02 July 27, 2002 - ObserverXtra

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8 WOOLWICH OBSERVER • OPINION&LETTERS • JULY 27, 2002 OPINION&LETTERS The voice of reason. The voice of Woolwich & Wellesley. LAURELS LAURELS &LEMONS LEMONS The foundation of democracy Journalists, who spend an inordinate amount of time at meetings of all sorts, have a sore spot for in-camera sessions – we do not like getting the boot and we suspect the worst of what goes on behind those closed doors. There are undoubtedly plenty of good reasons for elected officials to meet in private, away from the eyes and ears of the people they ostensibly represent. Personnel and legal matters, for instance, are sometimes confidential matters of no direct interest to the public. By and large, however, journalists everywhere struggle with political infrastructures seemingly dedicated to keeping the public in the dark. Openness is an anathema to many in the political ranks, elected officials and administrators alike, who seek to keep information to themselves. This sad reality has spawned organized efforts by public groups, including journalists, to make government more transparent – see, for instance, Open Government Canada, a freedom of information coalition. Of course, such obfuscation is more clearly evident in larger governments (and, in keeping with current trends, larger businesses whose executives have a vested interest in hiding the truth). This is not to say that local governments are bastions of openness. Given their size and relatively lighter agendas, however, there are fewer opportunities to impose blackouts on the press and, by extension, their readers. Transparency is crucial to ensuring that elected representatives are politically accountable, an ideal check on power. Access to information is the cornerstone of democratic development. Even when there is nothing to hide—the refusal to divulge information is not always associated with a cover-up—public officials tend to be stingy with the facts. This may be a proclivity for erring on the side of caution; newspapers, this one included, would have governments lean toward the other, more open side. Recent events have shown the perils of doing otherwise. Democracy on trial? Although they made the wrong decision in opposing the Elmira Raceway’s move to Elora, the citizens’ group there should not be penalized for challenging the decision of Centre Wellington council. The Centre Wellington Citizens’ Coalition (CWCC) learned this week they must pay the township and Wellington County more than $86,000 to offset legal costs incurred in cases heard in Superior Court and the Ontario Court of Appeal. CWCC had claimed the process that saw council approve the raceway’s move was flawed. The courts disagreed. The group was misguided in its attempts to block the move. For one thing, members backed the wrong horse – council was vindicated. Secondly, the establishment of the Grand River Raceway and its 200 slot machines will put millions of dollars into local coffers (Woolwich’s loss is Elora’s gain). But no one should argue the group was not acting in the public interest. Its actions were not frivolous; members thought they were acting in good faith. They should not take another financial hit simply because they chose to test the democratic system. Despite getting their backs up over allegations of wrongdoing, Centre Wellington councillors should take the moral victory and waive the $86,000 in courtawarded costs. HOW TO REACH US PHONE: PHONE: PHONE: (519) (519) 669-5790 669-5790 669-5790 TOLL FREE: 1-888-966-5942 FAX: (519) 669-5753 EMAIL: Editor@woolwichobserver.com www.woolwichobserver.com 20-B Arthur St. North, Elmira, Ontario N3B 1Z9 Taking the fun out of sports started with big business To the Editor, Sports is a joke and the joke is on us, the ones who pay a king’s ransom to be bitten by those we feed. If it isn’t Ted Williams’ offspring fighting over the disposition of his stonecold body, it’s Pat Quinn telling the truth about the insane free agent market, only to be fined by the NHL. It’s laughable too to see the disdain the players have for the fans, no more clearly demonstrated than in the All Star game where play was suspended in the 11th., as if it mattered anyway. Stir in the fact that some of the cream turned sour opting to skip the event altogether and you have a recipe for a strike by the faithful, not the players. QUES- QUES- TION? TION? OF OF THE THE WEEK WEEK What impact did the storm have on your life? PUBLISHER - Joe Merlihan (Ext. 107) EDITOR - Steve Kannon (Ext. 103) REPORTERS Joanne Peach (Ext. 102) Hugo Rodrigues (Ext. 101) PRODUCTION MANAGER Pat Merlihan (Ext. 105) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Credit the 