The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday May the HERALD OUTLOOK is published each Saturday by the ALTON HILLS HERALD Home Newspaper of Hills A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited at Guelph Street Georgetown Ontario L7G Second Class Mall Registered Number STAFF WRITERS Ben Donna Kell K SPORTS WRITER David A p Svoboda EDITOR ACCOUNTING Brian MacLeod June nning Joan Mannall AD MANAGER classified advertising Dan Taylor Tammy Salt Military bases close Get readj Get ready to study By GIL HARDY Ottawa Bureau Thomson News Service people of Gimli Man know exactly what several communities are going through as they reel from the announced clos ing of the local military base The April federal budget con tained the news that bases in Summerside Por tage La Prairie Man and Lon don Ont would be closed Smaller stations in Sydney and Barrington Mont Apica Que and on Vancouver Island also will close Seven other bases and stations will be scaled down The cutbacks are expected to save the Defence Department billion over the next years Gimli residents recall what it was like to lose an important piece of the community They too were shocked when the federal government decided to close CFB Gimli in 1971 hey too formed committees and went to Ot tawa to fight for their towns sur vival Despite their protests the base and the money it poured into the local economy were lost But the town survived and prospers today thanks to the determination of the residents and a massive injection of government funds My indication is that the town actually prospered maybe even as a result of the closure because peo ple were forced to do other things says Jim Dunlop who was base commander when Gimli closed The town is quite healthy now Dunlop Is manager of Gimli Pro perties the provincially owned company that took over the base after the military moved out He is in the process of selling off the re mainder of the property which has been in Manitobas hands since Gimli located on the southwestern shores of Lake Win nipeg was a NATO flighttraining base and dated back to the Second World War Dunlop isnt sure but estimates that there were some 300 military and civilian personnel employed there The Town of and the adja cent rural municipality of Gimli have a combined population of about roughly the same as 1971 The base was the areas largest industry QUITE A SHOCK It was a tremendous blow at that time says Danny Sigmundson who was Gimlis mayor in He estimated the base contributed million an nually to the local economy Ub quite a shock when your on ly industry shuts down says Sigmundson He recalls it took at least six years for the community to recover Gimli politicians and residents formed a committee to fight the closing The local MP was deeply involved and when the committee went to Ottawa it was ac companied by Edward Schreyer then premier of Manitoba Despite the highpowered help the committee ran into a brick wall Sigmundson says It was no use even talking to them They wouldnt even listen The federal government gave million in compensation The money was used to revamp the waterfront buy a trailer park and make improvements to the towns infrastructure to attract tourists and new businesses The base was turned over to the province with Ottawa providing another million over five years for maintenance Manitoba was responsible f op costs Part of CFB Gimli was con verted into an industrial park and attracted a few new industries within a year Sigurdson estimates that Manitoba poured well over 30 million into the park and most of that went to Saunders Aircraft Saunders was going to manufac ture aircraft in Gimli but went bankrupt in 1975 says A number of other early ventures went bellyup but there have been some successes SCHOOL Canadian National Railways established a training school for train crews and the province financed a complex for them CN leases the complex from the province Weve been reasonable suc cessful says who retired from the military and returned to manage his base in its new role as the Industrial Park We keep an average of about 25 tenants and of those 25 about are industries Im the permanent base com mander he says with a laugh Most of the companies are small cottagetype operations although some are larger They in clude a flying school a fiberglass manufacturer and a boat repair business estimates the industrial park is operating at about 80per cent capacity The province has done a fair amount to attract outsiders Weve had promises of big outfits but they never came to fruition so the small ones have kept us going However other industries arriv ed to help fill the vacuum left by the base closing including a Seagrams distillery Dunlop says it helped that farm ing and fishing jobs existed as alternatives People had things to do until new Industrial jobs arriv ed About two dozen base personnel took early retirement and settled in Gimli with their families says Diane Hall who works at the town hall Her husband was an elec tronics technician at the base He left the armed forces went to col lege and opened his own business in Gimli Base houses were at first rented out then converted to con dominiums and sold off by the pro vincial housing department The barracks occasionally house peo ple attending seminars They have also served as tem porary homes for flood and forest fire victims from Manitoba and Northern Ontario The property has run a deficit since Manitoba took it over says Dunlop In 1985 it was decided to sell it off to tenants Dunlop was as shocked as anyone when Gimlis closing was announced Today as he presides over the final dismemberment of his old base he is more philosophical There was the usual hue and cry anytime any of us get something taken away by govern ment I guess if youre vocal enough and have enough pull you can get something back but nor mally its already done GDHS Report MK1IKILE Hello fellow students and how are you Im fine thanks for ask ing There is a question on everybodys mind Just how soon should I start studying for this years exams Am I right Well lei me lell you you should have started at the beginning of the semester sorting your notes put ting them in the correct through the notes and highlighting the main points asking your teacher about everything and anything that isnt really clear to you memorizing and rewriting those notes which cause you any problems and then finally totally prepared for the ex ams receive a per cent Does anybody actually do this Lets face it the majority of students wait until the night before the ac tual exam but not until Knots Landing is over to start studying Am I speaking from personal ex perience Um no of course not This is so exciting After all these years Im finally set to embark upon my career as a major athlete According to an article in the newspaper the other day Im all poised to become the next superstar of darts This probably requires a little explanation particularly since Ive always been a lousy darts player To date my darts career has been restricted to the odd game with