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Whats next for universities Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Establistied A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Street Georgetown L7G 3Z6 Ontario DAVID A BEATTIE Publisher and General Manager BRIAN MacLEOD Editor Phone 8772201 DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager id Clin Milt RcKlikred Page THE HERALD Wed March 1990 Open Sundays Did we hear right Did we hear that Halton Region might actually develop a policy on Sunday shopping Apparently so And its about time Halton Regional Chairman Pete Pomeroy said last week the Region should consider developing an overall plan to address which types of stores should be allowed to open Sundays The Region currently handles tourist exemption re quests on a storebystore basis And Oakville Councillor Liz said handling the applications for Sunday openings that way may mean the Region could be faced with a delegation asking for a tourist exemption every week Halton has been flooded with applications asking for stores to be allowed to open Sundays under the tourist ex emption in the Retail Business Holiday Act Were amazed it has taken Regional councillors this long to realize Halton must make a decision on the issue councillors have been pouting about Sunday shopping ever since the issue was unceremoniously dumped in their laps by a provincial government afraid to make a decision of its own Now because of Haltons footdragging were watching two leather stores in Acton get charged with opening Sun days week after week All this despite the fact that the Olde Hide House which owns the leather stores has a tourist exemption Now businesses in Acton are taking a good close look at the benefits of opening Sundays Right now only the Olde Hide House and the Bronte tourist area in Oakville hold tourist exemptions in the Region The president of the Olde Hide House Steve Dawkins has indicated West and FlightLine would close their doors on Sundays if theyre not granted a tourist exemption No matter what the arguments are in favor of denying tourist exemptions or stopping Sunday shopping we find it excessive and unfair to tell a business owner the doors must stay shut on a Sunday because the competition or even those who wouldnt shop there on a Sunday anyway dont want it to open Let the business owners and entrepreneurs of Ontario run their businesses Maybe then our politicians could concentrate on running For almost 30 years something called universal accessibility has been the official policy of On tario governments when it came to university entry That meant anyone who wanted to go and had the marks could go although not always in the course that was their first choice The commitment was made by the Conservative governments of the 1950s and 1960s years when money sprouted like weeds and watered every votebuying pro gram in sight The Ontario university system expanded in every direction ad ding campuses all across the pro vince Beginning with the oil price shocks of 1973 and 1979 and pushed by the drastic decline in revenues from the recession the government found the money just wasnt there anymore to finance the monster grown at least two campuses too big one study has concluded There also was and is severe competition within government for funds medicare in particular absorbing great dollops of cash to the detriment of almost every other program in govern ment In thencolleges and univer sities minister Bette Stephenson established the commission to look at accessibility and the universities in the context of economic realities Universities that offered everything to everyone were a thing of the past she implied Each needed a more distinctive role Derek Nelson ThMMMHm Unlet a specialist approach MIGHTY PROTESTS Did this mean universal ac cessibility was dead She didnt say so but opposition politicians thought the implication was plain They protested mightily of course In early 1965 Bovey made the point Quite bluntly suggesting that in Order to keep high standards with the same money some reduction in accessibility about four to eight per cent fewer students was needed Nothing came of this of course mainly because a year and a bit later the Tories were out of power and the Liberals were holding court The Grits who lucked into the huge revenue gains that came with the late 1980s boom initially simp ly threw a lot of cash at univer sities But even they realized there had to be limits SUBTLE MOVE In a rather subtle move they changed the definition of universal accessibility They guaranteed every student a place in a post- secondary institution rather than at university which meant they were including the community col leges Ryerson and the Ontario College of Art The college system of course was not set up unlike US col leges as a kind of junior universi ty Rather it was to be a alter native system of education more oriented toward training and the learning of practical skills rather than the duplicating of the more theoretical reflective world sup posedly found in universities An indepth ministry analysis of the future of the college system is cur rently under way and expected to report this year Lumping them in with the universities allowed the Liberals to change the focus on universal ac cessibility in fact to end it in the old sense as strictly applying to universities without saying so Politically this helps control any damage from the change of policy but unfortunately doesnt really answer the more fundamental question of what a university system is for Is it to quote the council on university affairs that contact with the university experience alone a worthwhile policy objec tive and the doors should be kept open even with a decline in quality caused by the financial crunch or is it to quote the council again that only those students with a high degree of probability of suc cess should be admitted the country a look If Quebec quits Canada JL in nH find themselves Brian MacLeod Editors For those of you who call Georgetown your home town take a good look around in years you may not recognize it The numbers released by Halton last week show Hills experienced an Increase in building activity of over 100 per cent more than last year That wouldnt be alarming if those numbers were just a temporary in crease But director for business development Brent Kearse says he expects more in creases In construction in coming years Over million worth of building permits were issued for construction in Halton Hills last mi year But theres one statistic that didnt increase And it will be curious to watch this statistic over the next few years The commer cial sector was the only one of the four sectors in Halton Hills to ac tually drop in construction bet ween 1988 and While Georgetown is an acknowledged bedroom community it will be interesting to watch if new business is attracted by a sharp in crease in the labor force And it will be just as interesting to see if new retail development comes to town The Georgetown Market Place is now growing in bits and pieces after years of stagnation of the Indoor Mall on Highway 7 while not yet full may be a sign of things to come Just what kind of retail outlets do we need in Georgetown to keep people from heading east into Brampton to do their shopping And will the market respond to the need quickly enough And If it does what happens to that quiet little bedroom communi ty Take a good look around WW Vic Parsons not be acceptable to Canada and find themselves at that would mean prolonged interestrate levels if for example negotiations If anyone in Ottawa has been secretly working in this area its unlikely youd be able to find out anything about it Separation after all is heresy the West was booming and the East was in a slump There would have to be agree ment on how to deal with the population flows which might oc cur with a breakup Its certain Lets play a game of What if If the Meech Lake constitutional deal dies in June and Quebec and Canada call it quits significant economic issues must be resolved Take for instance the national debt The billion debt which has accumulated since 1867 will have to be split between the two former partners Quebec would likely be well ahead of the rest of Canada in handling that problem Parti Quebecois Leader Jacques Parizeau says hes been studying the issue so long that it wouldnt take much time to work out con crete proposals Of course those proposals may Similar talks would be held on some anglophones would leave iwi r Quebec and francophones would leave Canada A transition period would be needed for people to choose their citizenship and to ar range personal affairs This has implications for the sale of property the movement of per sonal wealth and investments and the payment of social benefits such as pensions If the migrations are unbalanced one side or the other might find resources strained by the need to pay more benefits or the loss of investment money No one should suffer from the delusion that Quebec cant survive as an Independent economic entity The provinces economy has in re cent years been dynamic and the division of federal assets An independent Quebec would de mand its share of the property held by and money owed to the Cana dian government Headquarters of national institu tions such as Via Rail and the Canadian Space Agency in Mon treal would have to be moved back to Canada This would cost Neither side would want to lose its heritage There would have to be agreement on now to split up the art artifacts and other cultural ef fects which so far have been part of our common history MONETARY PITFALLS A monetary arrangement would have to be reached Would sovereign Quebec create its own creative arguably more so than currency or use Canadas In the latter case it would mean a common central bank and monetary policy But this has pit falls Quebec and Canada could the rest of Canada In each of the last four years it has grown faster than the national economy These are among reasons why