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Page 8— Halton Hills This Week, Wednesday, November 24,1993 Opinion HIS WEEK Georgetown, Ont. L7G 481, QE. Web Printing. {his newspaper. Such is ‘material may only be reproduced or ces at wrong price, goods or services may not be ‘sid, offer to sell wi PUBLISHER: Ken Bellamy EDITOR: Colin Gibson OFFICE MANAGER: Jean Shewell CIRCULATION MANAGER: Marie Shadbolt oo HALTON HILLS THIS WEEK IS PHONE: 873-2254 Violence cannot be condoned The recently released $1.9 million Canadian Centre for Justice national survey on violence against women in Canada, is being hailed as the “most accurate snapshot ever of the rate of physical and sexual violence against Canadian women.” The study was announced in 1991 as part of the To the Editor: I was interested.to see that the editor of Halton Hills This Week has become an i i trade expert then Progressive Conservative gi 's $136 million four-year Family Violence Initiative. Statistics Canada reportedly surveyed 12,300 ran- domly selected women — by telephone — and the study is being touted as the “most comprehensive look at the issue in the world.” Among other findings, the survey reported that one in two women reported being assaulted since they turned 16 and that one in 10 women reported being assaulted by their spouse in the previous year. Violence against females or children can neither be condoned or ignored. It is a blemish on our soci- et ry. By the same token, violence against any member of our society, male or female, should similarly nei- ther be ignored nor condoned. I am neither a male chauvinist, nor a particularly violent type, but can we please back off a bit and view the whole picture before we accept surveys such as the afore-mentioned as gospel and imprint into gullible — particularly. young — minds that all mnales are ogres and not.to be trusted. While certain findings from the survey will no doubt prove invaluable to sociologists, essentially, it is. a flawed report. Women who don’t speak either English or French weren’t surveyed; no attempt was made to contact women, without telephones (in many cases, these women. could.be.living..below. the. poverty level); women who live in the Northwest Territories or the Yukon weren’t contacted and disabled women weren't included in the survey either. Of prime importance, however, in attempting to give a truly comprehensive look at violence against women, or why it happens, those involved in the Survey totally ignored the accused — namely men = and the obvious part they play in this sad scenario. Ian Harvey of the Toronto Sun interviewed Dr. Eugen Lupri, a sociologist at the University of Calgary, and Lupri suggested the survey “was a waste of $2 million. The data they have produced is very close to existing data.” Lupri, who has gathered data on domestic violence since 1979; told Harvey that a Decima Research sur-| vey done in 1987 found that women and men were equally capable of violence. That survey found that while 17.8 per cent of men admitted acting violently towards women, 23 per cent of women admitted the same. It was also found that while 9.1 per cent of men said they had hit or threatened to hit their partners, 15.1 per cent of women reported the same reaction. Lupri concluded that we still know almost nothing about root causes of domestic violence. Without being facetious, in many instances of domestic violence, it takes two to tango. I will admit, here and now, that yes, I have been guilty of striking a female. It wasn’t planned, I didn’t derive pleasure from it — either from the phys- ical aspect or the dominant male theorem — but there was some provocation. Still, I felt ashamed. What with the rise of feminist issues — long over- due — gender equality in the workplace, economic uncertainty for both males, females and families, and what could be perceived as attempts to neuter the male in every sense of the word, is it any won- der domestic violence is on the rise. Surveys, like political polls, serve little, if any pur- Pose unless acted upon. This survey should undoubtedly be acted upon, but in a constructive way. It should be used to improve our societal problems, rather than manipu- lated as a gender-biased whitewash with no solutions forthcoming. Colin Gibson and, as such, has con- demned the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The editorial you printed on Nov. 20 was stunning for its invective, lack of facts and sheer ignorance. Calling the president of the United States “the hog from Arkansas,” for example, says a lot more about the writer than it does about Bill Clinton. Of course, this is consis- tently childish with calling our former PM “Baffle Baloney” and saying the American Congress accept- ed promises “no self- respecting hooker on Jarvis Street in Toronto would make to even: her most debased supplicants.” Colin Gibson must have been having some rare da: to come up with