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

6 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday, November 13, 2U02 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 337-5610 Circulation: 845-9742 EDITORIALS MD LETTERS T H EO A K V IL L EB E A V E R Associate Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief KELLY MONTAGUE Advertising Director STEVE CROZIER Circulation Director NEIL OLIVER IAN OLIVER TERI CASAS Office Manager MARK DILLS Production Manager RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director ROD JERRED Managing Editor Kf Publisher Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News. Barrie Advance, Barry's Bay This Week, Bolton Enterprise. Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection. East York Minor. Erin Advocate/Country Routes. Etobicoke Guardian. Flamborough Post, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press. Harriston Review. Huronia Business Times, Kingston This Week. Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun. Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror. Milton Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newnjarket/Aurora Era-Banner. Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune. Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thomhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror. Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young. City of York Guardian THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FO R: Recognized for Excellence by Ontario Community Newspapers Association ^C N A YMCA J^thena JThvanl BJ T T E LY L C O M E ^P r W Si Relay For Ute few u m m i& stcT H E AK ni O F O A K V B .C E 'A G O N ltd Canadian Community Newspapers Association SKt Suburban Newspapers of America ' Tm (9 a h 'iUp 0 > I oakville galleries] The Oakville. Milton and District Jingle B e ll Fund 5 FOft BUSINESS E XC ELLENC E REA LESTA TEBO A RD WBB k U tU Itt By now many of you must have seen the nationally-televised com mercials featuring the Juno Beach Centre -- a living memorial to Canadian soldiers from the Second World War. The centre is being built in Courseulles-sur-Mer, one of two Juno Beach communities where Canadian forces landed on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The landing helped liberate Nazi-occupied Europe and end the war. It will be the first Canadian memorial museum and information centre in Europe com memorating the role Canadians played in the Second World War. While the stories of the Americans and the British are well known, the accomplishments of the Canadians are not. It is now up to all Canadians to ensure that our soldiers are honoured for their sig nificant contributions. The project was conceived by the 14th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery Children's Association, which is a group of D-Day/Normandy veterans. Of course to make this multimedia centre a reality, money is needed. Currently, funding for this Juno Beach Centre deserves our support special project is coming from cor porate and individual donations, plus the French and Canadian gov ernments. Halton Region recently approved support of the project by making a donation through the Group Memorial Brick Program. The brick will have the region's name, logo and brief statement of commemoration. The donation will serve as a per manent reminder of the soldiers who protected Canada and its peo ple, says regional chair Joyce Savoline. While we are often asked to dig deep into our wallets, especially this time of year, we need only look on the front page of today's newspaper to realize the importance of sup porting this particular project. We must let our veterans know that we care about them and what they did for all of us on foreign soil so many years ago. Whether you buy a brick or just make a donation, your contribution will go a long way in ensuring that Juno Beach Centre will open on schedule June 6, 2003. We can't let our veterans down. LETTERS T OT H EE D IT O R Foodbank says thanks On behalf of the approximately 275 Oakville families representing over 800 people, the volunteers at our Foodbank would like to thank all the members of the Oakville community who support ed our Thanksgiving Food Drive. In particualr, we would like to express our appreciation to all participating stores, schools, businesses, news media, the over 100 volunteers who helped sort food at the Foodbank, as well as every one else who helped to make our food drive a success. Although we started out very slow ly, due to the tremendous response from everyone we managed to finish with a flourish. Anticipating the usual generous response at Christmas and next Easter, we are looking forward to another successful year. It is comfort ing to know we can always count on the generousity of the Oakville com munity. P.S. If you have missed the drive and would still like to contribute, we are in dire need of baby food jars, espe cially "junior." RON ZIEGEL FOOD DRIVE COORDINATOR OAKVILLE FARESHARE Thankfully, the veterans were able to get it right when fight ing for our freedom. Now, wouldn't it be great if we could get it right when it comes to much more simple matters, such as pro viding adequate sound systems at ceremonies honouring them? Once again, a beautiful and most important ceremony was less than right because, it seems, we failed to recognize the need for appropriate equipment, standy-by technicians, and perhaps even back-up equipment. In a high-tech age, we should not be providing weak indoor sound systems for an outdoor ceremony. Microphones should be at mouth level. There should be more speakers, perhaps even positioned in the trees, so that all attendees can be included in the ceremony. Perhaps it's time to call on our young people to provide the proper sound systems and services on Remembrance Day. They'll get it right. Ever been to a rock concert or "Midnight Madness" performances where the sound systems did not deliver? AUSTEN E. CAMBON Poor sound system marred Remembrance Day ceremony Oakville Heritage Trails grateful for help As the main phase of the Oakville Heritage Trails project comes to a close, I would like to thank the Oakville Beaver for the help I received as a writer and researcher on the proj ect. In particular, the permission to use photographs from the Beaver's archives was invaluable in bringing alive our local history. I am especially grateful for the Beaver's permission to use photo graphs on the panels at the