Loading...
The Goderich Signal-Star, 1985-10-30, Page 15eta°. �oint> ei tn. Wee, t or get , even w11` and `verbal attack. Andan tweeftaJlthe;scheduledevents," he has, - in his strfjde with unscheduled even as the deaths of 16 el erly Extendicare in London and ' uwtreik immune deficiency syn- drome (A1138) controversy. The matt Who has dealt with these crisis is the provincial Minister of health, Huron - Bruce MPP Murray Elston. Riding reporters Infact, day that had been set aside for him to oat with reporters from his local riding ended up being interrupted by a meeting with Toronto media over the death from AIDS of a Toronto teacher. Also, the day ended up being budget day for the young Liberal government of which Elston is a member. That party's first pro- vincial budget in over 40 years was brought down. Arriving in the ministry of health offices on Oct. 24, reporters were met by David Lamont, a Port Elgin native and special assistant to Elston. He was quick to tell the reporters of the AIDS story admitting it was causing an uproar in the ministry. A story in the Toronto Sun, the day before, said the minister was looking into why no health repdrt' had been made to the affected school board. Elston said, with a smile to the local reporters, that he has to learn to be specific when speaking with reporters. What he actually said was he would look at the report. There is no requirement, he said, for the medical officer of health to in- form the school board of an employee with AIDS. Later, press representatives visited the speaker of the provincial legislature, Perth MPP Hugh Edighoffer. At the same time, Elston was being briefed on the AIDS situation and meeting with more Toronto media over the AIDS issue. Need information He sees the ministry's role in the AIDS issue as one of providing "more and bet- ter" information on the fatal ailment. That is only one of several issues the head of the health portfolio has to deal with. Extra -billing by doctors is another large issue. His party has promised to abolish this practise by a small number in the medical profession. Elston is working to that end. A wall of former Tory health ministers keeps an ever watchful vigil over the office of Liberal Health Minister Murray Elston at the Legislature in Toronto. Last week Elston met with reporters from the Huron -Bruce riding in his office. Drug ears boa 11004100therlisiie taken int(a consiidera on IV the health minister. Dtiring cOle OilYerlect Ol thepsovincial legislature that Ray, .ifie MPP is ,asked several gtiestions,k.Most relating to a 90 - day: strike of ambulance drivers in the Niagara area. There were no questions on the AIDS story. Meet strikers Following a question period, Elston was cornered by abut 10 of the striking am- bulance drivers. They were asking him to intervene and end the strike, but the minister maintained he has no authority to do so. He stood his ground. Even when his jacket was pulled and Queen's Park security guards cautioned the drivers to remain calm, Elston remained unruffled. The 15 to 20 staff members that he has gathered around him, have nothing but praise for, the minister. Liz Sterling, legislative assistant, researches and pro- vides Elston with the information he needs when being questioned. She said he has never been caught short and he knows the material. Relating how hectic Elston's schedule is, Lamont said that Saturday, the minister would be in Aurora. From there he would travel to Ottawa and be back in the riding for a banquet at 6 p.m. The health minister does have a driver and Elston deals with correspondence or other material while driving between engagements. Work at home However, his constituency work is im- portant to him. In a priorities rating, a con- stituency matter comes first, then health matters, then his cabinet responsibilities. Elston represents the provincial ridings of Bruce -Grey, Grey, Perth, Simcoe East and Simcoe Centre in the cabinet. As health minister, Elston is in charge of an $8.9 billion budget. "After today it will be a little bit higher," joked the minister. Of that budget, $4.3 billion is for hospitals and $2.2 billion is for doctors. The remaining amount covers health units, nursing homes and other health care pro- grams. Develop new policy While he is still relatively new on the job, he considers it important to have good peo- ple arund him to help develop policy. One such person is Dr. Tim Lynch who says "hurrah" that the minister has taken pro- fessional people on staff. Despite the hectic days, the swarm of media and the endless questions, the member from,Huron-Bruce, the Wingham native is still Murray, just Murray. .r GDCI music program highlighted at annual Fall Concert Sunday Students of Goderich and District Collegiate Institute's music program put on another superb concert in the school's west gymnasium Sunday. The Fall Concert featured three selections from the intermediate band conducted by Hugh McGregor in the above photo while teacher Eleanor Robinson conducted the jazz choir through three numbers. The fall concert also featured two selections by a Brass Quintet,led by student Julie