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Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario K in What does pay equity mean BRIAN Editor Phone DAN TO I OR Manager Page THE HERALD June Its a tug of war Halton students are caught a tug of war between politics and the reality of changing demographies of the Region The Halto Board of Education wants to implement an opening exercise format in its schools to include aspects of the different religions represented in the schools The board has prepared a resource document containing more than a thousand secular and religious quotes The tent is for schools to use quotes from the document each morning in the opening exercises to reflect the religious composition of the schools That means students will be listening to everything from Aristotle to Lester Pearson to the Bible and rock musi Bryan Adams The board took the step after being told last year that opening exercises should reflect the different religions in Halton s schools The board s intentions may be good but we suspect the results will confuse its students Does a school include a saying from the Koran because it has one or two Muslin students If so how often The solution is to keep religion out of the opening exer If students religious beliefs are important to them they can worship privately in a few moments by themselves It need not be forced on them no matter what their religion There is a very positive move by the board The commit tee that prepared the resource document recommended the opening exercises celebrate the benefits of being We could all stand to be reminded of those from time to time So long Brian MacLeod The next time I pound away on a keyboard It won be making the familiar rattle of my trusty typewriter Nor will the dnve to work and undoubtedly the weather have a ring of familiarity toil These words are the last 1 11 write or is that type in Georgetown On Monday take up my new position as city editor of the Kirkland Lake Northern Daily News a sixday a week publica tion It bound to be different After I ve only ever been as far north as North Bay And that will soon be 2 Mi hours south Nevertheless I can t leave Georgetown without making a few observations As small towns go Hills is one of the most vibrant and interesting towns a community reporter can hope to cover A mix of long time country residents and younger sophisticated readers accustomed to the bright pictures and big headlines of the Toronto daily newspapers Halton Hills is the perfect mix for variety in a reporter life Georgetown like any other town has events that reflect The Good the Bad and the Ugly If I may borrow the titled But thout dutt the former outshines the latler A staggering am of volunteers and tireless workers help Halton Hills be a better place to live It seems hardly a week ever went by in which we I called out to some organization or event honoring volunteers or recognizing their efforts There one volunteer group which perhaps due to my exposure to them I like to single out as worthy of distinct recognition The Hills Volunteer Ambulance group must be responsible for sav ing many lives The ring of the siren constantly flies past the Herald s door for fires for cidents for medical emergencies for anything But there s others Lions Op timists Rotanans Kinsmen Kiwanis and Elks are constantly raising money for worthy causes throughout the town In a town of just the amount of service groups and volunteers is over whelming And these are interesting times Hills especially Georgetown is facing growth that rivals the Delrex subdivision Groups are springing up to stop certain aspects of that growth The Area Ratepayers Association fought Georgetown South a new group is fighting the condominium development on Maple Avenue and on a different note you can t overlook the efforts of POWER whose organizational achievements and staying power pardon the pun should make a good role model for other ratepayers groups 1 11 be going to Kirkland Lake But I won be leaving Halton Hills behind I II make sure I get copies of the Herald regularly I may even write a letter or two or tlree Derek Nelson TORONTO Most Ontanans are well aware of the various discriminatory and promo tion practices indulged in by government under the name employment equity But it is doubtful they grasp just how extensive these racial and other employment preferences have become The Ontario government has just concluded two years of its Volun Exit Opportunities program which allows for early retirement or simply quitting the provincial civil service in ex for extremely generous financial benefits The unspoken assumption behind the program was to get rid of as many white male employees as possible and replace them with designated others The aim here is to quote from the employment equity bible Strategies For Renewal put out by the Hun n Resources Secretariat by the year 2000 the representa tion of all designated groups will be at least to their representation within the Ontar population DESIGN ROUPS The five designated groups are aboriginals women racial minorities francophones and peo ple with disabilities that is everybody except able bodied English speaking white males There are two key elements to note here The first is that is to be decided by the size of the group within the population rather than by its presence in the workforce example even though half the native Indian population is under it is to be allotted jobs on the basis of overall numbers The second i that the goal of equal representation is a minimum at least and is not a fixed quota Any number exceeding the minimum is apparently acceptable except for white English speaking males of course The government position is ex The goals should be regarded as minimum levels of representation to be achieved and should not be taken to indicate a need to reduce representation For instance among the peo ple in 28 ministries who are in systems services management per cent are racial minorities The current figure used for their numbers in Ontario is 6 per cent Ontario census while the projected year figure is 12 per cent of the population Does the over representation in this particular mid management group bother anyone No In fact the goal for the sec is to identify those racial minority individuals with poten Hal for senior management and executive positions and provide appropriate training and developmental opportunities It goes further Racial minorities 8 6 per cent of already comprise 11 8 per cent of the lover level bargaining unit govern ment jobs 11 per cent of manage ment per cent of senior management and 3 per cent of executives NUMERICAL GOALS The government comments Even though overall representa of racial minorities may look sufficient at management and bargaining unit levels severe under representation is found within many occupation groups such as engineering and survey ing and numerical goals were established for these occupational groups It is difficult to see how any able- bodied anglophone white male is going to get an even chance at anything with those kinds of rules This incidentally is why a system of quotas for jobs is much fairer than the current goals and timetables With a quota system a certain number of jobs would be reserved for able bodied anglophone white males and they could compete among themselves for those openings Under the cur rent system they are at the back of the line There is a psychological price to be paid for this by everyone ed not the least of which is the death of the Canadian dream of equal opportunity As one white anglophone male wrote to me after he filled in a government employment application that con tamed a note saying preference was being given to designated groups I t want to be in se cond place not before I had even applied for a job and had someone read my qualifications It is amazing how things have gone full circle to officially sane tioned discrimination in just one generation mm your m UP IN1HENEWS NO OF Post Office is much maligned OTTAWA What your vision of Post Is it a dynamic modern phoenix rising from the ashes of despair struggling to service while making enough money to pay its own way Or is it a blood sucking vampire ndmg roughshod over employees slashing back on obligations especially to rural Canadians in a grotesque obsession with readying itself for sale to privatebusiness suitors Naturally the truth lies between these extremes The federal government most maligned in is neither monster nor paragon We all have stones about Canada Post s deficiencies Frequent strikes lost or long delayed mail granny cremated ashes gone astray cynical changes in defmi tion of on time delivery needless harassment of staff the closure of rural offices the list goes painfully on Old habits die hard Bui ifter more two decides of tially negative news about in id Post it must be said there some good news too Among the happy tiding is Canada Post report this week of a second year of profit a return of which million will be paid into general revenues of the federal govern menf Thais the first dividend payment of a total million that Ottawa expects over the next five BETTER PROFIT Moreover for the second con secutive year the corporation significantly exceeded its own pro fit expectations In the fiscal year just completed Canada Post anticipated a profit of million But the expected economic slowdown in the first three months of 1990 was less severe than expected and mail volumes grew substantially This brought more into cor coffers In the year that began last April l Canada Post profit is expected to slide to about million An unknown is the impact on postal revenues of goods ind services which comes into effect next January The corporation will also have a larger labor bill to pay this year The crunch in negotiations with its biggest union the Canadian Union of Postal Workers may come in late summer or fall But don be surprised if this year too the corporation marked exceeds its profit forecasts