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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1984-11-07, Page 4r syr21, "-Y-,. -•?-. -. Pow 4 Times -Advocate, November 7, 1984 Times Established 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 -- i Serving South Huron, North Middlesex & North Lambton Since 1873 Published by J.W. Eedy Publications limited LORNE EERY Publisher JIM BECKET E Advertising Manager BILL BAT TEN ROSS HAUGH Editor Assistant Editor HARRY DEVRIES Composition Manager DICK JONGKIND Business Manager Published Each Wednesday Morning at Exeter, Ontario Second Class Mail Registration Number 0386. Phone 235-1331 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 4 Canada: $22.00 Per year; U.S.A. $60.00 C.W.N.A., O.C.N.A. CLASS 'A' He stands alone - Remembering In front of the monument. The wreaths have been placed, People have come and paid their respects. Now he stands alone - Remembering The skies overhead are cold and grey, Very little sun shines on his day. Tiny snowflakes fall gently on his face, But he stand alone - Remembering His face is weather-beaten, wrinkled, A tear shapes at the corner of his eye, But his stance is straight at attention, And he stands alone - Remembering. +CNA BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1980 BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1981 Remembering He hears the guns in the battles gone by, He hears the noise of the dead and dying. He relives these days for a few moments in his mind. Now he stands alone - Remembering. He thinks of his return home, and the celebrating. He thinks of his wife, children and grandchildren Who today can live free - because of him. It becomes very clear for all to see Why he stands alone - Remembering. A poor example It would be rather absurd and dangerous to order a convicted child molester to perform community work by helping out at a children's summer camp. While not quite as absurd or dangerous, but never- theless questionable, is the sentence handed out last week to a hockey player found guilty of assaulting a referee at a game last winter in the Lucan arena. The judge turned down the Crown's request for a jail term and instead ruled that the convicted player would have to serve 150 hours in community work by assisting in a minor hockey program. Minor hockey in some areas already suffers from coaches and managers who condone, or even in some Leah Smith Freetown, P.E.I. First Place Intermediate Poem cases encourage, too much violent play on the part of young hockey minds. An even larger number often display a lack of respect for referees. Youngsters obviously don't need thta type of exam- ple and leadership displayed by the convicted assaulter. In addition, the sentence appears to be an insult to those minor coaches and managers who are striv- ing to improve the conduct of their players towards their opponents and game officials. Community work may be an appropriate "punish- ment" in this case, but the nature of the work specified does appear rather difficult to comprehend. Should review appointed positions Political patronage was one of the main issues in the recent federal election, and judging from his statements in recent days, Huron -Middlesex MPP Jack Rid- dell may carry that issue into the next provincial election. Riddell raised the ire of some staunch Conservatives in the legislature when he indicated that research by his party and a couple of major Ontario daily newspapers had revealed that the Davis government has rewarded over 350 par- ty supporters with a variety of jobs paid for from the public coffers. A few prominent area politicians were mentioned in his remarks, which drew a stiff rebuttal from Seaforth native Clare Westcott regarding the variety of jobs the latter's family members have managed to corral. Patronage appointments have always drawn some measure of criticism, of course, but the results of the federal vote casting suggests that members of the public are less lenient in their attitudes towards such actions by their rulers than they may have been in the past. Part of that stems from the fact many Canadians have no jobs at all, and therefore view with some scorn and sense of unfairness the fact that one's political persuasion is among the criteria involv- ed in getting a job. Secondly, many of those positions hand- ed out as political favors or rewards, carry with them above average income levels and that makes them appealing to the many taxpayers who have to foot the bill from pay cheques which are con- siderably lower in comparison. What should not be forgotten in the debate is the fact that many of the jobs can only be filled by people with political leanings of the same slant as those mak- ing the appointments. It would obviously be absurd for Premier Davis to appoint one of the Huron -Middlesex MPP's children to a sensitive position in the premier's office where some of the items of discussion are not designed for the ears of Liberal sup- porters. That would be as absurd as Mr. Riddell naming one of the Westcott children