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The Huron Expositor, 1983-05-04, Page 2�+,liIiuran � (fxposifior S1600 18.68, Serving the Com!nunity tiro • Incorporating B,rus%121S \)St founded 1872 12 Main St. 527.0240 Published at SEAFORTH, ONTARIO every Wednesday morning Susan White, Managing Editor � C.D. "Doug" Worrell, Advertising Manager +tt,yt+p Jocelyn A. Shrler, Publisher Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association, Ontario Community Newspaper Assoclatlon and Audit Bureau of Circulation A member of the Ontario Press Council Subscription rates: Canada $17.75 a year (In advance) outside Canada 550. a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFORTH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, Mi1Y 4, 1983 Second class mall registration number 0696 ©fifi©trn No to user fees,. • The Ontario Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association think they are a good idea. So do 49.4 per cent of the residents of Huron -Bruce who answered MPP Murray Elston's latest questionnaire. What the OMA and a near majority of Mr. Elston's constituents have in common is that they favour the introduction of user fees to help pay medical costs in Ontario. The provincial government, until recently, hasn't been willing to touch the topic. Both Health Minister Larry Grossman and Treasurer Frank Miller have said they oppose user fees for hospital patients, because they place an unfair burden on the poor. But when almost as many questionnaire answerers right here in rural Ontario favour the fees as oppose them, it's time to take a look at the issue. Faced with escalating costs and demands for services and less money from the feds, the -province may very well do -so in Mr. Milier's May 10 budget. In a brief to the province last week, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario also favoured user fees, to maintain the quality of medical care, 'without substantially increasing the level of public funding. As well, the college says, it's time for individuals to take more responsibility for their own health and for the cost of medical treatment. • • We agree, but we don't think user fees are the answer. The poor, the elderly and those who are genuinely, chronically ill would suffer under a plan that charged them so much for every visit to the doctor or every day spent in hospital. We agree with the United Senior Citizens of Ontario who say user fees mean ultimately two levels of medical care. "11 will evolve into means -testing and charity medicine which is not what the (federal) Medical Care Act intended and indeed is not what the Canadian people desire." But back to personal responsibility for health. If every one of us were to visit a doctor only when we are sick, user fees wouldn't be necessary. And we have to pay some attention to the health minister's contention that there could be just too many doctors in Ontario. As their numbers increase so do the numbers of expensive tests ordered and costly medical technological procedures used. It's only human to think "if we have it, let's use it," a philosophy that's led to huge increases; some would say abuses, in procedures like ultrasound. We think the answer to booming health care costs ultimately rests with each one of us, in theelimination of dangerous practices like smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, in campaigning for safe work places and living environments, in being sensible about what we eat, the exercise we get and how we spend our leisure time. (An end to one of Huron County's favourite sports, gravel running, might do more to cut health care costs than innumerable user fees.) User fees penalize every one of us, but obviously they are a hardship for those who are poor. Taking responsibility for the health and fitness of your own body, in contrast, will pay bonuses for each of us and in lower medical costs for the community as a whole. -S.W. Come and see us Fish tales Photos by Wassink Fourteen Seaforth and district people work hard every week; often beyond the call of duty, to bring you the latest issue of The Huron Expositor. Now it's not perfect, but we try...knowing full well that everybody in town, and then some, sees our mistakes. Every brt of news that each segment of the community wants to see isn't there right to the last detail either. But we try at that too, weighing the various events that take place in Seaforth and district in a week, juggling the requests for photos of this event and a story from that one. It's our aim, as we said at a meeting of sports and women's groups with the Expositor last week, to have a great deal in the paper that's of interest to almost all of our readers and some that's important to various special interests. That's where sports, district news, the farm and kids' pages, an. reports from Church and other local groups come in. !? The same could be said for the advertisements in each week's Expositor. Many of them are of interest to all readers.... the grocery ads to everyone who eats, for example. Others are more specialized and have information directed to farmers, for example, or to employers of people who are looking for work or a place to live. Because Seaforth is such a busy, committed community, it's not a simple task to make sure The Huron Expositor accurately reflects and comments on a good deal of what happens here. But our 14 staff members give it an awfully good try. Many of them regularly work nights and weekends. Sometimes they skip lunch, or come back in after supper to finish that ad or those photos. They do it because they care about this community and they know the Expositor has more news about Seaforth and district than any other paper in the world. They know too that a community paper needs its readers' and its ( advertisers' co-operation if it's to flourish. All of us involved in producing the paper ybu read each week invite you to an open house here. It's on Friday, during downtown Seaforth's Clean Sweep Sale. Come on in and see us, with your comments and questions about the paper, What you think and what you want is important to us. -S.W. How well do you (Editor's note: For trivia fans,and those who say there's nothing to read in the Expositor, here's a quiz based on the April 20 issue. The answers are on page 15. Don't peek.) 1. Who will be the new principal of SDHS? 2. What kind of financial state is the PUC in after the 1982 audit? 