Meyers. The quintet included Mary -Katherine Stapleton, trumpet; Lisa Englestad, French horn: Erin Robinson, trombone and Dave Almasi on the tuba. Almasi also conducted the junior stage band. McGregor conducted the senior stage band while director, Al Mullin ied the GDCI Concert Band through four selections. ( photos by Dave Sykes) POSTSCRIPT mmiseimm By Susan Hundertmark Witches worship earth not the devil I've always felt a strong attraction to witches. As a child, I was fascinated with any story about magic and witchcraft and demanded to be costumed as a witch year after year for my trick -or -treating excursions on Hallowe'en. With Bewitched as my favorite televi- sion show, I used to practise wiggling my nose in hopes of gaining the magical powers of Samantha, a suburban witch who couldn't quite bring herself to give up her witchcraft despite her husband's nagging. I always wondered why she put up with him at all. At age 10, I put my interest on the back burner after I discovered, while resear- ching in preparation for a class speech, that witches were really Satanists who gained a power for evil through an alliance with the devil. I stopped wanting to be a witch when I learned they were burned, tortured and killed for their deal- ings with Satan. The price for magic was too high, I thought. And, who wants to be thought of as evil? In the past few years though, my in- terest in the topic has been reawakened by some new discoveries in my readings. Though as many as nine million witches ( almost all of them women) . were ex- ecuted in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe during a power struggle between Christianity and pagan religions, their beliefs, more accurately known as the Old Religion of the Goddess, live on. And, not one of those beliefs involves worship of the devil. Like the religion of the North American Indian and several African religions, the Old Religion (or Wicca, or the Craft) is a pre -Christian religion which involves seeing the earth as sacred, seeing human beings and everything else as part of the earth, see- ing divinity as here on earth, not transcendent and seeing people as basically good. It's a religion with both a male and female deity ( the Stag Antlered God and the Great Mother) which are worshipped equally and maintain a balance in nature. It defines magic as the art of causing change in accordance with will. Through my readings, I've discovered that those drawn to the Old Religion are interested in protecting the environment, promoting equality between the sexes, increasing their understanding of the natural world and looking for beauty and imagination. In both Europe and North America, they are from all socio- economic backgrounds. Witches are also interested in holistic health including the use of herbs and natural methods of healing. Before the "burning times" in the 16th and 17th cen- turies, they were the midwives, the healers and the wise women of the com- munity. In order to protect the health of the earth and its inhabitants, many witches see political action as inseparable from withcraft. A San Francisco -based witch called Starhawk has joined with other witches to protest at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant along with others in the anti-nuclear movement. "Witchcraft." she says, "has an in- herent set of ethics because we view the earth and everyone and everything on it as valuable. We celebrate human will that can cause change and at the same time. we realize that we have to use it in balance, to create harmony not only in ourselves but in all life. When you see the world, the human community and the diversity of life as sacred, that gives you a strong push to go out and do something to prevent it from being destroyed." Though these ideas are often called new and trendy, they are only being rediscovered in the Old Religion which had gone underground for more than 200 years and kept alive through oral history and family tradition. They are challeng- ing a society which has increasingly thought of the earth only as a natural resource to be exploited with no thought to the future survival of the planet and humanity. I find myself attracted both to wit- chcraft's reverence for the earth and its belief in the equality of the sexes. I like the idea of strong women and men who gain power through their belief in themselves and their worth rather than through their dominance over others. I too, believe in the inherent good of all people and in the value of saving the planet and its people from destruction and the threat of nuclear annihilation. My knowledge of the Old Religion is still minimal but I'm fascinated with what I've learned so far. Another interesting aspect of my recently -acquired knowledge concerns Hallowe'en. Witches celebrate this Thursday night as "Samhain", the day when the veil connecting this life and life after death is said to be so thin that our loved ones on the other side 1 who have died ) can join in celebration with the liv- inSo, instead of being a cold and frighten- ing time, Hallowe'en may be a time of warmth and reunion. According to wit- ches, that is.