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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-02-22, Page 4• oFfez".1%k • Vie Published Barry Wenger. President Henry Hess. Editor ingbam 2bbance-ttimeo at Wingham, Ontario, R.O. Box 39(1. NOG 2Wtt by Wenger Bros. Limited Robert O. Wenger. Sec.-Treas. Audrey Currie. Advertising Manager Member Audit Bureau of Circulations Member — ('anadian Community Newspaper Assoc, Subscriptions $3000 peryear Second ('lass Mail Registration No. 0821 Ontario Community Newspaper Assoc. Six months $11.50 Return postage guaranteed An unhappy beginning The current stand-off between the Wingham Area Fire Board and its fire department officers Is a truly unfort- unate beginning for a new venture In co-operation between the town and its rural neighbors. It is to be hoped the dispute will be resolved speedily and without leaving a legacy.of hard feel- ings. - There Is no question that volunteer firemen are people to whom we all owe a -large debt of gratitude. How many of us would be ready to leap from warm beds at two in the morning to ride in an open truck with the mercury standing at 20 below? They do this work In addi- tion to their regular jobs, finding time not only to fight fires but also to train, attend meetings and carry out required maintenance on their equlpmert and fire hall. By the very nature of the job It is probably impossible ever to put a price tag on their efforts. The most we can do is make sure they are adequately corn: pensated for the time and effort they expend and the risks they accept on our behalf. In this regard, the Wingham Fire Department has done well as if not bet- ter than most. What is at issue in this dispute is not what the firemen are. to be paid for fighting fires. That has al- ready been settled .br'»mutual agree- ment .between the firemen and the board. What is in dispute is how much the officers — the chief and his cap- tains — are to be paid for duties and re- sponsibilities over and above their fire- fighting pay. • What is fair?- Probably the only way to arrive at any conclusion is to make comparisons with other fire de- partments and with historical prece- dent. Both of these tend to indicate that in most respects the. fire board's offer is generous. The one exception is the offer to the fire ,chief which,.. while it would bring his pay into line with that of other chiefs in the area, would re- quire him to accept a cut in pay from the level established in 1979. At that time his pay was raised to $7,0011a year from $1,000, since rising to $8,400. There is no reason to believe the board is being vengeful or stingy In its offer. It is composed of reasonable men,entrusted with directing the af- fairs of their municipalities, and they appear to be sincere in their desire to be both fair and responsible. Their fig- ures show Wingham to be the best -paid fire department in the area, and they are content to have it so. They also re- alize, however, that precedents estab- lished today will set the tone for other decisions in years to come. Wingham is fortunate to have a highly competent and dedicated fire chief. His abilities have been recog- nized by his peers and are being used by both the county and the fire mar- shal's office. He spends a great deal of time on the job and undoubtedly earns every penny he is paid. The board recognizes this. Yet there is -merit to its argument that those other groups and not the local fire board should be pay- ing the chief for his efforts on their be- half. It also is unfortunate that the chief sees the board's desire to return to the departmental structure established in the 1970 fire bylaw as an encroachment onto his turf. Perhaps in the past dis- tinctions have been blurred, but it is the board's duty to establish structure and set poiicy,, while leaving the day-to-day running of the department to the chief. Mr. Crothers has given many years of outstanding service to both the Town of Wingham and its neighboring.4own- ships. Should he carry through on his threat to resign, it would be a tragic ending to a fine career. New. age of fear About 25 years ago, when the cold war was at its height, many Canadians and Americans planned seriously to provide themselves and their families with fallout shelters. Some of us even bought supplies of canned and dehyd- rated foods and filled water jugs as a first move toward survival under nu- clear attack. When the holocaust failed to ma- terialize we gradually relaxed and eventually came to the, realization that all such preparations were indeed a waste of time and money. Fallout shel- ters would mean little except a few weeks of delay in a no-win situation. Now fear is once more in the air. In fact there has been renewed talk about commerically-produced fallout shel- ters. President Reagan's threatening, attitude toward the Soviets, the death of Yuri Andropov and the emergence of Height of folly A news report last week recounted the decision of the Allied powers to spend $50,000 to provide an elevator for the convenience of Rudolf Hess in Ger- many's Spandau prison. Hess, at 90 years of age, has become so feeble that he is no longer able to climb the iron stairway from his cell to the room where he is permitted to visit with members of his family for one hour a month. Incidentally, he is the only pris- oner in the huge building. For a whole generation of people who have scarcely ever heard of Rudolf Hess, the explanation sounds little less a new Russian leader have combined to breed a new era of fear. And if we, who have never known the presence of a foreign enerny on our soil experience fear, just imagine whatgoes through the average Russian mind. It is only 40 