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lis HIT Victims rights law needed Home Newspaper of Halton Hills Established A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited 45 Guelph Street Georgetown L7G Ontario K ROBERT Publisher and General Manager BRIAN Mad EOF Editor Phone DAN TAYLOR Advertising Manager rrond IL Mall Page THE HERALD Wednesday April Editorial Parking poor Parking in Hills downtown areas may soon be mighty expensive If not at the meter the cost will hit the taxpayer in thepocketbook A study by Parker Consultants says the town will have to spend between million and 34 million to improve parking in downtown Georgetown and about 128000 to correct parking problems in Acton The report says Georgetown needs 110 new parking spaces and Acton needs 58 new spaces This parking report has been anxiously awaited by town councillors for months Now comes the tough part What are they going to do with this 23400 study If the recommendations are simply brushed away and deemed too expensive then everyones time and money has been wasted on consultants If the town decides to act its going to cause a lot of political headaches revamping downtown parking always does in any town and its going to cost money If the downtown stores are to flourish the way they deserve to then this report is crucial Nothing turns shoppers off more than the inability to park their vehicle within a reasonable distance without paying huge fees Simply ask anyone whos received an ticket downtown recently Its no secret the increased fines have annoyed shoppers This report will test the political will of our coun cillors Thea thrills Brian MacLeod Editor i pick their favorites from pictures depicting the spring theme The show will be available for viewing from am to pm just one week ahead of Mothers Day All the pictures in the exhibit will be for sale and admission to the show is free If youre one of the many people who caught the Globe Theatres production of Fiddler On The Roof late last year then you can ap preciate why the production brought back two The are considered among com munity theatre circles as their ver sion of the Oscars and the Globe is in the highly competitive central division when it conies to awards won a for her set design and John Thomas who played the lusty butcher Wolfe won for the best supporting actor The play received eight nomina tions and the huge cast and technical crew certainly earned a hearty congratulations for taking on an ambitious project like Fid dler On The Roof and pulling it off well enough to receive that kind of recognition And for all you wildlife en thusiasts the Mountsberg Wildlife Centre is operating tours of its newlydeveloped raptor or bird of prey facility Motmtsbergs spring show kicks off this Friday night with now wait for it a frogwatchers hike Mountsberg wisely urges all those who participate in this endeavor to bring their rubber boots In keeping with the arts vein the Palette and Pencil Club of Georgetown plans to hold its first show and sale at the restored Cedarvale Cottage oh Sunday Hay The club is hanging a show with a theme for the first time Visitors who view the show will be asked to Derek Nelson TORONTO That crime victims have rights is one of the political truisms of today Yet strangely enough Ontario has no law codifying those rights According to Waller a University of Ottawa criminology professor Ontario is the only ma jor jurisdiction in North America without a victims rights law Earlier this month the legislature unanimously approved for study just such a bill An Act to Establish the Rights of Victims of Crime or Bill was introduced by Cam Jackson Burl ington South Progressive Conser vative It now will go to com mittee for detailed study Because it is an opposition members bill it may very well die there rather than be called back for final approval But it was quite clear from the tone of the debate surrounding its passage that victims rights are one of those issues whose time has come New Democratic MPP Peter Kormos spoke in support of the bill and urged that if anything it should be extended He noted as too few on the Left do actually that some socalled crimes against property are actually crimes against persons that having the possessions of your life and their associated memories trashed can be as traumatic emotionally as be ing bumped on the head Even Liberal government members who were mildly critical of some of the wording felt impell ed to list all the good things the Grits are already doing for crime victims Grit MPP David Fleet noted such pilot projects are already under way as the crisis assistance and referral service in the solicitorgenerals ministry that refers victims to volunteer counsellors And he noted the assistance program for victims and witnesses run from the attorneygenerals ministry Jacksons bill deals with prin ciples rather than specifics since opposition bills cannot deal with the spending of money per se One set of these principles would require victims to be treated pro perly at all times including allow ing a victim of- sexual assault to be interviewed by a police officer of the same gender if so requested A second set would ensure the victim was part of the judicial process such as in the use of victim im pact statements rather than a helpless bystander A third set of principles would make it easier for victims of crimes to obtain monetary compensation through civil actions againat their assailants Some of it Is so blindlngly ob vious that the wonder is why it hasnt already been implemented Victims impact statements for example should be mandatory for all sentencing and parole hearings as well as releases from hospitals for the criminally insane Some on the other hand bother me just a mite One of the great evils of our society is how weve institu tionalized being a victim Everyone except maybe an able- bodied noncriminal white male is seen as a victim usually of some impersonal or uncontrollable force That attitude really doesnt need reinforcing Jacksons principles include a victim having access to social services health care and medical treatment counselling and legal assistance responsive to their needs But if there is anything we should have learned over past decades it is that setting up formal programs along these lines isnt terribly useful This is opposed to the volunteer counselling ed above for example which pro bably is quite useful The lobbyselfhelp group Vic tims of Violence has some horren dous tales of bow victims were sub jected to insensitive or inap propriate behavior by officials in the Judicial social service and health systems No law is going to change that We cant legislate human perfection Still its a worthwhile bill and deserves further consideration Two Tory rebels had reason It seems Earth Day didnt go unobserved in Halton Hills Over 200 people Showed up at the obscure Acton quarry lookout loca tion to plant trees and sample hot dogs on Sunday Many schools are also picking up on the environment theme Theres been a lot of hype sur rounding Earth Day but the basic message and intent is still the same Educate the kids while theyre young to respect the en vironment and reeducate adults to take a look around and see whats happening to their world Were interested to find out what you thought and what you did dur ing Earth Day If you did anything special or if your school did anything to observe the day and the week let us know Give us a call or write us a letter and well publish all the different ways Halton Hills is trying to save the environment OTTAWA Were the two Alberta MPs who got the boot from the Conservative caucus treated fair ly Probably your answer depends upon whether you admire the governments planned goods and services tax GST or whether you regard it as a curse on the country David Kilgour and Alex Kindy made it clear they held the second option But lets leave aside for now the potential impact on pocketboks and look at one justification for the expulsion of Kilgour and Kindy from party ranks Some senior Conservatives say the defiant duo should have toed the party line because they knew during the last election campaign what the Tory tax policy was They benefitted from Conservative sup port in Alberta on Nov 1988 the argument goes so now they should hold their noses and support the GST There are a few flaws in that viewpoint Sure it was well that Finance Minister Michael Wilson was to the socalled Phase 2 of tax reform which would remove the iniquitous manufacturers sales tax Wilson had condemned that tax as a silent killer of jobs But there was little certainty about how this was going to be done TAX FLIPFLOP Indeed a partner with the ac counting firm Clarksoh Gordon wrote a month before the election call that Ottawa bad flipflopped several times on the question In the past years the Tory government had proposed one by one almost all possible modifica tions to the tax then abandoned them said Peter Wood During the campaign there was further elucidation Wilson did say at one point that he was contemplating a ninepercent rate He said groceries and drugs would be untaxed and problems of housing would be ad dressed He rejected predictions a new sales tax would raise billion in new revenues But free trade was the main focus of the election Sales tax reform along with other issues was lost in the shuffle After the election Wilsons GST plan took shape The rate was first set at nine per cent then dropped to seven last December The range of goods and services to be taxed was set out But while this was hap pening some of the earlier com mitments seemed to fallaway Ottawa had aimed for a national sales tax which would have com bined both federal and provincial levies It became apparent in the spring of that such an in tegrated tax was unlikely Meanwhile of particular con cern for Kilgour and Kindy it was made known one province