friends at the very end of long beery evenings at the pub And under such circumstances as youre probably awar youre seldom playing the game with much skill In fact youre doing pretty well if you can just remember the three cardinal rules of darts One Do not get between your friend and the dartboard when its his turn to throw Two Advise your friend to lie flat when its your turn to throw Three When youre seeing three dartboards always aim at the middle one But all of a sudden it turns out that Ive been developing the very physique which is ideally suited to brilliant dartsplaying According to the article leading darts players maintain that the key to the whole game is balance and stability And as such a great asset to any player is wait for it a beerbelly Let us pause briefly to let the full weight of this revelation sink in For an entire fitnesscrazed decade weve been told that we must batter ourselves agonizingly into shape in order to shine at sports like squash and racquetball And now it turns out that there is actually a sport one which is played professionally which can not be played properly by any man ADVERTISING SALES Jeannfne Valois Craig Teeter Stacle Roberts PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT Dave Hastings Annie Myles Wilson CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT Marie PRESSROOM FOREMAN Brian PRESS ASSISTANT Lee Yes there is less than a month of school before exams start but if you think that you have it bad think again Thirty years ago students just like us except for the poodle skirts dreaded the end of the year and getting their report cards This was because this newspaper printed every last mark they had gotten for everyone to see But they rallied together and had it changed so that we the students of the eighties and nineties dont have to worry Id like to ask a question what is the reason for our SADD group had to change its name to OSAID On tario Students Against Impaired Driving Ive heard that the United States members of the group had a court injunction say ing that we couldnt use their slogan This doesnt make any sense to me Isnt SADD in Canada or the supposed to be working towards the same goal no matter what country theyre in I think that the US should be spen ding their time on more practical work instead of making a big deal over a little name Have an incredible weekend and dont forget to go to BangORama who can look down and see his feet Its almost enough to make you think theres some justice in this world The plain fact is that every Cana dian male cherishes the belief that he was once a promising athlete and that he could excel once again were he only able to find the right niche Put any group of old friends together and the talk will sooner or later turn to the grand old days when they all played hockey Therell be mistyeyed reminiscences about thai bygone championship game when such brilliant feats were performed Somehow or other no one will get round to mentioning that this was back in peewees I had a fascinating experience with this phenomenon a few mon ths ago when I spent an evening in the pub with some old teammates from a bantam second allstar team By oclock it had become a juvenile first allstar team By midnight we were playing junior If they hadnt shut down the bar wed have made it to the NHL Once youve finally admitted that you peaked as a hockey player at the age of 11 you try to pin your hopes on another sport Like shud der golf Ive tried hard to become a brilliant golfer Ive spent weekend after weekend on the course or at least in the adjacent woods And years of dedication have resulted in nothing but a and a certain small ex pertise as a forest ranger But finally the blessed truth emerges I am not as our fitness- crazed society would have me believe just an overweight and outof shape exwouldbeathlete On the contrary I am a man whose long and close association with the Molsons Corporation has led to the sort of physique which distinguishes the worlds finest darts players And make no mistake those long years of training were hard But theyve paid off in the end And also in the middle which is more to the point Wonderful sport darts Wonder ful wonderful sport Kinda wish I knew how to play it Canadians need to read and write To look at the numbers you would think were a nation of dunces incapable of being trained or educated Perhaps the racical theorists axe right were not as smart as the Japanese Thats nonsense of course Yet newly a quarter of us Canadians are functionally il literate Our skills are weak too All over the country businesses am looking for skilled workers and wit finding them Thousands of people with insuffi cient job skills languish on the unemployment rolls adding to the national debt burden Government training programs do not seem to work The problems are manifold As a nation we do not put enough em phasis on higher education Even our public school system is weak and disorganized with a few heartening examples In all schools in Canada students are taught reading writing and arithmetic In the best schools they actually learn it The best schools also teach critical thinking problem solving and analysis They teach kids to use all the fancy new hightech work aids from computers to videos Host children though are shortchanged by the system Your Business Diane Matey DEFINE ROLES Federal government spending on training programs has contracted in inflationadjusted terms throughout the What train ing there is is often inappropriate illconceived or otherwise Inade quate The number of students in governmentsponsored training programs tumbled to from 230500 In according to the Quarterly Labor Market and Productivity Review The number of students in courses shrank from Thats not a bad thing- A recent report by the Organiza tion of Economic Cooperation and Development shows that Canadian productivity was among the worst in the industrial world last year Rather than turning to the federal government to solve the problem we should look to the people who need workers Education is the realm government job training belongs to business Ottawa and the pro vinces should pull out of appren ticeship and skilltraining courses entirely devoting what money they have to basic education Once everyone can read write add a column of numbers and think government can shift its focus to higher education FREE SCHOOL Imagine a country where univer sity education was free Theres no reason why it should not be Government would continue to help train doctors lawyers engineers architects and scien tists through the university grant system But the trades would fall to craft guilds and business As it stands now people complain that schools teaching kids how to be en trepreneurs Why should they What would the kids have to give up to find time to practise capitalism The country would be better served if schools stuck to theory and left the practice for the real world as business likes to think of itself Skill training Is narrowly focused Liberal arts education is useful for everyone Wonderful sport darts