years since their land was devastated, their people slaughtered, not in thou- sands, but by millions. Starvation stalked their land; their soldiers died in droves; some of their cities endured years of` Siege. The Russian people, without doubt, are totally determined that never again will they become the victims of aggression. It is true that we must have the weapons without which we would invite conquest, but the great and crying need today is for the superpowers to demon- strate, not their ability to destroy one another, but rather their unwillingness to ever again engage in the horror of war. than insane. He was Ado! Ilitscl a man when World War II broke out. In the mistaken belief that he could talk the British into an alliance with Ger- many Hess flew to Scotland and landed on the estate of a man whom he had met in previous years. Instead of gain- ing a hearing with the British govern- ment he was promptly imprisoned. He was obviously misinformed about British attitudes but of all the Hitler crowd he did less harm to the Allied cause than the lowliest corporal in the German forces. Yet 43 years later he is still behind bars. For what conceivable purpose? Profit whatever the Postal union members are pretty unhappy right now with shrinking staff levels. Under its new management Canada Post Corp. Is "trimming the total of those it employs, not by firings, but by attrition; simply curtailing tie numbers of those hired as replace- ments for retirees. Michael Warren, president of Can- ada Post, Is determined to reach a break-even point within a couple of years, thus ending the need for govern- ment' subsidies to carry his corpora- tion. Reducing expenditure% Is not the only weapon In the postal arsenal. Can- • price u , a. o f eitoriV G 1 i✓: 4.* ii Fs rr �F{ iV } Fi x'f'rr +r��r ifjlrj� .r• F�?...rri e'e• 2.14 Jre Fir Bib Bq®r'ERa/o laRortge-Ry BIG aRcm'E# Article on smoking missed real story Dear Editor, The article "Former smokers describe how they quit the habit" (Jan. 18) gives useful information on the health hazards associated with tobacco use, but it misses the real story associated with "Weedless Wednesday" and the National Non -Smoking Week. Because of the magnitude of the health problem involved, please permit us the opportunity to comment. Smoking will kill close to 30,000 Canadians this year, over 500 per week. Five hundred grieving—families, no less torn apart and an- guished because their loved ones died in a terminal cancer ward than on a rain slick highway. More Canadians will die at the hands of the tobacco in- dustry in the next 18 months than were killed during the entire Second World War. What should be done? Consider this example. In a major Canadian urban area of 2.5 million, a supposedly anti-smoking health agency recently claimed to have serviced 400 smokers in its smoking cessation clinics during a one-year period. Assuming the most op- timistic" success rates. reported in the medical literature, about 100 people managed to quit smoking completely. Yet during this same year it is estimated that 17,000 new smokers joined the market in that same urban area. One epidemiologist said, "This is like bailing the boat while someone else drills holes in the bottom." The real story is this: the answer to a health problem of this magnitude must be much more than weak- kneed, trivializing "Weed- less Wednesdays" and safe, non -controversial health ed- ucation campaigns. All these efforts place the respon- sibility, for the smoking problem on the individual, the industry's "blame and victim" strategy. Unfortu- nately, health agencies and government health depart- ments promote it more ef- fectively than the industry itself. The "blame the victim" strategy includes the in- dustry line that smoking involves "freedom of choice" and "it's the responsibility of each in- dividual" pitch. Those who use this line and stress the responsibility of each in- dividual to stop smoking imply that 40 per cent of the adult -S population is irresponsible. After all, they are still smoking. The annual "kick the habit" -ritual ignores the fact that smoking is an individual addiction which, from 'a disease perspective, has become an epidemic. By definition, drug addiction means that, for many, freedom of choice and in- dividual responsibility go out the window. And it is ludi- crous to treat an epidemic by relying on appeals to good d t ° ada Post is actively in competition with the nation's newspapers as it sells dir- ect mail services to advertisers, a source of revenue badly needed by some of the nation's smaller publica- tions. Most of us would agree that any re- duction in governrnent subsidy pay- ments is desirable, but the 'Post Office is\far from being alone in this regard. Many other services such as the CBC, the National Film Board and the rail- ways have long been ,maintained at some public expense all part of the price we must pay for being a sparse population in a very big land. r, Is there a real "freedom of choice" as the industry suggests? Not really. Should responsible adults' give 12 to 15 -year-old children a free- dom of choice involving a drug dependency that will cut, on average, five years from their life expectancies and cost these children $100,000 in today's dollars over the period of their shortened lifetime? And yet 12 to 15 is the age at which most smokers become regular tobacco users. The answer has to be a massive societal shift of responsibilityfrom the in- dividu'al to t- 'problem and creates thi problem and to governments which sit idly by. There must be a de - emphasis on campaigns which deal with smoking after the habit is started (tertiary prevention) and upon curative medical