to his office staff. Many of the other positions also require someone prepared to carry out the gover- ning party's wishes without question nor from a different political viewpoint and so it must be accepted that not all the jobs in Ontario can be handled by a Liberal or NDP supporter. However, one aspect that appears to be getting less debate than warranted, is whether many of the public positions BATT'N AROUND with the editor should be made through appointments as opposed to open competitions where qualifications receive a higher priority than political affiliations. As there are jobs where partisan at- tributes are required, there are many positions now being filled on that basis where such attributes are certainly not required. To end the historical and current debates on political patronage, the legislature should name an all -party com- mittee to study those jobs which are now made through government appointment to determine which could be filled through an open competition without any political bias. It could then be possible for people without any particular political persuasion as well as those who are of leanings op- posite that of the government of the day, to apply for such jobs and stand an equal chance of getting them based strictly on qualifications. By the same token, those who hold jobs deemed to require partisanship with the government, would know where they 1 stood if and when that particular party lost favor with the electorate. The "housecleaning" aspect of a change in government would in effect be by mutual agreement and all appointees would know their fate without the stress or room for criticism that is currently taking place on the federal scene. There is little doubt that the number of positions filled through political appoint- ment has increased significantly through the years with little justification in many cases. Many of those jobs could be filled most adequately by choosing people by what they know without consideration for who they know. • Patronage is not confined solely to the provincial or federal scene, although the cases which arise in the municipal field are not based on any party affiliation. Ilowever, they still exist and are often met with skepticism by ratepayers who see family members of elected or ap- pointed officials receiving public positions. Some public bodies adhere to a strict rule that family members are not eligible for positions tjtrough which their relation- ship with members or even other staff could be seen as a conflict of interest. It is an area that can lead to some unpleasant problems and accusations and public bodies are always well adivsed to have clear policies on such matters. There are not, of course, any municipal jobs which are of a sensitive nature re- quiring family members to fill and despite the qualifications they may have, it is still almost impossible to convince any person turned down for the same job that the D'in- ner's relationship with an elected or ap- pointed official was not a criteria used in filling the job. • Even though direct influences are usually avoided. there are indirect in- fluences that are obviously difficult to avoid. That can lead to problems for all members of a public body, not just those directly involved with a particular applicant. _ty $LNeijr. "1 decided to give our budget the day off!" Nobody wants speech I feel quite hurt this year. Nobody asked me to speak at their Remem- brance Day dinner. I would have turned it down, of course, because I think you can flog the old poppy and talk about throwing the torch from our failing hands only so long, before it becomes irrelevant. However, I've not been ignored entirely. A teacher asked me to send a copy of a Remembrance Day column I wrote either last year, or the year before, to be read by a Grade 8 student, to the whole school, I presume. Some order, If I kept a decent file of columns, I could put my finger on it, run off a copy and shoot it to him. But my files are something like my mind: scattered all over the place, confused, mixed up. My wife, in a fit of pique over some little thing, once stuffed about 200 of my columns into a large plastic bag. It's a little dif- ficult to reach into that bag (it's really a garbage bag, as she implied when she did it) and pull out the right column. And of course, I haven't been forgotten by the good old administration of our school, which has re- quested that I write a two - minute thing about Remembrance Day. My, how that day has shrunk. When I was a kid, the whole school marched to the arena, bedecked with flags, heard speeches about our "fallen" and "our glorious dead." I think we got the afternoon off, to enjoy more im- mediate pleasures. But before we were dismissed, we heard some haunting hymns, such as "Abide with me," "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and saw some real tears fall from the eyes of people who had lost a husband or father. After World War II, but not for several years, I joined the Canadian Legion. Not because I wanted to, particularly, they made a day of