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-Opinion- THE HERALD Wednesday February lMt Page NDP government fails on incineration promise For a government that espouses public accountability Ontarios New Democratic Party has failed at least in the area of municipal garbage in cineration Local environmental group In cineration Counteracts the En vironment ICE showed this to be true after making repeated re quests that the government state its position on the incineration issue During the election campaign the NDP stated emphatically it would ban municipal garbage In cineration if elected The govern ments now been in power for almost six months and incinera tion is permitted by the govern ment The only condition is that an in cineration plant can only be operated if approved under the provinces Environmental Assessment Act In other words the governments stand on the issue is no different than that of the previous government In a letter signed by Premier Bob Rae and sent to ICE member Elsie Anderson in November the government states it supports in cineration as long as it is in the public interest In another letter signed by Bob and sent to an woman earlier this month the Premier again states in cineration is a viable option for municipal garbage Following the letter Mr issued a public apology saying the original letter was sent out by mistake In the second letter the Premier writes the cor respondence you received was Bens Banter by Ben Dummelt drafted within the civil service by someone not sufficiently aware of our governments approach Through a series of oversights it was not seen by me or others in my office who would have caught the error and was sent out after being signed by an auto pen machine According to Mr the letter should have indicated the govern ment is still studying the viability of municipal garbage incinera tion How can the public take the apology seriously when the letter to Ms Anderson states the government supported incinera tion Why wasnt a similar apology issued at that time A Policy Director with the Premiers office Chuck defends the govern ments inconsistency by saying while the NDP has taken no stance on incineration it will per mit the practice until it has developed a policy Asked why the government opposed in cineration before the election and then following the election told Ms Anderson it will permit it Mr Rachliss said the switch results from not having as much information on incineration as it has now The only had one staff member working on en vironmental research before the election whereas now it has a ministry he explained If thats true the NDP shouldnt have committed itself to one position during the cam paign Its likely the NDP knew then that one person could never have the time to acquire the in formation a ministry could The NDPs indecisiveness shows the government to be either unprincipled or incredibly naive Neither of which instills confidence Mending Canada is a fastgrowing industry OTTAWA Its never easy to admit failing to grasp the significance of a problem that everyone but you regards as ob vious And the longer the admis sion is delayed the more difficult it becomes So considering what weve gone through in the last say years it must seem absolutely ludicrous for anyone in this case me to confess I dont know whats wrong with Canada I must sand alone in the confes sional box Its been years since Ive heard anyone say theres nothing wrong with this country Theres scarcely been a day go by in the last 30 years in which we havent heard or read another in terpretation of whats needed in the way of a fix Now things have reached the point where mending Canada has become the fastest growing in dustry since the discovery of There are so many commissions task forces and study groups crisscrossing the country ostensibly to listen to those elusive average Cana dians that meeting halls have to be booked weeks in advance All the political leaders and those who for mysterious reasons aspire to these high of fices are getting into the act beginning with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney So are the pro vincial premiers And what everyone seems to agree on is that Canada is in need of a fix The present Canada were told ad isnt work ing MANY IDEAS What Mr Mulroney proposes is a renewed confederation to replace the one that isnt work ing But again were left short on details What Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa seems to propose is a sort of sovereign Quebec within a Canadian framework a framework that currently isnt working What Parti Leader Jacques seems to suggest is a sovereign Quebec outside the troubled Canadian framework but with some Cana dian conveniences The country must be more diversified argue some We must eliminate duplication argue others And as for which pro vinces are net losers or winners in economic or fiscal terms well there are statistics to support every view In one way or another every argument seems to reinforce the premise that Canada doesnt work This was clearly acknowledged by the prime minister when he talked of a new Canada emerging from the darkness of doubt and dismay of lost opportunity Its not necessary to go on quoting our current leaders to establish the fact that