3. How long was Orville Oke the postmas- ter for Seaforth? 4 How many complaints have the Seaforth police department received about obs- cene phone calls? 5. What do SDHS students think about the semester system? 6. Who has been named president of the Huron County Municipal Officer's As- sociation? 7. McKillop township taxes are up by what percentage? 8. What structure is the cause of great debate in Brussels these days? 9. Can you spell the name of the Expositor's new reporter? 10. Who is the co-ordinator of Sportsfest? 11. Who is the new 'president of the read the paper? executive of the Centenaires? 12. What activity did SDHS students recently show an interest in? 13. What is Pitch-ln '83 and when is it being held? 14. What two couples in the area recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniver- sary? - 15. When and where was the meeting concerning the new Municipal Conflict of interest Act? 16. When will Seaforth's budget be presented to the public? 17. What school toured the Herisall fire hall recently? 18. Approximately how many tickets have been sold for the official opening of the new Seaforth and District Community Centre? 19. Who was the speaker at Egmondvlllq UCW? 20. What was the topic at the Seaforth Horticultural Society recently? 21. Who is the president of the Seaforth Women's institute? Helping our kids to keep themselves safe The week before Mother's Day is as good a time as any to think about how tough it is to be a mother. Dr a parent really; fathers aren't exempt. . It's tough to be a parent, because it's tough to be a kid. And we parents, older and (sometimes at least) wiser, than our off -spring know more about life's dangers, about evil and about fear than do our children. And so it's up to us to protect and nurture our kids, to give them confidence in themselves, and a good solid feeling of self-worth. But at the same time we help them develop some toughness, and some street smarts, so that they're not victims of whatever the big bad world can dish out. A deep, powerful, as -old -as -the -species fear hits all parents i think when they hear about abuse, kidnapping and mysterious disappearances of young children. Children are so trusting, curious and innocent. It's a dilemma all parents face: how to teach our kids to protect themselves, but at the same time not turn them into tiny cynics. $Or(nL`1n12W'gO After a quick look at the surface it can seem that the need ,to protect our kids from an increasingly menacing and weird society is a new problem, peculiar to this age of violence and pornography. NO TOM SAWYERS Instead of heading down a river on a raft, like Tom Sawyer, a modern day teenage runaway is more likely to turn up hustling on tile track, off Toronto's Yonge St.. But wait a minute. Children were abducted to work in the greedy factories of .the industrial revolution. Before that, in a pre -industrial age, whole villages were swept clean of youngsters by press gangs who did ,not -so -gentle recruiting for the armies and navys of Europe. People sold their kids, abandoned their kids, because they simply couldn't feed them, and maybe because they had a hope the kids would survive, against all odds, outside the family circle. And we all know prostitution and porn, child labour and horrible abuse in orphanag- es (a la Dickens) thrived repressive Victorian times. No, i don't think we can claim and victimization of children is anything new. Perhaps though the fact that we hear about it constantly, from the little girl in Toronto to thc 12 -year-old allegedly abused by her grandfather, brings it very close to home. Dickens can be dismissed as some- thing that .happened long long ago. A movie like Without a Trace cannot. he only way to solve anything is to. bring the issue out into the open. That's what a Toronto play for school children, developed by the Metro Toronto Chairman's special committee on child abuse, is doing. RESPONSIBLE The play is part of a program to teach youngsters to be responsible for their own• safety+, liow tb tetiknize sexual abuse'and how to prevent or stop it. The play, shown in four schools as a pilot project, is for kindergarten to Grade 6. Parents preview it and can refuse to permit their child to take part. Children are encouraged to ask questions and discuss their feelings after the performance. Classroom follow-up includes special kits, puppets and study cards about situations where children must be assertive, and evaluations. Every employee in the schools involved -- from caretakers to administration sees the play and knows they may be the person to whom a child comes for help. It's all about teaching our children to say no. A very important aim, when you consider the child abuse committee's frightening statistics: one in four girls, and one in 10 boys, will be sexually assaulted before.their 18th birthday. Not a pleasant subject for Mother's Day. But then some of reality isn't pleasant. The best thing we as parents can do about that though, is to give our children the information and skills they need to deal with reality.