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Wednesday July 1991 Opinion Page 11 Welfare recipient issue is one of flesh and blood On the issue of welfare reci pients the central focus should be flesh and blood a point some Regional Councillors in cluding Halton Hills Regional Councillor Joe Hewitt seems to nave missed Hewitt voted against Halton Region hiring 10 extra staff members to handle the in crease in General Welfare Assistance caseloads in the Region during a Regional Coun cil meeting last Wednesday The councillors voted against the extra hiring despite hearing from Halton Social Services Com missioner Bonnie Ewart that without the additional employees each current staff member would be required to manage 180 to welfare cases A manageable number of cases per staff is said Ms Ewart Coun Hewitt voted against the hiring of extra staff because the province has yet to indicate whether it will provide funding for the extra staff However Ms Ewart predicted the provincial money would be forthcoming Coun Hewitl supported fellow Oakville Regional Coun Kevin who said opposition to the luring would send a message to the province it is obligated to pro vide funding for the program He was referring to the fact the General Welfare Assistance pro gram was imposed on municipalities by the province The province will also receive the message it is not doing enough to help people get off welfare said The arguments put forth by Coun and Coun Hewitt are legitimate in principle If the General Welfare Assistance pro gram was imposed by the pro vince then the province should be obligated to provide some of the funding This asseration is that more logical since Regional Social Ser vices staff have had to handle per cent more cases between January and May over the same period in 1990 As well it is legitimate for the councillors to say not hiring the additional staff will pressure the province to find ways of getting people off welfare If the province realized the municipalities cant handle the existing welfare cases then is it more apt to try to reduce the number of caseloads That stated the reality is that people need welfare just to sur vive and this factor must be kept in the forefront of peoples minds As Burlington Regional Coun Ralph Scholtens said the issue of welfare is different because it deals with flesh and blood In light of the recession it is highly unlikely those on welfare are attempting to abuse the welfare system A lot of the peo ple on welfare are those who have lost their jobs and have yet to find new employment The wellbeing of these people shouldnt be sacrificed for the sake of fighting a principle Luckily for these people the majority of Regional Councillors appeared to agree because they voted for the extra staff Now that the extra staff will be hired politicians like Hewitt voted against extra hiring should lobby the provin cial government to improve the system so this problem doesnt arise in the future Political Forum Ottawa Report Healing time is needed for our battered country There is great change in the air along with a lot of anger A few days ago the Spicer Commission released its report A few days before that we got the report of the other committee studying ways to change the Constitution Now the studying and the sear ching has stopped Here are some of the things be ing recommended Turn the country from pro vinces into five regions when it comes to approving constitu tional change No longer should 130000 people in PEI have a veto over the 10 million in Ontario Stop the destruction of na tional symbols that give Cana dians a sense of identity Recognize that Quebec is dif ferent As Spicer put it People outside Quebec could accept that Quebec should have the freedom and means to be itself a unique society with d own distinctive place ip renewed Canadian Let Quebec protect its language and culture in return for changes to its unfair laws pro hibiting signs Better inform Canadians of the economic political social and international consequences of Quebec independence Completely review the policy of official bilingualism Settle land claims with native people fairly and quickly Give them selfgovernment and phase out the federal department of In dian Affairs Eliminate federal funding of multiculturalism but keep fun ding programs to counter racism As Spicer said The key goals of multiculturalism should be to welcome all Canadians to an evolving mainstream The federal govei nment should be in partnership with the private sector to raise our knowledge of our own country with travel and exchange pro grams for young people Provin cial education programs should Garth Turner MP Progressive Conservative be coordinated to promote a bet ter understanding of Canada and itshistory The government has to better explain and involve people in economic programs Free trade deregulation sellingoff to crown corporations and so on have peo ple feeling betrayed and bereft Governments have to work together to eliminate overlap and duplication so the people are served more efficiently Our political system is too partisan and adversarial This style of openwar politics has brought disdain on Parliament and our leaders There is too much Party discipline Sessions of Parlia ment should be shorter with MPs allowed to spend more time listening to constituents And there should be more free votes There should be an ongoing process of open dialogue between the government and the people especially when facing decisions on major issues Reform or abolish the Senate That is what the government has now been told after Spicer consulted with about peo ple Much of what was in the report pleases me and regular readers will have noticed some of those themes have been constant here I want MPs to be more indepen dent to vote freely to represent their communities as faithfully as possible I think Parliament should be reformed and that there should be new mechanisms for people to be more involved in the political process But we also have to be careful the last election cost million so having a referendum on everything would cost taxpayers a bundle Im also solidly behind reform ing the way all levels of govern ment work with each other As Ive been saying we have loo many governments too much government and too many politi cians We have too many pro vinces Too many civil servants performing too many overlapp ing jobs Please review these sugges tions for our countrys future and let me know your thoughts This is a summer to prepare for heal ing our battered country Write me Garth Turner MP House of Commons Ottawa KlA Thanks Queens Park Report First Ontario NDP budget clarified further In view of the interest both positive and negative shown toward our first budget I believe it deserves a few more Although the opposition parties have responded negatively to a document designed to help us out of the worst recession in fifty years they have neglected to of fer any realistic alternative The liberals called the election last summer because they realized the impending recession pressures upon our services and wanted a mandate to take them through the worst of it The Conservatives talk about restraint but wasted time and money holding up the business of the legislature Of course we are concerned about the size of the deficit but we could not abandon people who had lost their jobs nor close our hospitals and schools New spending accounts for only billion of the budget and has been geared toward job creation programs and projects that will be enduring assests such as the necessary improvements to the Milton and Georgetown hospitals Lower provincial revenues an initial billion deficit federal cutbacks in funding and the maintenance of existing services account for the balance It is cer tainly our intention to reduce the size of the deficit as the economy Noel Duignan Halton North Hew Democratic Party recovers but I tend to agree with the comments of the Treasurer that he was getting a little tired of having the Conservatives in this Legislature and the ones in Ottawa the very ones who created the recession and gave us this deficit telling us that we are not doing the right thing We have been listening to your concerns and are trying to ad dress them For example after meeting with auto industry representatives and environmen tal groups the Treasurer modified the earlier budget pro posal to double the existing gas guzzler tax rates The new in itiative has since been renamed the Tax for Fuel Conservation in recognition of its changed nature and will take effect on August 1st The new policy re tains the doubling of rates on cars with poor fuel economy ratings those with ratings of litres per 100 kilometres or but offers a rebate of 100 to pur chasers of cars that use less than litres per 100 kilometres Cars that have fuel economy ratings between and a will be subject to a 75 tax Vehicles which fall in the range of the tax include cars such as the Ford Festiva Honda Civic and Toyota Tercel If you buy one of the most fuel efficient cars such as the Firefly Subaru or the Chevrolet Sprint you should be entitled to the 100 rebate For more in formation on the different rates please call my Milton office at 8781729