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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1998-05-13, Page 4Page 4 Times -Adv cate, May 13, 1998 Publisher & Editor: Jim Beckett Business Manager: Don Smith Production Manager: Deb Lord Advertising. Barb Consitt, Chad Eedy News: Kate Monk. Craig Bradford, Katherine Harding, Ross Haugh • Production; Alma Ballantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Brenda Hern. Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner Transportation; Al Hodgert Frun(Office & Accounting; Sue Rollings, Carol Windsor Ruthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald, Cassie Dalrymple, Ruth Slaght. CCNA The Exeter Times-Advdcate is a member of a family of community newspapers providing news, advertising and information leadership I;I)I IORIAI, Harris forces rethinking on issue he federal government is tie- ing forced to backtrack on the federal government's recent decision to "close the file" -on compensation for Hepatitis C victims. and by a most unlikely source. • Health Minister Allan Rock had come up.with a $1.1 billion package, which was initially supported by the provinc- c,.;.which would compensate only vic- tims' who had contracted the disease be- twc;cn 1986 and 1990, the -years when a reliable screening test was available and the Red C'r'oss chose not to use it. Rock erred -in attempting to limit the compensation and our local MP John Richardson obviously agrced,•at one point last week announcing he was pre- pared to support a Ret rnl Party motion that all Hepatitis C victims, an addition- al 20,000 R 30,000, he compensated. Richardson, and other Liberal back- henchers uncbu)fortahlc with Rock's stand, were severely chastised, report- edly by the Priti)e Minister h1iiisclf, and ended up voting with the party. To his credit. Richardson said he would Continue to work' "tirelessly" to. help Hepatitis C victims not covered by the compensation package. But the issue wouldn't go away, and its taken Ontario Premier Mike Harris to force the Liberals to re -,open the file. Anyone who has lived in Ontario dur- ing the past three years knows that Pre miel Harris is not known for his com- passion. In fact, many would argue that a lot inure, Ontat'ians are suffering thanks to the Conservative govern- ment's cuts to services. Lately however, and perhaps with an election on the horizon,. Harris has no- ticed that he's come to he thought of as heartless. We're admittedly, sceptical, but no doubt the time has come for a little image rebuilding. The recent back- tracking on his compensation plan for the surviving Dionne sisters, due to the huge. public outcry, was one example of an opportunity taken to show that Harris does have a caring side. And now, along comes another. We must not forget, however, that it was Al- lan Rock who first pushed to compen- sate the Hepatitis C sufferers. And that initially, provinces,. including Ontario, were opposed to pledging support. Did not former Ontario Health Minister Jim Wilson say the virus was "an act of - God?" But Harris has charged in like a knight on a white horse now, saying his gov- ernment will compensate all of Onta- rio's victims of the disease equally ... to the tune of $200 million and challeng- ing the federal government to do the same. The Harris generosity was met with scepticism by some. British Columbia Health Minister Penny Priddy noted that perhaps Ontario is, "more able to do that since they've been closing hospitals and laying off nurses to save health care money.. . ." In any event, Allan Rock announced Monday he's calling a meeting of all Premiers to discuss the latest develop- ments. "Let's find out where people are and do the best we can to do the right thing," Rock said outside the Commons. This issue -has been called a political football. If the end result, however, means that all Hepatitis C victims are compensated fairly, then all.the political maneuvering, no matter whether it's • been done for the right reasons or not, will have been worth it. reprinted from Sr. Marys Journal Argus Your Views Letters to the Editor Puhl canons Matt Registration Number 6/511 $UBSCRIPTION RATES; One year rate for Canada subscribers - $35.00 + OST Two year rate for Canada subscribers - $63.00 + OST OTHER RATS Outside Canada• 5102.00 Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Maki St , Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6 by 1.W. Eedy Publications Ltd. Telephone 1.519-2351331 • Fax: 519-235-0766 emall:taOeedy.com O.S.T. *R105210835 M-115 I'rrnoN IS FROM FaoPLa VEouHA MEL4 --ANuTHIS PErmoN1" 15 FROM PEOPLE WHO WArrfl 'NE YoumiE FINGR ^.r i N A correction '"We regret:these two errors... Dear Editor: Please note correction in the recent notice entitled Class Environmental Assessment Expansion of Sewage 'treatment Works - Notice ofComplction of Environmental Study Report in the Ex(;ter T -A of April 29. 1998. ,it is noted that the report is available in the Exeter Public Library. The correct address of the library is 330 Main Street. Exeter. while the phone number is 235-1890 (not 235-1980). We regret these two errors and hope this has caused no inconvenience to the public•or to the library. The correct information is in this week's paper. Rick Hundey. Chief Administrative Officer JJirty Laundry By Katherine Harding Saying goodbye to a decade's worth of "nothing" . How did the hit T.V. comedy sit- com Seinfeld manage tci parley the. plot of "nothing" into nine seasons and 170 episodes? Easy. With a. winning formula of four self-absorbed and dysfunction- al friends coupled with a continu- ous tribute to the pleasures. annoy- ances and idiosyncrasies of life. it wasn't hard. Unlike traditional sitcoms that at tempt to realistically deal with is- sues. relationships -and challenges. Seinfeld purp9sely shunned that route. opting for the low road in- stead. Seity ld co -creator. -Larry Das id epitomized the shots, hest when -he said the site:om's slogan was. no hugs. no learning. Seinfeld didn't set out to make the world a better place. he lust wanted to make people laugh. in the process. Seigel(' also man-, aged to introduce us to a slew of memorable and sometimes endear- ing.charactcrs like Newman. Uncle Leo. Bubble Boy. Frank Costanza: J. Peterman and the Soup Nazi. The show also managed to. make an indelible mark on our vernacular by - contributing words and catch phrases tike: "serenity now." ".Yad-, da. yadda." "l am the master of my domain.