you
can't stand the heat. get out of poll,.
tics. •
�'nitke what many people believe.
we reporters here at the t -.k don't
go out of our way to tind contro'er-
sial or had -news stones. We re-
port 'em as we see em. and some-
time; that means
making politicians.
police officers.
teachers. coaches
and a . plethora of
,'her kinds of peo-
ple look had because
of something cher
did. said or decided
Your •
newspaper should mirror what the
.:01111.1/unity IN If there's .t blemish,
a pimple .'r a scar on the face of the
community. so be it. [hose 'beauty
marks' are there. accept them. What
we see in the mirror is -till beauti-
ful And you politicians are kind of
cute. toxo
1 nlike what many
people believe, we
reporters here at the
T-.-1 don't go out of
our way to find
controversial or
'bad' news stories.
hometown
campaign manager, to ensure Hydro manage-
ment's views are adequately presented to key de-
cision -makers in his government and produce
'positive outcomes.'
Harris appears to have created work forhis
friends. Long's search, which Hydro should
have been able to do for itself, came up with
Ron Osborne, a well-known Tory businessman
who shares Harris's aims and could have been
found by • riffling through a business who's
who.
The utility gave additional help to Long by
payin& him an extra $650 an hour for speech -
writing, which may be as much as the scriptwrit-
er of Titanic and generous when it is more than
many welfare recipients receive per month.
Outsiders will wonder why a government
agency needs to hand over large sums to the pre-
mier's campaign manager so she can make its
views heard by a government which is supposed
to listen anyway as part of its job.
Harris and Long also have said for years that
government should not be regulating nor subsi-
dizing business, but conveniently forgot this
when it comes to helping one of themselves.
Harris not operating properly
Harris has been found recently to he stepping
up the pace at which he looks after those who
worked for his parte. Since a New Democrat
government prey ided for it in the early 1990s, a
legislature committee has had power to ques-
tion 'appointees to the government's agencies,
boards and commissions.
Opposition N1PPs used to ask routinely
whether they had worked for the Tories, hut so
many have answered yes it is now being taken
for granted.
Recent appointees include the former cam-
paign manager of Energy Minister Jinn Wilson
and a losing candidate for the Tories in 11)95,
Don Sheppard, a civil servant whose job could
disappear in Harris's downsizing and whom he
has given a $70,0(0 -a -year job on a board de-
ciding who gets welfare payments.
Thousands of other civil servants face losing
their jobs and Harris has sent a message that it
they nun for the 'Tories, they will be taken care
of.
Other parties before Harris appointed many of
their own to ensure their policies were carried
out or as rewards for working for -them or both,
but Harris has to be partncularly careful.
He risks being linked to and seen as .utother
1;ill l)av is, the Tory premier from 1971 to 1985
dubbed rightly "the roaster of patronage," who
placed millions of dollars of government adver-
tising through an agencyrun by his campaign
manager, Norman Atkins, and campaign advis-
er, Hugh Segal, whose record will be scruti-
nized because he is talking of running for fed-
eral leader.
Voters often are said not to be swayed much
by 'patronage. because all parties have it, but it
cost the federal Liberals an election in 1984,
when John Turner rubber-stamped appoint-
ments tequested by his predecessor and Brian
Mulroney in a famous TV debate reminded
him, "you had a choice."
Harris has been told repeatedly in polls a
strong majority approves his baste ditectton of
cutting costs, but would vote against hien be-
cause of some of the ways he operates and he
gives thein one more ground it he is seen di-
recting taxpayers' stoney to friends.
4