30,000 Blue Jays’ fans who took it on the lam after the 1994 strike leaving the dome to scratch for 20,000 , when tickets were once as scarce as a world series winner outside the Big Apple, When you consider that, for the price of a ticket to see the buds play at the hangar, you can cure three kids of leprosy, about $35 a treatment, you realize the profanity of our obsession with sports, a collection of spoiled brats who believe they’re worth every cent and more. Then again, let’s not blame the players when all along the culprits are the owners who’ve been desperate to throw the green around in hopes of buying a championship. What does it mean when the Yankees take it all, except that Buy George, Steinbrenner opened Fort Knox to skim off the cream WILL JAMIESON “Little more yard work … cleaning up the leaves and taking down the broken branches...” SALES MANAGER Donna Rudy (Ext. 104) SALES/RECEPTION Karen Trick (Ext. 100) PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Scott Arnold (Ext. 105) from the other MLB teams. It makes one misty-eyed for the good old days of the hot stove, Foster Hewitt and a mere half dozen when Foster covered the Leafs’ game in Beantown from his Toronto studio thanks to a telephone link. The likes of Beliveau, Mahovolich and Howe played the game because they loved it, earning in a career what a journeyman player banks in less than a year today. Then again, let’s not blame the owners for the players’ obscene incomes; let’s blame the fans who persist in paying everincreasing ticket prices to see their team pick their pocket. Sports once was a sport, became a business and now is a crime fleecing the hooked. Jim Newton New Dundee, ON HEATHER GREGORY “All the trees behind my house came down but the wind was blowing the other way so they didn’t fall on the house.” ANDREA HORST “I got to go home from work because we lost all our power.” CANADIAN SCMALTZ Fans of ol’ time Canadiana may be happy to hear the CBC is looking at bringing back the Beachcombers (‘72-’91). A movie is in the works. A new cast will revive the west coast landmark of Molly’s Reach. THE BIG BLOW It wasn’t the drought relief farmers, or anyone else for that matter, was looking for - - unsettled weather brought damaging winds to Woolwich this week. On the upside, emergency plans went well. Liberals set their price at a loonie To the Editor, Liberal Riding Association’s reducing membership fees for their party from $10 to $1 seems an appropriate course. It is a fair valuation of representation provided by Liberal Members of Parliament. Rather than using the power of a House of Commons Committee to thoroughly question those involved in handing out lucrative federal sponsorship contracts to friendly ad agencies, they accept statements from the two witnesses called that breaking rules were justified, refuse to call more and, calling the meeting of the committee a “waste of time,” shut it down. More concerned about the numbers of discounted (SEE LETTER PAGE 10) JOHN TSINTARIS “Lost some business because of the power going out.” The Woolwich Observer (est. 1996) is published every Saturday by Cathedral Communications Inc., an independent publishing/ media company located in Elmira, Ontario, CANADA. AUDITED CIRCULATION - 11,241 ISSN NUMBER - 1203 9578 PUBLICATION NUMBER - 1004840
Taking it “easy” in the middle-aged market It seems like every town or city has a radio station that promotes itself as “easy listening.” This is a euphemism for “old people’s music.” Any phrase that starts with the word “easy” is generally aimed at the middle-aged market. Easy living, easy payments, easy chair. The only exception is “easy women,” which is geared to a younger crowd. The reason that the word “easy” is so irresistible to those of us higher mileage types is that we’ve experienced enough “difficult” in so many areas of our lives that we’re not looking for another challenge. And there’s an implication that your other choices are not JULY 27, 2002 • OPINION&LETTERS • WOOLWICH OBSERVER 9 RED GREEN QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Age is a very high price to pay for maturity." Why are we surprised by financial turmoil? If your RRSPs are performing like mine, then we’ve just taken care of that labour shortage that Statistics Canada was warning about last week; most of us will need to keep working until age 85 just to put food on the table. Until a year ago, many people seemed to believe that the stock market only went up; now it appears that the market may never go up again. How did this happen? Let’s start by examining the role of the media in creating the bubble that was bound to burst. In a chapter of the book “Just Making Change” (entitled “The fix is in. Big time”), journalist