research to cure folks after tobacco diseases hit. At the Fifth World Con- ference on Smoking and Health in Winnipeg, there was a near consensus among delegates which was ex- pressed by United' States Federal Trade Com- missioner Michael Pert- schuk. He said that the tobacco problem is "90 per cent political and only 10 per cent medical." Primary prevention involves politics. Thus the answer lies in medical advocacy, a wide- spread and angry demand for a legislative response to the tobacco industry. The Lung, Cancer and Heart organizations Canada -wide must call for bans on tobacco advertising. They must support clean indoor air legislation and put their. human and financial Trying to unite Dear Editor, I am trying to re -unite twin sisters who have been separated for more than 80 years, and would be most grateful if you would. make their story public. Eliza (on whose behalf I am working) and Harriet Flynn were born Aug. 1, 1901, in Hexham, North- umberland, England to Dorothy Ann, wife of John Flynn, a plasterer. Shortly after birth, Eliza was adopted privately. Harriet and her mother came to Canada round about 1912. Eliza, who still lives in Hexham, is very anxious to find her long -lost twin. REAL Women support upgrading of job skills Dear Editor, !, In recent months much controversy has arisen in Ontario over the issue of equal pay for work of equal value. This concept, it should be pointed outs, is quite dif- ferent from that of equal pay for equal work, which has long beeirthe law in Ontario and which requires (quite rightly) that men and women be paid equally for performing the same or substantially the same work. The REAL ' (Realistic, Equal, Active for Life) Women of Canada actively promote this concept, of equal pay for equal work. However the concept of equal pay for work of equal value is a totally different concept* in that it does not compare the wages of men and women doing the same work, but rather compares the wages of men and women performing different work. The problem • of comparing different work is that this requires a job evaluation plan that assigns points for different factors such as job risk, uncertain tenure, working conditions, training, . etc. The assigning of this point system to determine job value cannot, un- fortunately, be done by any objective standard, but is accomplished by way of a subjective assignment of points and depends much upon the bias of the person carrying out the evaluation. In addition, according to the US Census Bureau Classified Index of Industries and Occupations, there are 23,000 1 titles in the US. (This number would also, no doubt, apply in Canada.) To monitor and establish equal value for all these oc- cupations would be an exhaustive, long-term bureaucratic endeavor. Finally, in areas where this concept has been im- plemented, careful analysis indicates that no more than two and a half to three per cent of women actually benefit from it. Also significantly, according to Statistics Canada the wage gap in Quebec, where the equal value concept has been accepted, has not narrowed as quickly as that of Ontario, which has not accepted the concept. In short, few women will benefit from this in that it has not, to date, indicated any appreciable narrowing of the wage gap. In view of these problems inherent in the equal value concept, REAL Women of Canada have taken the position it is not a satisfactory method of upgrading women's salaries. It would appear to us that the better approach to attain this objective would be to spend more funds in.upgrading women's job skills and education so that women will then have access to the higher -paying occupations traditionally held by men. This, in the long run, will have the most permanent and far-reaching effect on narrowing the wage gap between men and women. Grace Petrasek President REAL Women of Canada Thornhill resources behind drives to reath these objectives. Legislators and health professionals who knowingly and negligently refuse to reject the snail's pace campaign mounted to date on the smoking issue must share culpability with the industry for those 500 weekly deaths. ' Garfield Mahood Executive Director Non -Smokers' Rights Assoc. Toronto twin sisters 22 r What has .' happened. to the Melodiers? Dear Editor, I read The Wingham Advance -Times faithfully every week. Last week there were two stories that were of great interest, but to get my point across I have to go back in time a couple of years to an ad that Mr. Borden Jenkins had in the paper for musicians and . a personal interview with Mr. Jenkins in "Spotlight", which I think was well written and very interesting to read. At that time Mr. Jenkins was putting together a group of local people to form a band to entertain the seniors, whom he felt needed an outlet and a place where they vould dance, listen or just isit with their friends (old and new) from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. every other Thursday night. The attendance was small, but it was thoroughly enjoyed by those who faith- fully attended. For a brief period of time it was changed to Friday night because some attending wanted the change. These same people requested that at the beginning of. this year the -dances would revert back to Thursday nights as they liked this better. This change was announced at the Nov. 25 dance. Then winter took over and you know how much snow we've had, so the dances were late in starting. But when they started this past Thursday; Feb; 16, which was the first of the season, where were Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Ross Cardiff, Mr. Stewart Henry, Miss Vera Baxter and Mrs. Joyce Stuernol? The Melodiers have been. put on the