` All of it. Nearly 12 people wantbe to prime minister. Why? unequal treatment around and if one person gets treatment that seems to be preferential, the Minister is to blame. Another reason for red tape is to make sure honesty is enforced on all those thousands of government decision makers and clerks across the country who may be tempted by all the money they're handling. And red tape exists because government officials are trying to close loopholes that sharp members of the public have used to get unfair advantage from thc government. BOTH SIDES Most of us have only seen bureaucracy from one side. Having watched two small businesses grow from scratch. watched new rules having to be made because people took advantage of a lack of rules tiptoe.... tighter controls having to be set up to keep Nearly a dozen people are criss-crossing the country. spending money as if they thought they were single-handedly respon- sible to bringing the country out of the recession. all because they want to be leader of the Conservative party. An equal number are putting on their track shoes over on the Liberal side of Parliament in expectation of Pierre Trudeau stepping down. One won- ders. if psychiatric examinations were a required part of the process of choosing a Prink Minister for the country, would any of them pass? I mean would anybody in his right mind even want to he prime minister? Aside from having a nice house with a swimming pool and servants, what's good about the job? If things go right in the country it isn't because the prince minister did a good job, it's because of all those far -thinking business executives and hard-working ordinary stiffs out there in the factcnies and offices. If things go wrong. suddenly the problem doesn't lic with business or labour but with government, As head of government you are to blame tor � Smiley's sight is suffering. Or is it the TV? , Cjo K464G11 G°3©(UJ O' W all the bureaucracy that surrounds gevcrn- ment. All of us get tired of the red tape that's involved in doing anything with government. Yet the first time somebody in the lower reaches of government docs something unfair or unethical, we demand the resigna• tion of a cabinet minister or the prime minister himself for not having control of the government. We've had a couple of "scandals" in the last couple of weeks which is about the ratio these days. Under our preliminary system we've adopted a belief in ministerial accountability. That means that if some manager of a government office in White- horse docs something stupid. the minister for that government department is answerable for it in Parliament. In times of smaller government this might have been possible but it's a laughable situation today. If a worker on the assembly line at Ford forgets to put a bolt on a wheel and it falls off the first time the cat is driven you don't demand the resignation of the president of the company. But we do in government. DAMNED But the minister, is in a damned if you do. damned if you don't situation. We the public demand a human approach, without red tape. Why does the government official we deal with have to go by so many rules to get approval from so many superiors? .But we also demand absolute equality in the way we all get treated by our government. If each government official is left a lot of leeway in decision making there is,going to he a lot of track of decision-making and financial comings and goings. 1 can see red tape from both sides. That's why I can unequivically say I have no plans to change my plans to have no plans to seek the leadership of any 'party. Most people begin to lose their senses. if not their sense. as the passing years exact their toll. Sight. smell. hearing. taste and touch grow less acute, steadily but inexor- ably, in most of us. This didn't bother me much. Deafness runs in the family. My nose has been broken so often that 1 can't smell much, and this affects my taste buds. I thought touch and sight would last forever. or at least to the grave. Touch is still pretty good. if 1 touch a hot burner on the stove, or the cold nose of a dog. I can tell the difference. But since they started using that tiny print in books and newspapers. I've had to rely on specs to read, and even on the highway. they seem to have pygmies painting the signs these days. What disturbed me was that my wife seemed to be failing rapidly. She has always been noted -for having eyes like a hawk, ears like a deer. and a nose like a bloodhound. cit $ugca crud zpc- by DdH $fflfillwy The nose is still there. She can sniff an illicit beer at forty yards. She knows exactly when 1 haven't had a bath for a week or washed my hair for a month. Hut recently her sight and hearing seemed to be gttowing dimmer and foggier. It was strange. it seemed to be much worse in the TV room. She could still hear the top coming off a beer bottle in the kitchen when she was upstairs with two closed doors between. She could still see a speck of dust on a surface I'd swear was pristine. However, when we were watching'rv. the deterioration began to show. At first. I was always hollering at her to turn up the sound, or try to sharpen the picture. She d retort that !was getting deaf and blind. Then she herself got ted up with the shadowy picture and the Inaudible sound track. and i noted with some satisfaction the failing of her faculties. After the usual bickering that married couples go through to establish anything — even the time of day — we agreed. not without a certain amount of awe — it seemed like only last year we'd bought it? — that the machine was fourteen years old. Our friend snorted in disbelief. "That thing was worn out six years ago. No wonder the picture looks like a 1920s movie. and the sound tracit is as sharp as a stomach rumble." We just looked at each other askance. 1 think that's the word. At any rate, there wasn't much sknnce in us. We felt pretty much the wav one would feel if the doctor told one that a favorite aunt had terminal cancer. I mean, we had lived with this old girl for 14 years. We had almost come to blows over whether she would watch Dallas or 1 would watch a real, unreal Western. We fiad settled family problems of great moment. during the commercials. Our grandboys had suckled at this fount of pap. and thrived. turning into incredible hulks. Batman and Robin. Darth Vader. Well. we had to steel ourselves, but we did it. Just as one throws a beloved aunt to the wolves. we let the brutal TV men come and carry her off to an unknown grave, still alive, but barely: still whispering. Then came the great wrench. How to replace her. There was a confab that lasted all day. We certainly weren't going to just go out and buy the first thing on the market. After all, we weren't born yesterday. None of this nonsense that we have always Please turn to page 3