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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1984-05-02, Page 4Pops 4 Times -Advocate, Moy 2, 1964 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 dvocate Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by I.W. Eedy Publications Limited (ORNI I EDY Publisher IIM BECKS [ 1 Ad‘erti'ing Manager BHA BA[TEN ROSS HAUGH Editor Assistant Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager DICK IONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada: $22.00 Per year; U.S.A. $60.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' and 'ABC' Need some deterrent At a recent meeting of Exeter council, police com- mittee chairman Bill Rose explained the reason for the increase in overtime by, the department personnel, noting that much of it was due to the vast amount of time required for some investigations. Based on penalties handed out in Exeter court last week, the police and those who are paying the bills for law enforcement must wonder if the time, effort and cost is worth it. Absolute discharges and suspended sentences with probation were handed out in all but one case by Judge W.G. Cochrane for charges of theft, wilful damage and false pretences. A check through occurrence records at the police station will show that there is an increase in all three types of crime in this area and certainly the punish- ment meted out does little to act as a deterrent. The court appears to be saying that while crime doesn't pay, it is no worse than a break even situation where those found guilty are basically required only to make restitution. While some of the offenders may well have acted out of character and should be shown leniency in the hope that they will not err again, there must surely also be a requirement on the part of the court to pass along a message to the public that there is some punishment associated with erring in the first place so few will be tempted to infringe on the rights and property of others. That may be a requirement to undertake some specific period of community service work or another appropriate measure to add some form of punishment to absolute discharges and suspended sentences.. If making restitution for damages or returning goods that have been stolen or received by false. pretences is seen as the prime requirement for of- fenders, then surely the police could administer that situation and not spend their time and effort in laying' charges or appearing in court on cases where the re- quirement has been met. - In the interest of reducing the costly police over- time, it is perhaps a matter which council should discuss with local court officials. Pernicious system In this age of ever -rising government deficits, one is forced to wonder about the spending habits and management ability of the country's bureaucrats, mandarins and senior civil servants. Indeed, it was no less an authority than Kenneth Dye, Canada's Auditor General, who brought the mat- ter to mind when he admitted to a Commons Commit- tee that his department was conducting an investiga- tion into the "use -or -lose" theory of government spending. For the uninitiated, that's the process through which the nation's bureaucrats spend massive amounts of money in the final month of the government's fiscal year. The apparent reason for the excessive spending: if the cash that was budgeted to be spent hasn't been used up, the mandarins go on a spending binge to see that it is. It is a lot like a taxpayer happily finding that he or she didn't have as many expenses as planned, so the extra money can be blown on a trip to Las Vegas or the sunny south rather than paying down a loan. For upwardly -mobile civil servants, though, the practice is much more important to individual careers, and the country's sales people have a field day during these end -of -fiscal -year rites. Indeed, some knowing companies place senior ex- ecutives in Ottawa and some provincial capitals only for the big buying period. New computers replace the old. Offices are redecorated and new furniture sales take on added 0rrwr, , glamour. Spending plans that had long simmered on the back burner are miraculously discovered overnight. If the bureaucrats don't spend their entire allotments, it seems, there is real concern their peers will view them as bad managers who can't budget correctly. What's worse, from the mandarins' point of view, is that next year's cash allotment for the department or agency may be reduced. This, of course, is not ac- ceptable to the bureaucrats. There is an inherent belief that a larger department, and greater spending, will result in more power and influence for the bureaucrat involved. The problem, of course, is that there is little or no incentive for our bureaucrats to save money. So in- stead of putting a few billion dollars of the planned spending aside to reduce the overall deficit, the extra cash is spent in one final free-for-all. Nor is the difficulty all at the federal level. Indeed, there seems to be a spending mentality among• bureaucrats that affects every government body in the country. The solution may be to offer bonuses to frugal bureaucrats who don't follow the "use -or -lose" theory and have money left at year-end. On the other hand, a simpler and less expensive idea would be a salary cut for bureaucrats who do waste taxpayers' cash by taking advantage of this many -times pernicious system. Consumers have It is perhaps only natural that