retirement shelf with- out notice and replaced by the Seniors' Happy Gang and Cord's Oldtimers. These are former members of the Melodiers. Through research in the U.K. it has been established that the last news of Harriet came in 1953, when she was reported to be living in Toronto with her husband and three children, two boys and a girl. Unfortunately there is no record of Harriet's husband's last name. It seems likely that Harriet and her mother may well have settled originally in the eastern provinces. The ladies have an older half- brother, Billy.McGarity, who is known to have worked for CP in the early 1930s. If Harriet or her children recognize themselves from this outline, or if anyone else has information about Harriet or her family, please write to me at: 14 Gertrude Place, Toronto M4J 1R3. Thank you. Juliet Mannock Toronto jugwen, occupations Mr. Jenkins is the leader of the band and was nev,,er. 'consulted about any of these new changes. He has quite an expense in equipment and he was responsible for getting this to and from the Armouries or wherever with very little help from anyone and he did this faithfully and with pride and care because he loves to entertain. You don't easily carry heavy speakers and am- plifiers around in the snow and cold that we have had and probably all for nothing. It takes four trips to set up for a couple of hours and in this weather play to a room as some people choose to stay indoors. Apparently this doesn't suit some, so the seniors and the Happy Gang through a motion want the Armouries Thursday nights for their own seniors and their friends. Well I'm appalled at even suggesting that this be allowed to happen. First, the whole idea was solely Mr. Jenkins' and he deserves at least a phone call, but no., it was done behind his back. Secondly, why did they also take Thursday night, the same night that was picked by the attending audience? The Armouries -was set aside on these designated Thurs- day nights at no cost and the band was voluntary and the ltiich was supplied, which made for an enjoyable evening out for everyone. For myself, it was a treat just watching the audience do some of the dances that are all but forgotten by most of us. The Melodiers are a well - put -together old-time country and western band musically. And in my opinion Mr: Jenkins shouldbe commended for his efforts and be praised, not slapped in the face.This is the way it looks right now. Individually and morally speaking, one man cannot run the ; whole show. This started out as .a whole group and was sup- posed to be a community pro'ect and undertaking by everyone who woul ' par- ticipate, whether it- be "by dancing or .vhatever one wished to dot Let's".sleep it this way for the interest of the whole community and not just a chosen few: . A Music Lover Wingham New Books in the Library AIDS by Frederick P. Siegal,MD, & Marta Siegal, MA Acquired Immune De- ficiency Syndrome spells out, for' most of us, a mysterious illness called by Newsweek "the public health threat of the cen- tury." This book provides a clear analysis of AIDS, a description of the disease, theories -of its possible causes, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. It removes TODAY'S CHILD The happiest day of Jeremy's life will prob- ably be the day he finds an adoptive fam- ily where he can stay. Jeremy is eight, and still believes he may find that security, but he's very anxious about it. His past experiences have taught him that things don't last. He now needs a family that will convince him they do, with the right people. Jeremy has such a lot to offer. He's bright, likeable boy who does very well at school. He's in grade 3 now, in a small class in a treatment centre where he has been living. Jeremy has done so well in dealing with emotional problems caused by his upset life, that he's now leav- ing to live in a family setting. But he's still going to his former school during the tran- sition, because it offers the one-to-one attention he needs. BY JUDITH ADAMS He's an exuberant youngster who really throws himself into things. He's good at gym, loves sports, bike riding and Cubs. He's easy to take places because he has a lot of general knowledge and rarely feels out of place. That doesn't mean he's super -confi- dent, not just now any- way. He's too worried about his future. But he is getting quite a good self-image lately. The family. for Jeremy will be a small, vigorous one,with tol- erant parents who will know how to read his constant demands and chattiness and how to Channel those energies. Jeremy has had enough to do, sorting out his own life and hasn't much left over for the normal give-and-take that relationships with other children demand. He ets on best with children younger -than himself, or. older,;sup- • the mystery and is at once illuminating and authorita- tive. HERALDRY FOR THE DESIGNER by W. Metzig The heraldic elements described in this book offer a vast design potential — a treasury of creative ideas. It will prove an invaluable tool for the designer in fields as diverse as advertising, textiles, book jackets and even whiskey labels. portive friends. To inquire about adopting Jeremy, please write to Today's Child, Ministry of Com- munity & Social Ser- vices, Box 888, Station K, Toronto, M4P 2H2. In your letter tell something of your pres- ent family and your way of life. PRESS COUNCIL The Advance -Times is a member of the Ontario Press Council which will consider written com- plaints about the publica- tion of news, opinions and advertising. If -a com- plaint can't be resolved with the newspaper, it should be sent to the On- tario Press Council, 151 Stater St., Suite 708, Ot- tawa, Ont. K1 P 5H3.