Times Advocate, 1994-10-19, Page 4Page 4
Times -Advocate, October 19, 1994
Publisher: Jinn Beckett
News Editor: Adrian Harte
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inion
1%1)114W! kl.ti
Thanks for running
eople in every local commu-
nity need to extend their thanks to eve-
ry candidate running in this fall's elec-
tion.
It does not matter if you share their
point of view on local matters, you still
owe them some credit for taking the
plunge for running.
There are a few communities where
there will be no election, with all candi-
dates acclaimed. As one incumbent
councillor from Hensall put it, it is nice
not to have to fight an election, but
without a campaign it is hard to uncov-
er what the mood of the population is,
or even if the major local issues are what
you think they are.
In short, an election, even if to decide
three councillor seats from four candi-
dates, at the very least gets people, and
politicians, thinking.
It's good to see so many incumbents
willing to sacrifice yet more of their per-
sonal time for the good of their commu-
nities. We all know the money's not
worth it alone.
Good government springs forth from a
public being allowed to make good
choices. Thanks again to all those will-
ing to give us those choices.
A.D.H.
UI is not a subsidy
ederal minister of Human Re-
sources Development Lloyd Axworthy
announced last week that teachers in
Manitoba are collecting Unemployment
Insurance during summer months.
If he has discovered the same thing
takes place in Ontario where some
school boards lay off their secretarial
staff for summer, he's not saying.
Obviously, this is not the intended use
of UI. Teachers would collect far more
in UI than they pay into the program,
each and every year. What this "insu-
rance" amounts to is having part of
their salary paid out of federal funds
rather than school board/provincial
funds.
Loopholes such as this are not the
only abuse of the program, however. If
UI were operated as a true insurance
policy, there would have to be higher
premiums for those at a higher risk of
being laid off - for instance the auto in-
dustry, which probably collects far
more than it pays in premiums.
Laid off auto workers aren't really un-
employed, they are still employees of a
company that has come to rely on UI as
a way to keep its employees happy in
slow times. This amounts to a subsidy
paid to the auto industry, or wherever
else routine layoffs are a part of life.
The federal government's discussion
paper "Improving Social Security in
Canada" has been widely touted as an
excuse for the feds tci radically cut off
many of the good things about Canada's
"safety nets".
But if our safety nets are really only a
means to subsidize certain sectors, or to
shift tax burdens onto other levels of
government - or to just plain bilk the
government out of more money, then we
do need some change.
When the discussion paper proposes a
"smaller UI program that supports skills
upgrading where necessary", that should
only be taken as an ominous sign by
those who have come to rely on the UI
system far too much.
A.D.H.
What's on your mind?
The Times -Advocate continues to welcome letters to the editor as a
forum for open discussion of local 'ssues, 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. Anonymous letters will not be published.
A View From Queer's Park
TORONTO - Will Ontario's New Democrat
government be given an extra kick by voters
for hanging in,too long?
The New Democrats were elected in Septem-
ber 1990 and govemrnents mostly have called
elections after approximately four years, but
the NDP has made it clear it will not call one
until 1995.
This has prompted Progressive Conservative
leader Mike Harris to complain the NDP's 'full
term' is up and it should call an election quick-
ly or voters will punish it even more than they
already threaten to. The NDP is lowest in polls
of any Ontario government on record.
Premier Bob Rae is well within his legal
rights to hold off an election until next year.
The Legislative Assembly Act requires that an
election be called within five years and 55 days
of the issue of the writ for the previous elec-
tion. The writ in 1990 was issued on July 30, so
Rae can delay a vote until the fall of next year.
Elections have been called approximately
By Eric Dowd
every four years as regularly as clockwork
since the early 1950s with three other excep-
tions and in each of these the timing became an
issue.
In 1977 Tory premier William Davis, feeling
robbed because for the first time in three dec-
ades his party was without a majority in the
legislature, called an election after only two
years so voters could return him his rightful
due.
Davis had been defeated in the legislature on
the minor issue of what maximum rent increase
should be permitted and claimed this constitut-
ed lack of confidence in his government and an
election must be held. But voters saw through
his tantrum and refused him a majority.
A decade later, Liberal premier David Peter-
son, who had governed for two years with the
NDP's support but without a majority, called
an election saying he needed a mandate to run
his own show.
Peterson had stuck fairly closely to doing
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Hold that thought...
By Adrian Harte
Virtual uselessness, and 4-H job creation
More than a few hopefuls are
interested in being local candi-
dates for the provincial election
expected next spring. I hear the
hot item appears to be the nomi-
nation for the PC candidate. A
few names have been bandied
about as to who's interested,
who's likely, and who's a long
shot.