information stations on Neyagawa Drive and at MacLachlan College, as I worked on those. The pictures evoke times past in a way that words really can't. The Heritage Trails now become part of the Town of Oakville's much larger urban trail system. The Town will maintain them and work with groups interested in their health and enhancement. The Community Foundation of Oakville's Heritage Trust will continue to fundraise to complete the trail's Web site and fund other proposals aimed at promoting an appreciation of local his tory. And the Town's Parks, Culture and Recreation Advisory Committee has just created a new trails sub-committee to consider the needs of users and nature as this community facility becomes ever more popular. Thanks again for your participation in this project. WENDY BURTON We welcome your letters The Oak\nlle Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published, letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Road, Oakville, On., L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish any letter. Prime Minister should put Canada first I am shocked. Having always lived in a democratic country I could not believe what I was hearing: John Chretien saying that if the Liberal M.P's did not vote the way he told them to he would call an election. Furthermore, I was more shocked to hear some of his sycophants ascertaining that if he did, of course, he would win, no doubt of that. It seems to me that patriotism has disappeared from the Canadian political scene. First, we have this egotistical Prime Minister calling all the shots as though he were King George III, and then we have those who could dispose of this dangerous polit ical dictator just by joining together and in doing so giving the country an alternative to this corrupt and dysfunctional govern ment. This country does nothing but spin doctoring. We need a Prime Minister whose ego does not override the importance of the office, a Prime Minister who is focused on the important issues in the world again, a Prime Minister who is not politically correct to the point of sacrificing what is right to that of expediency, a Prime Minister who will not use his power to reward his cronies with the taxpayers' hard earned money, a Prime Minister of whom we can be proud because he has the respect of the world leaders being wise, yet humble, a Prime Minister who would be a man of the new century with the capacity to think as such and last, but not least, a Prime Minister who would love his country more than he loves himself. I think the last is perhaps the secret of good government. I would beg the leaders of the Conservative and Alliance parties to get together before this country is destroyed. I ask: where is their patriotism? BETTY HANSFORD This is an open letter to the Mayor of Oakville, Town Councilors, and anyone else who may be remotely concerned with the Town of Oakville's anti-business practices. ?As of June 1 the Town of Oakville, in its infinite wisdom, declared all public places 100 percent non-smoking. As expect ed^ and predicted by councillors there occurred a significant drop in business to most liquor licensed establishments. While anti-smoking Councillor Kurt Franklin admitted, through his volumes of reports and studies, that a drop in busi ness would result from this new by-law, he assured restaurant and bar owners that this decline in business would only be tem porary- as he said his studies so definitively prove. Well, my business dropped 25% immediately following the smoking ban and it has been five months since the ban with absolutely no recovery in business. I, like many others in my industry, have a problem with this bylaw on so many different levels but I will only bore you with a few. Where did the Town of Oakville obtain the right to impede on my right to earn a living in the same manner as others in my business in this same constitutional arena called Canada? And by what constitutional right did the Town unilaterally act upon when it took away the right to consume a legal product in a pri vate business? As defined in the bylaw, smoking is not to occur in any pub lic place. Yet how can a restaurant be defined as public when it receives no public funding? Restaurants are not hospitals, are nas, libraries, nor are they schools or any other place that receive public money. Why did the Town'also not take away the right to sell tobac co within Oakville borders? Did they not have the wherewithal to take on the Retail Council of Canada? What is the Town of Oakville now doing to assist business es beleaguered by this bylaw? Not a dam thing. Funny, I haven't seen any of the councillors' names in my reservation book, nor have I seen Councillor Franklin's prom ise of an influx of non-smokers from surrounding jurisdictions. It is amazing how quickly the Town brought forth and jammed through their "high on the pedestal" bylaw with no regard for the people who pay them. How quickly do you think that they will act in assisting our industry when they realize how deeply they have hurt us. MICHAEL JASNICH FISH BONES OYSTER BAR AND GRILLE No-smoking bylaw hurting restaurant and bar owners P esticid e com m ent n eed s clarificatio n I realize that your reporters must condense while convey ing remarks at council meetings and I don't mind being para phrased. But part of the statements attributed to me give entirely the wrong impression which I must correct. The interpretation of my remarks quoted as "There is no need to fear pesticides, they are regulated products" is quite close to what I said. However, I did not say; "Like driving cars or heating our homes, the health risks are insignificant." My actual remarks relative to pesticides were - "Would we drive our cars or heat our homes if we insisted on zero risk respecting the fuels we use for those purposes?" Indeed, and I'm sure that you will agree, the environmen tal impact of pesticides is minuscule compared to the envi ronmental impact of driving our cars. Are we not failing to tackle more harmful practices while wasting precious resources on the issue of pesticides - more commonly known as herbicides and insecticides? Take Halifax for example. That city is being held up as the example we should be fol lowing for its implementation of a pesticides ban yet every day it is discharging 150 million litres of raw, untreated waste into Halifax Harbour. Is there any question of what the real priority should be ? B. D. HAUSER Pud By STEVE NEASE