- "magic loogie.- Not that there is anything wrong with that." "home -bed aj antase.- "shrink - "The special alchemy Seinfeld managed to create week after week was why we all • tuned in." age" and nn personal t.Iyonte. --esti us .. The show irr. erently and shamelessly pu' [hell warped spin on taboo .uh)eits like religion.and sexual orientation...They. also: man: aged to mock•contemporary events of the 91►: like •the O.J. Simpson case. in their usual twisted Sein- feld -tan style. However. Seinfeld was at its best when it was dome what it became known for. pointing out the humor found in life's trivial moments and events. The special. alchemy Seurfeld manaecd 10 create week alter week was why we all tuned in. • Will an estimated 79 million peo- ple stop this Thursday night to watch "nothing?" Of ,:nurse they will. Despite the fact that number of view .r, is not even dose to the 11)6 Million that tuned in to tow itch the final episode of M*A*S*H (the highest rated and most watched T V. show ever). advertisers are willing to pay through .the nose to he a part of Seinfelds swan song. Thirty second spots are estimated to have gone for 31.6 million each and NBC is expected to rake it in when Seinfeld is fully into syndication. However. the spotlight is on Thursday night when we will finally sec what nine years of "nothing" culminated into. I can hardly wait. A View from Queen's Park TORONTO - Premier Mike Harris is being hailed as a compassionate hero for providing new help for tainted blood victims, but there is a lot of evidence he did not do it out of the goodness of his heart. The Progressive Conservative premier spoke up where other leaders were silent and demand- ed the federal and provincial governments wid- en their plan which would have compensated only those who contracted hepatitis C from blood donations between 1986 and 1990. Harris said they should also compensate those infected before 1986, when screening be- came possible but governments did not require it and therefore were negligent, and he would provide it for Ontario sufferers whether Ottawa helped or not. He forced the federal government, which had insisted the issue was closed, and others to reo- pen it, and he has been acclaimed as the leader in injecting humanity into the contentious is- sue. Victims' organizations said Harris showed By Eric Dowd heart in coming forward and setting a precedent. Some sufferers said they are elated by their first good news in years. The legislature passed a motion unanimously supporting Harris, and a normally hostile newspaper praised him for breaking the logjam. • Harris should be acknowledged as having done the right thing and this is all most people will think of. But he did so only after two years of wriggling to get off the hook of compensating anyone. While in opposition, he assured the victims' group that their request for compensation for all victims was "more than reasonable" but once in government and faced with having to pay out money, the Tories' enthusiasm waned. In 1997, Hepatitis C victims demonstrated at the legislature, complaining that then health minister Jim Wilson would not even meet them, - and at one point Wilson said the Harris govern- ment would not compensate anyone and the fed- eral government could do so if it wished, but otherwise the v' tims should sue in the courts. Don't ask how he got his profile Wilson's successor as health minister, Elizabeth Witmer, gave the victims' group the impression she was a prime mover in wanting to compen- sate 'only those who contracted the disease be- tween 1986 and 1990, and it protested that Har- ris was not prepared to honour fully , his commitments. Harris's government in March was part of the federal -provincial agreement to provide com- pensation only to to those infected between 1986 and 1990. Witmer said then that she was syrtipathetic to those infected earlier, but goy= ernments are limited in the help they can give and the decision to exclude some was made af- ter careful deliberation and agreed to by all governments. Harris's sudden change of his mind cannot be because he has. heard arguments on the intrinsic merits of compensating that he had not heard before.The premier clearly saw the ferocious at- tacks on the federal health minister and main author of the agreement, Allan Rock, who may have wrecked his career on the issue, and want- ed to avoid similar fury being directed at his own government. Harris also saw an incidental chance to embarrass the provincial Liberals, who lead him in polls. by introducing a motion in the legislature asking them to support him and in effect chastise the federal Liberals, a motion they had no option but to endorse. But Harris would have been most attracted because he has been,searching desperately for an issue on which he can look compassionate. He has a reputation for being tough, mainly be- cause he has cut costs which hurt some. His image as hard-hearted has been rein- forced by stands "such as saying he had to end pregnancy allowances to women on welfare to stop them buying beer, for which he apolo- gized, and having to be forced" by public opin- ion to offer reasonable compensation to the three surviving Dionne quintuplets. Hams had said he needs to get a kinder, gen- tler image and now he has one on one of the highest profile issues in years, provided no one asks how he got it. •