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PAGE 4,WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 28, 1983, WHITBY FR EE PRESS whitby Voice of the County Town Michael lan Bu blished every Wednesday Publ urgess, Publisher - Managing Editor L by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Ine. Phone 668-61Il The Free Press Building, 131 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. ROY COOPER CommunIty Editor DEBORAH GOSSET AdvertisIng Manager Second ass Mail Registration No. 5351 The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents. I I Mainstream Canada Some key reasons for youth unemployment the open school system of the late 1960s and 1970s has had a negative impact on the skills and work attitudes of a generation of Canadians. John Bulloch, President of By W. Roger Worth Unemployment among youth is abnormally high, and it is likely to remain that way. While it's difficult to generalize why this is so, there is more than a suspicion that I would feel a good deal better about paying my taxes to Revenue Canada, if I could dictate which govemment service or program they would be used for. It may seem contradictory, but I would have no objection, for exam- pIe, if some of my taxes went into a ship-building pro- gram for the navy, and some of it helped to finance the Prime Minister's peace initiative. I have no objection to my tax money being used in support of the.CBC, the National Film Board, the Canada Council, and the Na- tional Gallery. I applaud the fact that some of my taxes go towards alleviating the misery of Canada's native peoples, and wili applaud even louder when the money is used to support native self-government. I'm not upset by the fact that some of riy tax moriey is used to pay the salaries of Members of Parliament. If they were paid on the merit principle, some of them would get a good deal more than they are making, and a few would draw a good deal less. I don't object to contributing towards the salaries of our civil servants, although I believe that in a saner world there would be fewer of them. I don't object to the increasingly pathetic percentage of my tax dollar that goes into foreign aid programs. It ought to be much higher. But if I had my way, not a cent of my taxes would go into govemment advertisements which tell me that the choice of the F-18 was a brilliant one. I would prefer that none of my money be used to buy drinks and lunch for my fellow reporters and assorted Ottawa sponge artists. I would prefer that our diplomats abroad drive economy cars, Canadian built. I get angry as helI when I think that my labours at the typewriter help to buy a Mercedes for our ambassadors to swan around in, in Third World countries.;I despise the fact that my tax dollars help to support a needlessly elegant way of life for our representatives abroad, as of our international prestige, or the lack of it, had anything to do with the grandeur of our embassies or the lavishness of our cocktail parties. That stuff rots my middle class socks. Ail of which brings me to the starting point of this mild-mannered diatribe: a Canadian Press story which came across the wires recently about a special com- mittee appointed by the federal govemment to study prostitution and pomography. It's expected to cost the govemment about $800,000, and l'il be a monkey's uncle if it comes in under a million dollars. Men who buy pomographic material are being asked by thé com- mittee to come forward and testify. The committee wants to know more about their backgrounds, why they buy the stuff and what effect it has on them. The committee will arrange private meetings for those who are too embarrassed to talk about that kind of thing in public. If that isn't the worst piece of time-wasting nonsense to cross this desk in recent weeks, then I don't know the difference between Penthouse and the National Geographic. And neither do the ninnies who set the committee up. the Canadian Federation--of Independent Business, for ex- ample, believes our educa- tional infrastructure has turned out a generation of youth that is ill-equipped technically and attitudinally for the labor market of the 1980s. Bulloch, it should be said, is voicing the view of the 40 per cent of his organization's 64,000 members who say they would hire more of the younger generation if work attitudes were better. It's also important to note that these are the people who already hire more than their fair share of younger Canadians, and are the likely source of new jobs if. they become available. As Bulloch points out "Foreign languages, which are essential for business to penetrate markets, are no longer obligatory, and many of our small business members report high school and univer- sity graduates cannot add without a calculator or write without a dictionary." "Too many expect to be president of the company next week, and be paid accordingly, rather than suffer the drudgery of a long apprenticeship and the slow acquisition of impor- tant skills," he adds. Nevertheless, Bulloch is the first to admit that not all youth fit into the "ill-equipped" category. For example, there has been an explosion in the number of younger Canadians setting up their own businesses, par- ticularly in craft manufactur- ing, as well as retailing and a variety of other business areas. But even some of these newer firms were among the 20 per cent of Federation members reporting that lack of skills among youth was a very real problem. For governments, there is no simple solution. About 18 per cent of businesses polled in a national survey were skep- tical about special incentives to hire younger people, including the wage subsidies and tax breaks that have already been offered. Still, changes in the nation's education system are taking place, and there is room for hope. Some provinces have already toughened the cur- riculum, placing - more em- phasis on the basics-reading, writing and arithmetic. Others are introducing com- puters and new technology into the system so graduates will at least be conversant with the machines of the 1980s. And some provinces are re- turning to formal, province- wide examinations to better rate student skills. The system, of course, won't change overnight. But at least we seem to be waking up to the faut that change is necessary and long overdue. CFIB'Feature Service W E WELCOME RESPONSES TO OUR NEWS S TORIES AND ETTORIALS. JUST SIGN YOUR LETTER AND MAIL OR DROP OFF AT THE WHITBY FREE PRESS, 131 BROCK ST. V.. WIHITBY. ONT ARIO LiN 5S1 BOX 206. 77- -----------