it. Now, the tiny remnant of old vets of that time are rapidly becoming old men. Then I started teaching school. Remembrance Day was still observed, with the whole school be- ing called for a special Sugar and Spice Dispensed By Smiley but because I was a week- ly editor, and you had to join everything to get the news. Each year we swag- gered, with a certain amount of the old flair, down the main street to the cenotaph, followed by a rag -tag of Scouts and Guides and Brownies, to make up a parade, and led by the town band. The names of the local boys were read, a prayer, a hymn, the Last Post, some sniffles in the meagre au- dience, and some wet eyes and lumps in throats among the Legionnaires, who really did remember. Then back to the Legion Hall for beer and b.s. There was a good feeling between the old-timers of W.W. I, and us young veterans who had never gone over the top, delous- ed ourselves, coped with a gas attack, or been under heavy bombardment of artillery, as the old vets frequently reminded us. The • native Indian veterans turned out in force. This was before they were allowed to buy any kind of spirits, and Or .. assembly, and the old platitudes recalled and regurgitated. I was asked to speak, at one of them. The head of the students' council preceded me, and pulled out all the cliches and hackneyed references. "Sacrifice", "the fallen" and carrying "the torch" were among them. I didn't mean to, but pulled the rug right out from under him. I pointed out that the dead didn't fall; they were killed; that the sacrifice made by millions of young men, from many nations, all of them fighting for "the right," achieved absolute- ly nothing; that if so- meone threw them a torch to carry, they should throw it right back, and so on. The kids loved it, but the administration thought it was iconoclastic. These assemblies went on for a few more years, steadily disintegrating as the remembrance ceremony was turned over more and more to the students, to whom both wars were ancient history. They degenerated into folk songs like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" juvenile diatribes against war, and maudlin sentiments about peace, far worse than the Legion, which always had a cer- tain dignity, could perpetrate. Eventually, the assemblies were cut en- tirely, and yours truly became the goat. His task ; to write a two -minute commercial reminding the students that Remem- brance Day is not just a school holiday. Try doing that in 200 words that will stir the students' emo- tions, uplift their souls, and make them want to rush out and defend their country against something or other. The wars mean almost nothing to them, and the only things they'd fight to the death for are their transistors, motorcycles, hi-fi's, and high allowances. Most of them have only the vaguest idea of the tensions in the world, and small reason. They're sick to death of politicians and are inured to violence by seeing it daily on TV. They don't really care much about abstracts like patriotism, loyalty, sacrifice. But I get my quiet revenge. There's no teaching, in the usual sense, in my classes on the day before the "holiday". I show them souvenirs, pictures of "your hero" standing beside his Typhoon, and tell them funny stories about stupid senior officers, and make them realize that if it were forty years ago, most of them would be in the pro- cess of being shot at, or losing a sweetheart. It works. Stabbed in the back Well, the Tories have got their wish haven't they? After a lot of years sitting gnawing their knuckles in frustration about the Liberals' policies in Ottawa, of com- hplaining bitterly about ow poorly things have been done, they've got the chance to do something about it. It's going to be in- teresting to see if Brian Mulroney comes through with his promises that he made wholesale throughout. the election compaign. During the last few weeks, even though Parliament hasn't been convened it would appear that there is a great deal of activity going on in Ot- tawa and I must say that I like some of it. For example, the slapped that were getting a little too full at the public trough. An interesting side com- Perspectives By Syd Fletcher taking -back of Bryce Mackasey's appointment as Ambassador to Por- tugal, a pure patronage appointment by Trudeau. It makes me feel good to see some of the hands ment about those patronage appointments. To me it would seem that Mr. Trudeau (who was always the very astute politician in previous years) would have to know the devastating effect such appointements would have on his successor, John Turner, ,and of course the Liberal party in general. To me it would appear that Trudeau, because of the internal squabbles which he had had with Turner, deliberately sabotaged the latter in order to get per- sonal revenge, and to make it appear that nobody could replace him in the liberal party. It is quite possible that Mulroney would have won anyway given the mood of the country but it is a shame when you get stabbed in the back by so- meone within your own group.