members of a municipal council are the first to get complaints about transient business enterprises, but to a considerable extent. there is very little they can do to prevent such firms from operating within the community as long as those firms abide by the existing rules and regulations and pay the necessary fees. Some may suggest that the local fee of $100 to set up business is too low, and while that may have some validity, it should be remembered that any sizeable increase could prove a hardship to those businesses which plan to become perma- nent members of the business community. The $100 charge is applied to the annual business tax, which in some instances. iq actually more than the latter. It is not a simple matter of setting ex- ceedingly high rates for firms which plan to operated for only a short period and then move on to some other community. which is apparently the practice of the 11 quidating firm which operated in Exeter for one week recently and resulted in several complaints from local merchants. There do not appear to be any equitable ways in which to discourage such firms without discouraging others that plan to be of a more permanent nature. We operate in a free enterprise system (with some limitations imposed by Big Brother, of course) and local merchants are always going to face such competition periodically and most probably recognize that to infringe on the rights of others is an infringement of their own rights to ex- pect to be able to conduct business ander acceptably fair practices. the best tools The above is not to suggest the writer would encourage transient husinesses conducting their affairs in the communi- ty, because in many regards it does pro- vide unfair competition. However. the only way that those BATT'N AROUND with the editor businesses can be discouraged from reap- ing their profits and running, is for their prospective customers to see the folly of supporting such ventures. Perhaps the first point to consider, and one from which local merchants can take some solace, is that many of the items purchased at such events are the result of impulse buying based on what appears to be a very low price. In fact, a fair percentage of the sales do not represent lost sales for local businesses because customers cart home items they probably wouldn't buy elsewhere because they don't really need them. They've just become wrapped up in the "got a bargain" syndrome, and while they won't admit it, realize too late that it was not a wise purchase from the standpoint of need, and often, also from the basis of quality. Admittedly, it erodes the buying power of those customers, but it may not be as severe a problem as some would suggest. • The second point to consider, and ob- viously the most important, is that the vast majority of the money garnered by such firms, is quickly taken out of the conununity and dries not find its way back into the hands of the consumers as their local purchases do. The benefits of shopping at home have been outlined on many occasions, but ob- viously there are still a great many peo- ple who don't comprehend how closely tied their own welfare is to that of local businesses. There's no more poignant argument than this year's tax rate in Exeter. The local rate was held to a negligible in- crease over last year and one of the ma- jor contributing factors was increased assessment. The latter was from new husinesses which established in the com- munity in the past year. That assessment and local tax base can bust as easily go the other way as usinesses are forced to close because they do not get enough support from the community. That results in unemployment and its resulting deteriorating effect on other businesses and community ventures and unfortunately, once the snowball starts to roll, it is most difficult to stop. Sure, it's difficult to resist a bargain. Unfortunately, those bargains often have a very steep price tag associated with them. Civic official have few tools at their disposal to protect local businesses. Con- sumers have many...and itis in their best interest to use them! IGEMAN He's nine years cold Deep within a Bay Street glacier they found him. Frozen out of public life for giving his tribal chieftain the cold•shoulder. Preserved by the miracle of cold ambition. Brought back to political life by the miracle of Gallup Polls. Now the Gliberals want to exploit him in the name of survival. But he'll need more than a miracle to survive an • election... He'll need a thaw in the West. Egmont -0(i awrkwIL i/�y w< I hate to admit it, after what I've written in the past, but I'm sitting in Florida writing this col- umn. It makes me feel like a heel, knowing that my friends are going through the dying throes of that chancy month of April. I don't want to be here. I despise myself for sitting in Sarasota in my shorts, looking out the window at a lot of palm trees and a small manmade lake where the ducks come splashing in. It literally hurts me in- side when I lie on a chaise loungue beside the swim- ming pool and consider what a rotten traitor I am to my class, my friends, my way of life and my principles. Sometimes a tear rolls down my face. I'm never quite sure whether it's self -disgust or the sun being too strong on my wintry blue eyes. However, you'll be glad to know that I didn't want to come here. I fought it as cleverly as a foal trying to out -fox the hounds. I had several friends who in- vited me to come down and stay with