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the HERALD Municipal politicians should worry Home Newspaper of Halton Hills A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited Guelph Street Georgetown 3Z6 Ontario DAVID A BEATTIE Publisher and General Manager BRIAN Editor Phone DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager Number Page THE HERALD Wednesday February 1990 Debate is needed Halton Hills councillors dont seem to be too interested in debating the French language issue that so many other municipalities have tackled But that doesnt moan its a issue as many coun cillors are saying A survey of Halton Hills politicians shows that they don feel that they need to debate the issue Many say it is a provincial issue and the media is sensa the issue by giving it such a high profile While those councillors who say the debate over Bill is a provincial issue may have a point that debate has viously spilled over into the municipal arena and some municipalities which are directly affected by the provi sions of the bill have chosen to act We agree that these acts aren motivated by bigotry but rather by frustration However if our country is to survive as one entity that frustration has to be reined in Allowing it to manifest itself with English only votes is extremely dangerous Coun Joe Hewitt says the town doesn deal with some political issues that should actually be addressed We agree There comes a time when an issue stimulates such public interest and debate that the inevitable question is asked can that happen here Some people have contacted the mayor othei s have pen ned letters to local newspapers but there is no doubt that many people in Halton Hills wonder how the town views the French language issue They are wondering if our local politicians will jump on the Englishonly band wagon or if they declare Halton Hills a bilingual town Politicians are elected to provide leadership And simply dismissing the French language debate as a provincial issue an issue which has obviously expanded beyond legislative boundaries is hardly leadership While no councillor talked about it over the council table the issue is simmering People need to be told what their councillors think Silence is no answer Some councillors said the media is blowing the issue out of proportion One councillor when originally contacted about the story said he t talk to a Herald reporter unless he was given a guarantee that we print a quote say the paper is sensationalising the issue Given no such guarantee the councillor spoke anyway But it wasn t the media who forced municipalities to jump into fray Sure the French language issue has been around for hundreds of years and it will likely be around for several hundred more years But debate is healthy It needed We also acknowledge the claim that councillors already have a lot on their plates roads budgets landfill sites theyre all big important issues locally But when cultural issues such as language rights arise its important that the people know where their leaders stand An open debate around the council table would be healthy and it would allow people to get opinions out in the open The town doesnt have to take an outright stand in either direction But even a declaration that it isnt going to join the Bill movement would be a sign that citizens of Halton Hills can understand Is the media actually sensationalising the issue No While its paying a lot of attention to the issue theres a good reason People need to know as much as possible about an issue such as this as quickly as possible If their municipality decides to act they deserve to be in formed And its the media s job to provide the informa uon If our town politicians decided to debate the French language issue on a Monday night with no prior notice to the residents it would hardly be fair Residents deserve to have their say if they want to speak And the only way they can stand on their soapboxes or at a delegations podium in front of their councillors is if they know what s going on And thats why the media must do its job well In Quebec the official language of all municipalities is French There are no exceptions allowed under Bill In towns where per cent or more of the population is English speaking the municipality is per nutted to also deal with those residents in their own tongue However should the percentage drop below 50 then the language police ensure that the privilege of receiving English language ser vices is revoked This happened in Rossmere last year when the anglophone population declined to per cent Thus it is a little hard to take criticism from Quebec cabinet ministers about Ste Mane a cent English speaking On town declaring it will pro vide its services in English only Sault mayor Joseph is absolutely correct to worry about Ontario Premier David Peterson and his government imposing French language requirements upon the municipality lis true thai Bill the French Language Services Act which could be more accurately called the Ontario Act ex municipalities from the re quirement to provide French vices PRINCIPLES But that not because of any ob jection by the Liberals to the of such services Because they are in their own words committed to advancing French language rights which in essence means jobs power and money for francophones the Liberals are quite capable of fore ing municipalities to provide French The only thing that stopped them putting it into Bill was fear They didn t want to repeat the Manitoba experience of the early 1980s when the then NDP government s at tempt to impose on municipalities created a massive anglophone backlash that even defeated the legislation Every municipality including those with francophone majorities voted no by at least a margin It isn t that Ontario t con sidered making municipalities bil either In the summer of 1988 the government released the report of task force on municipal services in Trench That was an in terestmg document which sug that in municipalities where francophones constitute a significant part of the popula the implementation of municipal programs and services becomes norm for the ad ministration There s even a hint of how the municipalities can be coerced into providing French Once a municipality has chosen to provide a service financed by the provincial government what authority does the province have to impose conditions and standards on this service Can the language criteria be established that is criteria gover the way in which the mer chandise will be delivered since language is an accessory to the providing of service END RUN In short can the province do an end run around its own policy that municipalities be excluded by in sisting that everything provincial ly funded but municipally run be bilingual The task force calls for a study of the province s powers in that regard the clear implication being that Queen s Park should force the issue in line with the task force s belief that municipalities have a duty to pursue such fran cophone services as an objec After all the province is already interfering at the local level in everything from children s aid societies to hospitals and colleges m terms of attempting to convert many of them to Frenchonly or bilingual And it inevitably means jobs Even advertisements for truck drivers garbage pickup at a place like University include a note that bilingualism is an asset The per cent of On who don t speak French are out of luck Municipal politicians are wise to be worried Feds are seeking scapegoats Vic S- Ottawa Bureau When times get tough the search for scapegoats begins That why it intriguing to watch the scurrying about of federal officials as they seek out vulnerable targets while the economy slipslides away We ve seen seven straight years of economic growth but the na tional debt continues to soar Ot would prefer that you folks out there not make too much of that High interest rates have produc ed an artificially high dollar dampened the economy and been the major factor in the unan ticipated growth of this year federal defici The Bank of Canada would like you to forget that Instead say the year fat cats who run federal fiscal and monetary policy let s make sure all those year working people out there don start asking for too much So lately we ve been hearing warnings about excessive wage demands John Crow the central bank s governor says if workers ask for too much there can be no relaxation of interest rates Finance Minister Michael Wilson who once promised the proposed goods and services tax would be revenue neutral now suggests workers will be punished if they try to make sure of that by negotiating pay hikes that make up any losses THREAT In its latest quarterly review the Finance Department says prospects for further im in inflation arc threatened by an acceleration in labor costs A closer look at the pay that Canadian workers are making however tells another story The government own numbers detract from the arguments of the Crow Wilson clique In November average weekly earnings including overtime were Statistics Canada reports Over 52 weeks that works out to just short of annually Hardly a bonanza for the average worker Indeed the Senates estimated poverty line for for a family of four is 950 Clearly an average family of that size needs two in comes to make ends meet In goods producing industries earnings averaged 71 close to a year But hourly paid employees worked 9 weekly at an average rate of That works out to And what of the service sector that element of the economy that is producing most new jobs Average weekly earnings of 457 51 work out to 800 a year Moreover hourly paid service employees earned an average an hour and worked merely 28 hours a week for a total of 15 MANY PART TIMERS It needs to be said that many of on Page