Bruce Rogers accurately predicted that “the bias of the media could burn the unwary. Business interests have helped define the newspaper and serious journalism for centuries, and most business journalism in radio and television is uncritical cheerleading.” Now, RRSPs and private pension plans are taking the biggest hit as stocks spiral down the toilet – and the hand on the toilet handle is none other than good old-fashioned corporate greed (something which we apparently didn’t mind so much, as long as our mutual funds were going up). Think how much worse the situation could have been if the Canadian Alliance nearly as pleasant. If Exhibit A is an easy chair, then Exhibit B must be a hard chair. And doesn’t easy living sound more appealing than hard living? Even with the radio station comparison, the one with the music you like is called “easy listening.” The others are “difficult listening,” believe me. Especially on a Saturday morning coming out of my neighbour’s son’s van at full volume. I am definitely not on Easy Street. TENURE You can generally figure out how good an idea is by how long it lasts. A hundred years later, we’re still talking on phones and driving cars, while dirigibles and bomb had got what they have long advocated: the complete privatization of the Canada Pension Plan. Imagine what would have happened if these funds were invested in the stock market, along with your RRSP. NDP labour critic Pat Martin has called for immediate government action in response to the financial crisis. In particular, he asked the Prime Minister to “raise the standard of auditing practices in financial reporting,” to impose regulations to prohibit auditors from providing other financial services to the companies they audit, and to remove the firm Arthur Andersen, implicated in the Enron and Worldcom collapses, immediately as auditors for the Bank of Canada. It’s highly unlikely that Chretien will even do the tentative posturing being practiced on this issue by “Dubya.” That’s because, more than any other federal party, his Liberals rely on major corporations for funding. With a leadership review underway and individual party members jumping off his bandwagon, he’ll be even more reliant on the Power Corporations, the BCEs, and the Bombardiers of the country for support. He won’t pass a law prohibiting the federal government from doing business MEMBERS OF: DELIVERY COMPLAINTS: All delivery concerns are taken seriously. Substandard deliveries, late deliveries or non-deliveries should be reported to the Observer during regular working hours. TEL: (519) 669-5790 Saturdays by 3pm TEL: (519) 894-3000 shelters have fallen off the radar. This creates an opportunity for you to feel good about something and, if you’re around my age, that doesn’t happen often. So take a look at your life and see if you can find anything that’s lasted for a while. Maybe it’s a tool or a radio or a car or a hat. The longer you’ve had it, the better the idea to get it was in the first place. If you’ve lived in the same house for more than five years, take credit for a good idea, rather than blame your inability to sell it based on the fact that you paid too much for it in the first place. It even works on a personal level. Any marriage that’s lasted more than 20 years must have been a good idea. MYOPINION BY SCOTT PIATKOWSKI with companies convicted of fraud. He won’t require auditors to maintain their independence from the companies that they are supposed to be policing. He certainly won’t ban corporate contributions to political parties. In other words, don’t expect much help from Ottawa on this one, folks. Since we’re largely on our own in trying to make the best of the financial morass, freelance journalist Harvey Schachter suggests that we read “Financial Shenanigans” by Howard Schilit. In last Friday’s Globe, Schachter notes that the book “reminds us that accounting sleight-of-hand is not a recent phenomenon. (Schilit) presents a long list of well-known companies that in the past 15 years resorted to questionable, though not necessarily fraudulent accounting… But the message is clear: This isn’t new and it isn’t going to go away easily, because as his book shows, accounting NORTH OF40 BY RED GREEN Look at yourself and how long you’ve lasted. Your parents may have not thought you were such a good idea away back when, but every time you celebrate another birthday, you prove them more and more wrong. THINGS THAT GO FASTER They say that most things slow down as you get older. Well here are a can be flexible and when companies hit tough times — individually or collectively — some will be tempted to disguise it by using the most favourable accounting interpretation possible.” According to Schilit, companies cheat because “(1) it pays to do it, (2) it’s easy to do, and (3) it’s unlikely you will get caught… Even when they are caught, the penalty is often too little, too late.” Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders (the only self-declared socialist in the U.S. Congress) points out that the financial meltdown is “not just about ac- ADVERTISING POLICY: All advertising is accepted subject to the Publisher’s discretion. The Publisher will not be responsible for damages arising out of errors in advertisements beyond the amount paid for the space occupied by that portion of the advertisement in which the error occured. COPYRIGHT POLICY: Any design, artwork, copyright or typesetting supplied by Woolwich Observer is for the exclusive use by the Publisher. Any other use not authorized is an infringement of copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the Publisher. Reproduction — a licence obtained from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) 1 Yonge St., 1900, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5, FAX(416) 868-1621 few that go faster: • Your energy. • Your patience. • Your trick knee. • A long weekend. • Spicy food. FOUR ON THE FLOOR We went up to a friend’s cottage this past weekend, and my wife did all the driving. It works better that way. She’s a little better driver than I am, but I’m a way better passenger than she is. I was looking out the window at the other cars, and quite often the cars contained two couples. So I would try to guess whether the couples were double-dating or whether they were just two married couples going counting.” He argues that “the American people have a much better understanding than members of the Bush administration or members of Congress that this is not just about a few bad rules or a few bad apples. This is about how corporations do business in America today, and about what members of Congress who take immense amounts of corporate money to finance their campaigns allow those corporations to get away with. Sure, corporations and their accountants have taken advantage of loop- somewhere together. I think I got pretty good at it. My first observation was that if it was daylight outside, they’re probably married. If the men are in the front seat, they’re also married. If the men are in the back seat, they’re long married. If everybody’s in the back seat, they’re dating. If the men are doing the talking, they’re dating. If the women are doing the talking, they’re married. If nobody’s doing the talking, they’re long married. If they’re all giggling and laughing and having a great party, they’re either dating or married, just not to each other. holes and lax regulations to inflate their earnings statements, and sure they have used their campaign contributions to make sure that the loopholes stay open and that the regulators let them get away with murder. But if you close the loopholes and increase the level of oversight, that is not going to usher in a new era of corporate responsibility. If all that comes out of this are a few accounting reforms — necessary as they may be — most Americans are going to say, rightly, that the corporations were let off the hook again.” THE VIEW FROM HERE by S. Arnold “WELL, AT LEAST WE FINALLY GOT SOME RAIN.” LETTER POLICY: The Observer welcomes letters to the editor on topics of interest to our readers. Letters may be edited for length, clarity, grammar, and legal considerations. All letters must be signed and contain the writer’s full name and telephone number for verification purposes. Unsigned or anonymous letters will not be considered for publication. If you have a legitimate concern and cannot sign your name to a letter, please contact the editor to discuss altnerative means of resolving the issue. This newspaper declines announcements, poetry, and thankyou letters in the opinion section. Short letters have more impact. The Observer is a member of the Ontario Press Council which considers complaints against member newspapers.
Page 1 and 2: JULY 27, 2002 • NEWS • WOOLWICH
Page 3 and 4: INSHORT Consultant to temper negoti
Page 5 and 6: What makes a storm a tornado? The s
Page 7: By By Steve Steve Kannon Kannon Kan
Page 11 and 12: JULY 27, 2002 • OBSERVERFEATURE
Page 13 and 14: councillor Paul Schweitzer. While t
Page 15 and 16: By By Hugo Hugo Rodrigues Rodrigues
Page 17 and 18: JULY 27, 2002 • SPORTS&LEISURE
Page 19 and 20: CLASSIFIEDADS The best place to buy
Page 21 and 22: LAW&ORDER By By Hugo Hugo Rodrigues
Page 23 and 24: AGRICULTURE’S ROLE NEEDS STRENGTH
Page 25 and 26: CREEPINESS AT THE LIBRARY HOW DOES
Page 27 and 28: ONTARIOLIVESTOCKREPORT TUESDAY, JUL

02 July 27, 2002 - ObserverXtra

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