them. My little brother, the Colonel, called me up a couple of times, and demanded what flight I would be on, before I'd even thought of getting a'ticket. He was quite peremptory, as is his wont. Ile gave me a great deal of useless advice, as though .1 had never been outside the country before, even though I've travelled all over the U.K., Europe, and most of Canada, never missing a connection or a flight. Then my physiotherapist got on my back. He thought a good couple of weeks of that Florida sunshine wouldbe great for my broken A rotten traitor shoulder. It's worse than when I arrived. He just wanted to get rid of, me because I groaned too much when he manipulated my shoulder in and out of its socket. I have a low pain threshold. In other words, I groan and grunt when something Sugar and Spice Dispensed By Smiley hurts. No stiff upper lip for me. My friends, looking at my depressed, dilapidated countenance urged me to go, "Just to get away from things." I didn't want to get away from anything. I loved putting out the gar- bage on Tuesday morning, then going back to bed. I thoroughly enjoyed my daily trip to the library. I'd begun to get used to staying awake all night and leaping up at the crack of noon for a delightful snack of the last of last night's Chinese food or fried chicken or pizza. Washed down with strong tea, it's better than many a meal I have eaten. An old pilot friend of- fered to drive me down. A complete hedonist and a recent widower, like me, he really put the pressure on. I still stalled. He was disgusted. Ile's worked all • his life,... HARD, and he's going to enjoy his last years if it kills him. It was tempting, but I hung tough. Then came the real pressure. My daughter Kim, with a recent small inheritance, after living on welfare and short spurts of work, with four degrees, and some help from the old folks, decid- ed to head out for Florida on her spring break. She and the kids -Were going to see Uncle Blake in Sarasota, arid expecting me to scoop them up and take them to Disneyworld. Since I hadn't seen them since Christmas, and t like to keep track of my grand - boys, I succumbed: gave up, gave in, and headed south. I am thankful to say that my grandboys drove my brother almost out of his nut in the two days before I arrived. They got a terri- ble sunburn their first day, after ingoring his advice about sun lotion and such goop. Kim knocked over and broke one of his treasures. The boys threw a ball against the screen around his pool and dented it thoroughly. They walk- ed on his carpets with wet feet. They wanted to go to the beach when he wanted to lie down. I'm used to this, but he's not! As a result, while his hospitality remained im- peccable and extremely generous, he was smiling more and°more through clenched teeth. He is used to people jumping when he says, "Jump!", I'm used to an argument such as, "Where do we jump to, Grandad?" Anyway, somehow, I got conned into two days at Disneyworld with Kim and the kids. My brother had enough sense to tay. home. • Dragging my arthritic old foot around, I manag- ed to keep up with them for the first day, including rides that, even as an old fighter pilot, I wouldn't have had the guts to go on by myself. I whimpered through all of the rides once, but on the many repeats the kids and their mother elected, I declined with regrets. Second day, I spent most of it in the shade, reading a pocket novel and people -watching. I saw tiny kids run on the concrete, trip, fall on their noses and bleed and wail profusely. I saw many oldster charging around, on an off rides, in an out of exhibits, with incrediable stamina, and a young mother, with none left, standing in a "stupor, with a tiny babe draped over her shoulder and two other tykes clutching at her skirts and fussing at her through exhaustion. Disneyworld is a masterpiece of puppets, electronic and visual marvels, and exhibits. It is also very clean, something like a giant EX- PO 67...a wonderland for children! See it if you can. Now I must seriously think about the real things in life, like my income tax forms lurking at home, frozen chicken pies, galoshes. If I linger here, I'll be faced with a host of blossoms whose names I can't even spell... jacaran- da. oleander, hibiscus, etc. No red-blooded Canadian should be faced with such a choice! Anthem has alterations Every working morning I listen tdthe strains of the notional anthem filter down the hall, first from one classroom and then another. S'nce each teacher st s it in a slightly of ent key some strange binations sometimes result. In an assembly of course the children all start together and the combined sound of many young voices can make very pleasant chills run up and down your spine. What is interesting though is to take a minute and listen closely to what some of the kids are real - teacher has recently spent some time teaching the exact words you may not Perspectives By Syd Fletcher ly saying. Better yet take time to have them write down their interpretation of what is being said in the song '0 Canada'. (If their get anything like the following which is a com- bination of all the errors of a whole class). Ilere goes: 0 Canada Our homemade natuv land True pay, true love In all our stuntsman's command With cloying hearts We securely rise The true north standing free God gyp our land Glory laws so free 0 Canada We stand on the grid for thee Needless to say the teacher took it upon himself to assign some memory work.