insightful comments like those about Canada’s trade policy. What a splendid-addition to the ate! ie Now, how about the facts that your editor murdered? First, this statement: “Mulroney force-fed the Free Trade Agreement down Canadian throats.” Really? I seem to remem- ber an election in 1988 in which the people spoke, and the anti-free traders went down to defeat. And this, from the. pundit at HHTW: “And Canadians have suffered - oh, how we have suffered. Loss of jobs, loss of savings, loss of livelihood and in an unfortu- hate number of instances, the breakup of families.” Actually, Canada’s exports to the US have surged ahead by some $40 billion since the Free Trade Agreement came into effect. Figures published on the same day as your editorial appeared revealed that Canadian exports to the US in September hit a record $15.6 billion and that, for the first time ever, Canada enjoyed a trade surplus of more than $1 billion in a single month. * There are many excellent companies here in Halton Hills which are competing, and winning, in the North American market. And they have created good jobs as a result. So much for Free Trade hurting the economy. week, Statistics Canada said that family net worth in Canada rose last year and is now at an average $78,000 Per person. Loss of jobs? Well, Liberal Trade Minister Roy Loss of savings? Last ~ MacLaren, who supports free trade, himself said that critics of the deal would blame every sparrow that fell from a tree on the FTA. Clearly it was the recession that stole jobs. Equally clearly,-it was free trade that increased exports and has helped end the recession. By the way, Jean Chretien will proclaim NAFTA, just the. way it is now, because it’s going to be good for Canada. But then, he’s only the prime minister. Garth Turner Georgetown Editor’s note: Since:Mr. Turner is obviously direct- - ing this missive at me per- Sonally, I feel I have a right to reply directly. he “editorial” Mr. Turner refers to was in fact an opinion column printed on the page with the large jasthead, ‘Opinion’. President Clinton is a for- mer ‘Governor of Arkansas and the University of Arkansas’ football team is called the Razorbacks or simply, “The Hogs.” I have a right to my own opinion of Brian Mulroney. At a campaign stop in Burlington Kim Campbell, in the recent fed- eral election, Mr. Turner, then the National Revenue Minister, referred to present Prime Minister Jean Chretien as “a meathead.” This insulting remark was printed in a number of newspapers. As far as Mr. Turner’s point about Canadians bene- fiting from Free Trade — the Progressive Conservatives bragged that Free Trade would create 250,00 jobs in its first five years of opera- tion - Daniel Schwanen of the C.D. Howe Institute begs to differ. According to Schwanen, who has examined most of the studies on Free Trade, Canada is down 50,000 jobs A published newspaper article in October, out of Ottawa, had the Canadian Labor Congress pointing out some interesting Free Trade insights. CLC economists looked at six high-tech manufactur- ing sectors and found that employment in all, but one, fell between 1989 and 1992. The CLC study conclud- ed, “Canada simply lacked a strong base of technologi- cally sophisticated compa- nies capable of expanding sufficiently to absorb the many workers displaced through ‘negative restructur- ing in response to new com- petitive realities.” - CLC economists, in the down the Canadian plant and boost production to the United States. Free Trade made money for some people, but not the average Canadian worker. Bankruptcies continue to plague our economy, espe- cially in Ontario. Federal Statistics just released show that 2,122 Ontario con- sumers and businesses went bankrupt in September. In addition, in Ontario, 58 more construction compa- nies went bankrupt in September bringing the total for the year-to-date to 510. Pat Thompson, analyst with the Canadian Federation of. Independent Businesses was quoted as saying, just this past Nov. 13, “Things are not good, let’s face it. So many firms are just hanging on in a very delicate situation that we expect bankruptcy figures to jump around a bit.” Y OWNED & FAX:873-3918 The People’s Corner Turner defends passage of NAFTA The people who have lost their jobs in Halton Hills because of Free Trade, can speak for themselves — as I’m sure they will. In reference to . Turner’s boast that individ- ual net worth in Canada rose to $78,000, this same report, touted by Mr. Turner, by Statistics Canada, proves quite revealing. The report noted that total household debt, including mortgages, bank loans and credit-card balances grew by five per cent:in 1992 to $461 billion. It also reported this repre- sented an all-time high of 86 per cent of an individual’s after-tax income, compared to about 50 per cent in 1984. This same report also noted that personal debt grew by $600 to $14,400 per Canadian in 1992. Colin Gibson