PC leader Mike Harris still
trails in popularity polls, but I'd
bet heavily on that changing by
next spring. His slash and burn
policies may frighten off a few
voters, but more than a few will
swing his way in a province
troubled by huge deficits and
debts.
Harris is a comfortable and
personable speaker before the
cameras, whereas Liberal Lyn
McLeod, whom I had a chance
to chat with a couple of sum-
mers ago, has a hard time shak-
ing off a kind of rehearsed
smugness when making a
speech.
Still, Hams has a long way to
go. His nifty little book "The
Common Sense Revolution"
was distributed to newspapers
all across the province last
week. Mine came addressed to
a Ms. Gail Atkinson, Editor of
the Times -Advocate. Who?
One can only hope the figures
inside the book were compiled
with better accuracy than Har-
ris' mailing lists.
•In another paper in the
county, a small tempest has
been brewing after a columnist
suggested school board comput-
er purchasing policies are way
behind the times. He claimed
the boards are spending,too
much for too little. Education
director Paul Carrol felt he had
to defend the Huron board's
buying policies, but it's just as
well they don't put me in charge
of getting computers into class-
rooms. I just don't see the need
to have the latest stuff with the
fastest chips, most megahertz,
and the ability to run the latest
programs. The push for more
productivity from computers in
the workplace doesn't translate
to the classroom, where educa-
tion, I hope, is still the priority.
Walking the halls of many
schools in this area, I do see the
occasional "ancient" Apple Ile,
Commodore 64, even the odd
Commodore PET. And why
not? They won't run the Mac's
System 7, or Windows, but kids
can still learn a lot from the old,
less intimidating, stuff. The
point is to make kids comforta-
ble with keyboards and disk
drives, assuming they'll still be
in use by the time they gradu-
ate.
I kid you not. Conventional
wisdom from the educators in
my high school days was we
would all need to learn how to
program a computer in Cobol,
Fortran, and Basic. Without
these skills, they assured us,
we'd be unemployable in the fu-
ture world.
They really had no idea what
absolute crap that was.
There are other things passing
for futurist wisdom these days,
but I'd be willing to bet "virtual
reality" proves virtually useless
(unless you play video games),
and the "information superhigh-
way" will have more dead ends
than reasons to travel.
At the elementary level, I'm
certain the best bet is to make
sure kids can appreciate com-
puters as tools to get things
done. So we have to be sure
they can type well enough on a
keyboard, and have good
enough reading skills toproper-
ly understand an instruction
manual. The rest, I'm sure,
they'll pick up from playing vid-
eo games.
•Another item to cross my
desk and raise my eyebrows
was a little item from the job-
sOntario people, who allowed
Minister of Agriculture, Food
and Rural Affairs Elmer Bucha-
nan to announce a grant of
$18,807 to Ontario's 4-H pro-
grams.
Now I know jobsOntario has
been linking everything from
writing newsletters to screwing
in lightbulbs to job creation, but
I fail to see the connection with
the 4-H program, great as it is.
Buchanan's ministry refers to
4-H as providing "personal de-
velopment opportunities for the
rural youth of Ontario", but I'm
still not convinced the grant
shouldn't be more of a cultural
thing.
However, you may be pleased
to hear this was all done with "a
strategic plan with input from
all stakeholder groups". George
Orwell's still out there, isn't he?
Election timing
what he promised in an agreement with the
NDP that had expired after two years and voters
felt he had done his part and entitled to an elec-
tion and a majority.
But when the same premier called another
election only three years lager, pretending he
needed a mandate to negotiate on national unity
when he clearly wanted to avoid waiting and
facing re-election during an approaching eco-
nomic recession, voters recognized he had
jumped the gun and turfed him out.
These were cases in which governments
called elections earlier than usual. There is not
much on record to confirm that voters will pen-
alize a government for staying too long.
One recent example might appear to be that
of the federal Conservatives who hung on al-
most five full years between elections from
1988-93, most of the time under prime minister
Brian Mulroney, and when they eventually
called one were rendered almost extinct.
But a party also normally does not wait five
years to call an election unless it is already in
trouble and feels its chances may improve with
time. (The Mulroney Tries held the same
record federally for being the most unpopular
government ever in polls that the NDP holds
provincially under Rae.) It is not the waiting
five years that really hurts it.
The last government in Ontario to hang on
longer than the approximate four-year term was
a Liberal administration from 1937-43, but this
was in wartime and the legislature unanimously
extended the government's term.
The Liberals it is true eventually were clob-
bered, but they already had been tom apart by
their self-destructive premier, Mitchell Hep-
burn, and it would be difficult to prove that
clinging to office longer than usual did them
extra harm.
The NDP in fact is being practical, because it
is so unpopular that calling an election after
four years would be certain execution. Hanging
on offers a slight chance of reprieve.
4