in conven tional wisdom the country is in trouble In other words Canada doesnt work If it did we wouldnt have everyone tripping over each other to suggest im provements This where I would like to back up a few decades and start over again Someone has to ex plain slowly and precisely just why Canada doesnt work SEEMS OKAY Had I not spent the last 30 years being convinced the country is breaking down falling apart or whatever I would be hard press ed to explain whafs wrong with the place In fact if it wasnt for the em barrassment of having to ask at this late date I would be begging for explanations right now And I dont mean those wornout cliches about greater autonomy or modernized con federation masters of our own destiny or all those nonsense words about provinces states nations principalities or the latest parties to a country Governments particularly in Quebec talk about the need for wider jurisdiction to preserve their culture But Ive yet to hear one example of present jurisdic tions interfering with any cultural or even practical in itiative In fact when is the last time you heard of any wishedfor in itiative either federal or provin cial being hijacked by the Con stitution For that matter when did you last hear of any Canadian being inhibited from doing anything because of nationality We live in one of the most open most prosperous countries on the face of the earth threequarters of the worlds population would give anything to live here and yet apparently it doesnt work Before its too late I wish so meone would tell me why Mainstream Christian clergy morally bankrupt How predictable that one of the most verbal groups against a war with Iraq is the mainstream Christian clergy of North America Or more accurately its politicized leadership And how illustrative of its moral bankruptcy The Canadian Council of Chur ches is on record against using war to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait Archbishop Daniel the president of the US National Conference of Catholic Bishops said it would violate moral prin ciples The 32 heads of the US Na tional Council of Churches declared military action is out of proportion to any possible gain Some mainstream church leaders such as Canadian Anglican Primate Michael Peers have gone so far as to declare any such war unjust This conclusion is more than technical rhetoric since a war must be just in order for a Christian to support it CRITERIA Torontos Rev AJ dougall in a column agonizing over war in the gulf listed the criteria for a just war as that it be undertaken only as a last resort must have legitimate authority to declare it be motivated by the right intention and be proportionate to the an nounced Objective Clearly much of North Americas religious leadership believes the Gulf War fails that test It is thus hard to see how they could find any war just It also brings into sharper focus a recent letter from 31 Protestant signatories to Charter 77 that banner of freedom for Czechoslovakis intellectual and religious dissidents in the years of Communist rule They ad dressed their letter to the Protestants of the United States but it could apply just as well in Canada Accepting as understandable the qualms of the church establishment about war they then asked Do you fear with the same intensity that the ag gressor could retain a part of his spoils and of his imperial prestige prepare another ag gression and start a war that would be much worse They then noted the history of the World Council of Churches to which most mainstream denominations belong For years evidence of Communist crimes in the socialist states has been ac cumulating representatives of your churches however re mained indifferent to this evidence Your church representatives have underestimated the criminal of the Marxist regimes Now they underestimate the criminal nature of the regime of Iraqi President Satldam Hussein They defend peace in their speeches but in reality they help prepare a terrible war in the same way as Chamberlain and Daladjer prepared at Munich for war in 1938 in the foolish belief World Affairs by Derek Kelson J Thornton News Service which has sociopolitical implica tions and they spend most of their time promoting their nar row simplistic views in the name of others clergy and laity alike who have a more balanced faith Verily they were saving peace The despair of the Czechoslovaks who paid the price for appeasement is a cry from the heart The US magazine National Review brought it to the intellec tual level in a recent editorial IRRELEVANCE For five months Americans debated the rights and wrongs of military action Among the remarkable aspects of the debate was the almost complete ir relevance of our institutions of putative moral leadership This is not to say the churches were silent Far from it But in their eagerness to be relevant to policy where they have neither authority nor competence the churches made themselves ir relevant in moral deliberation A minister from the the Rev Paul Brown recently explained the results of this pro pensity by clergy bureaucrats for naive kneejerk closet pacifism and other leftist rhetoric They substitute a socio political agenda for the Gospel Berrys World are you IM FIRED I WE ARE OFFERING YOU A CAREER-